“Oh, no.”I pause to take a breath to prepare for my rebuttal to this dinosaur, both in his age in comparison to me and his outlook on life.“There are these things called newspapers and books.I read them, occasionally.”Or all the time.In fact, I spend all my time reading books and newspapers from and about this particular era.“Sometimes, I even understand what they say.Even with this woman’s brain, I somehow manage to hold a coherent thought about the world around me.Because it turns out that women have brains and they won’t faint if they have to use them to have a thought or two.”
Leo holds his hands out, not wanting to poke the bear any more than he already has.“Most ladies of my acquaintance do not exactly bother themselves with the newspapers.Idon’t even want to read the blasted things.Constantly giving me depressing information,” Leo grumbles.
“I’m confused as to what you thinkIcan do about your money problem.”I can’t fix him.He’s a relic and I have to find a way home.I can’t get distracted teaching this man than women can have value outside of the roles society has assigned them.
As tempting as that is.
“Ah, yes.The bit you can help with.I need rather a lot of cash.Normally I would not talk about anything as vulgar as money with a lady—” Okay.But your problem seems to be you don’t talk about money withanyone.“But I did think that you should know the background for what I am about to ask of you.”
“I don’t have any money,” I say before he can ask for a loan.“Sorry.”
“I did rather assume that.What with you being worried about where you were going to sleep last night.”
“Then I’m still not sure what I can do to help your cash-flow problems.”
“Right.Fathers mostly understand the world, and they are keeping their heiress daughters away from me.Heiresses I need if I am going to give duty and responsibility a go and save the estate.For my family and all the people working it.I might not perfect but I am better than a lot of people who could buy the estate after we lose it.Or those who want to buy the land to mine it, displacing everyone who has lived there for generations.”
Is he, though?Mr.I Love Fun and Hate Responsibility over here.
“But you have a title.The fathers shouldn’t care about the debts as long as they get the title for their family.”I know how this works.Rich industrialists, sometimes American ones, give their daughters and fortunes to poor aristocrats that didn’t plan well enough for the shift from an agrarian society to an industrial one, and they get proximity to the “upper class” out of it.Win-win.
Tale as old as time.Older than the idea of a love match, at any rate.
“Yes.Unfortunately, my father, a gambler I could respect for the amount of time he devoted to the game if it had not affected me so badly, created a bit of scandal throughout his life and especially on his way out.That coupled with the giant debts we have and the taxes we owe, have the richer fathers steering their daughters out of my path and to less complicated options.And the daughters that remain don’t quite come with enough blunt to get me debt-free.”
“Why can’t you sell the land?”
“I could.And it may come to that.But it is my home.The home of all Alstons for generations, and I would like to keep it if possible.”
“What was that scandal?”I can’t stop myself from asking.I’ve spent my entire career poking around in dead people’s lives: their houses, their stuff, their letters, their finances, their graves.I’m not going to pass up a chance to get more information out of them now.And whatever the last Marquess of Basildon did wasn’t enough to get my notice in the future, so I don’t already know.And I hate not knowing, especially about a half-Indian peer.
It just goes to show how many gaps in history there are.So much we’ve lost out on because no one recorded it in any way.
“I suppose it would not be sporting to get you involved and not tell you everything.But good to know news of the scandal has not reached America or India yet.”
Leo finds the scone in his lap very interesting all of a sudden.So much that his eyes and all his intense charm and focus are directed at it.
Lucky scone.
“Are you stalling?”I ask.
A faint red slashes across his cheekbones.Then he takes a deep breath.
“He publicly left us to live with his mistress.When the debts and the drinking and the gambling were all overwhelming, he threw his hands up and decided if he was going to be ruined financially, he may as well become morally ruined as well and live with who he really wanted to.No one faulted him for having a mistress, of course, or even the gambling, but everyone faulted him for being tacky enough to want to live with her.He died shortly after leaving us.From injuries sustained after a beating regarding some of those debts.And now they fall to me along with the title and the estate.Mother passed shortly after that, whether from grief or embarrassment, the doctor would not say.”
“I’m sorry for your loss.”I think I remember the scandal, now that he mentions it.In the heightened mortality of the Victorian period, many of the rich and powerful were still having their affairs and living their vices, but they were forced to be quieter about it than in previous times, with society being harsher to those that were caught.The irony is, Leo’s dad might have been fine if it had happened in an earlier era.
But I certainly didn’t know the man’s wife was Indian, or I would have paid more attention to the whole family and dug deeper.Her experiences must have been so interesting.
But it sounds like this man needs a therapist and a PR team.I still don’t know what I can do to help.I have a Ph.D.so unless he wants me to write an article about his family in the context of a changing Britain, I don’t know how I can contribute.
“Your presence has sparked interest among the ton.Yesterday, people came to me, asking about you and how you were acquainted with the Queen.Talking to her and then standing next to you who spoke to her multiple times, reminded people how close my family was to the Queen before the scandal.Some of those rich industrialist fathers looked at me a little closer last night, even speaking to me before the night was over.”
“So you want to…what?”
“I want to court you.”
CHAPTER8
