The Dollar Prince's Wife by Paula Marshall

Faa’s words for what went on in academic tutorials and the dons’ discussions. She rather doubted it.
    â€˜Do many Americans think that, Mr Grant? Are American statesmen like ours, do you know? Have you met many politicians over there? I suppose that New York is not much like Washington.’
    â€˜Indeed not,’ he said, turning his amazing eyes on her again, something which, oddly enough, made Dinah feel quite dizzy. To amuse her, for he found her eager interest strangely touching, he began to tell her some comic stories of what politicians got up to in the United States, which set her laughing.
    â€˜I suppose the only real difference between yours and ours,’ she volunteered, ‘is that yours are more straightforward and ours are more hypocritical. I was always told that the First Lord Rainsborough—his name was Christopher Freville—was given his title for some grand diplomatic work he did for King Charles II at the time of the Dutch Wars.
    â€˜Only Faa told me one day that that was all a hum, and he also told me where to look in the papers to find the true story. He had discovered it the year he came here to be Rainey’s tutor, and had begun to catalogue our archives before he ran off with Mama. So, the last time I came, I found the papers—and Faa was right.
    â€˜Christopher, whose ancestral home was Borough Hall, was a boon companion of King Charles II,’ she explained, her eyes alight with amusement. ‘He was a King whose habits we are all supposed to deplore, although he doesn’t seem to me to be so very different from the present Prince of Wales.’
    She would never have uttered this last piece of heresy infront of Violet, but the man to whom she was talking seemed to provoke her into making such lively indiscretions.
    â€˜He was just a nobody about the court, you understand, a mere gentleman-in-waiting. One day the King went for a walk—he was a great walker, Faa said—and it began to rain heavily. He was only wearing a light coat and Christopher was wearing a thick one. He saw that the King was wet, and offered him his own in exchange.
    â€˜That night, at court, they all drank too much, and the King told Christopher that he could have any favour he wanted as a gift for having lent him his coat. Christopher told the King that he could keep the coat—provided that he agreed to make him an Earl in exchange for it. Instead of condemning him for his impudence, the King laughed and said, “Since you saved me from the rain I shall call you by its name—you shall be Lord Rainsborough.”
    â€˜Christopher was a pretty frivolous fellow. He was never a diplomat or statesman as his descendants have liked to pretend. Making him an Earl was just one of King Charles II’s jokes—he was very fond of them, Faa says. Please don’t tell Violet the truth—she wouldn’t find it at all amusing.’
    To be sure she wouldn’t, Cobie thought, while thanking Dinah for telling him of this comic piece of unwanted family history.
    Â 
    A little later he was to discover that Violet wouldn’t find anything amusing about her half-sister. After a happy hour’s conversation the library door was flung open by an imperious hand, and Violet entered, resplendent in an old-rose tea-gown.
    She stared at Cobie and Dinah laughing together overthe chess set which stood permanently ready on a marquetry table in front of yet another window. Dinah was finding that Mr Grant played an even better game of chess than Faa. Violet, however, approved of neither the game, Mr Grant, nor Dinah.
    She particularly didn’t approve of Dinah.
    â€˜So there you are, Cobie,’ she said unoriginally, sailing over to them like some galleon strayed from the high seas, ‘in the library. Of all odd places to find you! Have you had tea?’
    She stared down at the chess game where Cobie’s Black Queen and Knight were pinning Dinah’s