Lady of Fortune

by Mary Jo Putney

Genres: Women's Fiction; Regency Romance

Synopsis

Lady of Fortune is a classic story of one woman’s perseverance and strength in the face of insurmountable odds in the wake of the French Revolution.
A countess turned servant …
Forced to escape the French Revolution, resilient young Comtesse Marie-Christine D'Estelle flees to London. But when she finds herself unexpectedly penniless, Christa hides her aristocratic background to become a lady's maid. … Until rebuffing advances from both her
tyrannical mistress’s husband and her lover gets Christa cast into the street—directly into a hero’s arms …
A Royal Navy commander …
After a long absence, Captain Lord Alexander Kingsley has returned to England on medical leave. Now head of his family, he must take charge of his younger siblings. He feels a special duty to his sister Annabelle, a shy debutante in need of a maid. So Alex is delighted
to discover that the intriguing, outspoken, and lovely young woman who serendipitously landed in his arms is in need of just such a position …
The heart of a household …
With her warmth, charm, and surprisingly refined intellect, Christa soon wins the hearts of all the Kingsleys—especially Alex. And while their mutual attraction deepens to something more, the gap in their social stations seems an impossible obstacle. Only when Alex and
Annabelle become the targets of fortune hunters, will the truth about Christa have a chance to be revealed. But will it mean a chance for true love to triumph?

Release date: February 28, 2023

Publisher: Zebra Books

Print pages: 304

Sample

March 1795

Peter Harrington braced himself before knocking on the door. His noble patient, Captain Lord Alexander Kingsley, Viscount Kingsley and officer of His Majesty’s Royal Navy, had been raising merry Hades with the household ever since he had recovered consciousness. His good-natured mischief made him a handful under normal conditions. How would he react to Harrington’s unwelcome news?

He knocked and entered the high-ceilinged bedroom without waiting, only to be walloped full face with a feather pillow. “Alex Kingsley! What the devil . . .?” Further comment was cut off by a new barrage of pillows. Abandoning his Hippocratic oath and doctorly dignity, Peter scooped up one of the pillows and fired it back at the tanned face grinning from the bed. The ensuing five minutes bore considerably more resemblance to a nursery riot than a meeting between two gentlemen of mature years and superior station.

The battle ended when Peter collapsed laughing into a chair by the bed. “What the devil was that all about?” he demanded. Alex brushed a few feathers out of his collar-length blond hair and chuckled, amber-brown eyes twinkling from his long, high-cheek boned face.

“I wanted to prove that my throwing arm has recovered from its wounds. Now will you let me out of this cell?”

Peter scanned the whitewashed walls, comfortable furniture, and bright fabrics, then snorted. He was a solid man of middle height, the premature streaks of gray in his dark hair making him look older than his thirty-one years. “If you think this is a cell, I should have left you in the military hospital. This is a palace by comparison.”

His gaze was affectionate as it rested on his childhood friend. They had grown up on adjoining estates, running wild together whenever they could escape their keepers. Both had cherished inappropriate ambitions—Peter to become a doctor, Alex to go to sea. It had been hard for Peter to convince his father to let him study such a middle-class profession as medicine, but he was the youngest of three sons in a family of no extraordinary fortune, and his father was an understanding man. The Honorable Alexander had a much harder struggle; his father had been reluctant to let his heir embark on the dangers of a military career and had given permission only after a younger son was born and giving every evidence of lusty good health.

Alex looked repentant. “You must know how much I appreciate your taking me in, Peter. If you hadn’t stopped them, they would have cut off my left arm. Cursed nuisance, since I’m left-handed.” He gave a half smile and added, “Considering the shape I was in at the time, they could have taken anything they wanted, and welcome to it. I’m still surprised Sarah would let you in when you brought my battered carcass home.”

“She was a doctor’s daughter. She knew what she was getting into when she married me,” Peter replied dryly. “Besides, Sarah had heard me speak of you often and was anxious to meet you. Though not, perhaps, in this particular way. It’s a miracle I recognized you under all the blood and bandages. After all, it had been . . . what—a dozen years?—since we had seen each other.”

As soon as he had recognized his old friend, Peter whisked him away to his own Spanish-style villa, where the captain would have the best possible nursing. Had the winds of fate not brought the Harringtons to Gibraltar, Alex might have died, and would certainly have been crippled had he survived. Instead, he exhibited remarkable powers of recuperation—within a month he was beating Peter at cards and teaching bawdy sailor songs to the three-year-old son of the house. From the cook to the spaniel, everyone in the house adored him.

Alex swung his long legs off the bed and reached for the cane he still needed. The whole left side of his body had been ripped by metal fragments when a cannonball shattered on the quarterdeck where he was directing the fight against a French ship of the line. He had stayed in command until the battle was won, the French ship secured, and his own frigate, Antagonist, on course to nearby Gibraltar with her prize. Only then did he collapse.

Even during the years of peace after the American Revolution, Alex had always found employment shipboard while many of his fellow officers cooled their heels on shore at half pay. Since hostilities had resumed, he had risen rapidly to a command of his own. While it was assumed that his aristocratic lineage had aided his advancement, even his most grudging critics could not deny his brilliance, courage, and luck.

Tightening the sash of his blue robe around his lean waist, Alex crossed the room to the window and back with hardly any resort to the cane. “See?” he said triumphantly as he lowered himself onto the edge of the bed. “It should be obvious even to a fusty old medical man like yourself that I am as good as new. When are you going to let me go back to my ship? She’s almost refitted, and so am I.”

“You’ve been practicing,” Peter said judiciously, then paused, his mouth a little dry. He had avoided this moment for weeks but could no longer. Looking his old friend in the eye, he said quietly, “You’re not going back to the Antagonist. Not right now, and perhaps not ever.”

“Why not? Am I up for court-martial?” Alex said. His words were flippant, but his eyes were very still.

Peter followed his friend’s cue and kept his tone light. “You remember how long I had to operate, picking pieces of your precious ship out of your hide?”

Alex grimaced. “Remember? Every day of that operation is graven on my liver.”

Peter chuckled. “I suppose it felt like days, but after all the brandy you put away before and during the operation, I’m surprised you remember anything. I’m sure the head you had next day had more to do with your brandy than my knife.” He paused, then said gravely, “I did my best, but I’m positive there is at least one large shell fragment left in your chest. That’s why you still feel so much pain.” At Alex’s instinctive movement of negation, he said acidly, “Don’t bother trying to lie to me. I noticed it was your right arm you used most in that pillow fight.”

Alex shrugged. “What does it matter? Half the old salts in the navy have a musket ball in them somewhere. Helps ’em predict weather.”

Pete sighed. He had known Alex wouldn’t make this easy. “The difference is the location. I couldn’t risk any more probing around in the area. You would have died on the table.” He stopped a moment, then continued, “You know that musket balls and shell fragments can migrate away from their original location?”

At Alex’s nod, he continued, “There is a good likelihood that the fragment may settle down and stay where it is for the next fifty years, just giving you twinges. Or it may move outward to where it can be removed surgically, or even work its own way out. It isn’t as if a body wants that kind of thing inside.” He stopped once more, then said baldly, “Or it may migrate inward until it hits an organ or a major blood vessel.”

Alex looked at him levelly. “In which case I die.”

Peter held his eye and nodded. “Exactly so.”

Alex shifted his gaze out the window to the rock that dominated the colony. After a minute he said, “I’ll admit it would hardly be fair to my crew to drop dead suddenly. Bad for morale. Sailors are a superstitious lot.”

Peter broke the silence after another few moments had passed. “I’m sorry. I know how much you love the navy. A year from now, if your condition is stable, you can take a new command. But for the moment, I can’t in good conscience release you to active duty.”

Alex swung his head back, a devilish light in his eyes. “You must be joking! A man would have to be mad to love the navy! Weevily biscuits, endless boring patrols, living packed together closer than rats in Seven Dials, no women for months on end . . . and ships aren’t built for men my height—I still seem to bang my head at least once a day.” He inspected his scarred left forearm, then said quietly, “The navy doesn’t own the sea. No one can take that away from me.”

“I suppose you’ll be going back to England?”

“It looks like I can’t avoid it.” The note in Alex’s voice was so odd that Peter glanced at him sharply. Still looking down, his friend said, “Remember the letter that was delivered yesterday—the one that had been following me all over the Mediterranean for months?”‘ He looked up to see Peter’s nod, then said flatly, “My mother is dead.”

Peter exhaled sharply. Lady Serena Kingsley had been one of the most notorious women of her generation, a legendary beauty whose amorality was exceeded only by her cold-blooded selfishness. She had made the Kingsley household a hell for her family and servants, while her husband, Arthur, withdrew from the unpleasantness as much as possible, leaving his children to her vicious moods.

Alex said dryly, “You needn’t bother to grope for condolences. Her demise has been greeted with near-universal relief, particularly by those of her lovers who feared she might pen her memoirs someday. And don’t look so crushingly sympathetic—I accepted what she was years ago.”

He knit his fingers together and looked down at them broodingly. “I’m a coward, Peter.” He looked up at his friend’s small exclamation with a lopsided smile. “Oh, not in the usual way. It isn’t all that hard to face death. After all, life is invariably a fatal condition. But when it comes to people, I’ve been a coward all my life. I’m sure you know that a major reason I entered the navy at fourteen was to get away from home.”

He accepted Peter’s nod, then continued, “I ran then, and I would have kept on running if you hadn’t just closed the door. I’ve scarcely spent three months in London over the last fifteen years. My brother and sister are near strangers. They have every right to hate me.”

“Why should they do that?” Peter asked quietly.

“Because I left them alone with that . . . that”—he searched for a term—“black widow spider. And I never did a damned thing to help them.”

Peter’s voice was gentle. “You’re too hard on yourself. Lady Serena was the most difficult woman I have ever known. You were a boy then—what could you do about her? It was your father’s job to control his wife, not yours.”

Alex refused the comfort. “I could have done more. And I certainly ought to have gone home two years ago when my father died. Annabelle and Jonathan are my responsibility, and I have failed them.”

“Your service in the navy has been of value to the country.”

Alex shrugged. “There is no shortage of eager lieutenants panting for their own commands. Any of them could do what I have done.”

“You underrate your own achievements, and your brother and sister’s good sense. Remember what a sweet little thing Annabelle was? How she used to follow us around and you would take her up with you on your horse?” Alex started to smile reminiscently, but Peter made the mistake of adding, “How could she possibly hate you? I doubt anyone has ever hated you in your life.”

Alex stood again and crossed to the window, leaning heavily on the cane this time. “Wrong. My mother did. Used to tell me that my birth ruined her figure.” He settled himself on the window seat and smiled ironically at his friend. “Although half the men in London appeared to find nothing wrong with her figure. Did you know my father kept me back from the navy until he was sure that Jonathan must be a true Kingsley? So that when I got killed the title would still go to a son of his own blood. Sentimental man, my father.”

Peter was silenced. Alex had been such a cheerful, hey-go-mad boy. Two years younger than Peter, Alex was the natural leader whose imaginative antics often led them into trouble, while it was left to the quieter, more studious Peter to get them out. As close as they had been then, as many letters as they had exchanged over the years, only now did Peter understand how unhappy his friend must have been.

Alex folded his hands on the brass head of the cane in front of him and his smile softened to a real one. “You shouldn’t have gotten me talking about that. Don’t look so sad, Peter. It’s all history now. We are as much a product of our problems as our triumphs. I am reasonably happy with myself, except for how I’ve neglected my brother and sister. I may be skittish, but now I will have the chance to make amends for that.” He laughed suddenly. “But you must bear the responsibility for sending me back into deadly danger.”

“Deadly danger?” Peter repeated in confusion.

“The ladies, Peter.” Alex rolled his eyes in comic horror. “They terrify me! All those fluttering fans and sly, catlike eyes—I never know what to say to fashionable women. They make these purring remarks and bare their sharp little teeth, and I don’t know whether they are flirting or insulting me or attempting to compromise my virtue.” His deep voice took on a mournful note. “It’s a hard prospect for a simple sailor.”

Peter laughed, glad the familiar Alex was back. “A simple sailor, indeed! I have yet to see you show the slightest sign of shyness around any woman in this house.”

“It’s not women I have problems with,” Alex said. “It’s ladies.”

“So avoid the fashionable world,” Peter said promptly. “You’re a peer of the realm—no one can force you into polite society.”

Alex stretched luxuriously. “I’m afraid it can’t be avoided entirely. Poor Belle is twenty and hasn’t even been presented yet because she has spent the last two years in mourning. I shall have to rescue her from my appalling Aunt Agatha and open up Kingsley House again. The least I can do is give her a ball that will be remembered for years. But be warned,” he added with a baleful glare, “if I become a casualty of the social wars, it will be your fault for not letting me go back to the navy.”

Peter chuckled and stood up. “You can sit and bemoan your cruel future, but I am ready to eat. Care to join Sarah and me?”

Alex stood up and limped across the floor. “If there is one thing I’ve learned in the navy, it is to take advantage of a good meal. Lead on!” As he came up to Peter, he briefly put one hand on his friend’s shoulder and squeezed, grateful for his quiet understanding. He wished he could take the Harringtons back to England with him, but he knew that coming to terms with his past was one battle he must fight alone.

March 17, 1795

Ordinarily Christa started the day with a cup of hot chocolate and a bread roll in her bedchamber, declaring that the British custom of devouring animal flesh in the morning was too much to be borne. On this day, however, she rang early for her maid, Annie, so she could dress in time to meet Lord Radcliffe at his breakfast. After wearing black for a year, it was a pleasure to slip into a white muslin gown with embroidered sprigs of roses. She had made it from a new pattern book, and it was daringly fashionable.

Annie nodded approvingly as she laced the high-waisted dress tightly around her mistress’s curves. “High time you put off your mourning, Lady Christa,” she said with a vigorous nod. She was a plump, pretty girl, brown as a wren. “You’ll never catch a husband if you stay hidden here in the country.”

“It has turned out well, no?” Christa gave a half turn, admiring the simple flowing lines of the gown. She approved of the new fashions based on the styles of ancient Greece and Rome; they were one of the most positive results of the French Revolution. She had always loved clothes and in this last quiet year she had spent much time designing and sewing. While it was an odd occupation for a lady of quality, she found it soothing, and she was as skilled as a professional seamstress.

Annie threaded a matching rose velvet ribbon through Christa’s glossy black curls, cut short à la Titus, then handed her mistress a fine cashmere shawl for protection against the great house’s drafty corridors.

It was a very large house, built in the ponderous style known as English Baroque, and by the time Christa reached the breakfast parlor she had worked up an appetite. “Pray do not disturb yourself, Uncle Lewis,” she said gaily to the man who started to rise at her entrance. “My papa always told me never to come between a man and his breakfast.”

“Good morning, Marie-Christine. You are looking very well.” Lewis Radleigh nodded approval of her bright dress, then seated himself while Christa poured hot chocolate and recklessly helped herself to a coddled egg and two pieces of fruitcake. After all, she was opening a new chapter of her life.

Silence reigned for the next few minutes as both concentrated on their food. Swallowing the last bite of egg and finishing her chocolate, Christa covertly studied her companion. Portraits showed that the Radleigh men had always been a magnificent lot—tall, broad-shouldered, as blond and confident as lions. Lewis Radleigh was the younger brother of Charles’s father, and he had the family height and looks. His blond hair was barely touched with silver and his impassive features could be judged handsome.

But the blood ran thin in him—he was a repressed, colorless shadow of his magnificent relatives. Lewis and Charles’s mother, Marie-Claire, had become joint guardians of the infant earl after Charles’s father died in a carriage accident, with Lewis managing the Radcliffe properties during his nephew’s minority. After Charles’s death, he inherited the title in his own right, executing his duties conscientiously but with no obvious signs of pleasure.

Observing that he had finished his ham, Christa said, “Uncle Lewis, I should like to speak with you today. Now that I am out of mourning, it is time I planned my future.”

Lord Radcliffe regarded her thoughtfully.“Quite right. I fear I must spend the morning with my agent, but I shall be free this afternoon. Would it be convenient for you to come to my study at two o’clock?”

Christa nodded, then pushed away from the table and stood. “Très bien. I shall see you then.” As she left the room, she thought with amusement that it was typical of him to make a formal appointment to meet someone he had lived with for the last year. Christa knew Charles had been fond of his uncle and relied heavily on his business judgment, but she herself scarcely knew the man, even though they had first met when she was in leading strings. Perhaps Lewis felt passion for the mathematical articles he published in learned journals. He showed none of that quality in daily life.

For all his stuffiness, he had responded admirably when Captain Brown summoned him to Ramsgate. Christa had arrived in England dangerously ill from fever and shock and had little memory of her first weeks in the country. One image that remained burned on her brain was Lewis’s agonized face when he learned what had happened, for he’d been very nearly a father to Charles. Rigidly controlling his personal grief, he had summoned a London doctor to treat her and waited in Ramsgate until she could be moved. By the time she was fully aware of her surroundings, she was safe in Radcliffe Hall.

She was grateful that Uncle Lewis had left her alone to mourn in her own fashion. Anything she wished had been ordered for her, and he had let her ride and walk about the estate alone. They generally dined together, but conversation was always sparse and superficial; wrapped in their separate grief, they were like two ghosts that coexisted without touching. She doubted he would miss her when she went to London.

The inlaid hall clock was striking two when she entered Lord Radcliffe’s study. He rose behind his desk and made a slight, formal bow. “Please have a seat. I am glad to see you have put off your mourning.” He studied the lively face with its healthy color and sparkling gray eyes, then added, “You look very much like your mother.”

“Alas, I will never be so beautiful as she,” Christa said regretfully as she chose one of the leather wing chairs in front of his desk.

“That is true,” Lewis said soberly.

Christa shot him a glance that blended amusement with irritation. Protocol demanded he assure her that she was equally beautiful. It wouldn’t have been true, of course, but most gentlemen would have lied gallantly. No wonder he was in his forties and had never married! One of the maids had gossiped that a widow in a nearby town took care of his “masculine needs,” but he seemed too cold a man to really love a woman.

As she now studied his closed face, so like Charles’s but without the vital charm, she wondered what he really felt. Was he happy to be an earl? Did he miss his nephew? Was he capable of missing anyone?

Lord Radcliffe sat down again. “What did you wish to discuss?”

“I have been a year now in Berkshire, Uncle Lewis,” Christa began. “Since I am out of mourning, it’s time I went to London and entered society. Your cousin Clarissa has written and invited me to stay with her. She is worried because I am twenty-three, almost too old to find a husband.” She smiled at him teasingly, but his answer was grave.

“Marriage is the only proper goal for a young lady, but a dowerless girl is at a great disadvantage, particularly in London.”

She looked at him in surprise. “Dowerless? But Papa was one of the richest men in France! I know much of the family property is forfeit, but he sent a considerable sum of money to Charles.”

Lewis shook his head. “That may have been his intention, but it was never fulfilled. He may have delayed too long, or perhaps he tried, and his arrangements were never carried out because of the revolution and the war with England.”

Christa stood suddenly, unable to sit still in the face of this news. “You are sure there is no account set up in my name? Papa had spoken of his intentions perhaps four years ago, and England did not declare war on France till more than a year later.”

He shook his head again. “Quite sure. I assumed your father would have provided for you, but when I checked the bank records of the last six years, ever since the revolution began, there was no money transferred from France during that whole period.” The expression in his cool blue eyes was unreadable as he added, “I’m afraid you have nothing.”

Christa paced over to the window and stared out at the bare dripping trees of the park while she struggled to absorb this information. Her hands were clenched as she said, “Do you mean that for this last year, all the clothes, the books, the pin money you gave me—everything was charity?”

Lewis stood and followed her to the window. “Please, you must not think of it as such. You are Charles’s sister, and there will always be a home for you here.” He paused, then said, “But you know what the world is like. Even though you are a countess, a penniless young woman has almost no chance of contracting a suitable alliance. And you are a foreigner—that would count against you even if our countries were not at war.”

She turned to face him, her eyes challenging the impenetrable face as a cool finger of alarm touched the back of her neck. There was something odd, very odd, about the way he was emphasizing her unmarriageability. While he was under no obligation to provide for her, he could, if he chose, give her a dowry with the stroke of a pen and scarcely notice the cost. Charles would certainly have done so.

Her voice was dry as she said, “It is true that you English are an insular lot in every sense of the word. But if I wish for a husband, I am not wholly without the ability to find one.” Ever since she had reached her fifteenth year, she had been showered with sonnets, flowers, marriage proposals, and scores of less honorable propositions. She was confident that not all had been due to her father’s wealth.

A flare of emotion sparked the pale eyes as he stared down at her, and for the first time she was uneasily aware how close he was standing. The earl said softly, “You are a very lovely girl. In fact, I have a solution that will benefit both of us.”

She swished around him to her leather chair, but he came and sat next to her rather than returning to his desk. Uncomfortable with his proximity, she leaned back and stared in silence, daring him to continue. Lewis said awkwardly, “It was never necessary that I marry in the past, but as earl I owe it to my name to provide an heir. You are in need of a husband, and I am in need of a wife.” His voice faltered under her steel-gray gaze, then he continued more strongly, “Marie-Christine, I would be very honored if you would consent to marry me.”

“But you are my uncle!” Though she had sensed some strange mood in him, she had trouble believing the words he spoke.

The earl smiled, more sure of himself. “Uncle by courtesy only. You know there is no blood relationship between us. I am perhaps a little old for you, but I am in good health. I am sure we could have many years together.”

Christa almost spat at him. “Always you have been Uncle Lewis to me. Though we may not be truly related, to me it feels like incest!”

He winced at her plain speaking. “I realize it will take time for you to accustom yourself to the idea, but I am sure you will see the advantages when you think on it. As the Countess of Radcliffe, you will once more have the position and luxury you are accustomed to. You can stay here where you are known and not have to go among strangers.”

She stood so suddenly that the heavy chair skidded away behind her. Glaring down at him, she said tightly, “It is most kind of you to sacrifice yourself to help a poor relation. After all, as the Earl of Radcliffe you may look as high as you choose. But if I refuse your so-generous offer, what then? The poorhouse, mon oncle? Or will you throw me out to sell myself on the streets of London?”

He stood also, frowning as if she were a willful child. “This has been a shock and you are overwrought. We will speak again when you have had time to consider.”

Taking her right hand, Lewis continued more earnestly than she had ever heard him. “I have spoken badly. Marrying you would be no duty, but a very great pleasure.” He pressed a kiss onto her hand, and she stared at the bent blond head with dawning horror. The earl’s lips burned as intensely as his eyes had when he stared into hers, and she wondered how she could have ever thought he lacked passion. Mon Dieu, but he wanted her indeed! Christa felt a shadow of pity at the desperation in his touch, but it was swept away in a flood of revulsion. Jerking her hand free, she fled the room.

Lord Radcliffe made no attempt to stop her, merely watching, his face once more expressionless. He had expected Christa to be surprised, even shocked, at the news of her poverty and at his proposal, but she should come around soon. After all, what other choice did the girl have?

Even an hour’s walking in the raw March day could not cool Christa’s outrage. She had paused only to grab a cloak and change her indoor slippers to half boots before storming outside. Her path took her through the home wood and looped back till she stood now on the edge of the ornamental lake. The spot was one where she and Charles would come to skip stones as children. Since flat shale was not common in the area, her brother had used his lordly powers to order that a supply of the stones be perpetually kept on the site.

Prompted by the memory, she poked around in the bushes until, to her delight, she found a pile of shale perfect for skipping. She gathered a handful and moved to the edge of the water. Picking up the first piece of stone, she tossed it in her hand to get the heft, then hurled it across the lake. It crashed into the gray waters without a single skip.

“That is so typical of this day! First that . . . that cochon, that pig, tells me I am a pauper.” Christa had always enjoyed talking aloud to herself; usually, though by no means always, she indulged in it when she was alone. She frowned now, and said slowly as she picked up another stone, “It was not like Papa to forget something as important as providing for the future. To be sure, he was a philosopher, but he was also French and a practical man. So, do I believe in my father? Or this pig of an uncle?” She nodded in satisfaction as the stone managed two skips before sinking.

“But the money . . . that is less important than what he tries to do to me. That he should try to compel me to marry him . . . me! My ancestors fought with Charles the Hammer at Poitiers a thousand years ago! I am a d’Estelle, a countess of France!”

This sounded so unbearably pompous, even to herself, that Christa laughed out loud and flung another stone. As always, laughter returned her sense of perspective. She said regretfully, “I am no credit to your teaching, Papa. You, who always taught that all were equal in the eyes of God and should be in the eyes of men. As soon as I lose my temper, I forget I am a democrat. And I am not even a true countess, since the Assembly abolished all noble titles five years ago.”

The old skills were definitely returning; she couldn’t be quite sure because of the rain spattering the lake, but she thought the latest stone skipped five times. Staring at the pockmarked water, she added, “How could I possibly marry a man who calls me ‘Marie-Christine’? Even Maman only called me that when she was very disappointed in me.”

She had acquired her nick