in London. In short, he has left me well up to my elegant neck in difficulty. With his shining example before me, it is small wonder I have no desire to emulate his ways.”
The gondola slid beneath a bridge and the water echoed around them in the gloom before they emerged into the brilliant sunlight again.
She smiled at him. “So it is not like father, like son.”
“Most definitely not. To be honest, my cousin is more my father’s son than I have ever been, and indeed he worked tirelessly toward that end —seeking to have me disinherited and taking my birthright. There is very little love lost between James Grenville and me, Miss Milbanke, very little indeed. We tolerate each other, and that is all. James is a very wealthy man, and his tastes ran parallel with those of my father; hence they got on extremely well together. But James was in a position to live as he did; his wealth supported him more than adequately; my foolish father could not, or would not, see that his own finances were so appallingly managed that he could not possibly hope to match James. I could see what was happening, and my continuous argument against what they did eventually left me in the cold where my father was concerned. I left King’s Cliff and took a commission in the army, serving with Wellington in Spain and eventually at Waterloo. I fully intended the army to be my life, for I had little doubt that I would be disinherited and that my cousin would have King’s Cliff.
“However, when my father died last year it immediately became apparent that James had not succeeded, for it all came to me after all. I resigned my commission and went home —to find that things had reached such a sorry pass that I was faced with either bankruptcy—or making such severe cutbacks and changes in order to put King’s Cliff into profit once more that I could only be vilified in the county.” He smiled ruefully, the jeweled pin in his cravat glittering in the sunlight as he lounged gracefully back in the gondola. “Venice is a luxury I can ill afford, but I decided to allow myself just one small extravagance before attending to the unpalatable task of confounding Somerset with my remedies for ruin.”
She smiled. How strange it was to hear him speak of his visit to Venice in words that could so easily have been applied to her. Was not she too guilty of unwarranted extravagance by coming here? “Sir Nicholas, it seems to me that you have no choice, you must carry out whatever plans you have in mind. Why then do you believe Miss Townsend will not approve?”
“To explain that I must tell you a little of family history. Augustine’s family were once the owners of King’s Cliff; indeed it is named because one of their ancestors held the cliff on which it stands for the king at the time of Monmouth’s rebellion. His reward was a grant of the land, and part of Sedgemoor which it overlooks. It remained in the Townsend family until they were in difficulties and my great-grandfather, Sir Henry Grenville, purchased it from them. Augustine still in her heart regards the estate as belonging to her family, and maybe she is not to be blamed too much for that, but she believes too that the house will go on forever as it now is, which has become an impossibility with me as its master. Throughout her life she has seen brilliance all around her, glorious wealth on a scale which even the Prince Regent could envy. There were endless house parties, the guests were royalty and nobility, and they stayed for week after week sometimes. The marsh at King’s Cliff offers the finest waterfowl and good fishing; the hunting season meant more guests, expensive balls, routs, masques, and so on. As my father’s ward she lived like a queen; she saw nothing of the huge debts accumulating.”
He took off his signet ring and handed it to Laura. “My family emblem is ‘the sun in splendor’, and by God did Father live the role of sun! The term bon vivant takes on new
The gondola slid beneath a bridge and the water echoed around them in the gloom before they emerged into the brilliant sunlight again.
She smiled at him. “So it is not like father, like son.”
“Most definitely not. To be honest, my cousin is more my father’s son than I have ever been, and indeed he worked tirelessly toward that end —seeking to have me disinherited and taking my birthright. There is very little love lost between James Grenville and me, Miss Milbanke, very little indeed. We tolerate each other, and that is all. James is a very wealthy man, and his tastes ran parallel with those of my father; hence they got on extremely well together. But James was in a position to live as he did; his wealth supported him more than adequately; my foolish father could not, or would not, see that his own finances were so appallingly managed that he could not possibly hope to match James. I could see what was happening, and my continuous argument against what they did eventually left me in the cold where my father was concerned. I left King’s Cliff and took a commission in the army, serving with Wellington in Spain and eventually at Waterloo. I fully intended the army to be my life, for I had little doubt that I would be disinherited and that my cousin would have King’s Cliff.
“However, when my father died last year it immediately became apparent that James had not succeeded, for it all came to me after all. I resigned my commission and went home —to find that things had reached such a sorry pass that I was faced with either bankruptcy—or making such severe cutbacks and changes in order to put King’s Cliff into profit once more that I could only be vilified in the county.” He smiled ruefully, the jeweled pin in his cravat glittering in the sunlight as he lounged gracefully back in the gondola. “Venice is a luxury I can ill afford, but I decided to allow myself just one small extravagance before attending to the unpalatable task of confounding Somerset with my remedies for ruin.”
She smiled. How strange it was to hear him speak of his visit to Venice in words that could so easily have been applied to her. Was not she too guilty of unwarranted extravagance by coming here? “Sir Nicholas, it seems to me that you have no choice, you must carry out whatever plans you have in mind. Why then do you believe Miss Townsend will not approve?”
“To explain that I must tell you a little of family history. Augustine’s family were once the owners of King’s Cliff; indeed it is named because one of their ancestors held the cliff on which it stands for the king at the time of Monmouth’s rebellion. His reward was a grant of the land, and part of Sedgemoor which it overlooks. It remained in the Townsend family until they were in difficulties and my great-grandfather, Sir Henry Grenville, purchased it from them. Augustine still in her heart regards the estate as belonging to her family, and maybe she is not to be blamed too much for that, but she believes too that the house will go on forever as it now is, which has become an impossibility with me as its master. Throughout her life she has seen brilliance all around her, glorious wealth on a scale which even the Prince Regent could envy. There were endless house parties, the guests were royalty and nobility, and they stayed for week after week sometimes. The marsh at King’s Cliff offers the finest waterfowl and good fishing; the hunting season meant more guests, expensive balls, routs, masques, and so on. As my father’s ward she lived like a queen; she saw nothing of the huge debts accumulating.”
He took off his signet ring and handed it to Laura. “My family emblem is ‘the sun in splendor’, and by God did Father live the role of sun! The term bon vivant takes on new
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