An Unconventional Heiress. Paula Marshall

heir he made no secret of his relative poverty. Amborough had little beside his shabby mansion and some bare acres to leave him, but Charles had a minor sinecure in the Foreign Office, and an income from his late mother’s estate which, while not large, was sufficient to keep him in reasonable comfort. None of this added up to wealth. His modesty about himself and his prospects was not the least of his charms. John liked him, too, which completed Sarah’s pleasure.

      For several months Sarah and Charles contrived to be together as much as possible, so no one was surprised when, one bright spring day, he proposed to her and was eagerly accepted. The only fly in the ointment was an overheard comment about Charles having hooked his heiress at last, but Sarah put that down to the jealousy of a disappointed suitor.

      All that happy summer they enjoyed themselves while the lawyers began their legal dance over the marriage settlement, but bit by bit, as time went on, the pleasure in his company that Sarah had originally felt slowly diminished. Charles, she found, did not entirely approve of her painting. He hinted that when she became Lady Amborough there would be more important things for her to do. Exactly what they would be, he never said.

      Her high spirits, which had seemed so charming to Charles before they were betrothed, did not seem quite so attractive when they conflicted with his somewhat conventional view of life. He expected her to agree with all he said, without any discussion—which he called argument and disliked.

      Perhaps none of this would have mattered had not John and Sarah’s lawyers insisted on protecting Sarah’s rights quite so energetically when drawing up the marriage settlement. Charles’s financial situation turned out to be rather poorer than he had claimed: he had not been entirely frank with either his own, or Sarah’s, advisers and Sarah’s own wealth was such that her lawyers felt bound to protect her. Charles made his resentment plain, casting a further cloud over her happiness.

      Matters might yet have been mended, but at this juncture they found themselves staying with a distant cousin of Charles at a house party in Norfolk. Sarah was never to forget that week. She found Charles’s cousin inimical, the other guests boring, the house cold and draughty and the food deplorable. To make matters worse, she contracted a heavy cold and was confined to her bed with a high temperature, leaving Charles to his own devices.

      One of the guests was a rather plain young woman named Caroline Wharton. She had attached herself to Sarah and was fond of making comments, which Sarah realised afterwards were unpleasantly barbed.