Visual Novel / The Unexpected Heiress

Above left: Effie, Mrs. Watmore and Mr. Barnes.
Above right: Francis, Blythe and Theodore.
Center: Hugh, Lillian, Gemma and John.

The Unexpected Heiress is one of the many stories under the Choices: Stories You Play collection.

The story takes place in the year of 1913. As the daughter of a Nouveau Riche American family, you must travel to England to fulfill the arranged marriage of your recently deceased sister. Unravel the mystery of your sister's murder while falling in love with your fiancé's brother, their spirited widowed cousin, or your family's solicitor.

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The Unexpected Heiress includes examples of:

• Actually Pretty Funny: Even the usually serious Dowager Viscountess has to stifle a laugh when Lillian - in a perfectly pleasant and polite tone - verbally wipes the floor with Percy Jennings after he tries to insult her.
• Altar the Speed: The underlying motivation of the early chapters is to resolve the murder of Amelia Hayes before the end of summer, which is when Lillian Hayes and Francis Somerset are expected to marry. About the midway point of the book, Lillian and Francis are given happy news by his elders—a suitable wedding venue is available immediately, so they will be married much sooner than expected. This is a problem for more than one reason. They haven't solved the murder by that point and won't be able to once they take on the duties of a viscount and viscountess, and more importantly, they don't love each other at all.
• Ambiguously Absent Parent/The Ghost: Cole Hayes, Lillian and Amelia's father and Delia's husband is mentioned throughout the story, but never appeared at any time despite his being still alive.
• Arranged Marriage: Between Francis and Amelia. Lillian takes Amelia's place after the latter's death. Also true of Gemma and the Duke of Wessex.
• Artistic License – History:
  • There are several instances of Lillian talking to Delia (who is in the United States at the time) on the phone. Which is impressive, given that the actual first transatlantic phone call took place in 1927, 14 years after The Unexpected Heiress takes place. No wonder the Somersets are impoverished.
  • Once again the writers fudge inheritance laws a bit. Late in the story, Francis decides to hand his duties as heir over to John, which is reasonable and makes John something of an estate agent. Which is more difficult is the story then taking this and making it into John being the future viscount. Inheritance doesn't work like that. Peers don't choose their heirs, and adoption does not make John eligible as heir. Francis will become the next viscount, no matter his opinion on it, and if he never marries and has no legitimate children, the title would likely go to the next male in the paternal line (unless that particular peerage can be inherited by women in their own right, in which case it could also go to the next woman in line), i.e. first Lord Ashbourne's brother, if he has one of those, that brother's sons, or, if there is no one, his grandfather's/great-grandfather's/etc other male descendants. That person next in line could well be John, as he is a distant cousin. However, by that logic, the next heir would actually be John's biological father, unless he predeceases John.
• Betty and Veronica: It can be applied to all three love interests available:
  • John is cool, dry-humored and can be sarcastic.
  • Gemma is an outgoing, spirited, and confident person and has a sharp tongue.
  • Hugh is a calm, friendly, helpful and considerate man and enjoys helping people.
• Big Brother Instinct: Francis about John when explaining to Lillian why he doesn't want to involve him in the murder investigation, as that could put everyone involved in danger:
  Francis: My whole life, I've protected him. From himself, from what people might think of him as someone taken in by the family...I don't want him brought into this.

Ironically, if his behavior towards Lillian towards the end of Chapter 1 is anything to go by, John feels equally protective of Francis.

• Big Fancy House: Windcroft Manor.
• Bittersweet Ending: Aside from the obvious (her murder may have been solved, but Amelia is still dead and her loved ones have no choice but to live with that grief) there is also the historical context that casts a shadow on Lillian's happy ending with her Love Interest. The scene of them blissfully starting on their honeymoon, filled with hopes for the future, is a bit hard to read when you know that the First World War is not even a year off.
• Book Ends: The story (discounting the prologue and the bonus scene) both starts and ends with Lillian boarding a steamship - first to travel to England to wed Francis, then to either travel back to New York for a visit, or (if the player had her marry one of the Love Interests) to go on a holiday with her new spouse. Who isn't Francis.
  • At the beginning of the story, as Francis takes Lillian through the house and gloomily discusses their inevitable wedding, Lillian presumptuously seats herself on an ottoman, which infuriates Francis (though he quickly apologizes and explains himself). Near the end of the story as they send out letters to cancel the wedding, Lillian will be sitting on the ottoman, next to Francis.
• Bullying a Dragon: Both Amelia and Lillian are quite fond of kicking the hornet’s nest regardless of whom they might be antagonizing at the time. Most of the company they keep simply dismiss their unwanted opinions, although multiple characters are shown to be powerful… and quite dangerous.
• Character Customization: John features four characterization styles: caucasian blond (on the cover), black, Indian (this version, when talking about an Indian friend, says “Just because he looked like me“, which the others don't) and ambigously brown.
• Deadpan Snarker: John Somerset.
• Death by Childbirth: John's biological mother died of eclampsia giving birth to him.
• Detectives Follow Footprints: It is the central theme of the plot. First it starts with Lillian and Effie, then Francis, John, Hugh and Gemma team up on a search for evidence to find out who took Amelia's life.
• Defrosting Ice King: Played with John. He is initially somewhat cold towards Lillian, but gets warmer towards her as the story progresses. Even so, it is still treated as notable by the narration in Chapter 14 that she sees “a glimmer of true emotion“ in his eyes when he confesses his love for her.
• Developers' Desired Date: John Somerset is the preferred love interest in this book due to Lilian being supposed to marry his brother Francis, and also because he takes over Windcroft Manor at the end of the story. Notably, there are several additional lines of dialogue (Francis suggesting a match between Lillian and John to Lillian, Lillian suggesting a match between her and John to Delia, John and Lillian briefly seeing each other in the hallway after Delia's interference in the beginning of Chapter 16, ...) in John's romance path that lack an equivalent in those of Gemma or Hugh.
• Died in Your Arms Tonight: The book opens with Amelia dying in the arms of her fiancé, Francis.
• Disappeared Dad: John's biological father left John's mother after finding out she was pregnant. John isn't sure where he is.
• Dramatic Irony: Early on in the story, when Lillian tries to convince Francis to let John in on the murder investigation, Francis utterly rejects the idea because he doesn't want John to become a target for the murderer. If John becomes Lillian's love interest, he is shot by the murderer in the final chapter for barging in while the murderer holds Lillian at gunpoint after she went snooping one too many times, and spends a month in hospital as a result.
• Dying Clue: “Blood runs …” Although Lillian knows what this phrase meant to herself and her sister, it will take her the entirety of the story to understand why Amelia chose that specific phrase as her Final Words. The phrase was a saying in their family to remind the children that they were still loved and cared for, even if they were not blood relatives. It is also an oblique hint as to the identity and motives of Amelia’s killer.
• False Soulmate: It can happen between Lillian and Francis depending on the player's choices, it will make people believe they are truly in love.
• Fish out of Water: Amelia and Lillian were born in the United States and are not welcomed by some of the British aristocrats.
  • All three of the love interests also fall under this trope:
    • John Somerset makes a regular pest of himself in polite society by railing against colonialism and imperialism in India, frequently to veterans and active duty military officers.
    • Gemma Montjoy is constantly made aware of her undesirable race and how improper it is that a woman of her age actively chooses to remain single.
    • Hugh Crawford bears the stigma of being a working-class man. The nobles he is acquainted with feel free to belittle him or speak to him dismissively despite his education and talent.
• Gay Option: Gemma Montjoy, the spirited widow of an arranged marriage, is the only same-sex love interest out of three, which is par for a Choices book.
• Good Parents: Apart from the pressure they put on them to get married, Lord and Lady Ashbourne appear to be very loving parents towards both of their sons and actually care about their happiness. This is especially obvious in contrast to Lillian's stepmother Delia; while Delia disregards every reason Lillian brings forward for not wanting to marry Francis, Lord and Lady Ashbourne, despite being unhappy about it, eventually relent because they don't want to force them into an unhappy marriage. As a result, while Lillian's relationship with Delia is notably strained, both John and Francis show only warmth towards their parents.
• Gossipy Hens: All of the Somersets’ social circle enjoys their gossip, but none so much as Baroness Pritchard, who is renowned for it.
• Happily Adopted: John Somerset is the adopted son of Theodore and Blythe Somerset and younger brother of Francis. John knows he is adopted and his brother Francis, who has protected him all his life from himself and from others thinking lesser of him.
• Happy Marriage Charade: Gemma's backstory. Over the course of the story, she reveals to Lillian that she and her husband had a secret arrangement - she agreed to acknowledge his bastard as their heir and keep the peace while he agreed not to see his mistress anymore and to give her the freedom to pursue her own affairs. It still weighs on her years after her husband's death.
• Hello, Attorney!: Hugh Crawford.
• Hello, [Insert Name Here]: As with all Choices characters, you can name your character. The default name here is Lillian, but Hayes is the fixed surname.
• Hero of Another Story: Gemma Montjoy was mentioned a few times and played a big part in A Very Scandalous Propasal, being Thomas Montjoy's first wife and she may first appear in Chapter 16. In this book, she returns in Chapter 2 as a friend and potential love interest.
• Hope Spot: Occurs late in the story regarding the romance subplot. After a lot of angst by Lillian and her chosen Love Interest over whether she and Francis will be able to break their engagement, they get the Somerset parents' approval, much to their joy... only for Delia to show up and succeed in insisting on the Francis-Lillian marriage. Particularly bitter with John, who beforehand expresses the hope that both of their families will be pleased with him and Lillian considering marriage.
• Impoverished Patrician: The chief reason that the Ashbourne elders want to see your engagement with Francis succeed. Although they grow genuinely fond of you with time, it is never a secret that they very much need your family's money.
• Innocently Insensitive: Multiple characters will mention someone named 'Victoria', which never fails to enrage John and leads to awkward silence afterwards. It will be sometime before John explains himself. Victoria was his former fiancée who once took a transatlantic cruise… aboard the RMS Titanic.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: What John seems to be set up as in the first chapter; on welcoming Lillian, he makes no effort to correct her when she mistakes him for his brother (in front of the entire assembled household staff, no less) and more or less, with no evidence, accuses her of being happy about her sister's death because of the opportunities it provides her. However, he becomes significantly nicer from chapter 2 onwards.
• Literal Metaphor: The three locations where Lillian’s suitors will confess that they love her all correspond to their social status. John’s confession happens on a balcony (high), Hugh’s confession happens next to a pond (low), and Gemma‘s confession takes place in a servant's hallway (hidden/closeted).
• The Magic Poker Equation: If you learned how to play poker with John in Chapter 13 and get your options right, you'll win, taking all opponents out of the game and still get one more clue about Amelia's murder.
• Mama Bear: Delia Hayes comes off as overly harsh and uncompromising for almost the entire story, but the two times Lillian needs her the most, she comes through in the best possible way.
• Missing Mom: Both John's and Lillian's biological mothers died when they were young - John's mother died in childbirth, Lillian's when she was still a child. While Lillian mentions in a flashback in Chapter 8 that she wishes her mother was with them instead of Delia, John seems regretful over his mother`s death, but is happily adopted.
• Mistaken for Cheating: The discovery that Amelia was visiting an inn with a man under the guise of a married couple and sending him a large sum of money led to the possible conclusion that she was cheating on Francis. It turns out to be a Red Herring; Amelia was giving financial aid to Ian and Isabelle McTavish, who got pregnant out of wedlock and needed to lie low long enough for people to not notice that the child was born too soon after the marriage.
• Nobility Marries Money: A marriage is arranged between Francis Somerset, the son of a viscount whose estate is running low on funds, and Amelia Hayes, the daughter of a Nouveau Riche American magnate. After Amelia's death, the families are determined to make the marriage go through and send in Lillian after her.
• Nouveau Riche: The protagonist's father is a wealthy business magnate, but the upper class will look down on them because they lack titles.
• Outliving One's Offspring: The Somerset clan has extraordinarily poor luck with their daughters and daughters-to-be. By the time you enter their lives, they have already lost three— one to infant mortality, one to a tragic accident and one to murder. And if you make bad decisions, they will lose you as well.
  • Not to mention, if John is Lillian's Love Interest, they come very close to losing one of their sons as well.
• Parental Marriage Veto: Upon learning that Lillian is going to marry her Love Interest, Lillian's stepmother Delia returns to force Lillian to marry Francis... And she succeeds.
• Penny Among Diamonds: Hugh Crawford, who has been experiencing this sort of exclusion since his college years.
• Perfectly Arranged Marriage: Francis quickly fell in love with Amelia, but it took a bit of time for her to reciprocate his feelings. Unfortunately, the marriage didn't go through because Amelia was murdered. Francis and Lillian can then put on a façade of a perfect engagement to avoid garnering suspicion that they're investigating Amelia's death.
• Plot-Triggering Death: Amelia's death leads to Lillian traveling to England to complete the arranged marriage and look for clues about the killer.
• Posthumous Character: Amelia dies at the beginning of the story and many of her friends miss her including her sister Lillian and her fiancé Francis.
• Prequel: The book is a prequel to A Very Scandalous Proposal.
• Proper Lady: The Dowager Countess^note Vivian Somerset, Lady Ashbourne^note Blythe Somerset, and Marchioness Huntsbury^note Rebecca Seymour all fit this role. Lillian may be come to be considered this over the course of the story, depending on how the player chooses to behave during the period of her engagement to Francis.
• Red Herring: This story has several, including Ian McTavish, who Amelia had helped financially, Liam Worthington, the British ambassador to India and Percy Jennings, his attache, who become suspects due to their political views conflicting with Amelia's. The biggest one is Vincent Seymour, who everyone thought murdered Amelia to prevent her from exposing his Secret Other Family in India.
• The Reveal: In Chapter 16, it is revealed that Rebecca Seymour is the person who murdered Amelia. She bought a perfume and sent it to Amelia anonymously containing poison. The reason was that Amelia found out that Vincent had a secret family out of the country and Rebecca didn't confront him about the adultery committed by him in fear that they’d become his heirs over her own children considering she is not a British citizen being Hong Kong born.
• Rich Kid Turned Social Activist: John. Amelia as well. And eventually, Francis.
• Rich Suitor, Poor Suitor: John Somerset is both—he is rich compared to Hugh Crawford, but much poorer than Gemma Montjoy.
• Secret Other Family: Vincent, Rebecca's husband took a mistress while traveling to India and there he had two children.
• Scullery Maid: Effie has been like that throughout history. She was a nurse before working as a servant and has helped Lillian on several occasions throughout history.
• Shipper on Deck: If the player romances John, Francis reveals in Chapter 15 that he has seen the way he and Lillian look at each other and that he is happy for both of them, even suggesting that they could get married instead.
  • Aunt Maude will drop subtle hints that she is quite aware that the purported engagement with Francis isn't truly where Lillian's heart lies, and she will be much more supportive of Lillian's wishes than her sister Delia.
• Silk Hiding Steel: Rebecca Seymour, the Marchioness Huntsbury, seems the very model of a modest and gentle (if somewhat browbeaten) wife. She is actually the story’s true Big Bad.
• Speak Now or Forever Hold Your Peace: Played with, along with Anguished Declaration of Love. Lillian's love interest will come bursting into the bridal preparation chamber to make one last desperate plea for her affections, just in time as it transpires.
• Spirited Young Lady: How many characters describe Amelia and Lillian, sometimes as a slight, but just as often in admiration.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: In Chapter 16, you will be confronted by an armed assailant. Making the decision to heroically protect your love interest, instead of taking the weapon from your attacker, will end poorly.
• Survivor Guilt: John and Lillian, understandably given their histories, both have shades of this, poor things. In John's diamond scene in Chapter 10:
  John: It just feels like people I care for always...depart before their time. My friends in India, for instance. In order for me to gain a family, my poor parents even had to lose a daughter.
  (...)
  Lillian: I know how you feel. First my mother, now my sister...It's hard not to feel like I'm somehow the common factor between them.
• Tall, Dark, and Handsome: When questioned about John, Gemma calls him “Tall, Dark and Brooding“. Francis is also described as “Tall and Brooding“ by Aunt Maude once. Ironically, if the player romances his brother, the narration notes that it takes Lillian a moment to realize she does in fact NOT mean John.
• The Lost Lenore: The Somerset brothers have it bad. While Francis spends the entire book grieving for Amelia, is driven by his desire to get justice for her and eventually hands over his duties to John to do charity work in her memory, much of John's character arc and romance center around moving on from the death of his fiancée Victoria.
• They Call Me MISTER Tibbs!: If your character is actively returning Hugh Crawford’s affection, she will be much more angered and hurt by the social slights he receives. At one point the Dowager Countess will dismissively refer to him as “that solicitor” and Lillian will promptly snap back, “His name is Mister Crawford.”
• Vitriolic Best Buds: John and Gemma seem to have this going on.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: The housekeeper Mrs. Watmore and the butler Mr. Barnes suddenly disappeared from Chapter 6 and were not even mentioned.
  • From a gameplay perspective, Mrs. Watmore‘s disappearance makes sense because Lillian is working on borrowed time and tends to forget about potential suspects in her sister’s death as soon as she has cleared them from suspicion. As far as the storyline is concerned, in a bit of Fridge Brilliance, Mrs. Watmore stops being of importance to Lillian after she and Francis announce their impending nuptials. Once Lillian becomes the impending Viscountess of Ashbourne, Mrs. Watmore is much more likely to stay out of her way.
• Writers Cannot Do Math: Not a math issue per se, but it is slightly hilarious that the 'historic seat of the Viscount Ashbourne' was built in the 1810s, a mere hundred years before the story takes place. The ancestor that built the secret passage shrouded in family legend introduced later on by that logic must have been a (great-)great-grandfather of the current Somerset generation.
• You Go, Girl!: Amelia, Gemma and Lillian are happy to participate in activities deemed unsuitable for women, such as shooting, cricket, and poker. The male characters are, for the most part, very impressed when you best them.