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Unconsciously Henry reach forwards and took her hand in his showing his silent support of her. His decision became more active as his hand became joined by the other and his eyes looked at her with straining emotions. Ellie felt unsure of whether to trust him, he was so set on forging his own path. Ellie finally tightened her hand in his. Today, he was hers and if he wanted to be let in she would let him. He was taking a step towards her, she couldn't quite let him go. Ellie touched her forehead as she felt the strain of the long repressed memory.

"I completely understand your reaction. If it was myself in that situation I too would have been right angry with my siblings.  Priscilla was particularly vile when she decided to evict you out of Sanford Hall without following proper procedures. I wanted to help you and your brother and mother, but I was quite young and I couldn't risk losing my job yet with a family on the way. It was a sadness for all of us to see that Your father did not have the good sense to plan in case his health did not hold. I know he was so scared of his own family that he didn't tell his own mother that he married a Chinese woman.  She was a purist herself and hated that you looked foriegn instead of English."

"I'm not a bastard?" Ellie said slowly. The word was harsh as it came out of her mouth as if she had been on the receiving end of it as an insult. Henry's hand tightened around hers.

"I have the marriage license here. There was a big civil case back in the United Kingdom. This holding is unique in that there is no need to look to male heirs. It's absolute primogeniture so you may inherit before you uncles or first cousins. It's quite a unique situation that my colleagues in England had to deal with. You are the second family, but you have more right. But that is all just and well. Your sisters have passed on the title and all of its holdings on to you. There are several revenue streams that I can provide documents for. But you have in essence inherited the whole baronry to yourself."

It was not easy, but eventually Ellie regained control of her emotions. "I'm not surprised in the least that Priscilla would have debts in Russia.  She was taught by her mother how to play poker when she was on holiday from boarding school. But, that's another long story. You have said there is unpaid debt from here.  Is it enormous? How much of the property will be sold off? The major question I have here is what am I now in the possession of? I wouldn't be surprised if as Fates usually had it, I got the shorter end of the stick.  How much of what is mine did they ruin?"

"It's not as bad as you'd think.  There has been a bit of a deficit these past few years, but it's nothing that you can't dig yourself out of with some hard work," Lopex assured her. "There are many of us who are looking after the estate and as a caretaker we really didn't let the duo sell off as much land as they wanted to.  We were in agreement that the property as a whole was much more valuable as farmland then having tenants. Neither of them were too happy about that."

Ellie couldn't help the smile that peeked out after all the stress.  It made her delighted to think they had been thwarted. Stanford Hall had been a strange place to grow up, but she had really enjoyed hearing her father talk about its history as it has passed through the hands of generations.  It made her think warmly of her father. She would have been upset to think that she had become the successor to the title without the property that she remembered the best. It was a good news, Ellie finally decided, this was a good blessing in disguise that she had to take good advantage of.  Now she had a purpose to push towards. She finally could said with full belief. "I know money will be tight, but I am excited to start working towards a resolution. You said we have a foundation with which to stand on, so I'll make some arrangements to see where I can borrow some money to put into the farmlands.  I think in a couple years, we'll be quite good with the debt."

"I'm happy that you are money minded.  I am very sorry to have disturbed you in this way about your siblings passing and also send my deepest apologies that you could not have been present at their funerals.  I should have tried harder to find you. However, I cannot say without emphasis that I am very happy that this property is now in your hands." Lopez said this with a little bow of his head.  "I did occasionally call your mother to see how you were doing to see if I could provide for her when my career gave me some extra funds. But, she always refused and told me to spend it on my own children.  I do like the NASCAR so I have seen some of your races and am delighted to see you are one of the faces behind one of my favorite cars to bet on. I'm also happy to see that your younger brother is doing well at a good university.  I'm very shocked to see how different the Chens are from the Cave family. I am happy to see that your father's brilliance was not lost on the two of you."

"Yes," Henry agreed, "Ellie definitely got all that was good from that family.  I can see now why you never really mentioned your siblings. You know I always thought they were brothers because of how active you are.  But it makes more sense for a pair of unfortunate step siblings to push you towards more thrill activities. I doubt they shared any of your interests."

"You know how these nobility are always marrying each other instead of getting in some new blood.  I don't doubt that the intermarriage finally got in there. Their monther was not a woman wit any sense.  She was raised to be silly." Lopez shook his head in disdain. "She passed that fantasy about self aggrandizing onto those poor girls.  Maybe it's got it's own diagnosis if you asked a psychologist, but how would I know? I'm a lawyer."