How the Wealthy Nobility Cover Up Scandals

I’ve written a number of novels including A Question of Proof or A Question of Proof (Kindle); Star Time: New Version & New Introduction or Star Time (Kindle); andDeeds or Deeds (Kindle); and Stalking the Sky or Stalking the Sky (Kindle). In my historical novel Birthright or Birthright (Kindle), I wanted to show how Rob Rowell, a wealthy earl, could cajole a nurse into covering up his part in the car-accident death of his illicit lover, the mother of my protagonist, Deborah Kronenegold. Here’s an excerpt: Rob Rowell did not see the curve in the road. Or, until it was too late, the large truck with the snowplow snout that suddenly loomed up in front of them. He twisted the steering wheel and braked. The car careered to the right in a skidding spin. Madeleine’s door smashed against the side edge of the plow. The hardened steel cut through the Rolls like a knife and crushed Madeleine’s body. The hospital was very near, but Rob, cradling her in a blanket in the truck cab, knew that it did not matter. Although attendants and nurses wheeled her quickly toward an operating room, and doctors alongside hurriedly covered her face with an oxygen mask, injected chemicals into her, inserted in her arms tubes connected to bottles of blood, pressed frantically on her dented-in chest—Rob knew he was watching a futile dumb show performed out of habit. She had left him already, amid the swirling whiteness. His small suitcase beside him, Rob sat docilely on the bench in the emergency room, trying to come to grips with the finality of what had happened. The moments with her had always seemed luminous, because she was luminous—fresh and spontaneous and always so alive. He tried to summon up vivid recollections of her, so as to hold onto her and to delay his acceptance of the inalterability of her death, but all he could visualize was the angel-perfect profile resting against the black half-moon of steel that had sliced through the white Rolls. Even in his distraught condition, he could not evade the knowledge that he had been the cause of her death, but he assured himself that no one could hold him responsible; with weather conditions so deplorable, it was true only in the technical sense that he had been at the wheel. He sat up straight. At the wheel! If the police found out that he and Madeleine de Kronengold had been together in a car traveling back from her country house, the reporters would learn about their affair as well. Lurid stories would smear the two of them across every newspaper in England. There might even be speculation as to whether there had been some negligence involved in the accident. The publicity would be ghastly for him, for Maddy’s family, and especially for the Rowell bank, which was shaky right now as it was. And it would all be quite unnecessary. She was dead, and none of this would bring her back; if it could, he told himself, he would gladly endure it all. At that moment a nurse approached him diffidently, carrying the forms that would have to be filled out. She appeared to be young and unsure of herself. He gave her a sad but engaging smile. Yes, he was sufficiently recovered to answer some questions for the hospital’s records. He took her hand so she could not write, gazed into her eyes, and began to relate a tragic story of love found and lost, a poignant affair between two members of the nobility, one a prominent banker, the other a married woman from a prominent banking family. After a while he confided how much being able to tell her about his loss comforted him. And later he explained that it would be so much kinder to the dead woman’s family to leave his name out of the reports. He had been in the back seat asleep when it happened, he told her. He supposed the force of the skid had thrown her across the front seat, to the other side of the car, where the crash killed her. Under those circumstances it wasn’t absolutely necessary to write down that he was also in the car, was it? For the sake of the woman’s grieving husband and children, he would be eternally grateful to her if she spared them by leaving his name out of the reports. They’ve already suffered so much. He pointed to a newspaper front page announcing Samuel’s death. Someone had left it on a chair. She withdrew her hand from his and fumbled in her pocket for a handkerchief. She nodded. She would do it. The answering thankfulness on his face was authentic; if her report raised no questions, no one would look further into the matter. He took her phone number; he would like to be able to thank her properly some time very soon. Dabbing her eyes, she smiled and began to write her report. Read more: Birthright or Birthright (Kindle).

Spain's Expulsion of the Jews in 1492

I’ve written a number of novels including A Question of Proof or A Question of Proof (Kindle); Star Time: New Version & New Introduction or Star Time (Kindle); and Deeds or Deeds (Kindle); and Stalking the Sky or Stalking the Sky (Kindle). 

In my historical novel Birthright or Birthright (Kindle), I wanted to show how in 1492 the Christian monarchs of Spain forced their Jewish citizens to leave Spain, threatening them with death if they remained. The fictional Kronengolds' and my own ancestors were among them. 

Here’s an excerpt: 

As [Samuel's yacht] the Venture approached Malaga, reminiscences were flooding Samuel, seemingly to make up for a lifetime of never looking back. That morning he signed contracts for the land on the Costa del Sol and then drove with Deborah to Granada and the Alhambra, the magnificent Moorish palace he had not visited in fifty years.

Many memories came to him there beneath the slim columns and elegant friezes pierced by light into lace.

"We are originally Sephardic Jews, Spanish Jews," Samuel said to his granddaughter as they stood at the end of the reflecting pool in the Court of the Alberca. "The Christians forced the last of the Arabs and Jews out of Spain the same year Columbus found the New World. In this very place a woman once told me that Columbus may have been a Jew seeking a homeland for his people, that the evidence is rumored to be hidden in the Vatican. ‘Colon,’ his real name, is a Sephardic Jewish name." He described the Spanish Inquisition, how Jews were tortured by the Christians and killed in the name of God.

"Like Columbus, our family had sailed from Spain by then. We have a knack for that, thank God! They had gone to Florence, where their skill as goldsmiths could provide a living."

Read more: Birthright or Birthright (Kindle). Stalking the Sky or Stalking the Sky (Kindle). A Question of Proof or A Question of Proof (Kindle):  Deeds or Deeds (Kindle); and Star Time: New Version & New Introduction or Star Time (Kindle).

At Oxford Meeting A First Lover

In my historical novel Birthright or Birthright (Kindle), I wanted to show how in Deborah's early days at Oxford she comes back into contact with Rob Rowell, the son of the man she knew to be her mother's lover. 

Here’s an excerpt: 

Deborah de Kronengold walked grimly along the High Street, barely exchanging a word with the shorter young woman beside her. They shared Miss Davis’s tutorial on the history of economics and had not found a single matter on which they agreed since the term had started. Deborah had grown to her full five feet seven inches in height. Her red hair had lost none of its sunrise brightness and was still worn long and straight. She had finely fashioned features, a classic beauty that would have aroused admiration in any age, but today her chin thrust forward belligerently and her blue eyes glared in anger. The young woman who strode just as angrily beside her was Gladys Wood. Brown hair cut to utilitarian shortness, small, pretty face aggressively makeup-free, brow perpetually furrowed to match the disapproving line into which her mouth was drawn, Gladys Wood was a firmly committed Marxist. Deborah, of course, by both birth and inclination, was just as firmly committed a capitalist. Today Miss Davis had surprised them both by telling them they were very much alike; she had enjoyed their wrangles, but the debate was now tending to slip from the academic to the personal. She requested they follow the ancient tradition of no work in the afternoon and do something frivolous together for a change. "Like join the Bell Ringers Society?" Deborah had asked with some asperity, displeased at the prospect of having to socialize with the doctrinaire fanatic with whom she shared the tutorial.

Upon learning that neither of these overly serious young women had so much as taken a meal out of hall since arriving at Prinsworth, Miss Davis had ordered them to spend the next week pursuing a social life—together. As a start they were to go out to lunch at a restaurant that very day.

Looking into the window of the restaurant, which had stood on that spot for hundreds of years, they both hesitated. Nearly all the tables were surrounded by male students.

"Looks intimidating," Gladys breathed quietly.

"Rather."

The women glanced at each other for support, then grinned at their common anxiety.

"Back-to-back, my dad always says," Gladys offered.

"What does that mean?"

"If we fight with our backs to each other, they can’t get behind us."

Deborah nodded. "Back-to-back it is, then."

Gladys squared her shoulders determinedly and walked into the restaurant. Deborah followed.

"Zuleika Dobson, as I live and breathe!" a boisterous voice called out above the buzz of voices.

Other people looked up at them.

"Zuleika! Here! Here!" another agreed, staring at Deborah. Eating utensils began rhythmically tapping glassware.

"Who’s Zuleika Dobson?" Deborah whispered to Gladys.

"You. I’ll explain later."

A figure leaped up and strode toward them. "Dee?"

The face looked vaguely familiar, as if an impressionistic portrait of someone she couldn’t quite place.

"Why—it’s Bash Rowell, isn’t it?" She smiled warmly. She had not seen him in years, since before her first term at Branton. He was tall, and he carried himself with the same casual grace she remembered from his boyhood. His hair was wavy blond, and a lock of it fell Byronically across his brow. His blue eyes were disquieting. She tried not to look into them, which was difficult, because they stared deeply into hers.

"I had no idea you had come up to Oxford, Dee. Please join us. There’s rarely a table to be had in this bloody awful place. The food’s ghastly, the prices are outrageous, but it’s the place to go."

Without waiting for an answer, he led the way back to a table in a corner of the room. Deborah shrugged apologetically to Gladys. "There doesn’t seem anything else available."

"Your social life doesn’t seem a problem to me," Gladys replied with admiration.

"Childhood friend. Another exploiter of the masses, I’m afraid."

"I’ll look the other way in his case. He’s gorgeous."

Yes, he is, Deborah thought. Absolutely gorgeous. And then she knew why his eyes had bothered her so: they recalled his father’s exactly when she had spied Rob Rowell kneeling over her mother in the cottage. For an instant she was tempted to flee, but decided it was unfair to hang the son for the sin of the father.

Read more: Birthright or Birthright (Kindle). Stalking the Sky or Stalking the Sky (Kindle). A Question of Proof or A Question of Proof (Kindle); Star Time: New Version & New Introduction or Star Time(Kindle); and Deeds or Deeds (Kindle).

How a Banker Capitalized on the Suez Crisis

In my historical novel BIRTHRIGHT, I wanted to show how Samuel Kronengold, the dominant figure in the British Kronengold bank, could try to maneuver political leaders to his will, while simultaneously deciding where to place the bank's investment bets. I chose the Suez Crisis. Egypt's President Nasser had just ordered the seizure of the Suez Canal from Britain and France. Along with Israel, they countered by attacking Egypt to retake the Canal, infuriating U.S. President Eisenhower. Within days, Britain's weak-willed prime minister, Anthony Eden, would cave in to the U.S. and end the invasion.

Here’s an excerpt that occurs just after the three countries attack Egypt:

EGYPT'S SEIZURE OF THE SUEZ CANAL from Britain and France in July of 1956 set into motion events on a scale far larger than a single person's or a single family's destiny. The resulting crisis four months later would threaten world peace; would shake the Atlantic alliance; would humiliate Britain, dishearten it, and hasten its decline, its self-absorption, and the fall of its prime minister. It would frustrate France and accelerate its loss of Algeria, the end of its Third Republic, and the return to power of Charles de Gaulle; and provoke hostility to Britain as a future Common Market partner. It would endow Israel with more secure borders for the next decade and a port on the Gulf of Aqaba, leading to the Indian Ocean; would safeguard Egypt and make a hero of Gamal Abdel Nasser, that nation's chief of state; and would sow the seeds of a pan-Islamic oil policy based on nationalistic needs and concerted action, which would someday bring to once poor countries wealth and power beyond their wildest hopes and shake the foundations of the industrialized world.

The first retaliation for Egypt's seizure of the Canal occurred on October 29, 1956, when Israel attacked Egyptian positions in the Sinai. Two days later, in accordance with a secret scheme previously agreed to with Israel, Britain and France began bombing Egyptian airfields, alleging they were acting to protect the Suez Canal, an essential international waterway. Israel had swept across the Sinai on schedule to prearranged positions near Suez while pressing southward to free the Gulf of Aqaba to Israeli shipping.

As the days passed Anthony Eden, Britain's prime minister, hesitated to give the word that would unleash the French and British troops waiting on Cyprus and Malta and begin the full-scale attack. He faced a host of pressures: a popular outcry against the bombings in his own country, blustering condemnation from a Soviet Union allied with Egypt and trying to divert attention from its own invasions of Poland and Hungary, and perhaps most telling, United States President Eisenhower's fear that his own NATO partners were bringing the world to the brink of war. With only days remaining before the U.S. presidential election, Eisenhower, in order to force Britain to back down, was exerting both diplomatic influence in the United Nations and financial muscle by weakening the British pound.

Fearing that Eden was about to get cold feet and leave his secret Jewish allies militarily and diplomatically high and dry, Israeli high officials cast about for someone who might approach the British prime minister and allay his fears about Eisenhower's ability to undermine Britain's currency and economy. When they learned that Eden and his wife, Clarissa, were scheduled to attend a dinner at the home of Baron Samuel de Kronengold on that very night of November 4, 1956, they asked Pierre, his French cousin, to telephone Samuel about speaking to Eden.

Although Samuel was a contributor to Israel, the Israelis were far closer to Pierre, who spent a good deal of time in Israel and funded numerous projects there. The two cousins had been in negotiations for months about merging their banks into a larger, unified financial institution—after a century of separation—now that it appeared Britain would soon join the Common Market. Both men feared, among other things, that a failure to retake the Suez Canal and topple Nasser would result, instead, in toppling both the French and British governments. That would put an end to British acceptance into the Common Market for the time being and, thus, to the merger of the French and British Kronengold banks.

Samuel needed little convincing by Pierre, viewing Britain's refusal to knuckle under to Nasser as a reassertion, at last, of British greatness. He spent the day rehearsing the arguments he would use to stiffen Eden's backbone.

Only after dinner, when Samuel led the men, erect in black tie and tuxedo, to the Trophy Room, was he able to talk alone with Eden. Although they sat in a corner and conversed for a very long time, all of Samuel's persuasion proved fruitless; he found himself facing a very ill, very frightened man.

Read more:   BIRTHRIGHT bit.ly/PojdHz

In my novel Birthright or Birthright (Kindle), I wanted to show how the brilliant patriarch of the legendary Kronengold banking family discerned a similar brilliance in his five-year-old granddaughter Deborah that set her apart from the other children in the family. I chose the family's celebration of the Jewish holiday of Passover in which that incident could occur. 

Here’s an excerpt: 

Deborah was the youngest child present. She had been carefully schooled for several years in the table manners expected of an upper-class young lady, but she was nonetheless bewildered by the number of forks, knives, spoons, and glasses set out before her. When in doubt, she had been told, use the outside utensil, but no meal could possibly have so many courses. There was so much an adult had to know, she decided. No wonder it took so long to become one.

For children the high point of a seder is the hunt for the afikomen, a piece of matzo wrapped in a napkin that is hidden when none of them is looking. Deborah was all concentration, never taking her eyes off of the square of napkin-covered matzo beside her grandfather's plate. She was determined that the prize—traditionally money, she was told—would be hers.

But she had anticipated too soon. When dinner was finally brought in by a file of servants bearing gleaming silver trays, her attention was captured by the display. The butler led, his white collar high and starched, his black bow tie alert, like rabbit ears. Behind him were the liveried footmen. The young ladies who worked for the family followed, their backs straight, their cheeks slightly flushed at the notice their entrance was receiving.

"At last!" Malcolm cried out. "Another minute, and I'd have converted out of pure hunger."

Everyone laughed. Deborah's gaze shifted back to the napkin. It was gone! In that short moment of letting down her guard, someone had whisked it away. Halfway down the table, Malcolm was standing behind one of the relatives. Grandfather's eyes seemed to be laughing at her. All her advantage lost. Deborah folded her arms and glared at him.

When the children were finally unleashed, yapping and scuffling, she bounded to the head of the table. The others searched chuckling dinner guests or opened the doors of cabinets along the walls or peeked behind pictures, but she was convinced it had to be near Grandfather; her surveillance had been broken for only that single instant. Malcolm, empty-handed, had been too far down the table; he had been a decoy. Deborah studied Grandfather's face. He stared as intently at hers, his eyes once again seeming to laugh at her predicament.

"Deborah, you'd better hurry—someone else will find it," Malcolm's wife, Lavinia, prodded.

The heavy older man and the little girl continued to study each other. She could see clearly it was not in his lap or under his chair. Hands locked across his stomach, he sat unmoving in the tall chair. He seemed much stiffer than earlier in the evening. Of course! She plunged into the space separating his back from the upholstery. Having observed her sudden movement, the other children were rushing toward them. She groped around frantically. The bottom of his jacket felt hard and flat; her hands scrabbled underneath it—and the prize was hers. Triumphantly, she held up the glorious square white parcel. The adults applauded and cheered. Richard was fuming. The ignominy of being bested by someone as young, as insignificant, and as female as she was almost too crushing an embarrassment to bear. It would be days before he spoke to her again. She resolved not to care.

"My prize!" she demanded.

"What do you want?" Samuel asked.

"Money. That's the prize ... isn't it?"

"Perhaps some candy." His tone was teasing.

But it's supposed to be money!"

"Deborah, speak to your grandfather with more respect," her mother interjected sharply.

But she was not to be diverted. She continued to stare him down.

Samuel broke into a wide smile. "I honestly believe this monkey would go so far as to destroy my reputation in the City if I failed to pay what I owe her."

He lifted her onto his knee. "You sit here with me, little Deborah. Tomorrow morning I will withdraw one entire gold guinea from the bank just for you."

She hadn't the slightest idea what the value was of the coin Grandfather had named, having never possessed, nor needed to, even so much as a tuppence in her life. "Is that a lot of money?"

"A fortune," he assured her. "And afterward we shall go to a grand restaurant, you and I, to discuss important financial matters."

Deborah had never been to a restaurant, but had often stood yearning to join her mother as she pulled on her gloves and adjusted her hat in the mirror.

"Do you promise?"

He solemnly extended his hand. "Is my credit good until tomorrow?"

They shook hands, and she collapsed happily against his chest.

Read more: Birthright or Birthright (Kindle). bit.ly/PojdHz