The Cornish Lyon (The Lyon’s Den Connected World)

Chapter One

The Cornish Lyon

by Fil Reid

Miss Georgiana Frampton could not deny that she was in a pickle.

Aunt Patience, for whom she had nurtured a burning resentment that predated the four years she’d been in her care, had thrown her out of her house.

That this was a slight exaggeration didn’t matter a jot to Georgiana, for, even though her aunt had not herself bodily evicted her, then at the very least she had washed her hands of her niece as a “bad lot” and told her she was no longer welcome in Fitzroy Square.

Georgiana, ever a practical girl, could also not deny that this was perhaps an understandable reaction to the revelation with which she had so recently benefited her aunt.

In fact, she had to admit to finding herself in the sort of situation young ladies of good breeding should not allow themselves to get into.

And, because of this, she was now all alone in the world.

Her practicality, however, had come to her rescue.

With a stoicism worthy of her late-lamented papa, she had promptly decided that as a young woman in possession, at last, of a more than sizeable fortune, there must be some way to rescue her situation.

And it was with delight that she realized that Aunt Patience, whatever she might be thinking, was not going to be able to hold onto the purse strings a minute longer.

So, the first place Georgiana was going to call was her late father’s solicitor, Mr. Reuben Wilkes.

Mr. Wilkes’ office was in Lincoln’s Inn Fields because only the best of everything had been suitable for Mr. Percival Frampton and his fortune.

A fortune he’d inherited from his father, Mr. Elijah Frampton, as a young man of twenty-six, and multiplied many times over since then through careful investment.

Thus it was that Georgiana, her father’s only child and sole heir, found herself not at all destitute despite having been pitched out into the world by her unfeeling aunt only a few hours since.

At least, she would not be destitute once she had met with Mr. Wilkes.

Smoothing down her warm pelisse and tucking her muff under her arm, for March was living up to its reputation and going out like a lion, she pushed open Mr. Wilkes’s heavy oak door and stepped off the street.

Her solicitor’s offices were much like the offices of solicitors the world over, only never having been in a solicitor’s office, Georgiana didn’t know this.

A clerk with a long nose reminiscent of the proboscis monkey Papa had once taken her to see at the Exeter ’Change occupied a desk near the door.

A drip sparkled on the tip of this amazing nose.

He scanned her with little interest. “Yes?” Clearly, he thought young ladies not of much importance, and, after all, she was clad in one of the plain ensembles her aunt insisted on, so probably resembled a governess rather than a young lady about to get her hands on a huge fortune.

“You should never draw attention to yourself, or people will think you fast,” Aunt Patience had said when Georgiana had protested about the plainness of her gowns.

She’d soon discovered that protests were a waste of breath where her aunt was concerned.

Unused to being addressed with so little respect, Georgiana pushed her glasses back up her nose and fixed the clerk with a hard stare. The sort of hard stare that generally had her aunt’s servants running for cover.

It worked. The man sat up straighter and made a clumsy bow with his upper half. “Good afternoon, Miss. How can I be of assistance?”

“I wish to see Mr. Wilkes,” Georgiana declared, pausing to wonder what else he might think she was here for. To have her portrait painted? To buy a hat? Silly man.

“Do you have an appointment, Miss?”

An appointment? What was one of those when you were probably the richest heiress in London?

Albeit one in a pickle, of course. “No, I don’t,” she said with some asperity.

“But I know he will want to see me. Just go and tell him Miss Frampton is here.” She lowered her brows and intensified her stare.

“Miss Georgiana Frampton.” She didn’t want Mr. Wilkes thinking Aunt Patience was in his outer office.

“Off you go. Tout de suite.” Her expensive education had given her a mere smattering of French phrases, not all of which she used at appropriate moments.

The clerk did as he was told, as people usually did when confronted with Georgiana.

Well, except for Aunt Patience, of course.

Not that Georgiana had wanted to remain under her roof after all the awful things dear Papa’s only sister had said to her.

The least of them being that she was an ungrateful hussy and that her dear departed brother would be spinning in his grave if he knew what his ungrateful daughter had done.

All the awful things that had been said on both sides, if she was honest, as she had not been behind the door in reciting the long list of complaints she’d been harboring about her aunt.

The re-opening of the door through which the clerk had departed distracted her from her dark thoughts.

The clerk emerged, followed by a short, fat man whose bald head was covered by an old-fashioned horsehair wig, his face wreathed in a welcoming, and also somewhat ingratiating, smile.

As well it might be, considering how much money he’d made out of her father and would now do so out of her as well.

“Miss Frampton. What a surprise. Delighted to see you. Please come into my office. Pegwell, fetch us some tea. No, some ratafia. The best. Quickly now, man.” He took Georgiana’s gloved hand in his pudgy one and ushered her through the door into his oak-panelled office.

“Do sit down, my dear Miss Frampton. Let me get you a cushion.”

Georgiana accepted the cushion in the small of her back as she settled in a comfortable wooden armchair in front of a vast oak desk. Mr. Wilkes retreated back behind it and sat down. “I trust you are well, Miss Frampton?”

She answered this with a slight inclination of her head.

He seemed satisfied with that. “Now, what can I do for you today?”

She was prevented from answering by the arrival of Pegwell with the ratafia. He placed a tray with a decanter and two glasses on the desk in front of his employer and beat a hasty retreat.

Mr. Wilkes poured and offered her a glass, took a sip from his own, and gazed at her expectantly.

She ignored the proffered glass and took a breath.

“As you must know,” she began, determined to control the situation.

“I turned twenty-one on the twelfth of February this year and have thus been of age these past six weeks.” She held his gaze.

“I find myself at odds with my aunt who has been my guardian for the past four years and, as I am now of age, I believe it is time I set up my own establishment and took control of my money. I intend to live at my father’s house from now on. ”

Mr. Wilkes’ eyes had been growing rounder and rounder. No doubt he was not at all used to young ladies her age, even those without mother or father, taking charge of their own money. He opened his mouth to speak, but she held up an imperious hand to prevent him.

“I may still be young, but you must know that both legally and mentally I am perfectly able to manage my own fortune. Thus I would like you to desist in forwarding the stipend you were paying my aunt for taking the trouble to be my guardian these past four years and redirect it to me. She is a wealthy woman herself so will not miss it. However, I, at this precise moment in time, find myself entirely without any blunt to call my own. I am here, Mr. Wilkes, to set that matter straight with immediate effect.”

Mr. Wilkes opened and shut his mouth a few times, reminding Georgiana of the goldfish in Aunt Patience’s garden pond.

It was a moment or two before he found his voice.

“Miss Frampton, have you quite thought this through? I feel I have to point out that you are still very young to be living an… independent lifestyle. At your age a duenna, or a companion of some sort, is usually required. Is, in fact, considered de rigueur. Essential. Might I ask why it is you feel you can no longer reside with your aunt?”

“No, you may not.” Georgiana struggled to control the anger rising in her chest for a moment, and poor Mr. Wilkes visibly quaked in his boots. She could see him thinking it would not do to offend his richest client. Good.

He managed a nervous smile, no doubt thinking that if she wished, she could take her business elsewhere now she was twenty-one. “I must apologise, Miss Frampton. I didn’t mean to upset you.” He indicated her untouched glass. “Ratafia?”

She shook her head. For a reason she was keeping to herself, she didn’t feel in the least like imbibing anything alcoholic.

“Let us not beat about the bush, Mr. Wilkes. You will be dealing with me from now on. I shall be retaining the services of Mr. Partington, my father’s man of business, as he served my father well, and you may continue to deal with him as before.

However, I shall be requiring to see his balance sheets at least once a year so that I might determine which of my investments might need changes.

You will find that I have no intention, now I have escaped the confines of my aunt’s establishment, of sitting back and letting others run my estate with no reference to my wishes. ”

Mr. Wilkes nodded and remembered to close his mouth which had fallen open at this statement.

His expression very much resembled that of someone who had been sucking on several sour lemons.

“Of course, Miss Frampton. Might I assume that you will be repairing to Milborne House in Bedford Square? Do you require me to have it prepared for you? I believe a skeleton staff remain in residence.”