An Englishman's property inheritance in Midwest America leads to romance between a womanizing son of a recently deceased Duke and a beautiful but feisty attorney. Both harbor an unfulfilled desire to find a mate who'd exceeded their expectations.
Chapter 1
In late spring the
Mornington Daily News
reported at length the death of the Duke of Beaulieu in the county of Hampshire, England, aged eighty-seven. The obituary was noted with considerable relief in the small city of Mornington-on-Test in America Midwest, with those citizens wondering if the demise of the Duke ended some 175 years of invasive dominance of the English-spawned Carrington family on their city.
Mornington spreads on both sides of the city's river Test, an unusual name for an American river, but in 1832 English aristocrat Lord Charles Carrington, third son of the Duke Of Beaulieu and the recent purchaser (on his father's behalf) of the city site and a considerable area of plains beyond it, succeeded in having political pals in high places push through the name change with wide support from other people who also found the ancient Indian name difficult to pronounce.
On that day the death of the Duke of Beaulieu was reported, Mayor Al Kennedy called an emergency meeting of council to discuss what action to take. Mayor Kennedy wanted his council to figure out how to seize the land from the Carrington stranglehold, hopefully without having to outlay too much money.
One of the nine councilors attending that meeting was recently elected Kitty Carlisle-Bowden who called herself Kitty Carlisle. Kitty suggested the council offer the Duke $4 million for the purchase of the Carrington Estate in the heart of downtown Mornington and being the only realistic suggestion, that proposal was adopted.
The council was aware its bold plan could fail because on numerous summer vacations to the city, the heir apparent and womanizing elder son of the Duke, the Marquess of Chawton, had been openly contemptuous of Mornington. In one instance during an interview on local television, Lord Chawton called Mornington 'a poxy place bereft of culture but remarkable for its quality of loose women'. That, of course, reinforced dislike of the arrogant Carrington brood.
The mayor and council agreed the 12th Duke of Beaulieu would surely see merit in having the land preserved in perpetuity as city parkland. The vivacious Kitty, youngest of the councilors by far at thirty-one, had suggested the land be named Carrington Park and the home on the estate converted into the city's long needed arts center, to be called the Carrington Memorial Arts Center to tempt the new Duke to rid himself of his connection with the place he'd labeled poxy.
While the mayor and other councilors hurried home to their loved ones, Kitty walked to her apartment overlooking Carrington Estate, completely unaware she'd triggered a process that would suck her into the Carrington dynasty.
No one was more devout about seeing Carrington family members purged from the city environs than Kitty Carlisle-Bowden. She had to suggest enshrining that detested name in the city's history as a matter of expediency, having assumed the new Duke wouldn't accept a below market price sale without some accompanying incentive.
Kitty looked across to the Carrington Mansion and smiled: Over many generations her family had been harassed and finally crushed by the Carrington's directly descended from Lord Charles Carrington who'd settled in America and adopted northern values, whereas the originally prosperous Carlisle-Bowden settlers had migrated from Louisiana.
Bad feeling between the two families arose through the original Carrington settlers being used to dominance. The arrivals from Louisiana had slipped in without anyone else aware they were a family of concealed wealth. Eventually the Carrington's were horrified to discover they had a rival in their domain. Their landholdings were being willing divested very profitably when it became apparent the Carlisle-Bowden's had acquired large tracts of that land, and so the feuding began. Eventually the feuding died -- as did some of the frontline feuding folk on both sides and almost all survivors and kin either died off or relocated. Today Kitty was the only Carlisle-Bowden left in the region and others of American Carrington descent were all but gone.
* * *
Kitty wasn't surprised that the mayor and the city administrator had not invited her to accompany them when they left next day for England. They took their wives and the foursome could be expected to tour Britain, at the city's expense, while the incoming Duke and his kin and lawyers considered the council's proposal.
In bed that night Kitty recalled how it all began. Mornington was established in the early 1830s as the village site on the estate of the recently retired army major, Lord Charles Carrington. Known in America simply as Charlie and acknowledged as the black sheep of the family, Charlie was paid handsomely by his father to settle in America. The hard-living and hard-fighting son of unsavory character when living in England had run up gambling debts and killed civilians in duels including two who'd accused the drunkard of impregnating their wives.
Water buffalo, antelope, goats, wild boar, foxes, pheasants and Canadian moose were brought in by the influential rogue to stock his lands to provide sport for the more bloodthirsty of his pals in high places and visiting nobility and lesser dignitaries from the Old Country. But a continuous replacement program of game restocking ended within a few years when Charlie admitted defeat. For every head of game shot by influential guest, something like ten were shot by intruders including Indians or taken by rustlers or died from the effects of snow, drought or lightening strikes.
With new territorial boundaries and Indian threats settled, settlers were spilling in and offered good prices for land. Charlie's original estate had grown quickly to 1,137,450 acres and during the next 100 years was sold. Today the estate, now back in English ownership, on the eastern riverbank of Mornington totals a mere five acres right in the heart of downtown. Its value was currently assessed, with the bulk of it restricted from development by open land zoning, at $5.15 million.
For the past fifty years, successive generations of Carrington's based in New York and the principal branch based in England, had used the sprawling dwelling as a summer residence. With twenty-four bedrooms, there had been room for three generations at a time to share the accommodation. That Great House was lost to fire during an electrical storm five years ago and the Duke had it replaced with an architecturally designed grand dwelling of only ten bedrooms.
That big house would be an ideal arts center, mused Kitty preparing to go to sleep. Kitty had a degree in fine arts to go with her law degree and was developing as a landscape artist, preferring to paint in watercolors. She drifted into sleep thinking if her proposal succeeded, the Carrington's would be responsible for lifting the level of culture in a community so apparently detested by the incoming Duke.
From a recess within her mind as Kitty's eyes fluttered closed came the unladylike thought that the Carrington's wouldn't know the difference between art and their assholes. Kitty was well aware there was a rebellious gene in her that prevented her from consistently thinking elegantly. That was why she'd never aspired to be anyone but her natural self. In family tradition her father, when alive, had periodically lectured her and her older brother Dean (who drowned ten years ago) that the Carrington's were and always would be assholes.
* * *
The legacy of the quest to acquire Carrington Estate in Mornington amounted to bitter disappointment and, as well, 105 invoices and receipts plus credit card billings from the extravagant spending in Britain by the mayor and city administrator and their wives. The incoming Duke had eventually told the delegation from Mornington to 'get lost'.
Kitty upset the mayor's pal who chaired the finance committee on which she served when she insisted the committee go through the claims for reimbursement with 'due diligence'. Max King, the chairman, told her to be quiet and moved the committee approve the claims 'as submitted.' Smiling sweetly Kitty said, "Mr Chairman, unless these two claims for reimbursement are considered with due diligence I shall initiate legal proceedings to have the actions of this committee reviewed by a court-appointed Public Commission to look into my claim that criminal actions have taken place within this committee."
Not unexpectedly the committee exercised due diligence and disallowed claims totally $11,369 from the mayor and $9,019 from the city administrator.
Not unexpectedly, the mayor called Kitty to his office.
"Good morning Kitty," said snake eyes. "Coffee?"
"Yes please Al."
"You know Kitty," Al soothed, at the bench pouring coffee. "As a newcomer on council you may be unaware of some of our customary procedures."
"I consider myself expertly informed on procedures as published in the booklet titled, Handbook for Councilors, dated 2007 that I know to be the current publication Al."
"There are some procedures that are unwritten policy."
Kitty took the coffee offered and smiled, "Al, let me be perfectly clear. If you or anyone else on council or council administration attempts to coerce me into questionable and clearly illicit practices, I shall nail each and every person so involved."
"Yes, quite so Kitty. Now turning to something different, I would like to know your thoughts about me switching you from finance to chair a new committee, um, called recreation and arts."
"What is the reason behind that?"
"I had studied your CV and noticed that you performed with distinction at college and law school in middle distance running, tennis and had some success in swimming and you list your recreational interests as fitness, tennis, kayaking, judo and landscape painting. It occurred to me that you have the interests and attributes to head this new committee of three councilors."
