Authors note: I have realised that I have been wrongly referring to Charles as ‘Sir Charles’. The correct form of address is ‘Lord Bolton’ which is a superior title. In this and subsequent chapters the correct title will be used, along with references to ‘your lordship’, ‘his lordship’ etc.
**************************************************************************

I was stunned and embarrassed when Lizzie told me that she knew about my situation. I wasn’t embarrassed so much that she knew I was cross-dressing, I was used to that now, it was more of a worry that she knew I had been deceiving her father for weeks. Feeling guilty and ashamed, I didn’t know how to reply and stayed silent.

“Come on Jane, talk to me, I have just trusted you with my secret life, I am not in a position to judge you or criticise you. If you don’t want to tell me fair enough, but I would like to know more about you. If it is any consolation to you, you are so convincing that I had absolutely no idea, and I do mix in LGBTQ circles and know a few trans-girls. You are just so natural, were you raised as a girl?”

“Not at all, this is all just recent for me, that’s the problem, I am not sure who or what I am. Since this all started a few weeks ago, I seem to be on a spiral getting deeper and deeper into womanhood.” She sat silently listening intently as I told her the story from when Darren asked me to help him out and how it had just become second-nature for me to dress and act as a woman.

“Wow, that is some story, after you finish writing our memoirs you ought to consider writing your own. “What are we going to do with you now?”

“ Can we just continue as before, at least until I get it clear in my head what direction my hormones are taking me? From what the doctor has said to me, I am almost as much female as male, and these are growing naturally, with no help from drugs.” I told her looking down at my small breasts.”

“ Ok, for the moment we’ll keep each others’ secrets, but sooner or later we are both going to have to make decisions about our future. William knows about my sexuality and keeps threatening to tell Daddy, he found out through a friend of a friend, I suppose I’d better tell him now, before William does, in a fit of spite.”

“ Anyway, you have distracted me, I came out to see if you wanted to talk about the big news about your inheritance issues, ‘your Ladyship.’ I joked to her.”

“There’s a long way to go yet before you have to call me that, there are a lot of legalities to sort out. Although William can be an absolute pig, he is still my younger brother and I feel that I am robbing him of his birthright.”

“Whether you like it or not, it is not his birthright, if your father is proven correct, he is not the rightful heir, in law, and quite frankly, from what you and your father have told me and what I have seen, he doesn’t deserve to be. He has no interest in the family or the estate except as a means of supporting him in his dissolute lifestyle , whereas your eyes light up when you are talking about them. The estate and the family reputation are much safer in your hands than in his. All you have to worry about is somehow producing an heir and carrying on the bloodline.”

“If it’s not too forward and far too early, maybe in time if you are still in full working order, you might be able to help me with that.” She grinned and held my hand as we got up and walked back to the house.”

On the way back Lizzie decided to tell her father right away, before William did, and she took him off to his study to break the news. While they were away I told Mum and Jenny that Lizzie had discovered the truth about me while I was wrestling on the floor with William, but kept to myself that she had confirmed it when the three of us were in bed.

“Oh dear, this could be embarrassing if she tells him about you.” Mum looked worried.

“It should be fine for the moment, for various reasons she is not in a hurry to tell him that. Anyway, just for a change let’s go and see what Mrs.H is up to in the kitchen and whether she will let us help, she’s been a star the last couple of days.”

There was very little for us to do as she had the main items all prepared and under control, but appreciated the offer. Marshall however looked horrified when he saw us in the kitchen peeling potatoes and chopping vegetables. It was obvious that in his world it was not the done thing for the household to help out the staff.

Charles and Lizzie found us in there and looked relaxed and happy, Lizzie winked at me and gave a thumbs-up, obviously her father had took the news without too much fuss.

Leaving Mum and Jenny to themselves for a while, Charles and Lizzie led me to the ante-room to the library where the family archives were stored, many of them seemed to be on delicate old parchment and were preserved from deterioration in sealed boxes and would require careful handling. They left me to have a think about how I wanted to go forward while they went back to look after their guests. I decided to minimise any damage to the documents by speed-reading them, deciding if they were of interest or relevant to the story, and photographing those that I wanted to study in more detail. It was obviously going to be a long and laborious task.

Or final evening together was very much a casual affair, no fancy clothes, meals or wine, just a traditional Sunday roast leg of lamb family dinner. It was a much more pleasant evening without the disruptive presence of William and finished off the weekend for Mum and Jenny in a friendly relaxed atmosphere.

Later I was just getting into bed when they was a gentle rap at the door and Lizzie came in to see me. “I just thought that I would let you know that Daddy wasn’t too put out at all when I told him about my sexuality. He said that he had his suspicions anyway, and the way I was fussing around you all weekend just made him even more convinced. Other than the problem of carrying on the bloodline, he was not too concerned about how I wanted to live my life. He said that when he was younger in the 1960s and 70s his parents used to complain about the loose morals of the younger generation, partly aimed at him, and that he wasn’t going to preach at me. As regards carrying on the family dynasty, I told him that I had ideas of how to deal with that.” She said looking at me with a twinkle in her eye.

“Taken aback, I quickly replied, “If you mean what I think you mean, let’s just take it slowly, you hardly know me, and it’s too early to commit to that, I need to sort myself out first, but the idea is very appealing.”

“Since I’m here, and I have told you that I don’t mind which way I play, let me introduce you to the joys of girl-on-girl intimacy, we’ll save the rest for another time.” Lizzie and I spent the next few hours together, exploring each others bodies, before she felt she had to go back to her own room before we were discovered.

In the morning we packed our things went down for breakfast, and got ready to leave. As we were in the Servants’ Hall we went next door to the kitchen to thank Marshall and Mrs.H for all their attention over the weekend and for once Marshall’s stuffy façade dropped as he blushingly accepted a hug from Mum, before going to get our cases and put them in my car.

“ You must all come again, I’ve really enjoyed your company, you have made an old man very happy.” Charles grinned as he wished us goodbye with big hugs. Lizzie followed suit, except that her hug for me included a cheeky discreet squeeze of my bottom.

“I’ll give you a call later in the week about another look at the archives after I have sorted a few things out at work.” I told Charles before we left.

The next few days settled into a routine, mainly follow-up articles on the corruption case, which was progressing well now that the police had broken Chisholm’s resistance and had formally charged Ridgeley and Hargreaves, who had been remanded in custody until a trial, some months away after the police had concluded their investigations. I also managed to also pull together a separate story of the Bolton Manor Estate and the family history and their involvement in the major out-of-town development, which in no way implicated the family in the corruption scandal.

“I like that story about the Boltons Jane.” my editor Mike congratulated me. “We’ll run it later in the week when there is nothing new on the main story. You seem to have Lord Bolton and his daughter on your side, let’s keep it that way, send them a draft to see if they want to add anything.”

“Actually, that brings me on to something else. I’m working on a full history of the family, using lots of the old records in the private archives, with the intention of publishing it. There is an enormous amount of paperwork, going back hundreds of years and it is going to swallow up a lot of my time doing all the research over at the Manor. Have you any problems if I go part-time here, obviously I want to keep involved with the corruption story, but anything else could be left to the other reporters.”

“How dry do you expect the book to be, will there be any juicy titbits in there?”

“From what I have seen already there are a few scandals and stories of intrigue hidden away, why do you ask?”

“Go freelance, and only charge us for the time you put in on the articles for The Post, but in return, I would like serialisation rights to publish extracts of the bits that I think will appeal to our readers. Do you agree?”

“Sounds ok to me, but I need to clear it with the family first. Actually I want to go over to the Manor to discuss the article with Lord Bolton, I’ll run it past him while I am there.”

“ Fine by me, but clear up anything else you are working on here first.”

Surprisingly, at the Manor my knock on the door was answered by Mrs. H rather than by Marshall. Seeing the look of surprise on my face she quickly explained. “Oh, hello Jane, nice to see you again. We weren’t expecting visitors today so Marshall is having a day off to deal with a few personal matters.”

“Is Charles free at the moment?”

“Very much so, you’ll find his lordship down at the river up to his waist in the water trying to catch a couple of trout for tonight.”

“How’s it going Charles, catch anything yet?” I called out to get his attention.

“With you in a minute Jane just wait on the bench until I reel in this fellow.”

He landed a brown trout and popped it in the keep-net before joining me. “ To what do I owe this pleasure dear girl?”

I showed him a transcript of the article which he was more than happy for us to run. “I’ve had a word with my editor and he is happy for me to go part-time so that I can be here doing the archive research more often. However, if it turns out to be of wider interest he wants the rights to serialise extracts from it in The Post, are you happy to agree to that?”

“Two things. Firstly, I chose you to write the book because I feel I can trust you to write it in a favourable light. Secondly, one of the few sensible ideas that William has ever come up with is that the family should have a veto on anything we don’t want to be made public, or at least can insist that you tone it down. Subject to that I don’t have a problem. Since you are here now, are you staying for lunch, you can then get started on the archives, unless you have other commitments?”

Over a Ploughman’s Lunch and a glass of cider brewed on one of the estate farms, I updated him on the situation with Ridgeley being held in custody.

“ Good thing too, they ought to lock the door and throw away the key. I never liked dealing with him. Changing the subject, how is Nell, sorry, your Aunt, has she come back down to earth after the weekend here?”

“Her and Jenny have not stopped talking about it, telling all their friends, you really made a good impression on them.”

“ And vice-vera, I enjoyed their company, please tell them that they are welcome back here any time.”

“What about William, have you heard from him since he stormed off?”

“No sign of hide nor hair of him. Lizzie phoned around his friends but nobody has seen or heard from him since he left to come up here. The ball’s in his court, when he gets over his tantrums, or more likely when he needs money, he will be in touch.”

“What about Lizzie?”

“She went back to town to sort a few things out. Did she tell you about her personal life?”

“If you mean about preferring girls to boys, yes she did. Has that changed what you propose to do about the inheritance?”

“Not at all, William has burnt his bridges, he has gone too far too many times, Lizzie is a much safer pair of hands to take care of the family future.”

“Right Charles, I am here to work, so I suppose I better get started if you’ll excuse me.”

The following few days very much followed the same pattern, mornings at The Post, afternoons at the Manor, and evenings with Jenny and Mum, or the occasional night out with the girls.

As a courtesy, since Cartwright Projects and their involvement with the development of The Bolton Centre was mentioned in my piece about the family, I called in to see James and Darren. Surprisingly I was warmly welcomed by all the staff, my appearance on ‘Spotlight’ the previous week was still the talk of the office and the women all wanted to know about the people I’d worked with at North TV. After a polite stop to have a chat with them all, particularly Liz and Angie, I ,managed to break away to go into James’ office, where I was warmly welcomed with a big hug and cheek kiss.

“So glad to see you again Jane, we’ve lots of things going on, since you got to the bottom of things. Tell me what you have been up to, then we will call Darren in to tell you what is happening here.”

“I’ve settled back at The Post, but things have moved on. I am getting closer to Lord Bolton and his family, so if he needs a bit of a nudge going forward on the development, let me know and I’ll see what I can do for you. He has commissioned me to research his family history and pull it all together into a book, so I am up at the Manor quite often. The Post will soon be running an article I have written on the Bolton Family and estate, and their involvement with you on the development gets a mention. I thought that you might like to see it before we go to press.” I passed him a transcript to read through.

“ No problems at all with that, in fact I’d appreciate it if you could add a bit more about us. Let me get Darren come in with us.”

“ Darren greeted me with a big hug and a surprised stare, taking in how much more feminine I was now looking.”

“Wow, Susie told me that you were really settled now as Jane, but I was not expecting how convincing you appear.”

“Can we forget all that Darren, at the moment I am Jane, and happy to be continuing. Now what is happening here?”

“We’ve had in-depth discussions with the police and with our lawyers. We have agreed that there will be no criminal charges in relation to the false invoices to us. We are advised that it will be more successful to deal with those as civil matters, the burden of proof is a lot lower, and the chances of recovering some of the money a lot higher. Carl and some specialist forensic accountants he has brought in have even recovered some already, some other companies know which side their bread is buttered and have agreed to return substantial amounts, although the exact repayments are still to be agreed. We are in negotiations with more companies that we know about and are still searching our records to see if there are any more. If we can get it all sorted without going to court it will save an awful lot of time and money.”

“What about John Chisholm’s involvement in it all?”

“Obviously he has lost his job here, and will still face criminal charges along with Ridgeley, Hargreaves, and other Council staff in relation to the Public corruption charges. It is going to be more difficult getting our hands on any of his kick-backs, his main asset is his house and it will be difficult to make a claim on that while he still has young children living there. Apparently he has been a middle-man passing on payments between Ridgeley and more junior staff in the planning department, at the moment there is no evidence of any wrong-doing by him representing our company.”

“You said that there are more council staff involved, turning back to my role as a reporter, how many are we talking about and have they been named.”

“Sorry we can’t help you there. Joe Riley, now he knows about our link to you, and therefore to The Post, is being very careful telling us anything, you’ll have to use your other contacts, I’m afraid.”

“On the way in I saw that Liz and Maggie are still here, does that mean that their jobs are safe.”

“Let’s say that they are on probation, both of them were naive and under the influence of others. Unless anything more comes to light, and as long as they behave themselves in the future, I will not involve them in any of my claims, but Liz and her sister will probably be called as witnesses in the criminal corruption case as Ridgeley is also being charged with blackmail and coercive behaviour.”

I noted that it was Darren leading the discussions on all this and that James was taking a backseat.

“It seems that you have got this under control James, hopefully you can now concentrate on getting the company back on an even keel.”

“Actually that will all be down to Darren. All this turmoil with the accounts and the corruption has made me realise that I am not enjoying it all as much as I used to when I was building the company up, I am not getting the same buzz. Although I will still be the public face of the company and doing a lot of the glad-handing, all the worries of the day-to day administration and dealing with clients investors and suppliers will be down to him, with me looking over his shoulder, when I am not out on the golf course.”

“ You’ve not mentioned Sally, what are you doing about her?”

“ We’re doing nothing, but she is likely to be charged for aiding and abetting Ridgeley in recruiting Liz and her sister, although the police think the prosecutors will not be too heavy with her.”

“ Right, I’d better be going now, I’m glad that I was of help to you. Enjoy your retirement James.” I said as I left.

Later on the winding country roads out to the Manor, I was tailgated by a transit van, driving far too close for comfort. ‘Typical selfish white-van-man’ I thought, always in a hurry trying to intimidate people to drive faster or get out of their way, and as I slowed to turn into the drive to the Manor, he came roaring past, his horn blaring, giving obscene hand gestures, almost forcing me off the road. I pulled up just inside he gate to get over it and calm down before driving up to continue my research and put it out of my mind.

However as I was driving home later the same thing happened, this time with a large saloon car, full headlights glaring in my rear-view mirror, following me almost all the way home. Caroline’s words came back to me. ‘Keep on with it, you are really shaking things up, but be careful you will be upsetting a lot of people who won’t be happy, and will be only too willing to get their revenge on you.’ I was worried that these were not just cases of casual bad driving but that someone was trying to intimidate me.

As I entered the flat, I noticed a plain envelope on the floor, no address, no stamp, just my name. Inside there was just a photo of my car taken from behind, and a short printed message ‘Be careful how you drive.’

“Mike, I’ve just had a threatening letter with a photo of my car, and have been bothered twice today by tailgating drivers, someone is trying to scare me off. Do you want to run it as a story?”

‘Give more details Jane and I’ll write a short piece for tomorrow’s edition, and then take the envelope and contents to the police, they may be able to get prints or DNA .”

The investigating officers on the corruption scandal were glad to see me and take the message for checking, Hopefully it would prove to be a link to the corruption and be another charge to hit Ridgeley with.

The next few days, to be sure that it wasn’t all just coincidental I varied my travel routes and times. thankfully there was no repeat of the intimidation, but I was still uneasy.

I had received an appointment letter from the Endocrinology Department at the hospital to see the specialist about my hormone imbalances and arrived for my appointment a bit worried and concerned at what I may be told. Thankfully it was another female doctor, Helen Shipley, for some reason I felt less embarrassed than I would have been with a man.

“Good morning Miss Harrison, I have your notes from Dr.Stewart and I am intrigued. She has explained your situation as she sees it, and in the circumstances it is best that I refer to you as Jane Harrison for the moment and maintain your records as such. Your test results are unusual, to say the least, and I would like to repeat them, and also send you for a body scan, which has already been arranged for this morning, I will see you again later today. She gave me a physical examination, took more blood tests and all the usual body function readings, I then got dressed and went down to wait for the scan. Three hours later I was in with her again.

“The tests have confirmed those taken by Dr Stewart, your hormone levels are fairly neutral between male and female, but they can easily be modified and controlled by drugs. However the scan showed that you have underdeveloped female internal sexual organs as well as the obvious external male ones. There are lots of detailed and varied medical terms, but basically you are, and have always been, intersex.”

“What exactly does that mean? Is my body going to make further changes? Am I fertile, as a male?”

“Other than the continuing development of breast tissue, your body will not make significant further changes without surgery or other medical intervention. Basically you can either have the breast tissue removed, take male hormones and live your life as a man, or you can have corrective surgery, take female hormones and live as a woman. You don’t have to make a decision immediately, you could wait to see how your body develops, but whichever option you choose you need to think seriously about how you want your future to be.”

“Am I fertile as a male at the moment, and if so can I give a semen sample to be kept for if ever I want to use it and my body is no longer capable.” For some unexplained reason the image of me and Lizzie, with a child, jumped into my thoughts.

“I can’t give you the answer to that. If you can provide a sample, we will test it for sperm count and activity, and if it is adequate we can store it for later use, it may be a wise precaution at this stage. Go home and have a think about it, talk to your family and close friends and let me know what you want to do. It’s a big decision, and there is no rush. I don’t know how you looked and behaved when you were living as a boy and man, but I can say that from what I can see now, you would have no problem carrying on as you are.”

It had all come as a big shock and my mind was totally confused. I had been totally normal and content with my life as a boy and man, but since starting to live as Jane, I had become comfortable and happy with that too. A few weeks ago, if I had been told the same news, the choice would have been easy, Jack was who I was and who I would remain however now that I had been living as Jane and settled into a routine as a woman, the choice was not as clear cut.

To be continued.