Devonshire, England 1793

Keiko and Yusuke used to measure their heights by carving notches into the schoolroom wall. Born less than a year apart, they stood head-to-head from the ages of five and six until Yusuke had his first growth spurt at age twelve (that was around the time Yusuke entered the Navy as a midshipman). Keiko was cross for days after she noticed that Yusuke had made his notch an inch or two above hers. But she caught up with him by the time he was granted a Christmas furlough two years later.
They'd both reached their full heights (five foot three and five foot five respectively) the last time Keiko saw Yusuke three summers ago and Yusuke, then seventeen to her sixteen, would forever be taller than her. The last two notches on the wall were from when they measured themselves, for old time's sake, before Yusuke set sail again to bother the poor French in some godforsaken corner of the world. He left Keiko behind to wish, rather unpatriotically, that the  French would sink him to the bottom of the sea and live in fear of just such a thing happening.

Keiko picked up her pen and finished writing her letter to Sensui. She kept her correspondence with her fiancé brief. Men, even the ones that claimed to love them, were rarely interested in what women had to say.
Carriage wheels crunched on the drive outside the schoolroom window.
"Someone's here," said Yukina. Keiko turned toward her cousin, who'd risen from where she'd been feeding an impressive collection of songbirds flitting about inside a miniature wrought iron cathedral to see who'd arrived. "It's Mr. Kuwabara." 

Yukina's brother, Hiei, older by a year, looked up from behind a pamphlet and sniffed. "What could he want?"
Keiko giggled. Wasn't it obvious? "To see Yukina, of course."
Mr. Kuwabara had been a gone man since June when he assisted Yukina after she slipped and twisted her ankle during a walk. Keiko ran alongside them as Mr. Kuwabara carried Yukina to the cottage where she lived with her mother and acted as a chaperone when Mr. Kuwabara visited Yukina almost everyday during her recovery. Each visit, Mr. Kuwabara brought bouquets of cornflowers and baskets of wild strawberries and when he learned Yukina enjoyed poetry, he brought volumes of Cowper and Shakespeare, probably never opened, from his family's library. He sought out Yukina at every ball and assembly dance that summer and both of their mothers had noticed his interest, even if the young lady herself hadn't. The suggestion that Mr. Kuwabara was there to see her made Yukina furrow her brow.
"Oh, don't act so surprised, dearest." Keiko smoothed her cousin's hair. Sweet Yukina was still too modest to realize that the attention she received was merely kindness but the homage she deserved. And why shouldn't they pay attention to her? Keiko, with her brilliant complexion and regular features, was more of a conventional beauty, but fragile, fairy-like Yukina was who people stared at. "You're lucky to have such a suitor."
Not only was Mr. Kuwabara, a fine, young man with good prospects, just recently came into his inheritance of an estate worth five thousand a year, but he quite obviously adored Yukina. Still, it wasn't wise for any woman to place all her hopes in something as fickle and inconstant as a man.
Yukina smiled and pinched her cheeks. "I am lucky," she said.
Keiko folded up the letter she'd written and put it in her pocket. If Yukina wrote Mr. Kuwabara a three volume novel every day, he'd gladly read every page.
Hiei still lazed in his armchair. Keiko snatched the pamphlet from his hands. "And what is this?" The pamphlet had come from a traveling exhibition of waxworks showing the varying stages of syphilis and the just wrath of Almighty God. "Put that away now."
"I hope Mr. Sensui hasn't yet realized who'll really be wearing the breeches," said Hiei.
Keiko sized up Hiei. She wasn't particularly tall, but she still stood a head taller than her diminutive cousin. I'd fill out a pair of breeches better than you, pipsqueak. "Come, Yukina." She took Yukina's hand. "We mustn't keep Mr. Kuwabara waiting."

Aunt Hina had the drawing room re-papered in a ghastly shade of chartreuse that she'd been told was the height of fashion in London.

But the portrait of Keiko's late father, a pleasant-looking country squire growing a bit paunchy and red-faced with middle age, still hung above the mantelpiece (the same Jacobean edifice under which Keiko and Yusuke used to toast bread and cook winkles over a fire).

Wesley the butler always scolded them for bringing pans full of winkles into the drawing room and spilling salt water on the carpet but Mamma and Papa never minded.
Wesley announced Mr. Kuwabara and Keiko rose to greet the guest with a bow.
Kazuma Kuwabara was part of the set Keiko had grown up with. He and Yusuke were schoolboy rivals and became something like friends over the years. He replied to Keiko's bow with a curt nod and "Miss Yukimura," before moving on to join Yukina, who'd sat down at her harp.

Keiko lowered her eyes. Mr. Kuwabara's love for Yukina made him mostly indifferent to other women, but he'd treated Keiko with a decided coolness ever since she became engaged to Sensui. Perhaps it was loyalty to Yusuke, whose heart he believed would be broken when he learned about Keiko's engagement? But Mr. Kuwabara didn't need to worry about his friend. A person's heart couldn't be broken if they never cared in the first place.

"That's a capital set of bays you have, my boy," said Uncle Tatsu, offering Mr. Kuwabara a pinch of snuff. The "capital bays" he referred to were Mr. Kuwabara's new carriage horses. "Did they come from the Leighs?"
Uncle Tatsu was Papa's younger brother and they resembled each other in both appearance and love of horses. As the second son, Uncle Tatsu hadn't been expected to inherit the family estate of Delmar, worth two thousand a year. Wealthy and childless relatives adopted him as a youth, gave him their last name, and left him their fortune of three thousand a year. He should have been content with just that (who wouldn't be) but no one could have imagined Papa dying at just forty and his only child being a girl.
Keiko looked up at Papa's portrait. And now that little monster, Hiei, will get everything.
Aunt Hina poured a cup of tea for Mr. Kuwabara. "Doesn't our dear Yukina play beautifully, Mr. Kuwabara?" She gestured to her daughter, who was strumming a piece by Handel on her harp while the chintz curtains fluttered prettily around her- a sight that would capture any man's attention and heart. "Do you take sugar in your tea?"
Mr. Kuwabara declined. He'd stopped taking sugar in his tea in solidarity with Yukina, who gave up the habit months ago (this perhaps had something to do with the Wedgwood "Am I Not a Man and a Brother" medallion Yukina asked Keiko to bring back for her from London).
Keiko squeezed lemon juice into her tea. Suppose Aunt Hina, whose children had inherited her small stature, brown complexion, dark coloring, and otherworldly appearance, had noticed Yukina's sudden distaste for sugar. In that case, she might think Yukina was being disloyal and hypocritical. After all, Aunt Hina's family's wealth came from sugar plantations in Nevis. Or she could think Yukina was just worried about rotten teeth. No one wanted a bride whose teeth were falling out, and why would a girl do anything unless it had to do with her marriage prospects?

Mr. Kuwabara smothered a piece of Sally Lunn bread in bilberry jam. "I called upon Miss Genkai there other day..." he said.

Miss Genkai was the rich old lady who owned Seacombe House, about two miles from Delmar, and the entire neighborhood paid court to her like a queen. She was Mamma's oldest friend in England and had stood as godmother at Keiko's christening. She was also Yusuke's guardian.
"She says Urameshi will be at the Exeter Assembly next week." Mr. Kuwabara couldn't help but glance in Keiko's direction.
Keiko lowered her eyes. Since their school days, Yusuke was always "Urameshi" to Mr. Kuwabara Never "Yusuke Urameshi" or simply "Yusuke" and certainly never "Lieutenant Urameshi," as Keiko would be expected to address him when they met again. She dug her fingernails into her palms under the table. Someone, be they Mr. Kuwabara, Miss Genkai, or God, was making sport of her.
Aunt Hina tapped Keiko on the shoulder. "Can you remind me again, my dear, who this Urameshi is?"
"Yusuke Urameshi is Miss Genkai's ward," said Keiko, smoothing her skirts.
"Oh, yes. The little foundling."
Keiko held her tongue. The little foundling was now a strapping young man of twenty and an officer in His Majesty's Navy.
"Urameshi  had some nerve waiting all this time to come back," said Mr. Kuwabara. "Especially after he worried us all like that..."
Hiei took a bite out of a queen cake. "They should have left him to rot in that French prison." 

Last year, Yusuke's ship, the HMS Mazoku, was captured during a skirmish with a French frigate off Toulon. Yusuke's reckless bravery led to him being taken prisoner. He would have faced the guillotine if it weren't for Miss Genkai and her great-nephew, Lord Kurama, using their connections to get him released. But by then, Yusuke had been on death's door with jail fever.
Keiko should have washed her hands of Yusuke and said good riddance and vive la France, but she threw herself onto her little white bed and wept.
"If you'll excuse me," said Keiko, rising from her seat to leave the table.

An ancient oak tree had been on the lawn since before Keiko's ancestors built Delmar during the reign of James I. Under its spreading, twisting branches, two maid servants were beating the dust out of a Savonnerie carpet that Mamma had brought over from France.

Keiko took the beater from one of the maids and gave it a go. A cloud of dust made her cough but she kept swinging.
"Miss Keiko," cried the maid. "You'll spoil your dress."
But Keiko brushed her off. Bloody Yusuke, thinking he could just waltz back when he felt like it.  Hiei, perish the thought, had been right. They should have left him to rot in that French prison.
"Miss Yukimura..." Mr. Kuwabara had followed her outside.
Keiko returned the carpet beater to the maid. As a gentleman, gallantry obliged Mr. Kuwabara to come see if she was alright. She might be the girl who'd broken his friend's heart, but she was still a lady.
Mr. Kuwabara offered Keiko his arm. "Why don't I walk you home?" he said.
Keiko accepted with a smile. Mr. Kuwabara was neither handsome nor clever. She'd always thought (rather unfairly) that he was a gruff oaf. But Yukina saw right away what she was only beginning to do: that Mr. Kuwabara had a kind heart and a noble spirit.
If only there were more men like him in the world.
Delmar Cottage, where Keiko lived with her mother, overlooked the sea and the brisk salty air cooled her flushed cheeks. Before she approached the front door, Keiko stopped and looked out upon rocky, crescent-shaped Woolmouth Cove off in the distance.
One week until she had to face him again.

History Nerd Corner:

£5000 was worth about £383,500 in today's money or about $476,115

£2000 was worth about £153,500 in today's money or $190,600

£3000 was worth about £230,300 in today's money or $286,000

"Am I a Man and a Brother" was a famous abolitionist slogan. Not taking sugar in your tea was a way of protesting the slave trade.