Amelia Hayes

Amelia Hayes, a character in The Unexpected Heiress series, was your Your Character's older sister and the fiance of Francis Somerset. She is first seen in Chapter 1.

Appearance
Amelia has long brown hair tied together, brown eyes and tanned skin. She wears white and beige dress and a golden diamond necklace.

Personality
According to Lord Ashbourne, Amelia was a flexible person who adapted quickly to new environments. John says that she was the friendly, outspoken type. Hugh says she was full of verve and quick-witted. He believed she had a shrewd mind for business and wanted to learn the family trade, but her father wouldn't allow it. He felt that she resented being left out merely because of her gender. Baron Pritchard says that she had a keen sense of strategy but also got very involved in games and was a sore loser.

Amelia had two sides to her: one side - the perfect lady who had impeccable table manners, and the other side - a fierce personality unafraid to debate foreign affairs (once even "talking circles around" a viceroy) and unwilling to back down. According to Hugh, she refused the attempts of the nobility to shape her into the person they thought she should be. Effie says Amelia was able to work a room with a balance of genteel grace and American zest. Baron Pritchard says Amelia had a keen sense for strategy and would get invested, and hated losing.

If you befriend the bookstore owner in Windcroft Village, she mentions that Amelia was a voracious reader, who was particularly fond of romance novels. At least once a week, the bookstore owner would need to order custom shipments for her. She once ordered a book on the entail system, tying in to her interest in politics and her independent nature.

The Unexpected Heiress

 * Chapter 1: Windcroft Manor
 * Chapter 2: Blood Relatives (Mentioned)
 * Chapter 3: Lay of the Land (Mentioned)
 * Chapter 4: Roses & Thorns (Mentioned; Physical Appearance Determinant)
 * Chapter 5: Without a Trace
 * Chapter 6: A Sordid Affair
 * Chapter 7: Belle of the Ball (Mentioned)
 * Chapter 8: The Chase
 * Chapter 9: The Cause
 * Chapter 10: Power Play (Mentioned; Physical Appearance Determinant)
 * Chapter 11: Upper Echelon (Mentioned)
 * Chapter 12: The Hunter and the Prey
 * Chapter 13: Raising the Stakes (Mentioned)
 * Chapter 14: Buried Truths (Mentioned)
 * Chapter 15: Reckoning
 * Chapter 16: The Bride

Your Character
Amelia was your older half-sister. As you reveal to the Somersets during your first dinner with them, Amelia's mother and father divorced when Amelia was a baby. Eventually, her father remarried your mother and they had you. When your mother died, he then remarried Delia, who bore him two sons.

The two of you were quite close growing up, often playing together. One of the games you'd often play was make-believe, and the two of you would make up fancy-sounding names for yourselves, though you would keep your first names the same. You later wonder if this informed her choice of an alias. When the two of you got older, Amelia secretly taught you how to drive a car at night. Two years ago, Amelia taught you how to sew a toy for Delia's second child.

When your mother was alive, she would tell Amelia and you that 'Blood does not run thicker than water.' Because even though she was not related to Amelia by blood, she considered your sister to be her daughter nonetheless. When Francis tells you that Amelia's last words were 'Blood runs...', you are confused as you don't understand the reason she would say that.

According to your Aunt Maude, Amelia always felt a little bit like a mother to you as well, given your age difference and the death of your own mother when you were young.

Francis Somerset
"My husband must be someone kind and patient. And he mustn't mind when I want to do things my way!"

- Twelve-year-old Amelia

Francis Somerset was Amelia's fiance. In Chapter 2, if you have Effie snoop around Francis's room, she finds rough drafts of love letters and scratched-out lines of poetry from Francis to Amelia. Francis hopes that she will eventually love him as he loves her. When he is London, he tells her that he misses her smiles and her laughter. Effie also finds risque sketches of Amelia in nightgowns, smiling demurely at the artist; and Effie is unsure if Amelia actually posed for him or if they are visualizations.

In Chapter 3, if asked, Hugh will say that she appeared to like Francis but might have wanted more time to get to know him. If you choose to eavesdrop on him during the garden party in Chapter 4, you find out that he has been investigating Amelia's death, though he has kept the investigation a secret due to insufficient evidence and concern about who might have been involved in her death. Her death was too sudden to make any logical sense. He tells you, "I truly loved Amelia. I just want to do right by her. And if someone killed her... I want them brought to justice."

In Chapter 6, you have the option to tell Francis that Amelia stayed at the inn in Windcroft village. If you don't, you tell him in Chapter 7 to brace for a worst case scenario that Amelia was cheating on him and possibly pregnant. When you do, he does not believe it but accepts your words and knows that finding out the truth about what happened may be devastating. He tells you that he tracked down the small shop that sold the perfume bottle but the owner doesn't remember who purchased it.

At Lady Callista Blaise's debutante ball, Francis tells you that he fell in love with Amelia nearly at first sight. It took her longer to warm up to him and there was a time that he felt she might never come to love him, but she reassured him that once she got to know him, no one could compare to him. He believes their love was slow and steady and worked for them. When he gave her an engagement ring, she gave him one in return.

Hugh Crawford
According to Effie, Hugh was one of the few people that Amelia seemed truly herself with. Not a noble and not kept to the same standards, they bonded over feeling out of place in the company that they kept. He treasured her companionship but never thought about her romantically.

In the last few months of her life, they grew more distant. During that time, he knew she was always busy and that something was worrying her, but she wouldn't tell him. At the end of Chapter 3, he reveals Amelia tried to make a withdrawal that your father wouldn't authorize so he had to turn her down. In turn, she had to borrow the huge sum of money from Aunt Maude, who deposited the money in multiple small transactions. He says that Amelia then directly transferred the large amount to another person.

After speaking to the bank teller, Hugh discovers that Amelia was accompanied by a man with dark hair and bright green eyes to the bank. You two deduce that it is possible that because women are not allowed to open bank accounts in their own names, she could have had a male friend open one on her behalf.

Effie Ainsley
Effie was Amelia's lady's maid. During her time there, Effie states Amelia insisted on going into town without a chaperone. Amelia encouraged Effie to pursue her dream to become a nurse and helped her look into some resources.

Ian & Isabelle McTavish
When Amelia stayed at the Whittenby manor during one of the social season's hunts, Isabelle was assigned to be her maid. With Amelia's help, Isabelle and Ian exchanged letters and met in secret. However, when a love note from Ian to Isabelle was found in Amelia's room, rumors spread that Amelia had an admirer. In Chapter 8, you learn the story of Ian & Isabelle McTavish after chasing Ian to the home that Amelia purchased for them.

The McTavishes introduced her to the Ladies' House, a shelter and a religious order, located between Dorwick and Windcroft. There they help women who have been forced into prostitution or those with young children and no husband. Through the Ladies' House, Amelia became involved with "the cause", a term she used for wanting to fix all the things that were wrong in the world. One organizer introduced her to political causes such as the women's suffrage movement, and Amelia joined a group dedicated to fighting imperialism. Once she joined that group, she became too busy to stay involved with the Ladies' House. While she resided at Dorwick, Ian would drive her to the rallies and try to make sure she was safe.

Trivia

 * She shares the same first name as Amelia Sr. and Amelia from Rules of Engagement.
 * Her family and she share the same surname as Selma Hayes from Baby Bump, Book 1 and Blaine Hayes from Foreign Affairs.
 * In Chapter 1, the day she died is revealed as May 5, 1913. That is also the same day she wrote you a letter which Effie gives to you when you retire to your room.
 * In Chapter 4, it is revealed that she was murdered via poisoned perfume she received as a wedding gift that morning. The poison affected her respiratory system and did not cause any external nor internal bleeding.
 * She passed away in the Somersets' London townhouse gardens.
 * In Chapter 2's premium scene, you relive a memory of Amelia. You were six years old in 1900, and Amelia was twelve, which reveals Amelia was six years older than you. This makes Amelia approximately 25 years old.
 * Amelia's younger character model resembles young Kavya Mistry from The Elementalists: Winters Past.
 * Her locker number at Erithford Hospital is 1276.