The Chambermaid: I am near certain that she glimpsed me in the hall, much closer to the colonel’s chambers than just a friendly acquaintance is wont to go.
Mrs. Catarina: I believe Mrs. Catarina espied me blushing in the presence of the colonel when we chanced to pass each other on the grand staircase. O, what scandal were she to know the many details of our moonlit trysts!
Beatrice Lusk, The Colonel’s Foot-Maiden: The snooping dollymop discovered the lace to my corset as she was cleaning the scarlet satin chaise in the colonel’s parlor. I have seen the way she looks at me; I possess no doubts concerning her awareness of my nightly rendezvous with the colonel.
Catherine Longley: Of course, I had to tell my dearest Catherine—my sweet bosom friend! I am certain she would not speak of it to anyone, for we are like sisters.
Dear, Sweet Jonathan: And O, how it broke his heart to learn that his courtship had been for naught and that his affections were ne’er to be returned.
Emily Kensington: The gossiping witch has likely told the entirety of Sussex!
Thaddeus O’Reilly, The Constable: That wicked constable knows everything. He is a menace, with his black-hearted drudges eavesdropping ’neath every windowsill in the county. I fear the trouble this ruthless brute will stir when this knowledge proves advantageous to his treacherous plots.
Young Ira Blackmore: The son of Alexander and Ethel Blackmore, he is but 7 years of age and caught us stealing a kiss in the pantry following the St. Andrew’s Day celebrations. He seemed not to comprehend what he had witnessed, but we must flatter him with candies and teacakes to ensure he looks on us with favour.
The Farnham Lad: While dancing a quadrille at the governor’s ball, he pulled me close, and with breath as light as lemon pudding, whispered in my ear, “I’ve seen the candlelight in the colonel’s window many a night.”
Captain Trufant: We ventured that the officers’ barracks would be empty that day, but O, what fools were we! And that opportunistic Trufant would not be above using this information to curry favour with the general!
Poppet: O, dearest poppet! How I have spent endless hours spilling the deepest longings of my heart in your ragged, befabricked ear!
This soot-faced mongrel peered his beady eyes into the colonel’s quarters from the oriel window right below the roof’s edge and spotted us in scandalous embrace. There is no telling as to how many slum fiends he has spoken of our affair. That churl holds our fate in his grimy, meddling hands!
Ah, innocent Emmannuelle, as pure as the virgin snow at Mont Ventoux! Many an amorous encounter between myself and the colonel she has witnessed from her room above the courtyard. Thankfully, she is but a mute. She has not the competence to communicate such tales to others, not least of all to the dour Countess Montclair herself—her very mother!—who could put this all to a rude end forthwith. At least, I do not believe Emmanuelle could ever breathe a word of it, could she?
