Your Witching Wedding Hour

"Dearest Lizzy" (Jane's voice, a soft chiding in your head as you proceed towards the music room) "surely, no body wishes you ill? Has not Lady Catherine herself sent you a true love knot as a token of forgiveness?"

She has. And, having once paid your respects to the knot, you have cast it into the fire at the first opportunity. Harmless ties there are, including the Maharatta necktie, that bridal-white orgy of silk with which Fitzwilliam insists on throttling himself at the peak of July. But the Great Catherine's knot was stitched in black wool, most probably on a moonless night. What next, pray? A hexed reticule?

Still, you know better than to take my Lady Amateur seriously on a day such as this. You have found your heart's ease, as the song goes; who agreed to forsake the genteel breakfast for a (specially licensed) Midsummer Eve's wedding; you and he and Georgiana are assigned to eat cold ham and chicken out of doors, a lighter prelude to the eve's revels. Your hand is on the door when you hear a faint scream, followed by a boom - the piano forte's lid, lowered with strange violence - and the door opens: a pale, agitated Georgiana hurries past you with her handkerchief to her mouth