InsaneJournal

biography.
FULL NAME: Katherine Sophia Rochester
AGE: 22
DATE OF BIRTH: 24 November 1769
NATIONALITY: English
ALLEGIANCE: to herself, because she has never trusted men and their politics, though she finds the idea of revolution an intriguing one
SOCIAL STATUS: upper class
OCCUPATION: fianceé to a politician, secretly an author under her brother's name (M. Rochester)

FATHER: Percy Edward Rochester {d. 11/1782}
MOTHER: Georgina Cecily (Carey) Rochester {b. 1744}
SIBLING(S): Miles Anthony Rochester {b. spring 1763}
SEXUALITY: heterosexual
SIGNIFICANT OTHER: (forcibly) betrothed to Gaultier Baptiste, may be shagging Eward Mountford-Miles on the side...though she'd never admit it. none. men are pigs.

APPEARANCE: Katherine is not startling. She does not stand out in a crowd, and quite often blends in with the other women her age. Slight in build and lacking in much height, she appears to be a typical woman of the upper crust; graceful, elegant, like a porcelain doll. Her skin is pale, her hair a middle shade of brown only when she is in the sun, else it is darker and often falls in front of her slim face when she is not taking care of it. Katherine's eyes are dark hazel, but when she is angry there can be green seen in them, and they are framed by even, dark eyebrows. Her nose is average, and her lips are full but not plump or particularly tempting. As is dictated by her family's status, Katherine usually wears elegant daydresses of fine imported fabrics, though when they are not expecting visitors and she is in the house, she'll often dress in simple shifts snatched from the maids. She pretends to dislike formal wear, but always seems to appear a truly striking woman when dressed to the nines.

HISTORY: Percy Rochester had earned a fortune in trade by the time he was thirty, traveling all over the European continent and even to Asia and the coasts of Africa. But after a fever in Caribbean left him crippled and unable to travel, he remained in his home in Dover to oversee his business and took then eighteen-year-old Georgina Carey, the daughter of one of his clients in London, as a bride. Within a year, she had given birth to a healthy baby boy, Miles.

For years following Miles's birth, Percy and Georgina tried time and time again to conceive a second child. But the years grew longer and their hope grew weaker. Percy became angry at his wife, and at himself, but he always put on a good face for his son, his heir. At last, around the time of Miles's sixth birthday, Georgina found that she was with child. With the passing months, she realized it would be a far more difficult pregnancy, and her worries were confirmed in her eighth month when she prematurely went into labor. On a dark night in November, Katherine Sophia Rochester entered the world, fighting for her life.

Katherine was one of the lucky ones. Her premature birth did not hinder her from growing well, if a bit slowly at first, and she managed to hold off against many of the fevers that took her infant counterparts in their first months of life. After the years it had taken to conceive Katherine, Percy and Georgina made the decision not to try as fervently for more children, and instead set themselves to doting upon the two that they had. Miles and Katherine grew up in extreme wealth, witnessing from the earliest years the splendor that was the English aristocracy, the parties their father thew, the vibrant life they would one day live themselves.

Though she was a girl, Katherine was tutored by both her father and his friends in history and culture, and learned from her mother all of the things a young lady must know to fetch a good husband and raise a family. However, her strong point was not in education in either academia or homemaking; it was in examining people. For her tenth birthday, Miles gave his sister a leather-bound journal, and in it she began to document everything she saw during the day as if it were a story. The man down in the dingy alleyway, she wrote innocently, seems to find an acute interest in a woman with torn vestments. She cannot be so happy, living in the alley with torn clothes on. I might help her if I had the chance.

With time, Katherine's vested interest in watching and writing worried Percy. He could not have his daughter writing on and on about fanciful things that she did not even fully understand. By the time she was thirteen, Percy had forbidden her to write in her journal. If she should like to write, he explained, she might write to his friends' sons to whom she'd been introduced. But her father's disapproval was not enough to stop Katherine, and Miles began sneaking her quills, ink, and scraps of papers on which to write.

At sixteen, Katherine formally came of age at a beautiful ball thrown for her by Percy and Georgina in London. Through her arguments with her father and watching how he raised Miles, Katherine had grown to have a distinct mistrust of men; they were pompous and did not view women as anything more than vessels to carry their children and care for their homes and fortunes. It was practice, Katherine knew, but that did not make it right. And so, as young wealthy suitor after young wealthy suitor came to take her in a dance, she would have one song and then leave him for the evening. So it went with the next. And the next. And the next, until Percy was so fed up with his daughter that he, that night, left the festivities to meet with one of his closest friends in the government, a widower to whom he might make Katherine engaged.

He did not make it to his friend's abode. Only a street or so over from his home, Percy was accosted by a gang notoriously sponsered by one of his competitors who knew that at the time Percy was considering a run for Parliament. His body was found in the morning, strung up on a streetlamp. Georgina was inconsolable. As the man of the family now, Miles took it upon himself to permanently relocate the family from Dover to London, where his mother's family was and where they maintained a second residence. Her father's murder only infuriated Katherine more with the male gender, and her previously forbidden writings were now distinctly feminist and extremely critical of men and politics, almost to the point of absolute crudity. But she refined herself after a year or two, realizing that if she wanted anyone else to think like her, she would have to tone things down.

Miles, though aspiring to political office himself, agreed with his sister in her angers, especially on account of Percy's death. Using connections he had, he published Katherine's first completed manuscript about the tribulations of women under the power of political men under his own name, though to do so he had to market it as a comedy. But Katherine's work sold, and soon she was churning out a novella every six months under M. Rochester. Soon, however, her writings came not from her mind, but from true experience.

Georgina, in the years following her husband's death, decided that it was her duty to marry off Katherine as Percy had not. However, she became extremely sidetracked by the older suitors she brought home to introduce to her daughter. Swayed by the promise of notoriety and good reputation for her son if she agreed to lusty encounters in offices, Georgina became mistress to a new politician every few months, observed in her affairs by her daughter. Katherine's writing now began to detail stories of prostitutes bought not by money but by title, and of whores of the London slums who rose through the ranks only to fall at the hands of the men who'd bought them.

At long last, Georgina found Katherine a suitor to whom she herself was not attracted, the aging politician Gaultier Baptiste. She gave Katherine the choice between the betrothal and her inheritance, and Katherine was too enthralled with the darker side of aristocratic life to ever purposely push herself out of its inner sanctums. Now, at twenty-two, Katherine awaits her marriage grudgingly (she has told Gaultier that she is not yet ready to leave her brother, and he has so far respected her choice), attending galas with Miles in place of her otherwise indisposed mother and weary fiancé, finding new inspiration for her stories. With the Revolution going on across the English Channel and the wealthy political refugees flooding into England, however, she is finding her interests torn elsewhere, into court intrigue far beyond her status and years.




storylines.
THE BROTHER: Miles Rochester. older than Katherine by almost seven years, he is her confidante and closest friend. he publishes her work for her under his own name and is, himself, an ambitious businessman.

THE MOTHER: Georgina Rochester. married young and widowed when Katherine was sixteen, she has blind ambition on behalf of her children. sleeping with Parliament to further Miles' career, she and her daughter have never seen eye to eye, least of all on the role of a woman.

THE CONTRADICTION: Lord Eward Mountford-Miles. he and Katherine have known one another since they were children and have never gotten along. now, he epitomizes everything she hates about men, but despite talking down to her, as is his way, he argues with her as an equal. and that has its appeal.

THE SECRET: Harry Fisher. he intrigues Katherine through his own opinions of class and wealth, and she does the same for him about women. however, what neither of them is aware of is that he was involved in the murder of her father, and to this day does not know who it was he killed.

THE SHAM: Commander Makepeace Avery. he needs someone to show interest in him, and she is in want of a way to get over her past romance. both of them need friendship. the solution? perhaps a faux courtship between friends.

THE FRIEND: Daphne Wexley. she and Katherine have been friends since they were children, and grew up to have very many of the same misgivings about politics and men. when Daphne ran away, she managed to keep in touch with Katherine, and the two remain extremely close.