Daniel Sinclair
The one American in the club. He arrived in England to marry a woman neither of them wanted, ended up friends with her cousin instead, and is now taking money off English aristocrats to build a railroad on the other side of the Atlantic.
Daniel Sinclair. CVM Sekai original art.
Sinclair is the outsider the series uses to make its own rules visible. He is the only man in the tontine who did not inherit his position, the only one with a trade, and the only one whose plan involves leaving. Everything the English characters take as the natural order gets quietly measured against him.
He also has the most unusual entry into the group in the series. His father arranged for him to marry Norcroft’s cousin Fiona. Neither of them wanted it, Fiona was already in love with Helmsley, and the arrangement collapsed. Sinclair stayed anyway and became friends with the family he had been sent to marry into.
His function in scenes is the dry line. He is rarely the subject of a conversation and almost always the one who punctures it, usually in one sentence, usually at Cavendish’s expense.
The file
| Name | Daniel Sinclair. No title, and the absence is the point |
|---|---|
| Nationality | American. “The one American among them, and no doubt the only American currently present in the gentlemen’s club they favored in the heart of London” |
| Father | Has “built a financial empire”. Not named in the pages read |
| Why he came to England | His father arranged for him to marry Norcroft’s cousin Fiona. Neither party wanted the match |
| What happened to that | Fiona had fallen in love with Lord Helmsley and married him instead |
| Occupation | Building a railroad in America. In London to raise the financing for it |
| Investors | Every member of the tontine, plus Helmsley |
| Plan | Several more months to secure the money, then return to America to develop the line |
| Circle | Joined the tontine after the founding four. Friends with Norcroft “in the months since his arrival in England” |
| Status as of page 80 | Alive, unmarried, one of the three remaining tontine members |
| Books | A Little Bit Wicked and What a Lady Wants, Last Man Standing, by Victoria Alexander |
How he got here
Daniel Sinclair had come into their circle when his father had arranged for him to marry Oliver’s cousin. Neither Sinclair nor Oliver’s cousin, Fiona, was in favor of that, which was fortunate, as Fiona had fallen in love with Lord Helmsley, an old friend of Oliver’s.
Still, Sinclair and Oliver had found, in spite of their cultural differences, common ground, and had become friends in the months since his arrival in England.
Worth sitting with. A man crosses an ocean under a marriage contract his father made, finds the bride in love with somebody else, watches her marry that man, and stays. Not out of grievance, but because he made a friend of her cousin and there was business to be done.
It also means his introduction to the tontine ran through a failed arranged marriage, which is a pointed way to enter a wager about avoiding marriage.
The railroad
Sinclair was in London seeking investors for a railroad venture in America, and thus far all the members of the tontine, as well as Helmsley, had invested. The American expected it would take several more months to acquire the financing he needed, then he planned to return to America to develop his railroad.
There wasn’t a doubt in Oliver’s mind that Sinclair would increase their fortunes substantially.
That last line does a lot of quiet work. These men are not indulging a friend. Norcroft, who is careful and heads a family, considers the return effectively certain. Sinclair is the competent one.
It also puts a clock on him that has nothing to do with romance. He is leaving as soon as the money is raised.
The very American thing Norcroft says about him
You have a father who has built a financial empire, yet you have not depended on that. You have seized the freedom you need to strive for success by your own hand and in the process have taken on a great many responsibilities. It’s quite admirable and very American of you. For you, love would be most inconvenient.
Sinclair chuckled. “Yes, I suppose it would.”
Three men, three relationships to freedom. Cavendish has it because he has not inherited yet. Norcroft never had it because he inherited early. Sinclair took his deliberately and paid for it in obligations, which is the only version in the room that was chosen rather than handed over.
And his answer is not a denial. He agrees that love would be inconvenient. He is the only one who does not argue the point, which makes him either the most honest man at the table or the most exposed.
The dry line
His comic function is consistent and it is always deflation, delivered flat.
That alone is worth the effort of remaining happily unwed if indeed any of us needed further encouragement.
Perhaps she didn’t know you were a scoundrel?
A scoundrel, you mean? A rascal? Even a rogue?
Couldn’t happen. Immovable objects can’t crash into one another. They’re immovable.
That last one is the engineer answering a figure of speech literally, and it is the closest the book comes to letting his profession into his dialogue.
He intends to win
…of you when I become the sole proprietor of the Cognac.
The prize is four shillings and a bottle of Cognac. The stated real prize, in Cavendish’s words, is freedom. Sinclair is the only man at the table whose entire life is already organized around leaving the country, which makes him the structural favorite and the least romantic proposition in the group.
What the book withholds
His father’s name, and what the empire is in. Referred to once, in the abstract.
Where in America, and which railroad. Never specified in the pages read.
His age. Never stated.
Anything about his life before England. He arrives already formed, with a contract and a business plan, and the novel supplies no history.
Everything after page 80 of book two. This profile is written from a front-to-back read currently at that point, supplemented by in-book search on the term Sinclair. Later pages were returned by that search and are deliberately not summarized here, because this shelf keeps character pages readable before you have finished the book.
Where he connects
Oliver Leighton, Earl of Norcroft
Cousin of the woman Sinclair was sent to marry, and the friend he made instead.
CharacterJonathon Effington, Lord Helmsley
Married Fiona, and invested in the railroad anyway.
CharacterThe Honorable Nigel Cavendish
The usual target of the dry line.
SeriesLast Man Standing
The tontine, the five books, and who falls in what order.
The RaeRae take
The American in a British historical is usually there to be brash and get corrected. Sinclair is not that. He is the most competent person in the room, everyone knows it, and Norcroft says so without a trace of condescension. The cultural difference is mentioned once, in a sentence about how they got past it.
What I find genuinely sharp is the shape of his backstory. He was the subject of an arranged marriage, which in this genre is a woman’s plot. It happened to him, it fell apart because the bride loved somebody else, and the book treats his side of it as barely worth a sentence. He was as much a piece of property in that arrangement as Fiona was, and nobody, including him, remarks on it.
He is also the only man in the tontine with a reason to leave, which makes him the one the wager cannot really touch. If he wins, he takes a bottle of Cognac to America. That is a very funny prize for a man building a railroad.
Sources
Primary source is the novels themselves: What a Lady Wants, Last Man Standing book 2, read front to back on Kindle and currently complete through page 80, with further receipts gathered by in-book search on the term Sinclair. He also appears in A Little Bit Wicked.
No secondary source, wiki, blurb or adaptation has been used. Where the book does not say something, this page says that it does not say it.