Chapter One ~ 1898

“Have you paid off all the debts, Mr. Mercer?” the Honourable Minella Clinton-Wood asked. The elderly man sitting opposite her hesitated before he replied,

“The house, the furniture, the horse and, of course, the estate, which has been sold off bit by bit, have covered practically all of them, Miss Minella.”

“How much is left?”

“Approximately,” answered Mr. Mercer, of Mercer, Conway and Mercer, “one hundred and fifty pounds.”

Minella drew in her breath and, when she did not speak, he continued,

“I have taken it upon myself to keep aside one hundred pounds for you.”

“Should you do that?”

“It is what I insist on doing. After all you cannot live on air and I know you have not yet decided on which of your relations you would prefer to live with.”

The expression on Minella s face was very revealing as she responded,

“As you are aware, Mr. Mercer, that is very difficult. Papa did not have many relatives, and Mama’s are all in Ireland and I have not met any of them.”

“I thought,” Mr. Mercer said quietly, “that you would live with your aunt, Lady Banton, in Bath.”

Minella sighed deeply.

“I suppose that is eventually just what I shall have to do, unless I can find some sort of employment.”

Mr. Mercer looked at her sympathetically.

He had met Lord Heywood’s widowed sister, who was older than he was and knew that she was not only in ill health but was one of those people who was always complaining and finding fault with everything and everyone.

In fact the last time he had come in contact with her he had said to his wife,

“I don’t believe that Lady Banton has ever said a nice thing about anyone in her life.”

“I suppose, poor dear,” his wife had replied, “she thinks that life has treated her badly and, of course, it had all started with her being excessively plain.”

Mr. Mercer had laughed.

But he thought now, looking at the girl opposite him, that her being so exquisitely lovely would not make her aunt feel any kinder towards her.

He leant across the desk, which had already been sold to pay for its late owner’s debts, to say,

“Surely there is someone else you could go to? What about that charming cousin who used to come here some years ago and ride with your father and then after your mother died helped him to entertain the guests at one of his shooting parties?”

“You must mean Cousin Elizabeth,” Minella said. “She married and is in India with her husband. She has not written to me so I presume she does not know that Papa is dead.”

“Could you not live with her?” Mr. Mercer asked.

Minella shook her head.

“I am certain that she would not welcome my imposing on her in India and you know as well as I do, Mr. Mercer, that I could not afford the fare.”

Because the one hundred pounds that he had put aside for her would not last forever, Mr. Mercer admitted silently to himself that this was the truth.

Yet he was deeply concerned as to what would happen to the girl he had known since she was a child and who had grown lovelier year by year with nobody to admire her in the quiet, unfashionable County of Huntingdonshire.

Lord Heywood had often complained,

“Why my ancestors settled in this benighted hole, God only knows! I can only imagine that the house attracted them for there is nothing else.”

It was in fact a most attractive seventeenth century Manor House and, as Lady Heywood had always said, it was comparatively easy to run.

But there was n