Subj: PASSION ATE DARK SHADOWS Part One
Date: 4/4/00 8:07:29 AM Central Daylight Time
From: N.E. Collins

"That woman is intolerable!" Joshua Collins announced loudly as he entered the drawing room where his wife, Naomi, had been enjoying a quiet drink alone. He marched over to the fireplace and began poking the roaring blaze into a frenzy! "Every since she has stepped foot into this house she has done NOTHING but complain and tried to stir up TROUBLE!"

Namoi held up a warning hand. "Joshua, please, she'll hear you!"

"I hope she DOES hear me!" he responded angrily. "And I will thank YOU not to instruct ME on how I should conduct MYSELF in my OWN HOME, woman." He paced purposely as he delivered this oration to his poor wife. Naomi obediently bowed her head and kept her eyes downward to signify she was under his complete authority.

She quietly spoke. "Please forgive my words, husband. I forgot my place." Joshua only harrumphed as he fell about making himself a drink to settle his unsettled disposition.

The woman in question was none other than the Countess Natalie duPres, aunt to Barnabas' fiance Josette duPres. Originally, the Collins family had only been expecting Josette to be accompanied by her father, Andre, and her personal maid, Angelique. When the Countess showed up first with the maid in tow and no sign of the young maiden or her father it took them ALL by surprise!

The Countess had found fault with everything and everyone including the weather! She used words like primitive and provincial to describe conditions and behaviours that she apparently believed were beneath her contempt.

Joshua took a long steady sip of his finest brandy as he continued, "If that young woman's father were not so well connected financially I would INSIST that Barnabas call the whole thing OFF! When I THINK that we will in ANY way be related to that woman it sends cold chills up and down my spine!" He shook himself in exaggerated horror as he hastily gulped down the rest of his beverage.

*********************

"That man is INSUFFERABLE!" Natalie shrieked as she tossed a fur cape haphazardly across the bed. "He thinks to remind me that royal titles are no longer in effect, yet he himself acts like some noble "lord" over this backwards provincial country estate!" Josette listened politely while her aunt continued with her tantrum. "I do not believe I have EVER been more insulted by ANY man in my ENTIRE life!"

Josette smiled quietly at her aunt's ravings. It was something she had grown used to over the years and she knew that this was just Natalie's way of expressing herself. It was all so much of a tempest in a teapot and no more.

Angelique entered the room with fresh folded linen and began to place them in the bureau. "Angelique!" spoke Natalie commandinly. "Have you prepared your mistress' bath?"

Angelique dipped in a slight curtsey. "Oui, madame. All is prepared." Josette rose to leave and Angelique fell in behind her, but Josette turned to her and said, "I will not need your help this evening. You are free to pursue some other task or better yet, take some rest for yourself." And with that she left the room.

Natalie was quick to pick up with, "If Josette has no need of you, then I most certainly do! You can start by cleaning up this mess!" She pointed dramatically at the heap of clothes she had piled up on her bed. Angelique fell to the task without missing a beat. Natalie went to the window where she swept aside the curtain for a look out. "Nothing," she said with digust in her tone. "There is nothing to see. For miles, there is nothing! Oh, how will my tender blossom, Josette, ever bloom in this wilderness? How will she ever grow accustom to the wild ways of this land and the unseemly behaviour of this odd family?"

Angelique did not answer as she knew from experience that the Countess was merely speaking rhetorically and would not require any answers from a mere servant.