Nicola Cornick - Confessions of a Duchess

The History and Antiquities of North Yorkshire by Lady Melicent Beaumont

Fortune’s Folly, population eight hundred and fifty-six, is a large village in north Yorkshire some twelve miles from the market town of Skipton. The village was originally called Fort-tun from the Old English, meaning a fort built on the site of an earlier farm. It is referred to as Fortune in a document from 1232 and has been known by that name ever since. The word Folly, from the Old French fol , meaning a fool, was added in 1455 when George Fortune, the lord of the manor, tried to repel a Lancastrian attack during the Wars of the Roses and accidentally blew up his own garrison instead.

The current lord of the manor is Sir Montague Fortune, baronet, who resides at Fortune Hall with his brother Thomas and half-sister Lady Elizabeth Scarlet. Sir Montague is considered by all the populace to be very much in the mould of his ancestor George Fortune.

Other major houses in the village are The Old Palace, once the property of the prior of Fortune and currently the residence of Laura, Dowager Duchess of Cole, and the attractive modern villa Spring House, which was recently purchased by the heiress Miss Alice Lister of Harrogate.

There is a lively social season in Fortune’s Folly that centres on the spa baths, the assembly rooms and the circulating library. There are two inns – The Granby Hotel, which is for the discerning visitor, and The Morris Clown for those slightly less plump of pocket and not too discriminating about the quality of their fellow guests. Whichever category you fall into, we hope you enjoy your visit!

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Go, take thine angle, and with practiced line

Light as the gossamer, the current sweep;

And if thou failest in the calm, still deep,

In the rough eddy may a prize be thine.

—Thomas Doubleday

Brooks’s Club, London, July 1809

“SHE REFUSED ME!”

Sir Montague Fortune swept through the library of Brooks’s Club, scattered the gambling counters on the faro table with the edge of his sleeve and gave no apology, and deposited himself in an indignant flurry in a chair beside the Earl of Waterhouse. He smoothed one shaking hand over his hair and beckoned impatiently to a club servant to fetch him brandy.

“Ungrateful minx,” he muttered. “That I, one of the Fortunes of Fortune’s Folly should seek to ally myself with the servant classes and be rejected!” He swallowed half the glass of brandy in one gulp and gave the assembled group a furious glare. “Do you know what she called me? A bibulous country squire with watery eyes!” He reached for the brandy bottle that the servant had thoughtfullyleft on a low table beside him, refilled his glass and frowned slightly. “What does bibulous mean?”

“Damned if I know,” Nathaniel Waterhouse said comfortably. “Dex was the one who shone at Oxford whilst the rest of us were running wild. Dex?”

Dexter Anstruther, thus applied to, raised his shrewd blue gaze from The Times and looked from the squire of Fortune’s Folly to the brandy bottle and back again.

“It means that you drink too much, Monty,” he drawled. He looked across at Miles, Lord Vickery, the fourth member of the group, who was smiling quizzically at Montague Fortune’s indignation.

“Am I missing something here?” Miles inquired. “Who is the discerning lady who has rejected Monty’s suit?”

“You’ve been in the Peninsular so long you’ve missed the on dit, old fellow,” Waterhouse said. “Monty here has been paying ardent court to Miss Alice Lister, a former housemaid, if gossip is to be believed, who is now the richest heiress in Fortune’s Folly. He offered her his hand and his heart in return for her money but the sensible female has evidently rejected him.” He turned to Monty Fortune. “Surely you have not traveled all the way up to London just to bring us the bad news, Monty?”

“No,” Montague Fortune huffed. “I have come up to consult my lawyer and study the Fortune’s Folly estate papers.”

“Very laudable,” Dexter murmured. “Exactly what one would hope for in a responsible landowner.”

Monty Fortune glared at him. “It is not for the benefit of my tenants,” he protested. “It is so that I can get my hands on the money!”

“Whose money?” Dexter asked.

“Everyone’s money!” Sir Montague barked. “It is not appropriate that half the population of Fortune’s Folly should be richer than the squire!”

The others exchanged looks of covert amusement. The Fortunes were an old gentry family, perfectly respectable but with an inflated view of their own importance, and Sir Montague’s single-minded pursuit of money was considered by some to be very bad Ton.

“What does Tom think of your plans, Monty?” Dexter asked, referring to Sir Montague’s younger brother.

Sir Montague looked annoyed. “Said I was a grasping leech on other people’s lives and went off to spend my substance at the gambling tables,” he said.

The others laughed.

“And Lady Elizabeth?” Nat asked lazily. Lady Elizabeth Scarlet was Sir Montague’s debutante half sister and a veritable thorn in his side.

“I cannot repeat Lizzie’s language to you,” Sir Montague said primly. “It is far too shocking!”

The laughter of the others increased.

Miles leaned forward. “So what are you planning, Monty?”

“I intend to assert my rights as lord of the manor,” Sir Montague said, self-importantly. “There is a medieval law called the Dames’ Tax that has never been repealed. It permits the lord of the manor to levy a tithe on every unmarried woman in the village.”

Miles’s lips formed a soundless whistle. “How much is the tithe?”

“I can take half their fortune!” Sir Montague announced triumphantly.

There was a shocked silence around the group. “Monty,” Dexter said slowly, “did I understand you correctly? It is in your power to levy a tax of half their wealth on all unmarried women in Fortune’s Folly?”