Spivey here:
Well? Help me, please. How shall I avert complete disaster?
That poor, poor, girl—Princess Desirée. She is young, Chillworth is right about that, but there is neither malice nor avarice in her. If he destroys the marriage it will be a tragedy. For me, of course, although it is possible the man will do as he says and leave Number 7 anyway, but it is also a blow from which neither of them will ever recover. Certainly I no longer have the ridiculous feelings that plague the living, but I remember them.
Adam will be a bitter man for as long as he lives and…oh, my word, when he eventually comes here to higher places and some twit talks out of turn about my activities at Number 7, and we all know who that will be, well then, my existence will hardly be worth not living.
So I can’t give up. See, it works so often that when I come to you for help, which you never give, just talking things through helps me.
I suppose I should thank you for that.
Mmm.
I can’t go into what that silly woman Barstow is up to or how she has interfered with my plans for Hester’s new venture. Hester is so upset she cannot seem to keep her mind on the arrangements she should make, but that, too, shall change. I can’t decide what I think about Sir Robert Brodie hanging around, not that I think that will come to anything. Her flings never do.
But you wonder how I intend to deal with the current debacle. First, I take Spade-Filbert off the case. My idea to impress Jean-Marc with Adam’s connection to the Manthys worked by having Lucas reveal the truth. It no longer matters, but my hope that Rolly would press Lucas to pursue the Princess just enough and have her find him just amusing enough to make Adam jealous—didn’t work. That was because Spade-Filbert has been too busy looking for ways to feather his own nest. I believe he needs that money as much as Lucas does.
Glad that one’s back, by the way. I rather thought we might never see him again. Back and with a wife, no less. These Chillworths are impetuous.
With Rolly gone, I shall have to do all the work myself, of course, starting with finding a way to divert Adam from his present course.
My, I have an idea! It’s a risk, a gamble, but it might just do. I shall have to be most careful because if I misjudge by even a small degree and there is an accident, the results could be—deadly.