Dr. Kate Lister

There's a letter that he writes later in life saying that, I don't regret what happened between us.

The only sin was your terrible marriage.

At one point, Augusta, he calls Augusta, gets pregnant and gives birth to a baby called Medora.

And he writes a letter saying, well, thank God it's not a monkey because there was a superstition that incest would result in people giving birth to monkeys.

Oh my goodness.

He's talking to his friends at the time about how he's in a real mess, worse than any scrape he's been in before.

He confesses to Lady Melbourne, who is Lady Caroline Lamb's mother-in-law, that he is doing this.

He is.

There's no smoking gun.

There's no DNA test.

But yeah, he is.

So he needs to get married pretty quickly to get money and to calm down the rumors that are spreading about him.

She doesn't say yes immediately.

She says no, first of all.

And it's not particularly long courtship, but it's all written by letters.

And it's like watching a car crash in slow motion.

It's just like, you know what's going to happen here.

And it's exactly what does happen.

So she marries him.

She falls in love with him.