The Unknown Ajax

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The Unknown Ajax is a Regency novel by Georgette Heyer. Lord Darracott is an elderly peer who had four sons (in addition to a number of daughters in whom he has no interest): his heir, however, has recently died. His second son, Hugh, was a soldier, and was cast off more than twenty years ago, when he married a weaver's daughter, to his father's disgust. He had accepted his fate quite happily and not been heard of again, until his death in the Peninsular War, about which his father was quietly notified by his London lawyer. However, with the death of Lord Darracott's eldest son, Granville and his son Oliver, in a boating accident, Lord Darracott is dismayed to find that his new heir is a weaver's brat.

This is his story.

Hugo Darracott, an enormous figure of a young man, arrives at Darracott Place in Sussex to find his family waiting: his grandfather, Lord Darracott; his uncle, Matthew, a politician, his wife, Lady Aurelia and their sons Vincent and Claud; and his uncle Rupert's widow Elvira and her children Anthea and Richmond. They are, it is immediately apparently, expecting "a fellow who eats off his knife": that is, a working- or at best lower middle-class man. Hugo obligingly applies a Yorkshire accent and looks gormless.

Lord Darracott puts pressure on his older grandchildren, Vincent, Anthea and Claud, to educate Hugo. He discourages Hugo from much contact at all with Richmond, who is young and army-mad - Richmond is Lord Darracott's favourite, and his grandfather has no desire to see him leave Darracott Place. All three of the older grandchildren oblige: Vincent because his grandfather bribes him financially, Claud because he is a dandy and wishes to be influential, and Anthea to ease her grandfather's bullying of her mother.

It rapidly becomes apparent to Hugo that things are not all quite straight-forward at Darracott Place; among other things he is disconcerted at the positive attitude towards smuggling that his family display. He is also unimpressed at the financial status of the family: while the lands are clearly rich, the tenants' farms are ill-maintained and so indeed are the family buildings (both Darracott Place itself and the Dower house which is reputed to be haunted and is maintained by a single servant).

In a dramatic dénouement, it emerges that Richmond, bored by being kept at home with nothing to do, has started joining in the smuggling . This ultimately results in a farcical scene in the family's pains to keep this discovery from the customs officers, choreographed by Hugo, with Claud and Richmond pretending to be drunk and playing cards in order to deceive the main customs officer into not realising that Richmond, not Claud, is actually suffering from blood-loss.

Anthea, who is already half-falling for Hugo, is hugely impressed by his inventiveness and strength - and is as a result appalled when Vincent reveals that, far from being the impoverished man they had assumed, son of a weaver's daughter and having earned his Commission rather than bought it, is in fact a Harrow-educated grandson and heir of a wealthy mill-owner, since she fears being considered a gold-digger.

Hugo feels this suggestion is ridiculous, and begs her to marry him to protect him from matchmaking mamas - an offer which Anthea ultimately accepts.

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