by M C Beaton
As she lay warm and content in his arms after a tumultuous night, hearing the sparrows squabbling in the gutters and the hoarse cry of the watch, Freddie murmured languidly, “It has all turned out so beautifully. I wish everyone in the world were as happy as I, except Lady Rennenord and those two Hope sisters, and let us not forget Captain Cramble.”
“They’ll get their comeuppance,” said the earl sleepily. “Villains don’t escape forever.” She stirred against him, and he looked down at her with a wicked gleam in his eyes. “What’s this, my sweeting? Wouldst die of passion?”
“Why not?” demanded the countess of Berham.
“Why not, indeed?” said the earl of Berham, sliding her nightgown down over her shoulders.
Captain Cramble was already dead. He had contracted an inflammation of the lungs after being drenched in the storm.
The two Hope sisters had set sail for America after a weary journey on foot to Dover.
Penniless and destitute, they had arrived at Dover, where a very kind gentleman had taken them under his wing. He knew the captain of a vessel bound for the New World, he had said. The good captain would give them free passage, and he would arrange for them to be met at the other side.
Cassandra and Mary gladly agreed. By the time they realized they were being sold as slaves, it was too late.
Mary did not survive the long passage. The conditions aboard the ship were appalling, for white slaves only fetched fourteen pounds sterling. Since one could sell a good black for one hundred and forty four pounds, no one was particularly anxious about the welfare of the whites.
Cassandra became servant to a woman in Connecticut who was louder, more tyranical, and more bullying than she herself had ever been.
The earl bought the cottage from Mrs. Bellisle and presented it to Miss Manson in the hope that she would retire to it as soon as possible.
Lady Rennenord eventually married a rich merchant, not finding out until the knot was well and truly tied that he was an incredible miser.
She did not even have a visit from her brother to look forward to, since she had told Harry Struthers-Benton never to call again. For on his last visit, all he had done was prattle on insensitively and endlessly about what a deuced happy couple Lord and Lady Berham were, and about how their love match was the talk of the town.
