#maybe one sister rejected love and marriage altogether and became a governess or nun

[sharper-than-a-serpents-tooth]

Younger Ijekiel / Older Jennette AU

loving the idea of Ijekiel being younger than Jennette/ Roger fathering a child with the purpose to be married to Jennette, which brings me to another idea: what if Ijekiel had several older sisters? Duchess Alpheus was put through multiple pregnancies, miscarriages and stillbirths against her will because Roger wanted a son so badly and when he finally got one his wife died in childbirth, because these numerous pregnancies endangered her health? I like this headcanon, because it would mean like Claude, Roger loved his wife dearly, but like many men of his time, he prioritized the existence of an unborn male heir more. Just like Anastacius he caused the mother of his child to die for his ambitions. The third tragedy set at the Alpheus manor would continue the theme of mother/child death and the shocking disregard for a woman's life for a successor.

This would make Ijekiel a cross of Athy and Jennette. His sisters are sidelined as a potential heir in favor of a yet-to-be-born phantom brother. Roger's daughter's aren't neglected or mistreated, yet bearing witness to their mother's frequent pregnancies and their father's persistent efforts to secure a male heir, might have caused them to doubt the extend of his love for his daughters, and to withdrawl into Ijekiel's shadow. Every new pregnancy is proof that the children Roger has aren't enough because their gender stops him from the achievement of his dream. They are [failures].

Jennette's arrival at the Alpheus manor changes the existing power structures inside his family. Suddenly Ijekiel isn't the apple of his father's eyes anymore. For the first time in his life he has met someone, a girl even, who is being treated like royality, as if they were above him. That someone is endangering his own status at home but in doing so opening his eyes to the situation his sisters were put in by his own birth and eliciting sympathy for them. His father won't pick his sides in conflicts anymore. His wishes become second to those of a little girl that doesn't even belong to his family. He is expected to make her the center of his own universe when he used to be the only sun in his father's life. After having been spoiled by servants and relatives alike for years, that kind of attention becomes conditional and his freedom hinges on his treatment of Jennette and her mood as well as how well he does in his studies. He is forced to learn the cold hard truth of his own conception. That he has no other destiny than to become that girl's intended.