Everyone had made a very concerted effort to avoid the subject of any recent kidnapping. Over the dinner, the earl had once more said he could not imagine what London was coming to.
Miss Mayton had leapt to the rescue, lest the earl have questions about the circumstances that nobody was prepared to answer.
She said, “My dear Rosalind, it has been much on my mind that you will take your wedding trip to Sweden. I wonder if you might not make some offering at the sight of Count Tulerstein’s tragic demise?”
Van Doren, always simmering with outrage over Miss Mayton’s tragic past, though nobody understood why, said, “And how would they go about finding this Alpine meadow where he tragically threw himself over the side since it only lives in your mind?”
Miss Mayton had looked at him sympathetically, as if the viscount had little understanding of such matters.
“Count Tulerstein’s spirit lives on in the mountains,” Miss Mayton said. “Any mountain meadow will do.”
“I’m sure we can arrange something,” Rosalind said. “We’ll take flowers and throw them over the side somewhere.”
“And send him my deepest regrets,” Miss Mayton murmured.
“For the love of—”
Van Doren was cut off by Juliet. “I’ve written a new ode,” she said. “It’s calledWhen the Love is True. I will read it at the wedding breakfast.”
“Well, my dear,” the earl said kindly, “I am not sure that would be the right venue for your…stylings. The queen will be there, after all.”
“Do you say our queen does not care for poetry?” Juliet asked.
“Oh, do not say so, Papa,” Viola said.
“If it is true,” Cordelia said, “then I expect it is only because she has not heard Juliet’s poems. She’s probably been bored to tears with Wordsworth and his ilk.”
“True,” Juliet said, nodding. “Those fellows just go on and on.”
Rosalind glanced at Darden, who was looking rather panicked. Conbatten just smiled. Really, her brother should learn to be more like Conbatten. Nothing shook his confidence, not even a kidnapping. He would hardly fear a poem at a wedding breakfast.
“I’ll paint a portrait of both of you for your wedding present,” Viola said.
“Is the one of Bess and her pups done already, Viola?” Beatrice asked.
“Well, no. You see I kept adding dark colors for the fur, and somehow it ended all dark colors. I think I shall do better painting people.”
“Oh I’m sure that’s true,” Rosalind said. “Goodness, Conbatten, our first portrait together.”
Conbatten nodded. “I anxiously await the effort.”
They had since moved to the drawing room and Miss Mayton was, as she had promised, reading the conclusion ofThe Awful Happenstances of Grimwood Hall.
The earl had been on the edge of his seat as the story unfolded. The magistrate had attempted to retrieve the dead duchess from the well, as the gentle governess and the duke looked on.
She was not there!
The magistrate was outraged that there was no body to haul up after all that trouble and ordered a search of the entire estate. The duchess was eventually found in an old crone’s cottage, deep in the woods. It seemed the crone had found the lady unconscious in a cave and nursed her back to health.
When the duchess was brought to her duke, she informed him that it had been the housekeeper all along. The housekeeper was in love with the duke and had tried to finish her off.
Said housekeeper, when she was looked for, had slipped away.
As the duchess recounted her trials, not the least of which was the old crone’s substandard menus and uncomfortable bed, she began to notice that her duke was in love with her governess. As the duchess had always been a very bad-tempered woman, she attacked the governess.
The poor gentle governess ran outside, but the duchess was enraged and would not let her go.
They reached the well. There was a struggle.
