Sophie Bedford and Nathaniel Pippin
The Duchess Affair is one of the many stories under the Choices: Stories You Play collection.
After marrying a rich duke to save her family from ruin, a new tutor arrives to change everything. Will she risk herself for love?
The Duchess Affair includes examples of:
- Character Customization: As always, both the main character and love interest can be customized. Nat Pippin can be customized as male or female (with three looks each), while the main character is always female.
- Content Warnings: As is standard for a 17+ Choices book with romance involved, the book warns of mature and sexual content at the start. There is also an option to quit the book.
- Continuity Cameo: The young Queen Charlotte makes an appearance in chapters 15 and 16, indicating that the events of that book took place before Desire & Decorum.
- Gender-Blender Name: A justified example. Nat's full first name is Nathaniel if male, or Natalie if female. But both versions of the character abbreviate it to Nat.
- Hello, [Insert Name Here]: The main character's first name can be customized at the start, much like almost every other Choices book. Her default name is Sophie Bedford.
- Hypocrite: Unsurprisingly, Lawrence Bedford, who threatens to make Sophie pay for her "betrayal" when he finds out she's been cheating on him with Nat, even though he was also cheating on Sophie. However, when Sophie points out the hypocrisy in the following chapter, he seems more concerned about her indiscretion and her perceived naivité than by the cheating in itself.
- Idiot Ball: Sophie and Nat seemingly can't control their hormones and decide to make out - or have sex if you take a premium option - at a public event. An event where also the husband of Sophie and the Queen are. Naturally, they get caught.
- If I Can't Have You…: Played With in the penultimate chapter. When Sophie finds out that her husband has been cheating on her with multiple women after he - possibly fatally as far as she knows - shot Nat in a duel, she decides that if she can't have her affair, he can't have his either.
- Recycled Premise: This book borrows many elements from The Nanny Affair and Desire & Decorum:
- The book being set in the Georgian era.
- The focus of the story is the relationship between the Duchess and her tutor.
- Sympathetic Adulterer: Sophie is this. Because her new husband, Lawrence, is written to be as obnoxious and boorish as possible (at one point, he refuses to let her taste chocolate because he doesn't want to waste it on "a woman's inferior palate"), and because Nat is so friendly to her when she needs the kindness the most, Sophie develops feelings for them. Chapter 10 takes this even further when it is revealed that Lawrence has been cheating on Sophie too.
- Wham Episode: Chapter 16, in which Sophie's affair with Nat finally comes to light and her husband vows to make her pay.
