“It isThe Dreadful Doings of Dembric Dale,” Cordelia said. “It begins with a duke hopelessly in love with his gentle governess. Her father, Mr. Denbrow, lives in the dale and refuses to sanction the marriage. We were entirely surprised by that turn of events because her father is the poorest man in the county and the duke is the richest.”
“That does seem surprising,” Mrs. Jordan said.
“Doesn’t it just?” the earl said. “But then we discovered that Mr. Denbrow was willing to part with his daughter for all the money the duke had—makinghimthe richest and the duke the poorest.”
“The duke has agreed to it,” Juliet said. “What else could he do, he is so in love.”
“But there is one thing that troubles Mr. Denbrow, who is now very rich,” Cordelia said. “The duke would only agree to the idea if he were named Mr. Denbrow’s heir.”
“Ah, very sensible,” Mrs. Jordan said. “The duke will get his money back in the end.”
“Yes, but when is the end and how is the end?” Miss Mayton said mysteriously. “This is what lingers in Mr. Denbrow’s mind.”
“He’s terribly tortured over it,” Juliet said happily.
Miss Mayton nodded. “All right, chapter three.”
Mr. Denbrow should have been a happy man. He had entirely transformed what had been a ramshackle hovel into a place of luxury and comfort.
And yet, there were ideas that insisted on troubling his mind and disturbing his sleep. He knew that the duke and his own daughter lived in poverty now. They still had a grand house, but they’d had to fire all the servants and they now lived exclusively in the drawing room to save on firewood. They had to chop the wood down themselves these days and neither of them were very good at it.
While the duke seemed satisfied with the arrangement, his daughter appeared rather less sanguine to find herself a duchess with nothing to show for it. Her unhappiness was nothing, though, compared to the duke’s fired servants.
More than half the village had been employed in that house and the stares and threats Mr. Denbrow got from those persons were terrorizing. More alarming, the duke was named his heir. He almost got the feeling that somebody might murder him to get their job back.
It was beginning to drive him mad. At night, he could not sleep for the imagined footsteps outside his window. During the day, he hardly dared to venture out, as some disgruntled person might catch him alone and unawares.
It was such a burden to be rich!
His kitchen maid hurried in with a note. “This just got slipped under the door,” she said. “Probably another one of those notes about how you’re gonna die.”
“Stop saying that, you wretch!” he said, ripping the note from her hands.
The kitchen maid shrugged and left him alone. He tore open the note and was despondent to see that the kitchen maid had been right. It was another message about how he was going to die. This time, somebody proposed that he would be tied to a tree and covered in honey near a beehive and then after he was stung so many times that he was weakened he would be thrown down a well.
Miss Mayton closed the book. “So, now we wonder, will Mr. Denbrow be murdered and if so, will it be a villager or perhaps even the duke himself?”
Mrs. Jordan snorted. “That is…a unique piece of literature. It is difficult to know if it is a comedy or tragedy.”
“All these books do end happily, if that is a clue,” Juliet said.
“Happily for who?” Mrs. Jordan asked.
“The romantic couple—the duke and his gentle governess,” Juliet said, seeming faintly surprised that she would have to explain that point.
Mrs. Jordan laughed and said, “That won’t do Mr. Denbrow much good.”
“We cannot fathom how it will all play out, Mrs. Jordan,” the earl said. “The books Miss Mayton finds for us are always so filled with twists and turns. I quite lose sleep over them sometimes.”
Mrs. Jordan nodded to the earl, looking vastly amused.
“Now we come to the special surprise I mentioned earlier,” Miss Mayton said.
“There is another story even more surprising than Mr. Denbrow’s difficulties?” Mrs. Jordan asked.
“Ah yes,” Miss Mayton said, “and it is a story you will know well. Our Cordelia, and this is the great surprise, isalsoan actress.”
Mrs. Jordan turned to her. “An earl’s daughter? On the stage?”
