Taking Liberties by Diana Norman

well. One of those unfortunate scandals occurring in even the best-regulated families.
    â€˜Your great-grandad’s elder brother, he was. You’ve heard of him, surely.’
    Diana was spared a reply because Mrs Nicholls, in manic chatter, expanded on the story at length while the Dowager dwelt on a more edited version among her own mental archives.
    Jerome Pomeroy. The only one of her ancestors for whom Aymer had shown any admiration, one of the rakes whose debauchery had flourished with the encouragement of Charles II, libertine and poet, a member of the Earl of Rochester’s set until, like Rochester’s— and Aymer, come to think of it—venereal disease had sent him frantic for his soul’s salvation, to which end he had joined a sect of self-professed monks in East Anglia and died, raving.
    At that point a certain Polly James, actress, had entered the scene, claiming the Pomeroy barony for her infant son on the grounds that Jerome had married her three years before. The hearing in the Court of Arches had proved that, if there had indeed been a marriage, it was of the jump-over-broomstick type of ceremony and, in any case, could not be proved.
    Polly and her son were subsequently provided for, sent into oblivion and the title had passed to Jerome’s younger brother, Diana’s great-grandfather.
    â€˜. . . there,’tis wunnerful strange, your ladyship. You and me sitting here so friendly. Both of us Pomeroys. Just think, now, if it had gone the other way, I’d be the ladyship, wouldn’t I? And my son over there, he’d be Baron Pomeroy.’ She waved a waggish finger. ‘I do hope as we’re not going to fall out over it.’
    â€˜I doubt it.’
    The woman’s account of their kinship might or might not be true—it very well could be. In either case, it hardly mattered now; since she herself had been an only child, the title had passed to a distant cousin in Surrey and a claim to it could not be resurrected at this late stage.
    â€˜Very interesting, Mrs Nicholls. Now, if you will excuse me . . .’ She rose to get away from the eyes that were so at odds with the woman’s over-jovial manner.
    â€˜Oh, but you got to meet my son.’ Mrs Nicholls gestured frantically at a man over the other side of the room, watching the dancing.
    Diana had already noticed him. Amidst all the gaudiness and glitter, the plainness of his uniform stood out, though it was undoubtedly a uniform—like a naval officer’s dress coat but lacking its ornamentation. Without the epaulettes, braiding and the silver binding to the buttonholes, its dark blue cloth seemed to take in light and give none back.
    So did the man, which was why the Dowager had noticed him. He was thirtyish, regular-featured, not unhandsome, yet there was an extraordinary non-reflectiveness to him, as if the chatter of the people around him and the music were being sucked into a well. He was alone, even in a crowd.
    At his mother’s signal, he came towards them without changing his expression.
    â€˜Yere, ma dear,’ Mrs Nicholls said. ‘This is the Countess of Stacpoole—you know who she is, don’t ee? Your ladyship, this yere’s my son, Captain Walter Nicholls. We gave ’un Walter in memory of Sir Walter Pomeroy, him bein’ a descendant.’
    Captain Nicholls’s response to knowledge of who she was puzzled the Dowager. It might have been that of a hunter who had waited all his life for the sight of one particular quarry—yet there was no excitement in it, merely an added, almost relaxing, quietness. Had he been a master of hounds, his so-ho would have been uttered in a whisper, but both dogs and fox would have known it was doomed.
    Most disturbing. Did he resent her? No, it wasn’t resentment, it was . . . she didn’t know what it was and would spend no further time on it.
    â€˜Your ladyship.’
    â€˜Captain Nicholls.’
    The