Death at Blenheim Palace by Robin Paige Page B

woman who preferred to be the center of everyone’s attention, to be at the eye of every storm—and if there was no storm, she was perfectly capable of creating one. She probably wouldn’t mind at all if she were publically confronted with the evidence of a moonlight tryst with the Duke, Rosamund to his Henry. She might even feel triumphant at the sadness in Consuelo’s eyes and the scarcely concealed jealous rage on Northcote’s face.
    And with that in mind, Kate decided very firmly that Gladys Deacon should not have the opportunity to feel any sort of satisfaction. She would return the silk scrap privately, along with the suggestion that it was dangerous to play with people’s hearts. Gladys would laugh and pay no attention, but Kate would at least have made the effort.

CHAPTER TEN
    No American heiress knew how to run the enormous household her English husband expected her to manage—with no preparation or training or even assistance. She knew nothing of how the food was purchased and meals made to appear on the table, how the clean linen was accomplished, the dust done away with, the tradesmen paid. Her ignorance often led to serious problems with the servants, for they recognized her inexperience and exploited it to their best advantage.
     
Dollar Duchesses
Susan Blake
     
 
 
 
Consuelo was in the habit of rising at seven, breakfasting in her apartment, and then spending several hours at the desk in the morning room where she conducted her household duties: meeting daily with the butler, the housekeeper, and the cook; going over their household accounts; checking inventories and seeing that the tradesmen were paid; and dealing with staff problems. When there were guests, she had the extra work of seeing to their comfort, planning elaborate meals, arranging entertainment.
    Of course, the four guests staying with them this week posed no problem at all, compared to the thirty—King Edward and Queen Alexandra, together with an assortment of dukes and duchesses—who had been invited to Blenheim for a gala weekend at the beginning of August. This wasn’t the first time the Royal couple had been guests of the Marlboroughs, and Consuelo knew what a daunting responsibility it was to feed and amuse not only Their Royal Majesties and the other luminaries, but to accomodate the various entourages of valets, maids, footmen, and grooms. Altogether, a hundred people would be sleeping in the house, and there would be a fine hubbub and hullabaloo below-stairs.
    For Consuelo, visitors usually brought a welcome respite from the long, dispiriting days when she and Sunny were alone with nothing to say to one another, with nothing to share, certainly not love and scarcely even friendship. She would especially enjoy playing hostess to Edward and Alexandra, would enjoy dressing up and wearing her jewels, usually kept in the London bank—the nineteen-row pearl dog collar her husband had bought for her, the long rope of perfect pearls that had once belonged to Catherine the Great, as well as her diamond tiara. She hoped she would feel better by that time, not as tired and low-spirited as she was now. She had even left her guests early the night before, angry at her husband and irritated with Gladys, who was behaving like a spoiled child.
    Consuelo had been barely nineteen when she came to Blenheim—much too young and inexperienced, she knew now, to have taken on the monstrous burden of administering such a huge enterprise. When she might have been enjoying the pleasures of a glamorous, carefree youth, the Duke had made it clear that her chief duty (next to producing a male heir, of course) was to manage the enormous house and its complex and often inharmonious staff. The situation was made even more uncomfortable because Marlborough’s aunt, Lady Sarah Churchill, had acted as his hostess and chatelaine during his bachelorhood. The butler and housekeeper had been loyal to her, resisting Consuelo’s efforts to undertake her new