YOU ARE WHO YOU SAY YOU ARE

“Google him.”
How many times have you said that to a friend about a new acquaintance, business connection or potential date?
Even before Google, there were databases, ways to quickly check out a person and at least find out if they were who they said they were…and hadn’t done anything terrible.
But what did people do before computerized records?
For centuries, letters of introduction were one big way to get a start in a new place. You’d have a (hopefully prominent) acquaintance write a letter to their equally prominent friend in your new town, telling them what a great person you are. It was a good way to get off on the right foot. Even now, many of us will ask a friend or mentor to make a few introductions – these days by email or phone – when we’re moving or starting a different job.
By the nineteenth century, reliable records of births, deaths and criminal proceedings were being kept, of course, but accessing them was neither fast nor easy. Letters of introduction were still a very common practice, and with improved communication, it was a lot tougher for someone to bluff their way in without getting caught. Not that it didn’t still happen.
Scammers were thick on the ground wherever there was money to be made and people willing to believe a good story. The very social mobility and change that made the Gilded Age such a fascinating time opened up plenty of chances for opportunists. More than one well off woman (and man) ended up losing their fortune to a suitor who seemed appropriate in every way…and turned out to be a clever criminal.
So, when a fine gentleman claiming to be Gilbert Saint Aubyn, Duke of Leith, walks into Ella Shane’s rehearsal studio one spring morning, she doesn’t just accept him at face value. She takes careful note of his clothes, which are good, but neither fancy nor especially new. She watches his behavior, observing that he’s a decently trained fencer – if not as good as she is – which suggests an upper-class background. And she listens to his accent, mostly the expected crisp London diction. But something about his consonants concerns her.
And anything strange might be a suggestion of very big trouble.
No surprise, then, that later in the day, she reaches for one of the few references that might help: Debrett’s Peerage. It’s a book that lists all of the titled families in Britain, and their members. Ella bought her copy as preparation for her first tour in London, so she would know who she was dealing with – and how to address them. Flipping through the book, she quickly establishes that there is indeed a Dukedom of Leith, that the current incumbent is Gilbert Saint Aubyn, and that he’s the right age.
More, his domain (which, of course, exists only in the pages of the Ella books) is in the North of England. Now, she has an explanation for that odd accent – he’s a Northerner, a border lord. There’s a great deal of history and intrigue associated with the border lords, but that’s a post for another day. What matters now is that Ella was able to check him out enough to feel relatively comfortable.
Not that she fully trusts him right away…and not that she doesn’t have a few doubts later on. Ella is nobody’s fool…not even a hot Duke’s.

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