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“When I’m through with you, you’ll be ready to sing at the Royal Albert Hall,” said Harriet.

“What’s the Royal Albert Hall?” asked Dooley.

“It’s like Madison Square Garden, only British. And royal, obviously. You’re going to turn heads, Max. Just you wait and see.”

“Max doesn’t need to turn heads,” said Brutus. “He just has to open his mouth.” And he gave me what I thought was a very insensitive grin.

“I’m at a very difficult time in my life right now, Brutus,” I said. “I’m feeling vulnerable, and it wouldn’t hurt for you to give me some much-needed encouragement.”

“You mean you’re traumatized, Max?” asked Dooley.

“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.