“I think there’s every chance that I am,” I said. “Being ridiculed for wanting to be a better singer is the stuff of trauma.”
“You need a shrink,” said Brutus.
I shivered. The last time shrinks were mentioned was when Brutus was having doubts about his sexual orientation. He’d suddenly gotten it into his nut that he might be a female deep down inside. Luckily the moment had passed, and now he was his usual obnoxious self again.
“Okay, let’s get this show on the road,” said Harriet, clapping her paws.
We’d found a nice little clearing behind the cottage, where we wouldn’t be disturbed and where we wouldn’t disturb anyone either.
“Now simply repeat after me, Max,” said Harriet, and started singing a nice, simple scale. “La la la la la la la la laaaah. Now you.”
“Lar lar lar lar laaaaar laaaaar lar laaaaaaaarrrrrrrrr,” I warbled.
Harriet pressed her paws to her ears, and so did Brutus and Dooley.
Mh. Looked like I wasn’t ready for the Royal Albert Hall yet.
Chapter 30
The meeting was over and the participants all walked out of Tessa’s office. And as they did, Nesbit fell into step beside Odelia and said, “There’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you, Odelia, if you have a moment.”
“Yes?” she said encouragingly. She liked the young security man. To come to his cousin’s aid like this meant a lot to Tessa, especially as the rest of her family had behaved a little despicably towards her in recent months.
“It’s probably nothing, which is why I didn’t want to bring it up in there,” he said apologetically. “But I found this.”
He handed her his tablet.“What am I looking at?”
“It’s a letter from a reader. Posted when Tessa and Dante had just started dating. It was posted inThe Sun, the UK’s biggest tabloid.”
She quickly read the letter.‘It’s outrageous that a foreigner like Tessa Torrance can just come in and sweep our prince off his feet. Aren’t there enough nice English girls? Why an American? I can promise you this, Dante: the people won’t forgive you. They’ll do whatever they can to break up this match made in hell.I know I will.’ Signed, ‘A concerned English rose.’
She looked up, and Nesbit gave her a meaningful look.
“So who is this English rose?” she asked.
“That’s just it, one of the editors came forward after he heard about the kidnap attempt. This so-called English rose wrote a bunch of these letters. One of them threatening Tess’s dog. She seemed to take umbrage to the fact that Tessa brought her dog Fluffy to England. Said there are plenty of perfectly good dogs right here and she shouldn’t have brought in an American bitch.”
“Nice. So who is she?”
“Suzy Boots.”
“Suzy wrote this?” asked Odelia, shocked.
“Apparently. And about a thousand comments like this. She’s very active. What some people would call a troll. I searched some more, and found that she comments freely on her Facebook page, too. And that she’s left hundreds of comments on Dante and Tess’s Instagram. All of it extremely vitriolic.”
He scrolled through a few of the comments from Suzy’s Facebook page. ‘The Duchess of Essex is a classless gold digger,’ was one of the nicer ones.
“And here’s the clincher,” he said.
‘I happen to work for Tessa,’ she’d written in response to a comment by someone else, ‘so I know what she’s like as a person. And while I agree with you that we should give her a chance, I’ve given her plenty of chances, and she’s let me down every single time. The woman is a fungus to be got rid of.’
“We need to talk to her,” said Odelia. “Right now.”
“She could simply be one of those poison pen people.”
“She posted threats, Nesbit. Actual threats. Why didn’t you tell Tessa?”
He mussed up his hair, looking sheepish.“She’s in such a state—I didn’t want to make it worse by bothering her with unfounded accusations against a member of her staff. Which is why I decided to run it by you first.”
“You did well,” she said, giving his arm a grateful squeeze. “But I think this is a genuine threat, and Tessa needs to know.” She took the tablet and looked around for Tessa. She found her in the nursery, cradling Silvy. “There’s something you need to see, Tessa,” she said, handing her Nesbit’s tablet.
When Tessa was confronted with the evidence, her expression darkened.“I think we just found our assailant.”
“Where is she?” asked Odelia.
“Cleaning,” said Tessa curtly.
Dante, who’d noticed something was going on, joined them. Without a word, Tessa handed him the tablet. As he read the comments, his eyes went wide. “Suzy wrote this?”
“This and a whole lot more,” said Odelia.
“See!” he cried. “I told you to put in stricter background checks!”
“This is not the time for ‘I told you so’s,’ Dante,” she said, stalking off. The others all followed her into the living space. “Suzy!” she snapped when she caught up with the maid, who was turning down the bed in Gran’s room.
“Yes, Ma’am?” said Suzy deferentially. She looked as mousy and reticent as ever. Hard to imagine she wrote the kind of stuff she did, Odelia thought.
“What’s going on?” asked Chase, attracted by the sound of shouting voices.
“I think we’ve found our guy, and it’s a girl,” said Odelia.
“Suzy? Impossible,” said Chase.
Suzy, who’d been handed the tablet, had turned as white as the sheets in her hand.
“Why did you do it?” demanded Tessa.
“I—I don’t know,” she stammered.
“It’s obvious you hate my guts,” said Tessa. “So why work for me?”
“I just figured—I…” She broke down in tears, but Tessa wasn’t placated.
She took her by the arms and shook her.“You’re the one who’s been trying to kill me, aren’t you? Answer me, dammit!”
The girl’s eyes went wide. “Kill you? No, I swear I would never—”
“Of course you would. It’s obvious from the stuff you wrote that you hate me so much you wouldn’t hesitate to take matters into your own hands.”
“No, I would never do you harm, Ma’am—never. For the baby and… and the Duke…” She directed a shy look at Dante, whom she obviously idolized.
“Oh, don’t give me that bullshit. You decided to come and work for me so you could remove me from the equation and save Dante and the country.”
“It’s true that I was very upset when you and the Duke first started dating. And it’s true I wrote all these things. But I’ve since changed my mind. Now that I’ve met you in person, I can see how wrong I was. How kind you are. And how good you are to the Duke and how much he loves you. And since the baby was born, I think you’re the most wonderful mother and…”
“These comments—they were all written on your Facebook,” said Tessa. “They paint a completely different picture. A very hateful, disgusting picture.”
“I wrote those comments a long time ago. Since I started working for you I’ve stopped writing them—I swear,” she said, directing her words to Dante.
“You wrote at least one comment after you started working here,” said Odelia.
“I’m so sorry,” she said, hanging her head. “I-I didn’t know the Duchess the way I do now. I’m so ashamed of myself. I-I feel like…” She gulped. “I almost feel as if a different person wrote all these things. Not the real me but someone else entirely.”
“You tried to kill my wife, Suzy,” said Dante. “You have to understand there will be consequences. That we have to hand you over to the police now.”
“But I didn’t do it! I would never—”
“I’m very disappointed in you, Suzy. I really am.”
“But sir!” she cried, tears springing to her eyes.
Odelia almost felt sorry for the girl. She was obviously delusional, to write the stuff she had—to do the things she did. She was also an accomplished liar.