Prologue
1827
Nine-year-old Viscount Randall gazed toward Lyme’s coast
but didn’t see where the glistening water met the vast
sky. He was too lost in a vivid daydream of being all
grown-up, wearing the black robes of the British prime
minister, and delivering a blistering piece of oratorical
brilliance to Parliament about why perfectly reasonable
boys shouldn’t be forced to spend their summer holidays
with jingle-brained girls.
“You know when your dog rubs against me it’s because he
wants to make babies,” said Isabella St. Vincent, the
most jingled-brained girl of them all, interrupting his
musings.
The two children picnicked on a large rock as their
fathers roamed about the cliffs, searching for ancient
sea creatures. Their papas were new and fast friends, but
the offspring were not so bonded, as evidenced by the
line of seaweed dividing Randall’s side of the rock from
hers.
“All male species have the barbaric need to rub against
females,” she continued as she spread strawberry
preserves on her biscuit.
She was always blurting out odd things. For instance,
yesterday, when he had been concentrating hard on
cheating in a game of whist in hopes of finally beating
her, she had piped up, “Do you know the interest of the
Bank of England rose by a half a percentage?” Or last
night, when she caught him in the corridor as he was
trying to sneak a hedgehog into her room in revenge for
losing every card game to her, including the ones he
cheated at. “I’m going to purchase canal stocks instead
of consuls with my pin money because at my young age, I
can afford greater investment risks,” she’d said,
shockingly oblivious to the squirming, prickly rodent
under his coat.
Despite being exactly one week younger than he was, she
towered over him by a good six inches. Her legs were too
long for her flat torso. An enormous head bobbled atop
her neck. Her pale skin contrasted with her thick, wiry
black hair, which shot out in all directions. And if that
wasn’t peculiar enough, she gazed at the world through
lenses so thick that astronomers could spot new planets
with them, but she needed them just to see her own hands.
Hence, he took great glee in hiding them from her.
“You’re so stupid.” He licked fluffy orange cream icing
from a slice of cake. “Everyone knows babies come when a
woman marries a man, and she lies in bed at night,
thinking about yellow daffodils and pink lilies. Then God
puts a baby in her belly.” He used an exaggerated
patronizing tone befitting a brilliant, powerful viscount
destined for prime ministership—even if “viscount” was
only a courtesy title. Meanwhile, Isabella was merely a
scary, retired merchant’s daughter whom no one would ever
want to marry. And, after all, a female’s sole purpose in
life was to get married and have children.
“No, you cabbage-headed dolt,” she retorted. “Cousin
Judith told me! She said girls shouldn’t be ignorant
about the matters of life.” Isabella’s Irish mother had
died, so Cousin Judith was her companion. Randall’s mama
claimed that Judith was one of those “unnatural sorts”
who supported something terrible called “rights of
women.” He didn’t understand the specifics, except that
it would destroy the very fabric of civilized society. He
would certainly abolish it when he was prime minister.
“Judith said that for a woman to produce children, she,
unfortunately, requires a man.” Isabella’s gray eyes grew
into huge round circles behind her spectacles. “That he,
being of simple, base nature and mind, becomes excited at
the mere glimpse of a woman’s naked body.”
He was about to interject that she was wrong again—girls
were never right—but stopped, intrigued by the naked
part. Nudity, passing gas, and burping were his favorite
subjects.
“Anyway, a man has a penis,” she said. “It’s a puny,
silly-looking thing that dangles between his limbs.”
He gazed down at the tiny bulge in his trousers. He had
never considered his little friend silly.
“When a man sees the bare flesh of a woman, it becomes
engorged,” she said. “And he behaves like a primitive ape
and wants to insert it into the woman’s sacred vagina. My
cousin said that was the passage between a woman’s legs
that leads to the holy chamber of her womb.”
“The what?” Where was this holy chamber? He was suddenly
overcome with wild curiosity to see one of these sacred
vaginas.
“Judith said the man then moves back and forth in an
excited, animalistic fashion for approximately ten
seconds, until he reaches an excited state called orgasm.
Then he ejaculates his seed into the woman’s bodily
temple, thus making a baby.”
His dreams of future political power, the shimmering
ocean, fluffy vanilla-orange icing, and a prank on
Isabella involving a dead, stinking fish all seemed
unimportant. He gazed at his crotch and then her lap—the
most brilliant idea he ever conceived lighting up his
brain. “I’ll show you my penis if you show me your
vagina.” He flashed his best why-aren’t-you-just-an-
adorable-little-thing smile, which, when coupled with his
blond hair and angelic, bright blue eyes, charmed his
nannies into giving him anything he wanted. However, his
cherubic looks and charm didn’t work on arctic-hearted
Isabella.
“You idiot!” She flicked a spoonful of preserves at his
face.
“You abnormal, cracked, freakish girl!” he cried. “I only
play with you because my father makes me.” He smeared her
spectacles with icing. In retaliation, she grabbed her
jar of lemonade and doused him.
When their fathers and nurses found them, she was atop
the young viscount, now slathered in jam, icing, mustard,
and sticky lemonade, pummeling him with her little fists.
Mr. St. Vincent yanked his daughter up.
“She just hit me for no reason,” Randall wailed, adopting
his poor-innocent-me sad eyes. “I didn’t do anything to
her.”
“Young lady, you do not hit boys,” her father admonished.
“Especially fine young viscounts. You’ve embarrassed me
again.”
“I’m sorry, Papa,” Isabella cried, bereft under her
father’s hard gaze. Humiliation wafted from her ungainly
body and Randall felt a pang of sympathy, but it didn’t
diminish the joy of knowing she had gotten in trouble and
he hadn’t.
The Earl of Hazelwood placed a large hand on the back of
Randall’s neck and gave his son a shake. “Son, we didn’t
find any old sea creatures, but Mr. St. Vincent has come
up with a brilliant idea to help our tenants and provide
a dependable monthly income.” He turned to his friend.
“We are starting the Bank of Lord Hazelwood. Mr. St.
Vincent and I will be the major shareholders and we will
add another board member from the village.”
Even as a small child, Randall had an uneasy, gnawing
feeling in his gut about this business venture that none
of Mr. St. Vincent’s strange terms, such as financial
stabilization, wealth building, or reliable means for
tenant borrowing and lending, could dissuade. He was
never going to get rid of that rotten Isabella.
***
Through the years, he and she remained like two hostile
countries in an uneasy truce; a lemonade-throwing, cake-
splatting war could break out at any moment. Randall
would indeed follow his path to political fame, winning a
seat in Parliament after receiving a Bachelor of Arts
from St. John’s College, Cambridge. He basked in the
adoration of London society as the Tory golden boy. To
support Randall’s London lifestyle, the Earl of Hazelwood
signed over a large amount of the bank’s now quite
profitable shares to his son.
He came home from Parliament when he was twenty-three to
witness Isabella standing stoic and haunted with no black
veil to hide her pale face from the frigid January air as
they lowered her father into the frozen earth. Having no
husband, she inherited her father’s share in the bank and
began to help run it. The two enemies’ lives would be
hopelessly entwined through the institution born that
fateful day in Lyme, when Randall learned how babies were
made.
For the next five years, bank matters rolled along
smoothly. Then the board secretary passed away
unexpectedly, leaving his portion to his young bachelor
nephew, Mr. Anthony Powers.
That’s when all manner of hell broke loose.
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