part0025

Princess Destiny tossed and turned until she could bear it no more. Then she slipped from her bed, hastened to her window, and threw open the sash.

Oh, but the moon was full that night. So lovely! So romantic!

Momentarily relieved of her anguish, the princess allowed her mind to wonder, and her cerulean blue eyes searched the landscape. Mars Covington was out there! His charming cottage lay just beyond the horizon… Destiny’s bosom trembled, but she stomped her foot and forced herself out of her reverie.

“Think!” she admonished herself and began pacing barefoot about her boudoir. Whatever was she going to do?

“Perhaps Mr. Jekyll will allow me to keep my secret,” she whispered into the darkness, but the girl was not naïve. She knew the butler intended to pester her until she procured the riches necessary to ward him off. Yet, she also knew she could not, would not, steal from her parents.

Oh, trials! Oh, tribulations!

But hark! The princess stopped abruptly.

“There’s a first time for everything.”

I glanced to my right. “Good morning,” I sang.

“Idea?” Wilson sat up and gave me a kiss. “No way.”

“The princess does have a brain, you know.”

He grinned. “What’s her plan?”

“Honesty.” I wiggled a finger at my computer. “Destiny is going to be ever-so-brave and tell her parents all about Mars Covington.”

I blinked twice. “Almost all.” I conceded that some details were destined to remain a secret. “Nevertheless, the princess remains resolute.” I raised a fist. “She shall proclaim her love for Mars!”

“How will that go over? ”

But I insisted Destiny was optimistic. “If her parents become upset—”

“When her parents become upset, she shall remind them that Mars Covington is a man of honor despite his lowly status. She’s certain her parents will come around.”

Wilson reached over and tapped the screen. “But it says here she’s not naïve.”

I closed my computer. “Piers is naïve.”

“About his business associates.” Wilson nodded. “Yep.”

“It’s more than that,” I said. “He won’t admit it, but I think his mother had an affair with the gardener.”

“Isn’t she dead?”

“Dead, but not forgotten. Caesar Newland certainly hasn’t forgotten her.”

Wilson groaned and climbed out of bed, and the cats and I followed him to the kitchen. “You’re doing it again, Jessie.”

He switched on the coffee pot. “Seeing a romance angle where none exists. If you insist on getting underfoot, at least concentrate on the present.”

“You think I get underfoot?” I stood up from feeding the cats. “Pierpont’s staff gives new meaning to the word.”

“Al mentioned they’re nosy.”

“As you would say, everyone and his brother snoops and spies. It’s enough to make a woman paranoid.”

“Good. Paranoia might make you cautious. Safety first, Jessie.”

“Safety first is my motto.”

My husband, and perhaps my cats, laughed out loud.

“But I’m serious,” he said eventually. “Don’t get caught alone with anyone. They’re all suspects.” He ignored my eye roll and poured the coffee. “You find out where everyone was Wednesday?”

“I did.” I began with Piers, reminding Wilson the billionaire had flown to New York for that contentious board meeting. “Which rules him out,” I said. “And also Mallory Fleet. She flew him there.”

“What time did they leave?”

“I don’t know.”

I bit my lip, and so of course he insisted either of them could have kidnapped Karen, before or after their trip. Yadda, yadda, yadda. I insisted back—for the umpteenth time—that Piers had no reason whatsoever to kidnap Karen, and Wilson insisted he needed to get ready for work.

The five of us reconvened in the bathroom—the cats and I crowding the doorway, and Wilson under the shower—but the cop in him remained on topic. “Where was Coco on Wednesday?” he asked. “I take it she didn’t go to the board meeting.”

“Did Al tell you?”

Not specifically, but they had discussed Ms. Rigby in some detail. “A business meeting sounds too boring for her tastes.”

“Tiresome and horrid,” I clarified. “She slept in and then drove to Charlotte to meet some chums.”

He stepped out of the tub and toward the sink. “Which means she had time to kidnap Karen.”

“But that would require planning,” I said. “Coco doesn’t do that.”

He asked about the people who had stayed at the Rigby Estate that day, and I reported the staff’s whereabouts while he shaved.

“They’re all exceedingly industrious,” I concluded. “Caesar with his hedge trimmers, Wayne with the horses, Abigail with her feather duster.” I jiggled an imaginary feather duster over Wally. “Martians could have carted Karen off in a spaceship, and no one would have noticed.”

“How about the butler?” Wilson asked as he got dressed.

I scowled. “Gerald’s underfoot far more than anyone else, but I never did ask him about Wednesday.”

“Ask him today.”

Oh, and I had the perfect lead-in—the latest episode of my PBS show. “I didn’t see much of it last night,” I said, “but intuition dictates that episode offered a clue. ”

Wilson glanced at the cats. “She’s nuts,” he told them.

I smirked and gave the man a goodbye kiss, whether or not he deserved it.

“Underfoot!?” Bless his heart, Piers sounded genuinely indignant. “But I need you here, Jessie.”

I promised I would get there, but not until that afternoon. And taking care not to mention his Aunt Belinda, I told him I was meeting Candy for lunch. “She needs to know the latest.”

I snarled. “Speaking of annoying people, what’s Al up to?”

Piers had no idea. “He isn’t here, either,” he said. “But he called first thing. I’ve been holed up in the library all morning gathering the info he wants.”

I asked what info that might be, and apparently Al had Piers reviewing the minutes of every Rigby Enterprises board meeting from the previous decade.

“I’m looking for anything suspicious, whatever that means.” Piers sighed. “Coco’s right. This is tiresome. But what about you, Jessie? What have you been up to?”

I gave an update on Princess Destiny’s trials and tribulations, and Piers insisted my plot really was fascinating. “It’s like Lady Chatterley’s Lover ,” he said.

Ah! And with that perfect opening—

“It’s a common theme, even in real life,” I ventured. “A tale of forbidden love between the lady of the manor and her servant.” I paused for effect. “Her gardener to be specific.”

“So?” Piers asked impatiently. “What happened? Did Destiny’s parents accept the truth?”

I sighed dramatically. “Alas, the proverbial all Hell has broken loose.”

“They fired the gardener,” Piers said.

They did. And to compound the issue, King Cedric outright banished Mars Covington from the kingdom. “He threatened to imprison Mars for life if he ever sets foot in the realm again.”

“Harsh!” Piers said. “The king should realize people from different backgrounds do fall in love. Look at Karen and me.”

“Or your mother and—”

“Oops, there’s Abigail,” he said. “Wow, she sounds even more upset than when the infernal hound—”

I registered the click and frowned at Snowflake. “He hung up on me.”