Copyright © 2015 JoAnn Spears
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 1514775891
ISBN 13: 9781514775899
Library of Congress Control Number: 2015910900
CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
North Charleston, South Carolina
Thanks once again to my family and friends for their support and patience. Thanks especially to my dad, Joseph Kuchta, for all the crossword puzzles we’ve done together over the years. Much of the trivia and many of the quotes thus encountered made their way into this book.
Author’s Notes
For checking the accuracy of the various Shakespeare quotations in the book, and for miscellaneous fact-checking,
Open Source Shakespeare
(
http://www.opensourceshakespeare.org/
) and the Folger Library website (
http://www.folger.edu/shakespeares-works
) were most helpful. Quotes from the Bible were sourced with the help of
Bible Gateway
(
https://www.biblegateway.com/
).
Relationships among the various characters presented here are complex. In the interest of simplifying them for the reader, the word “cousin” is used throughout the book to denote cousinly relations both direct and at varying degrees of distance.
Table of Contents
Act One
Chapter One:
Betwixt Mixed Bags
Chapter Two:
Meeting and Greeting
Chapter Three:
True Love’s Course and the Source of Divorce
Chapter Four:
Puck’ll Chuckle
Chapter Five:
The Rest of the Guest List
Chapter Six:
Burr Puts a Burr under Dolly’s Saddle, by Golly
Chapter Seven:
Aviation and the Odd Relation
Chapter Eight:
A Ragtag Chin Wag
Chapter Nine:
Mary and Lizzie Go All Bizzie
Chapter Ten:
The Lives of Six Wives
Chapter Eleven:
To Go, Or Not To Go, Commando
Chapter Twelve:
Dear Me, Syncope!
Act Two
Chapter Thirteen:
Déjà Vu Plus Two
Chapter Fourteen:
Menagerie and Query
Chapter Fifteen:
The Mission Condition
Chapter Sixteen:
Canny about Grannie
Chapter Seventeen:
Hello, Marlowe!
Chapter Eighteen:
Tête-à-Tête on a Reprobate
Chapter Nineteen:
The Statutory Story
Chapter Twenty:
Spring Fling
Chapter Twenty-One:
Rendezvous and Parlez-Vous
Chapter Twenty-Two:
The Permanent Termagant
Chapter Twenty-Three:
Of Stoolies with Brass Goolies
Chapter Twenty-Four:
Disaster on the Morning After
Chapter Twenty-Five:
Used Sorely by Morley
Chapter Twenty-Six:
Hero of the Zero-Sum Game
Chapter Twenty-Seven:
Mythology’s Follies
Chapter Twenty-Eight:
The Breakdown of a Shakedown
Chapter Twenty-Nine:
Bess Is Tightest with the Best and Brightest
Chapter Thirty:
Hot to Plot
Chapter Thirty-One:
Bring on the Bling
Chapter Thirty-Two:
Regalia Inter Alia
Chapter Thirty-Three:
Sidekick and Psychic
Chapter Thirty-Four:
Must We Force It into a Corset?
Chapter Thirty-Five:
How to Deck Dolly’s Neck?
Chapter Thirty-Six:
Ring-a-Ding-Ding
Chapter Thirty-Seven:
The Distinguished and the Extinguished
Chapter Thirty-Eight:
Hearts Afire and Dolly for Hire, More or Less
Chapter Thirty-Nine:
The Names of Three Dames
Chapter Forty:
A Little Mystery in the History
Chapter Forty-One:
More than One None-Too-Cheery Theory
Chapter Forty-Two:
The Rustic and the Prick
Chapter Forty-Three:
Keep Calm, Rest Still, and Call Cecil
Chapter Forty-Four:
The Pair Who Missed the Fair, or Of Potions and Emotions
Chapter Forty-Five:
Of Empty Houses That Haunt Absent Spouses
Chapter Forty-Six:
Assumption and Gumption, or A Dame in the Patriot Game
Chapter Forty-Seven:
Of Climacterics and Tricks
Chapter Forty-Eight:
A Team on the Same Beam
Chapter Forty-Nine:
Quaff, Drop, and Roll Is the Goal
Chapter Fifty:
Caught Red-Handed and Wedding-Banded
Chapter Fifty-One:
The Chi-Chi English Lady and Catherine de’ Medici
Chapter Fifty-Two:
Circumspection and Escaping Detection
Chapter Fifty-Three:
By Dint of Madame Serpent
Chapter Fifty-Four:
Solution Convolution
Chapter Fifty-Five:
A Gal in a Gallery
Chapter Fifty-Six:
Genial Genealogy
Chapter Fifty-Seven:
One Tear More or Less and the
Devonshire MS
Chapter Fifty-Eight:
On Sorrowing and Borrowing
Chapter Fifty-Nine:
Star-Crossed and Pillow Tossed
Chapter Sixty:
Termagants and a Song and Dance
Chapter Sixty-One:
The Party Line on a Maligned Spine
Chapter Sixty-Two:
The Royal Matron and the Literary Patron
Chapter Sixty-Three:
The Accessory That Tells a Story
Chapter Sixty-Four:
Being Practical and Waxing Theatrical
Chapter Sixty-Five:
The History of the Sisters Grey, or the Thwarted Departed
Chapter Sixty-Six:
On Disparaged Marriages
Chapter Sixty-Seven:
Mary Grey’s Matrimonial Testimonial
Chapter Sixty-Eight:
A Little Ire and Irons in the Fire
Chapter Sixty-Nine:
Mary Grey Tells It to Liz Like It Is
Chapter Seventy:
Iniquities and Ditties
Chapter Seventy-One:
Time for Catherine to Chime In
Chapter Seventy-Two:
Character Building and Gilding the Lily
Chapter Seventy-Three:
Confinement, Wine, and On Down the Line
Chapter Seventy-Four:
Holy Folio!
Chapter Seventy-Five:
Doggy Style for a Little While
Chapter Seventy-Six:
Hypocritically, Literally?
Chapter Seventy-Seven:
Remorse, of Course
Chapter Seventy-Eight:
Hindsight Is All Right
Chapter Seventy-Nine:
Execution, Exile, and Exculpation
Chapter Eighty:
How They Were Hand-to-Handed, and Whence They Landed
Chapter Eighty-One:
Paeans to Three Queens
Chapter Eighty-Two:
Family Dysfunction Junction
Chapter Eighty-Three:
The Spin on Ann Boleyn
Chapter Eighty-Four:
A Quote or Two to Float Your Boat for You
Chapter Eighty-Five:
Of Druthers and Mothers
Chapter Eighty-Six:
The Concussed and the Nonplussed
Chapter Eighty-Seven:
Literary Notions and Going through the Motions
Chapter Eighty-Eight:
The Riled and the Exiled
Chapter Eighty-Nine:
Tiswas at Amboise
Chapter Ninety:
The Gift That Fixed a Rift
Chapter Ninety-One:
See ’Em Later, Alligator
Chapter Ninety-Two:
Propinquity with Antiquity
Chapter Ninety-Three:
The Lots of Some Scots
Chapter Ninety-Four:
Stitch and Bitch
Chapter Ninety-Five:
In the Stir with the Green-Eyed Monster
Chapter Ninety-Six:
Gore in Store and Walking the Floor
Chapter Ninety-Seven:
About a Lout
Chapter Ninety-Eight:
Moor and More
Chapter Ninety-Nine:
Imogen and Imagining
Chapter One Hundred:
A Gem of a Stratagem
Chapter One Hundred-One:
Amnesty, Your Majesty
Chapter One Hundred-Two:
Ruff and Bluff
Chapter One Hundred-Three:
Bucolic Frolics
Chapter One Hundred-Four:
Winter’s Chill Fits the Bill, or Nothing Finer than Paulina
Chapter One Hundred-Five:
No Greater Collaborator
Chapter One Hundred-Six:
The Rom-Com Bomb, or a Winning Way with Twinning
Chapter One Hundred-Seven:
Validating Vacillating
Chapter One Hundred-Eight:
Fare-Thee-Wells and Dare-Thee-Tells
Chapter One Hundred-Nine:
A Toast That Is the Most
Chapter One Hundred-Ten:
What’s Supposed to Be Sub-Rosa
Chapter One Hundred-Eleven:
Enigmas, Anyone?
Chapter One Hundred-Twelve:
Routing and Outing
Chapter One Hundred-Thirteen:
Spouse in the House
Chapter One Hundred-Fourteen:
Secreted and Defeated
Chapter One Hundred-Fifteen:
A Man of Parts, a Change of Heart, and a Departure
Act Three
Chapter One Hundred-Sixteen:
Arise and Surprise
Chapter One Hundred-Seventeen:
The Shindig and the Big News
Chapter One Hundred-Eighteen:
Bliss and Synthesis
Chapter One
Betwixt Mixed Bags
In general, I agree that “no legacy is so rich as honesty,” but I wasn’t exactly feeling it that morning. I had let out a feeble “Fine, thank you,” when my solicitous husband inquired how I was feeling, even though I’d skipped my usual hearty breakfast because of a slightly upset tummy. I knew he’d fuss over me like a mother hen if I told him of my indisposition, and I’d not built any fuss time into the day’s crowded agenda.
