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should your father’s behavior reflect upon you?”
    Fortunately, Mr Shields was anxious to get back to the main topic of our meeting.   “In addition to his late lordship’s personal debts there are several other demands on the estate I must mention, my lord.”
    “More debts?” Evan asked, his voice dangerously quiet.
    Mr. Shields looked unhappy. “It’s more like a failure of responsibility, my lord. The retired servants have not been receiving their pensions.”
    I felt stabbed to the heart. “Dear God, Mr. Shields. Nanny? William Coachman? Mrs. Henley, our old housekeeper? They haven’t been getting their pensions?”
    “I’m afraid not, Lady Julia.”
    Evan said, “You will have to explain this to me, Mr. Shields. The earl pays pensions to his servants when they retire?”
    “All the great aristocratic families do so, my lord. Not every servant, of course, but people who have been with the family for almost an entire life-time receive a pension.”
    “So that is an additional cost upon the estate?”
    “Yes, my lord.”
    “Why are they not able to save for their own old age?” Evan’s voice was reasonable.
    “They don’t make enough money, my lord.” Shields said.
    Evan turned to me. “How much do you pay your servants, Julia?”
    “Do you mean how much I am paying Cook and Lucy now, or how much should they be paid?
    “How much is the usual sum to pay a servant in this country?”
    I told him.
    His eyes shot sapphire sparks. “I pay my cook and housekeeper three times that amount. And they get a quarter of a year’s salary at Christmas. No wonder your servants can’t save any money. They’re paid like paupers!”
    I flushed with anger. Who was this colonial to criticize us? “I can assure you that English servants are treated very well. They have their own rooms, new uniforms every year, and a half-day off a week!”
    “If this was America you wouldn’t be able to hire anyone under those conditions,” he retorted.
    “At least we pay them something! And they’re free to leave when they want. We don’t have slaves here, my lord, like you do in your precious country.”
    His face grew very grim. “Slavery exists mostly in the south, and we are working to get rid of it. I personally would never own a slave.”
    “Good for you,” I said nastily.
    Mr. Shields cleared his throat, and after a few seconds we broke eye contact and looked back at the solicitor. He said, “There is more than just the pensions to worry about, my lord.”
    Evan’s jaw set. “Go on.”
    “I regret to tell you, my lord, that your late uncle also took the money that had been set aside for his daughter’s dowries. Lady Julia and Lady Maria have been left with nothing.”
    Mr. Shields hadn’t told me this. I looked down at the table and a chill ran down my spine. Maria and I had been ‘ left with nothing ?’ My father had killed himself and thrown us on the mercy of this American he had never even met. If my father wasn’t already dead, I would have killed him myself right there and then.
    Evan avoided looking at me, which I appreciated. It’s not easy to realize you are totally dependent on someone you don’t even know. I put my hands in my lap and clenched them together.
    Evan said, “So my uncle committed suicide because he couldn’t see a way out of his financial problems and decided to dump them on me.”
    Neither Mr. Shields nor I said anything. The answer was obvious to us all.
    “And I can’t sell Stoverton because of this entail?”
    “That is right my lord.”
    “Wonderful,” Evan muttered. “What about all the paintings and the other priceless statues and stuff that Julia showed me. Can I sell them?”
    “I am afraid not, my lord,” Shields answered regretfully. “The entail includes the house and all its contents.”
    “What about selling off some of the land?”
    I was almost breathless with terror as I answered, “The land is our only source of income, Evan! Any business shares