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asked. "Far be it from me to presume to intrude in your family's affairs, but..."
    "Oh, Alan, you who've done so much for this family already," she warmed to him, leaning over to lay a gloved hand on his sleeve. "As if we don't consider you kin by now... of sorts! You do not intrude to ask me anything."
    "Then what's going on?" he shrugged.
    "When Father lost his leg and fell ill, he was months in bed," Caroline sighed, looking away down the toppling downs toward the sea to the south. "Governour was head of the family, then. But he was still estate manager to Uncle Phiqeas. And just married to Millicent Embleton. So, by rights, Uncle Phineas is the master of the land. And of our lives. What did the Romans call it... paterfamilias'!"
    "And the booty that Burgess sent home from India did not help?"
    "Only in improving our finances," Caroline said with a frown. "But not in our station, you see. We are still tenants. Relatives, yes, but mostly tenants when it comes to Uncle Phineas. We had hoped for a warmer reception from blood kin."
    "I remember in London, when we were finding Burge his situation, your uncle did not sound wholly ... solicitous and charitable to you."
    "It was his obligation, nothing more," Caroline told him. "A chore of blood. He was eldest, responsible for his younger brother's folly. That's what our plantation was in the Carolinas... folly. Their father united the two estates after my granduncle died without issue. I've always felt Uncle Phineas feared that Father would split it again, even after getting a fair price for it when he sailed for the Colonies. He didn't have to pay him a shilling for it, after all. He was the eldest, due to inherit everything."
    "Yet he gave back 120 acres, for a guinea a year," Alan pointed out.
    "Oh, yes, he rented back 120 acres. But that ended last year!" Caroline almost hissed in anger. "Father too ill to work it, Gove up on the larger tract, or pining for the Embleton land ... who else could do it? Mother? My mother is a dear woman, Alan, but she depended on my poor father for everything! It could have settled on Burgess, but you know what he thinks of farming."
    "And Governour makes no objections?" Alan asked, unable to see the (used-to-be) fiery young hawk-face accede to losing land.
    "Dearest Alan, Governour will inherit all when the time comes," Caroline barked in sour amusement "The last, eldest Chiswick male. Then Uncle Phineas will have what he's always wanted."
    "And what is that?" Alan asked.
    "An heir to hold the land. If he's said it the once, he's said it anhundred times." She frowned. "The land is forever. Men and women rise up and die, but the land is always. And he doesn't want to see it in a stranger's hands. The Embletons get what they want as well," she almost spat in conclusion. "And that is?"
    "That the two biggest estates are united." Caroline shivered. "After all these years, with Governour and Millicent wed, they are linked."
    "Now I see why Governour would not object," Alan laughed in understanding. "There's always the off-chance he'd outlive Harry and end up with it all?"
    "Oh, yes!" Caroline nodded. "And to ensure his complaisance, Sir Romney's putting Governour up for Commons next by-election, as his pet member from a rotten borough he controls up north. Harry already sits for Anglesgreen. There're not twenty men with the hundred pounds in rents or income to vote here, and even less in Teverly New Town." Caroline shrugged, then smiled ruefully. "Forgive me, Alan, a woman is not to know such, or involve herself in men's doings, but that's the way things stand here."
    "As if that ever stopped you!" Alan hooted, trying to cosset her out of her bleak mood. "I've seen you before, remember, so eager to talk about any subject, then fade back into the woodwork when you think you've overstepped yourself. What a bloody waste!"
    "Thank you, Alan, I do appreciate your understanding." Caroline truly smiled for the first time that morning. "Yes, I find it hard