Summary of Story

Here we go: (it's very sketchy)

MC is a female, 18ish, named Natalie. She comes from a wealthy family, and has been betrothed to business partner of the family and rich banker, Lord Robertson. He, after courting her for a year or so now, said he has some business abroad to attend to, then he will 'call for her' (they will be married and she'll start a new life as a housewife etc.)

She grows to truly despise this man. So much in fact that, after a loud and violent verbal fight, she wants VERY MUCH to kill him. He leaves her on the porch and doesn't return (she sits for hours until it gets dark, and her car comes for her). As she sits, she imagines killing him so vividly that, by the time she leaves, she has convinced herself that she HAS killed him.

The secret of her murder weighs heavily on her mind, and she becomes unresponsive, too afraid that she will tell someone her secret. She spends her time staring out the window, or at the wall etc.

Her caretaker, older cousin named ???, decides to take her to a new setting, a big fat house in the country belonging to a family friend. She is forced to open up a LITTLE as she is being watched carefully. But she still spends time staring at the wall and such.

Now, there are several butlers maids etc in this house. Enter love interest, Charles. A young boy her age who lives and works there under the orders of HIS caretaker, his elderly, mean, aging aunt Pinkett. They have a few encounters, and he has fun teasing her, especially about Lord Robertson, ten years her senior. Then one day he, teasingly he thought, whispers her secret. (You killed him, didn't you?) Of course, he is shocked to find this to be true. But, for some reason, he doesn't tell. He finds enjoyment in holding it over her head. Eventually, he blackmails her into doing work for him, and taking the blame for things he can now do wrong.

STUFF HAPPENS (middle story stuff. Relationships etc. Her cousin and the family friend set up tea parties for her with the local girls, Charles and Natalie become more like grudging friends).

One night, she accompanies Charles to Mrs. Pinkett's house, where she is oddly quiet and reserved (well, odd in front of HIM by this point). She is rather mean and verbally abusive to Charles, and less than cordial to Natalie. Somehow, need to work out some stuff, she snaps and kills Pinkett. Charles is shocked. She said it was easy, seeing as she's killed before, to kill again.

Shocked, but trying to protect her, he helps her bury the body in the woods about a mile away. They leave a little shaken.

Their relationship continues to develop to the point where, somehow, they're making out heavily and on the verge of doing "it."

Natalie's cousin and host catch them in the room. Charles is immediately fired and banished from the town (because the friend is the mayor). Natalie becomes weird and cold, does not defend him, and tells lies as they're questioning the pair. Charles shouts out that she killed Lord Robertson.

He leaves without another word.

Two weeks later, Natalie marches herself down to the police office and turns herself in for murdering Lord Robertson. Her cousin and the mayor rush out to see why she did this, when she informs them of her secret. The town is shocked, and there is no real proof, but they have no choice but to put her on trial. Where, she sings like a bird about how she killed him, when, and where she put the body.

Suddenly, the doors to the courtroom fly open, and in enters Lord Robertson. He says: "I come to call upon my future wife, and yet I find her on trial for my murder..."

Natalie, still insisting that she killed him, is pronounced, after a visit to the psychiatrist, mentally unstable. Lord Robertson immdiately rejects the idea of their matrimony, and leaves her there. The judge asks who will be her gaurdian, or if she needed to go to an institution to be cared for.

Suddenly, Charles arrives through the door, and announces that he will care for her. (He had managed to take the money he had inherited from Mrs. Pinkett and get rent going in a small flat in a town about sixty mile away. He works in the shop downstairs.

Her cousin is more than happy to give her over to the boy he kicked out of his house. He wants nothing to do with her and her lunatic mind. His job was to care for her until she was old enough to be presented to Lord Robertson. He did his job. Robertson's declination was not his problem.

Charles and Natalie leave the town immediately by carriage. He has her belongings.

She will be able to live a relatively normal, if poorer, life with him. Although her mind IS unstable and she has slip-ups, as is seen with her question about visiting Mrs. Pinkett as they ride out of town. (which is the end of the story).

What do you think?