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daresay, one could drydock a frigate in the entrance hall!”
    “Yes; but to what purpose?” Otto said dryly. His exacting eye passed over the young man’s ill-fitting coat with critical contempt. “ That is not the work of a London tailor,” he said.
    “No, I got it in Portsmouth last year. I know it doesn’t fit me anymore,” Nicholas said ruefully. “My uniform fits me very well. I did have that made in London. It cost me nearly fifteen pounds! You will see it at dinner.”
    “I look forward to it immensely,” said Otto, but it was no fun baiting a man as impervious to sarcasm as this simple, good-natured fellow.
    “I should have liked to have some new clothes,” Nicholas admitted, “but my uncle did not think there would be time before the blizzard.”
    Otto’s brows went up slightly. “Blizzard?”
    “Yes, apparently, there is a blizzard here every year. It makes the roads quite impassable until, oh, well after Christmas,” said Nicholas. “I realize the weather is uncommonly fine at the moment,” he added rather lamely, “but my uncle assures me that is usually not the case. We did not want to risk delaying our departure from Plymouth for anything as foolish as clothes.”
    “I see,” said Otto, swallowing this pack of nonsense unblinkingly, just as, apparently, the young man had. Against his will, Otto’s curiosity had been aroused. “You’re not one of General Bellamy’s men, are you?”
    “General Bellamy? No, sir. I was in the Royal Navy.”
    “And, pray, who is your uncle?”
    “Lord Hugh Fitzroy. Do you know him, sir?”
    Otto smiled grimly. “Oh, yes. What did you say your name was?”
    “Nicholas. Nicholas St. Austell. My friends call me Nick.”
    “Ah! You’re Anne’s nephew,” Otto said, sounding slightly less bored.
    “Yes. I did not mean to mislead you, sir,” Nicholas said quickly. “Lord Hugh is my uncle by marriage. Lady Anne Fitzroy is my aunt. My father was her younger brother.”
    Otto stared at him thoughtfully. “I read about you in the papers. The long-lost Earl of Camford.”
    Nicholas snapped his fingers. “Camford! Of course!” he exclaimed. “ That’s the name of the place. I keep getting it wrong.”
    “Do you really?” Otto said politely. “How strange.”
    “I keep calling it Candleford, for some reason.”
    “I suppose you may call it what you like,” Otto said generously. “It belongs to you, after all. I am Otto. Otto Grey. My friends call me Scarlingford. Everyone else calls me Lord Scarlingford.”
    Nicholas grimaced. “Oh, no! Are you a lord, too?”
    “Yes, Camford, I am,” Otto said patiently. “You don’t mind if I call you Camford, do you? Who knows? It may help you remember it. I am the Marquess of Scarlingford. Alas, it is only a courtesy title.”
    “Courtesy title?” Nicholas echoed, ignorant but eager to learn.
    “My father is the Duke of Chilton,” Otto explained. “I am his heir. As a courtesy, I am allowed the use of his lesser title. I should say, one of his lesser titles, for he has several.”
    Nicholas shook his head as if he would never understand. “You were born into the nobility, then,” he said glumly. “At the risk of stating the obvious again: I was not.”
    Otto laughed at him, a light, dry laugh. “Of course you were born to it. How else do you come by the title, if not by virtue of your birth?”
    Nicholas felt foolish. “The title is mine by birth, of course, but I never knew it until a few months ago. I’d never even heard of Camelford.”
    “Camford.”
    “Right! The Gorgon —that’s my ship—” He paused, a fond glint in his blue eyes. “A real beauty! A thirty-eight gunner. I wept when I left her at the dock in Plymouth.”
    “I’m sure you did. But you were telling me how you came to hear of your good fortune.”
    “My good fortune?” Nicholas said blankly.
    “Inheriting the title,” Otto said patiently.
    “Oh, right,” said Nicholas. “We had put in at the Cape for