Wild Margaret by Charles Garvice

Christmas had gone and there was a vague suggestion of spring in the air; but it was cold still, and a huge fire burned in the great drawing-room of Leyton Court. It was after dinner, and the room, though by no means full, contained a fair number of people representing a small house party which had been spending the Christmas with the new earl: for the old earl had died a week after Blair and Violet Graham's wedding, and Blair reigns in his stead. Not only is he in possession of the old title and the estates and the large sum of money bequeathed by the old earl, but he has married one of the wealthiest young women in England, and consequently the world speaks of Lord Blair with bated breath, murmuring, "Lucky beggar!" and sometimes adding, "Just in time, too! Another month and he would have gone under, by George!"

And so they point him out to country cousins as he walks down Pall Mall, and whisper: "The Earl of Ferrers--the famous Lord Leyton, you know," and his county neighbors regard him with awe not far short of adoration, and everybody, great and small, combines to envy him.