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  At least you are not as foolish as your father, for you are not a monk, are you? Nor have you been since your seventeenth summer, when you sowed your wild oats too close to home and got a servant’s daughter pregnant. This is not the place to lecture you on your youthful folly. However it will surprise you to learn that I am pleased you begat an illegitimate son, because at least I know I have an heir whose seed is fertile, and so I can expect you to produce legitimate sons when you finally marry a female worthy of your noble blood. And with carnal experience, which I hope you continue to satisfy with women paid for their services, and not virginal servants who stupidly allow themselves to fall with child, you will gain further experience in matters of the bedchamber. You, unlike me, will then not be able to use ignorance as an excuse for your lack of ability to satisfy your bride in bed.

  Which brings me to what I wished to tell you. I am a much better man in every sense of the word since I came to live here in Barbados, a paradise on earth. The passage of time, and the distance from home, has given me perspective. I am not only older but much wiser. Which is why I can tell you with confidence that I have fallen in love and this for the first time in my life. I never thought I would find love, or that love would find me, and at the ripe old age of five-and-fifty, but it did. Why do I write and tell you this? I have also written to your sister and brother with this news. Because I will not be returning to England. I shall remain here, and be buried here when the time comes, along with my common-law wife. For that is what Monica Drax is to me—my wife and my love. Monica is the acknowledged daughter of a sugar merchant and his mulatto mistress, and she recently gave birth to our twins, Barnaby and Bernadette. No two children could be more perfect or more loved and I am besotted with them, as I am with her.

  You might as well know, for no doubt you will discover this one way or the other, so should hear it from me, Monica is younger than your brother Charles. Yet at two-and-twenty she is old enough to know her own mind and her own heart. We live openly as husband and wife, and with her family’s blessing. She is mistress of my house, and is treated by all as if she is indeed my wife. I wish I could bestow upon her the title, and while I cannot do so, my servants and friends give her the respect had she been my wife and refer to her as ‘my lady’, which is only fitting, and makes me happy.

  I do not mean you or your mother any disrespect. But I am here, and you there, and we shall never meet again. So do not concern yourself. Monica and I will never set foot on English soil, nor will our children, if I have any say in the matter, and thus I do not see any harm in living the way that I wish it to live if I could make wishes come true. If that offends you, so be it.

  I mean to bestow upon Monica and our offspring, of which I hope there will be many, the plantation here in Barbados, the slaves attached to the estate, and half the wealth from the sugar produced. The other half you are to divide up with your brother and sister.

  Which brings me to tell you that I have written to my attorneys in London instructing them that upon your marriage, to revert to you all responsibilities and rights to my English estates, and the income that derives from them being held in trust by His Grace of Roxton. If I could give up my earl’s coronet and ermine to you now, I would gladly do that too. So you see, the sooner you marry, the sooner you may have as much of your inheritance that is within my power to bestow upon you.

  There is enough news in this letter to last you several years’ worth of letters from me. I will not write again to you directly because I know you will not answer me, and so I will seek news about your welfare from other sources. I will not send you my love or best wishes because I know you do not want them. I shall, however, pray for you, and keep you in my thoughts. And I will sign my mark as your father because nothing can take away kinship however much you despise and hate me and wish you could disown your own father. Take care, my son.

  Your father,

  Theophilus Strathsay

  2. Antonia, Duchess of Kinross, to Charlotte, Countess of Strathsay

  Antonia, the Most Noble Duchess of Kinross, Crecy Hall, Treat via Alston, Hampshire, to the Right Honorable Charlotte, Countess of Strathsay, Fitzstuart Hall via Denham, Buckinghamshire.

  Crecy Hall, Hampshire

  July, 1777

  * * *

  Dear Aunt,

  Charlotte, I trust this letter finds you in better health and frame of mind than you were at Easter. And if you are still feeling the lingering effects of whatever it was that was ailing you then, I assure you that this letter from me now will, if not cure you of all your ills, offer you some respite at least until the wedding.

  Wedding? Whose wedding you ask. I shall tell you about it in a moment, but first I must tell you the rest, and how it came to be that there is to be a wedding. Do not ask me for every little particular because I cannot give them to you, and even if I did know, it was told to me in confidence, so you will have to trust me that all that matters is the outcome which is that your son Alisdair is to be married.

  That is correct, Charlotte. Your eldest son Alisdair is to be married, and soon. And so there is to be a wedding, and at Treat.

  Alisdair has found his match, and it is a meeting of souls as well as hearts. They are a couple in love. He truly is in love with her, and she with him, and I state this as fact. You must be happy for him and for them both. And even if you do not believe as I do in fate and true love and happily-ever-afters, you must and will be happy for your son.

  Love aside (though that is what is most important to me in any union) your son’s choice of bride is one that should be gratifying to you and perhaps even make you happy, because she is a very suitable choice socially.

  Aurora Talbot is Edward, Lord Shrewsbury’s granddaughter, and Monseigneur and I we were her godparents. She is the daughter of Edward’s eldest son, who died, along with her mother, when she was an infant. Rory (as she prefers to be called) and her brother Harvel, Lord Grasby, were orphaned and brought up by Edward. Harvel is Edward’s heir, and as it so happens, one of Alisdair’s boon companions. They attended Harrow together. So you see, Rory has a most suitable lineage, and one that even you must think worthy of the heir to an earldom.

  If you are wracking your brain wondering if Rory has been introduced to you, or present at functions which you attended, then the answer it is yes. You do know her, but perhaps, like most people, you took little notice because she rarely if ever put herself forward. She has been a guest at Treat a number of times, in her grandfather’s company, though she tends not to go out into society, much preferring to spend her time in the pursuit of cultivating the pineapple fruit. So you see, she is a most singular and fascinating young woman. I need not make comment on this but I will. Rory is beautiful or Alisdair he would not have looked twice at her, would he? She possesses a delicate, refined beauty, not unlike a piece of fine porcelain. But make no mistake, Charlotte, my goddaughter knows her own mind, has a sharp intellect, and is the sweetest, most loving girl. She loves your son unreservedly and is his greatest champion. So it is no wonder Alisdair he fell in love with her. To see them together is to see true love blossoming before my eyes.

  My son he has given the union his blessing, which should also please you. And it is Roxton’s blessing and mine that is all Alisdair cares about. He does not intend to seek his father’s approval or permission (he needs neither), but will write to him out of courtesy informing him of the match.

  You must not feel neglected that he did not write to you himself, but asked that I do so. Letters to his father and to his brother were all the sitting he could suffer for one afternoon, and so he asked that I write to you so that you would receive the news as soon as possible. He asks that you come to Treat for the wedding, which will be within the next few weeks. I think my son he intends to write to you, too. And he has also written to Mary. It is hoped she will bring Teddy with her, which would be a fitting occasion for your granddaughter to be introduced to her Roxton relatives.

  Oh, and so that you have the
time to recover from the shock between now and then, I am enceinte. You do not have to tell me that for a woman of my age, who has a son approaching his third decade, it is quite shocking indeed. I agree with you. But Jonathon he will have an heir, and that is all I care about. And it is done. So there is nothing for you to do but accept it, and be pleased for us.

  Your loving niece,

  Antonia Kinross

  3. Mr. Radcliffe Plume, Esq., to Major Lord Fitzstuart

  Mr. Radcliffe Plume, Esq., Charles House, Barbados, to Major Lord Fitzstuart, Fitzstuart Hall, Buckinghamshire and c/o His Grace the Most Noble Duke of Roxton, Treat via Alston, Hampshire, England.

  [A paper attached to the parchment reads: Received on the eve of Major Lord Fitzstuart’s marriage, and set aside until his return from a month’s honeymoon. Opened in the presence of His Grace of Roxton, and Her Grace of Kinross, end August, 1777.]

  Charles House, Barbados

  June 1777

  * * *

  My dear Major, Your Lordship,

  It is my sad duty to inform you of the death of your father, Theophilus James Fitzstuart, Earl of Strathsay, who was a resident of Barbados for some seventeen years.

  You do not know me, but I knew your father well. We were the majority shareholders of a Sugar Cooperative, supplying sugar home to England. I had weekly, sometimes daily, dealings with His Lordship, and his family and mine were close enough to exchange dinner invitations. I am a widower and my son is back in England with his family. I feel keenly your loss, for he spoke of Your Lordship and of your brother Mr. Charles Fitzstuart, and of your sister the Lady Mary Cavendish, often and with sentimentality.

  His Lordship and his family perished when a surprisingly unseasonable hurricane of unimaginable strength and destructive force decimated the island. Thousands have died, and there is not a house left habitable. Only a wing of this, your father’s substantial house, still stands, and is providing the only shelter for those left alive, and those come to provide them succour and comfort. All ships in the harbor and their crews are lost. Most life on the island, be it plant or animal, is no more. I cannot adequately describe to you what I am seeing with my own eyes—it is beyond the comprehension of man, and appears to be what I presume hell must resemble for those souls sent there for their sins.

  I should also inform you that while your father’s body was recovered, that of his common-law wife, Monica Drax, and their two children, Barnaby and Bernadette Fitzstuart-Drax, have yet to be found. We do not hold out any hope of them being alive, given it is now some weeks since the hurricane struck. We presume they, like so many hundreds, nay thousands, of others, were swept out to sea and drowned when the storm surge engulfed the island.

  Let me tell Your Lordship how your father died because I am certain you have a natural curiosity to know. Lord Strathsay was discovered under the debris of what had been his study. It seems he managed to find shelter under his desk, but even that sturdy object was lifted up and away by the ferocious winds, and your father was tossed away with it. His neck was broken by the winds and his body impaled on the splintered remains of a bookcase. The surgeon assures me that death would have been almost instantaneous from the break to his neck, and thus he would have been unaware of any suffering and what occurred to his body thereafter.

  As proof of your father’s passing, I enclose the ring he always wore and which he proudly told us was given to his father by his father, His Majesty King Charles the Second, His Lordship’s grandfather. It was removed from his body in the presence of ship’s surgeon Lt. Col. Dr. Ian McBride of the H.M.S. Endurance.

  As you can appreciate, in this hot climate, and to ensure there is no spread of miasma and disease, all bodies recovered were buried as swiftly as possible. And while many were placed in a common pit, I made certain your father was buried here at his house. A stone will be placed over the grave in due course, once the island returns to some sense of normality. Though when that will be, is anyone’s guess, for it will be years, if not decades, before we see the same prosperity as we have enjoyed these past twenty years or more. I intend to remain here at Charles House, which has become the administrative heart of the effort to restore the island, and will except to hear from Your Lordship in due course as to what is to be done with your father’s estate, of which there are a dozen slaves who managed to survive, and who have been put to work in cleaning up and rebuilding what we can.

  I was appointed executor of your father’s last will and testament, of which I believe he sent a copy to reside with his lawyers in London, another copy to His Grace the Duke of Roxton, his cousin, as well as the copy I have in my possession. It is then probable you have already been informed of its contents by his lawyer or His Grace, or both. But it falls upon me to inform Your Lordship that while your father left his estate here to his common-law wife and the children he had by her, if they cannot be found, this estate will become yours in due course. There are other particulars I would rather not delve into here, and of which you must also be aware from his will.

  I would urge Your Lordship to send a representative of the legal fraternity with a member of your family who knew your father well, so that in the event you wish to carry out an exhumation to be satisfied it is indeed your father we buried, this can be done as expeditiously as possible. I realise you have much at stake, the inheritance of his titles and estate being of prime importance, and having all doubt eradicated and your mind put to rest is paramount. I assure you that your representatives will be treated with the utmost cordiality and respect, and all particulars discussed and settled in a most satisfactory manner.

  Rest assured, there was nothing your father could have done that he did not do to try and secure his survival, the survival of his family, retainers, and slaves. And this was told me by one of his most devoted men, Old Clive, a slave who had been with him since he first arrived on the island, and who had his confidence and had earned his respect.

  May I offer up my sincere condolences to you and your family for the loss you have suffered. Your father was an excellent gentleman whom I was honored to call friend.

  I await Your Lordship’s instructions, and remain…

  * * *

  Your most obedient servant,

  Radcliffe Plume

  4. Jonathon, Duke of Kinross, to the Hon. Mrs. Charles Fitzstuart

  Jonathon, the Most Noble Duke of Kinross, Leven Castle via Kinross, Fife, Scotland, to the Honorable Mrs. Charles Fitzstuart, 21 Rue du Peintre Lebrun, Versailles, France.

  [Translated from the Hindi]

  * * *

  Leven Castle, Fife

  August, 1777

  * * *

  My darling mouse-deer, I think of you every day. I wonder how you fill your days. If you have made friends in your adoptive country. Does Charles give you enough of his time? Are you lonely? Is Mrs. S proving a help or a hindrance to a young girl just married? How are your language lessons progressing? Your Baboo Papa is full of questions. He misses your company, and your scolds. He has too much time on his hands and so his thoughts fill with worries. You must think him slipping into his dotage. For where was his worry when we lived on the subcontinent and your Baboo Papa went off for weeks at a time to the north, leaving you in the care of your ayah. There was one time, or was there two? when the floods made it impossible for me to return home to you for two months. Do you remember? I was not greatly worried then because you were with people I trusted with your life, and mine. And that separation I could endure, knowing we would be reunited. This separation is different, and feels vast and lonely and forever.

  Forgive your Baboo Papa because he is being selfish. You are wise enough to know that my loneliness is compounded because I am living a life I do not relish or want, but feel obligated to live. And not only have I been parted from my only child, but separated from the love of my life, and this at the very beginning of our married life. We were up before the parson one day and the next I was on my way to this icy and most decidedly draughty place I
am very sure has yet to be discovered by a cartographer.

  It is the opposite to the subcontinent in temperature, out of the boiling vat to be plunged into an icy netherworld, and this the height of summer! Though I will grant that the landscape is breathtaking in its austerity and muted colors. The poverty of its people is astonishing, yet their resilience and pride are remarkable. For that alone I will do my best by them and remain to create something worthy, for them and their children. And I mean to bring my new duchess here in time, when the house is fit for her habitation. You know your Baboo Papa can sleep on a woven mat on hard ground as long as he can look up at the night sky. But my dearest wife shall have rooms befitting her rank. And I refuse to be outdone and outshone by her first duke! Therein lies the competition, and I have ever been competitive, have I not?

  Sarah-Jane, let your Baboo Papa be serious for a moment and express his hope that in time you will be reconciled to my marriage, and to your stepmother, the new Duchess of Kinross. Surely you see now, or at the very least Charles, who is her closest cousin, has reassured you, that Antonia is a woman of deep feeling, and thus she does truly love me. I love her unreservedly, and with my whole heart. That should suffice for you to embrace her, and set your mind at ease. For what is age but a number?

  You expressed your concern that I require a legal heir and that my wife is not of an age to be able to provide me with one, and this was enough of a reason for us not to marry. You may be right, in that now I am a duke, I am presumed to want an heir. But I am not needful of it. Nor do I believe that my wife incapable of giving me a child. We will have at least one. That is all there is to it. A love like ours demands it. But if it does not happen, then so be it. I am ever philosophical. Your Baboo Papa will leave the matter in Shiva’s hands, and pray to his wife Parvati, for is she not the goddess of fertility, love, and devotion?