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*Spoilers in updates 

How dare you experiment with me! How dare you give me dreams that are without reality! If I have been abused I want to know it. There is nothing worse than uncertainty. Oh yes, there is. There is this terrible loss. The baby who was to have been my consolation has been taken from me. 

So Helena ended up pregnant and now they are telling her that the baby died during delivery. I Don't believe it! I don't trust these people. Helena's young, I think almost 20yrs old at this point, and I can see how she gets swept along with everyone at times. But I also really wish she'd wake up and get away from these people. 

There's a moment where she's talking to someone and they mention a "wild prince Carl" and the way the story unfolds about him, Helena's count is him, isn't it????? 

She's back in England and then we get some big time jumps and Ilse disappears and stops corresponding with her and the whole time I can't help thinking, YOUR BABY IS ALIVE. 

Oh wow, so the Anthony guy is now a vicar and still interested in Helena and she decides to tell him the whole story, how she was drugged by a doctor who told her she was raped and she imagined her wedding and lost her baby. I was screaming, "NO, girl, do not tell him this" but Anthony took it all like a champ and was like "So?" On one hand, good for nonjudgy Anthony, and the other, how you not seeing this as a red flag, lol. 

It's been nine years now and while Helena is in a bookstore, a German woman named Frau Graben just happens to come in and then offer her a job teaching English to a count's three bastard children. I DO NOT trust this Frau Graben, obviously another set-up. 

Oh my god, Fritz has Got to be her son, right??? 

"It was a mock marriage. It was often done-still is. The girl would not give in to him so the marriage was arranged. The so-called priest who performed the ceremony was no priest at all, but one of the courtiers, so of course the marriage was no true marriage and the girl was tricked. Her scruples were calmed and the honeymoon followed. In these cases when the bridegroom grows tired of the liaison he passes on and the lady realizes the truth. 

She says this right to Helena's face and Helena doesn't even blink!!!! What is happening, wake up, girl!

He seems to have been better since you came. Learning English agrees with him. Or perhaps it's you. He seems to have taken a real fancy to you-and you to him." She gave me that rather sly look of hers. 

I think I was right about Fritz! Frau Graben makes my skin crawl and I can't believe Helena isn't catching on. 

I stared; for there, seated between the Duke and the Princess, was Maximilian. 

It was Prince Carl!!! Ahhhh, I hope this is Helena's wakeup call and she starts taking some action and kicking the gaslighting to the curb and admitting to herself what happened. The whole haunted tower at the castle she is staying at is keeping the Gothic vibe lingering on the edges and hope the ghost doesn't turn out to be her. Eeek.