Earl from India

by Oliver, Marina

  AN EARL FROM INDIA

  BY

  MARINA OLIVER

  Silas, impersonating his dead half-brother John, expects to find a flourishing estate at The Priory and marry an heiress when he returns from a twenty-year exile in India.

  He is attracted to Fanny, the heiress daughter of a wealthy trader he meets on the homeward-bound ship, but she dislikes him and her brother Gerard, who is to take over his dead father's business, rejects him.

  Then he meets his family, cousins Lucien and Amanda, and Aunt Charlotte, and finds his inheritance worthless.

  He needs to recoup his fortunes, reverting to his earlier career of gambling and worse.

  An Earl From India

  By Marina Oliver

  Copyright © 2014 Marina Oliver

  Smashwords Edition

  The moral right of the author has been asserted

  Cover Design by Debbie Oliver

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or distributed in any form, including digital and electronic or mechanical, without the prior written consent of the Publisher, except for brief quotes for use in reviews.

  Smashwords Edition, License Notes

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  See details of other books by Marina Oliver at http:/www.marina-oliver.net.

  Author Note

  I have known Shropshire since I was a child, and recently lived there for several years. The Priory, though, is totally imaginary, there is no such house in the county.

  I was intrigued by the social conventions of who might be suitable marriage partners. A wealthy girl from the business community might attract an offer from a titled man, but it didn't work in the same way for a business man and a girl from the upper reaches of Society.

  AN EARL FROM INDIA

  BY MARINA OLIVER

  CHAPTER 1

  'Lucien, walk with me down to the lake. I need some fresh air. Too much hot air in this room.'

  Lucien grinned at his Aunt Charlotte and avoided looking at the local worthies who were enjoying tea and cakes or, most of the men, something alcoholic.

  'At your command, Aunt.'

  He offered her his arm and they left the drawing room. Before the door closed he heard several outraged comments. Lady Charlotte just laughed, picked up a flamboyant red cloak from the settle on which she had dropped it earlier, flung it over her black mourning gown, and turned towards the big oak front door. His aunt was still handsome, Lucien thought. She was tall and thin, but not bony, and the grey strands in her hair blended with the blonde and were barely noticeable. The lines on her face were laughter lines. Marriage to Jethro and a dozen children had clearly suited her.

  'They never approved of me,' she said. 'As a child I was too wild, out of control, they said. Then they threw up their hands in horror when I defied everyone and married Jethro. He may have been one of the richest men in Shropshire, but he was a working man! He was never invited to their houses. My father never met him, though Mama did, secretly. She understood, her marriage was arranged and never happy. William just tolerated him, was polite when they met, but no more. Only your father appreciated him.'

  'Now you are the only one of that generation left. My father and Uncle William both gone. And no doubt soon cousin John will be home.'

  'It will take a year for news to get to him, and for him to come home. Longer, if he is somewhere in the middle of the country The news could take weeks more to reach him. The longer the better.'

  Lucien, unlike the rest of his family, was dark haired. Tall but muscular, with wide shoulders, he delighted in all sports. He had been in charge of his own fortune since his father died, and spent little time in London, though he kept in touch with many of his school and university friends. John was ten years older, so all he knew of his cousin was what Aunt Charlotte told him, and the hints he had received from older friends, both in London and Shropshire.

  They were walking across the grass mown short in parts by a small flock of sheep. There had been a heavy frost and their footsteps crunched on the grass. The lake at the bottom of the slope had a sheen of ice, and the ducks, angrily back pedalling, were forced into the stream that fed the lake and flowed through it on the far side.

  'With so many deaths in India from all those nasty diseases, you'd have thought we might have been spared the fate of John becoming the next Earl of Escott!' Lady Charlotte went on. 'But he has to survive, for almost twenty years! Depriving you, who would be far more suitable.'

  Lucien was shocked. Familiar as he was with his aunt's outspokenness, this was extreme even for her.

  'I know he lost a lot of money gambling,' he said now. 'I was only about ten when he was sent away, but I heard people say he'd been hustled out of the country too quickly for there to be any scandal.'

  'Thanks partly to your father. Robert was at Eton with Edward Clive, who still had some influence with the East India Company. Not that John stayed with the army for more than a year. He apparently found better pickings elsewhere.'

  'But he wasn't the only man to gamble away more than he could afford. And Uncle William paid those debts later. Why get rid of him so quickly?'

  Lady Charlotte snorted. There was, Lucien thought in amusement, no other word for it.

  'He gambled, cheated at cards, he stole from his father's friends, he ran away with a married woman ten years older than he was, then killed her husband. Not in a duel, which might have been forgiven, but by ambushing him. It cost my brother so much he almost lost Escott Priory. And look at it now. There are only half a dozen servants left, those too old to find places elsewhere, and they haven't been paid for a year or more. It needs thousands of pounds spending just on repairs, but William hadn't a penny to spare.'

  Lucien leaned on the fence which protected the narrow wooden bridge that crossed the stream at the end of the lake, and looked back at the house. It was an unco-ordinated building, and even at this distance the dilapidations were evident. It had started life as one of the Marcher castles protecting England from Welsh raids, and the stone keep was still the heart of the building. Later it had been a priory. The cloisters remained, creating what could have been a pleasant courtyard, but most of the small rooms surrounding it had fallen into ruin, their roofs gone, their walls falling down. The few still habitable were used as storerooms for firewood and garden tools. The first Escott, given the estate by Henry VIII, had added rooms alongside the keep and made a comfortable manor house, and some of his black and white timbering survived. His Uncle William, whose funeral they had been attending, had started to add a new front in the classical tradition, but only one half had been completed before his cousin John's gambling debts had made further work impossible. Now much of it was covered in rampant ivy, many of the windows obscured.

  'Why should I want such a millstone?'

  'I wouldn't wish it on anyone, but some self-made man, a mill owner, perhaps, with more money than he knows what to do with would enjoy the status of being the possessor of an historic ruin!'

  'I suppose John will come home?' Lucien said. If he didn't, what would happen to the Priory? He had no desire to have to manage it.

  'There's no doubt about that. William had reports from India, for the first few years, anyway, and John doesn't appear to have taken advantage of the opportunities there. He left the army, was soon in debt, too, still gambling, and there have been a coup
le of unsavoury incidents with the wives of Company officers. He'll be home to see what he can get here. If I were to hazard a bet, I'd give the Priory no more than two years before it's sold.'

  'If anyone can be induced to purchase it.'

  'A man with more money than sense, as I said. Yet, with repairs done, it could be a pleasant home again. I loved it when I was a child here.' She shivered. 'Look, the carriages are leaving. Let's hope everyone has gone. We can go back now and permit Mr Sopwith to read the will.'

  *

  Lucien, Lady Charlotte and her husband, Jethro Wilkes, along with the Earl's aged butler, were the only people listening as the lawyer read out a lengthy legal document. When he finally came to a long list of bequests Lady Charlotte frequently interrupted with comments such as 'He died ten years ago,' or 'He's gone to America,' and even 'He was transported.'

  'When was this will written?' she demanded when Mr Sopwith finally laid down the document.

  'In 1797, my lady. I have on several occasions urged his lordship to update it, but he always refused.'

  'So it was written before John was sent to India.'

  The lawyer was clearly unhappy.

  'That is so, my lady.'

  'And before Silas chose to go with him. Was it ever discovered whether Silas was involved when he murdered that man?'

  'It was never proven, but when Silas Evans elected to go to India it was assumed it was because of his involvement.'

  'I wonder if he will be returning with John?'

  'We don't even know if he is still alive. The Earl arranged for reports about his heir, but I never saw any referring to Silas. You know he treated the boy generously until then, sending him to Harrow and Oxford. And according to this will left him the manor and estate near Stafford.'

  'Which he sold five years ago. I would have thought that alone might cause him to make a new will. What happens if the man returns here and claims it?'

  'He might claim the value of it from the estate,' Mr Sopwith admitted. 'If he is still alive.'

  'And if he is not still alive, could his mother claim it? Jenny Evans still lives in the cottage William gave her. Is there enough money to pay him?'

  Mr Sopwith shook his head. 'The only asset is the Priory. There is nothing in the Funds, not even any jewellery that belonged to the Countess. And no other property. All the farms and the London house were sold soon after John was sent away. And you will have seen that even the paintings that were once here have been sold. The carriages and horses, too. His lordship had just the gig and one pony.'

  'So there's not a great deal to welcome John home,' Lucien commented when Mr Sopwith had departed to his home in Ludlow, and he, Lady Charlotte and Jethro Wilkes were sitting down to dinner.

  'Why the fool had to be so generous to a bastard I'll never understand,' Lady Charlotte said, stabbing an undercooked potato viciously. 'It wasn't even as if Silas was the only one, yet for the others he did no more than pay small sums for their upkeep, until they were old enough to work and earn their own wages. He didn't even employ them.'

  'He no doubt wouldn't wish to be reminded, if they worked at the Priory,' Jethro said.

  'Was he especially fond of Jenny Evans?' Lucien asked. 'Is that why he treated Silas differently?'

  Lady Charlotte glared at the food in front of her, and threw down her fork.

  'I can't eat this. Tomorrow, Jethro, we'll move to The Feathers for as long as we need to stay here. Jenny Evans? She was very pretty, in a milk maidish way, I suppose. And as Silas was born six months before John, Jenny became John's wet nurse. Anne was too fastidious to suckle her own child. She was a weakling. Only the one child, and he survived only because Jenny's milk was good. More's the pity. Lucien would be a much better heir, and William need not have wasted all his blunt dragging John out of trouble.'

  'Perhaps that's why William favoured her,' Jethro suggested. 'Because she kept his heir alive.'

  Lady Charlotte nodded. 'It may explain it. He and Lucien's father never got on, so he'd have hated the thought of Robert or Lucien stepping into his shoes. But he could have married again after Anne died, and sired more brats. There were plenty on the catch for him, and it was before John became a liability which would have deterred cautious brides. The boy was about ten at the time.'

  'Well, India might have changed him,' Lucien said. 'Can you ask what the reports from India said about him? Mr Sopwith may have read them, or they may be with my uncle's papers still.'

  'We can try. Are you removing to The Feathers with us, or going home?'

  'Going home. There's nothing for me to do here and I've left Amanda to her own devices for long enough. My sister has a habit of getting into scrapes if I am not there to check her.'

  *

  'Will you go back home?'

  John nodded. 'I'm bored with India. It hasn't turned out as I expected.'

  'You mean we haven't become as rich as we hoped?'

  Silas frowned. He was reluctant to go back to England. He didn't know what might await him there, whether they knew what had really happened that night Sir Thomas was killed. John had been blamed, and the old Earl had bundled him out of England within days. He'd asked, almost as an afterthought, whether Silas wanted to go too. Afraid of the consequences if he didn't, he'd agreed, but that had been the end of the Earl's interest in him. He knew there were reports sent back to England about John, but he, a bastard son of the Earl's, had been ignored, disinherited. Why had his father paid for him to have the same education as his legitimate heir, and then discarded him? Had he known the truth of what had really happened that night? But now the Earl was dead, and he hoped no one else knew the truth. He sighed. He could always deny it. John had never betrayed him. In fact, he wondered whether John knew. Those last few days in England had been so confused, and once on board ship, on their way to India, they had, by unspoken mutual consent, never again referred to the events which had so disrupted their lives.

  'We've managed,' John said. 'But it hasn't been easy. There's a limit, even here, to places where we can find people with money, who are eager to gamble. And so many die of these diseases.'

  'Yes, and sometimes before they pay us!'

  'Well, that's a better excuse then I used to give.'

  'But your father was daft enough to pay for you. They don't, the fathers here.'

  'The men we play with don't have fathers who care for the honour of the family, just officers who tell them they've been fools.'

  'They have,' Silas said. 'Most of them are so easy to trick.'

  'I'm getting tired of never being sure whether we'll have enough blunt. Just think what there is back in England. My father was wealthy, and I inherit it all. There is the Priory, and the other property. Plus the title. I'd be able to find a rich heiress to marry.'

  'And find one for me too?' That, Silas thought, might make the risk worth while.

  John shrugged. 'Perhaps we'd need to give you another name, a title even, hide the fact you're my brother. Is your mother still alive?'

  'I don't know. I wrote a few times when we first arrived here, but she can't read or write, so she never replied. And I have no other contacts in England. They all despised me at Harrow and Oxford because of my birth.'

  'If she is still alive we can make her promise not to claim you. She'll know it will be for the best.'

  'So we go?'

  'We'll move south, find a ship where we're not likely to meet people who will want to have their revenge on us. There may be some rich merchants on board. We'll have months to cultivate them. So long as we're careful we could recoup our passage money.'

  *

  'There's no need to put off Amanda's come out just because your uncle died,' Lady Charlotte said. 'It was almost a year ago, and he hadn't seen either of you for years. Even with the name most people won't know of the connection. Besides, Jethro is talking about travelling to Egypt next winter, and we'll be gone for months. He's suddenly become excited about that old plan of Napoleon's to cut a canal, th
ough no one else seems to think it's practicable. I wouldn't be able to plan to chaperone the child. And she's already eighteen. She'd be most disappointed to have to wait another year.'

  'True. Thank you, then.'

  'I'll open up the house in Berkeley Square next month, then she must come to me and I'll see to her clothes. You'll come too. It's high time you found yourself a wife.'

  It was an order, and Lucien, grinning to himself, knew better than to object. She'd been trying to push him into parson's mousetrap ever since he'd left Oxford. So far he'd managed to resist all the lovely, rich and intelligent females she had flung in his way. He was grateful to her for offering to bring out his sister, though. Girls needed to be married. Their mother had died five years before, and she'd had no close relatives. His aunt, despite what many people had called her own disastrous marriage, had retained her position in Society, and brought out her five daughters, marrying them all to men of wealth and position. She had promised to do the same for Amanda, and he was confident she would succeed. Also, he knew, she would ensure the man was favoured by his sister. Having defied her family to marry the man she loved, she would never countenance any other sort of marriage for a daughter or niece. And when he had shown no interest in any of her protégées, she had laughed, prophesying he would one day fall hard, and hoping he would find the path of true love smooth.

  'Any girl would be delighted to have you fall in love with her. You're young, handsome, rich, the son of an Earl, and have a generous disposition.'

  'Yes, Aunt! But I have never found a girl who kept my attention for more than a few days.'

  She laughed and tapped his hand with her fan.

  'You poor boy. But there is still hope, you are still young enough to fall in love.'

  He hadn't given up hope, he thought, as he rode back to his own home near Shrewsbury. Was he over-fastidious? Or had he simply not yet met a girl he wanted to marry? He appreciated feminine company, and had enjoyed pleasant liaisons with a couple of high flyers, but when it had been time to part he'd had few regrets. One day, he'd told himself, he'd meet the right girl. He was, however, almost thirty. Most of his friends from Eton and Oxford were married. He would concentrate on Amanda for now. It was important for a girl to marry, and just lately she had become rather too friendly with some of the young men living near by. He had no wish to see her tied to an impecunious curate, or a fortune hunter attracted to the large fortune their grandmother had left her.