"My first wife Sarah took a considerable chunk as part of her divorce settlement, the result of discovering she had certain undesirables in her family tree. Her grandfather was a grease monkey for gods sake!"

I don't understand this. How does having undesireables in your family tree get you a favorable divorce settlement?

"She almost looks Italian in origin although her blue eyes give lie to that idea."

Maybe doubt instead of lie? I don't think blue eyed italians are unheard of.

One more item: I don't know if this is just me. You should wait to see if anybody else has a problem with this. But, your writing style is reading more archaic than upper crust to me. Until he dated the architecture of his house, I thought this was set at least 100 years ago.

Anyhoo, hope this is of some use. Carry on.