Thus with a Kiss I Die

Book 2: Daughter of Montague

by Christina Dodd

Genres: Historical Mysteries

Synopsis

The delightfully irreverent eldest daughter of the not-so-ill-fated Romeo and Juliet returns to sleuth another day in fair Verona, in this hugely entertaining historical mystery series with a refreshingly bold premise.

“Woe, for I am the bug that meets the windshield's might,
No longer the speeding glass, smooth, clean and bright . . .”

You’re right. I, Rosie Montague of Verona, am lousy at iambic pentameter and Shakespeare speak, but you get the point: Sometimes you’re the windshield and sometimes you’re the bug. I, who for my whole life, have cruised along, unruffled by life’s trials, am suddenly smashed flat and speeding recklessly up the WhattheHellHappened Highway. 

Why? you ask . . .

I’m 20-years-old and by my own design, never been wed, free as no married woman ever is. I’m beautiful, but without conceit, for Juliet, my legendary Mamma is the most gorgeous creature to ever walk the earth. Just ask Romeo, my legendary Papà. (Rumors of their deaths were premature.) I was heartwhole until I fell (literally) in love with Lysander of the House of Beautiful. But our love was not to be, for I was thwarted by Escalus, the Prince of Verona . . . who had designs on me. 

I’m trapped. 

Then! I’m presented with a solution. Escalus’s father, Prince Escalus the Elder, appears to me. He tasks that I find his killer. Did I mention Elder is a ghost?

Given that I only recently dispatched Verona’s first serial killer, I’m less than pleased. Yet Elder promises to unite me with my One True Love, so I gather clues. Meanwhile, revolution threatens, for beneath Verona society’s glittering surface lurk dark shadows—and an enemy eager to make me a tragic heroine in my own right . . .

Release date: June 24, 2025

Publisher: Kensington Books

Print pages: 352

Sample

In fair Verona, where we lay our scene

Are you romantic? Have you found your One True Love? Do you imagine living happily ever after entwined in his passionate embrace?

Good luck with that.

Even a woman as savvy as me can get her tit caught in the wringer of true love. Let me tell you, when you’ve spent a lifetime congratulating yourself on your cleverness and good sense, and you discover in a moment of nighttime and lit torches that you’ve won the throne of the land of Humiliatia by being the biggest fool in the history of Suckerdom—that’s a moment that should cause a moment of thoughtful reflection.

But no. Not me. That night, my temper flamed so hot I could have rendered fat off Old Serpent himself, and even now I lived my sorrow’s rage!

The morning after my disgrace, I fled into the garden of Casa Montague to escape the avid and interested gazes that followed me everywhere. My parents, my siblings, the servants, the dogs, the cats, the mice . . .

All right. Maybe not the mice, but only because the cats had recently grown fat and we all know what that means.

Our garden is located behind the house, which was wrapped around an atrium that is so typically Verona. The spacious grounds include a maze, a fountain that included the requisite statue of a little boy gleefully peeing, gravel walks, massive hedges growing along the very high and defensive back wall—defensive because Verona is still, and always, a city-state at war with other city-states, and all noble Verona families jockeyed for position—and little alcoves perfect for assignations, if you’re into that kind of thing. Which may I point out that until last night I have never been, and look how that turned out. You would think that the woman who, only months ago, single-handedly tracked down and disarmed Verona’s first serial killer would be more intelligent than to get herself into such a mess.

Before we go further and I get more cranky, I should introduce myself.

I’m the daughter of Romeo and Juliet.

Yes, that Romeo and Juliet. To quote a future wise man, the rumors of their deaths were greatly exaggerated. The rest is essentially true: the potion, the poison, the self-stabbing, all those theatrics, and those events have been thrillingly repeated around countless Montague and Capulet festivities.

Consequently, our family reeks of melodrama like a badger reeks of musk. But unlike a badger, our family’s monologues and diatribes and histrionics have enthralled all of Verona for more than twenty years.

I know this for sure. Except for the first nine months, I’ve been there for all of it. I’m the oldest child, and for twenty years I’ve avoided the fights and moaning and madness of passion and marriage. My name is Rosie (formal name Rosaline). I was named for my father’s former girlfriend because he admired her chastity and wished that for his newborn baby daughter and, as Mamma repeatedly points out, that name had doomed me to maidenhood. Or I should say formerly doomed me to maidenhood, and technically I wasn’t doomed. I clung to my maidenhood through machinations that would have impressed every scheming politician who ever lived.

I still can’t believe that I . . . and the prince of Verona . . . almost. . .

Deep breath. Back to the facts.

I have five younger sisters and one brother, and Mamma is expecting again. With such wildly romantic, and may I point out, fertile parents, someone has to be practical.

I wish I could still lay claim to that title, but . . . see the opening paragraphs.

Betrothed to the wrong man. Catchy. I could compose a dramatic play with that title. Or a comedy. I’m sure someone would laugh.

Me, Rosie Montague, who has arranged marriages for all the men to whom my parents betrothed me, two of them to my younger sisters . . .

Now, as I recline on a bench and stare at the heartlessly cheerful blue sky, I hear the crunch of gravel on the walk. Someone approaches my private alcove.

Can’t everyone leave me alone to brood in peace?

Apparently not, because the footsteps stop. Out of the corner of my eye, I see a male figure. Not Prince Escalus, thank God. This guy is blond. “Whatever you’re selling, I’m not interested.” With so many younger siblings, I know how to utilize a crushing tone when I wish, but this guy doesn’t take the hint.

Slowly I turn my head and—

“Lysander!” I sat up.

Yes. It was he, my One True Love.

I had really hoped this moment would not occur for, well, never.

Lysander is, as always, as glorious as the sun. His straight, dark blond hair is streaked with strawberry, his complexion fair and unmarked by pox. But today, unlike previous moments, his full, soft lips did not smile as if the sight of me filled his soul, and his large green eyes examined me as if seeing the stain of sin.

That air of judgment reeking from a man who had previously regarded me with awe, affection, even love, may have contributed to my inappropriately jocular comment. “You’re late!”

He didn’t laugh.

My smile died. “Last night, you were supposed to be here in my arms. Nurse would alert my father, Lord Romeo, to our assignation. We would be discovered and forced to wed. It all worked perfectly except—Where were you?” It was my cry of anguish.

Lysander recognized it as such. His expression softened. He seated himself beside me and wrapped his arm comfortingly around my shoulders. Which, by the way, was more physical intimacy than we’d ever previously enjoyed. “I was detained.”

“How?”

“On my way here, a fight broke out on the street before me. Three men, then four, then five, shouting and throwing punches. Then more. I tried to work my way through the expanding brawl. I was desperate to get to you, to enact our clever scheme and thus ensure our betrothal and future happiness.”

Tears filled my eyes and spilled over.

“The prince’s men arrived, breaking it up, hauling everyone off to the dungeons.”

I nodded. As I’d surmised. “You were caught in Prince Escalus’s trap.”

“I didn’t know it at the time. I shouted my name, over and over, begging the prince’s men to pay heed, and at last they did. I was released and sped to Casa Montague, late but ever hopeful, and what greeted my unbelieving ears was—” He stopped. He was unable to speak the fateful words.

“By the news that I was betrothed to Prince Escalus.”

“That was this morning’s news.” Lysander withdrew his arm. “Last night, I was greeted by much masculine mirth and laughter—”

“Mirth?” What toerags my father’s guests had turned out to be! My life had been upended and they were laughing?

“—and the news that the longtime virgin Lady Rosaline had been despoiled by Prince Escalus.”

“I was not despoiled! It was dark. I didn’t know it was Prince Escalus. He kissed me, and you know what that means.” It means that society judges women unfairly.

Lysander didn’t seem to see it that way. “It means you were despoiled.”

“It was merely a few kisses.” Experienced kisses, expert kisses, if the turmoil they raised was any indication, but I saw no reason to bring that to Lysander’s attention. He seemed to be irritated enough.

“My father was among the men who witnessed the scene. He held one of the torches. He said you were on your back on a bench”—Lysander abruptly stood as if he could no longer bear to sit near—“and in your monologue, you made it clear Prince Escalus had had his hand on your bare leg and you were familiar with his touch.”

“I thought he was you!”

“You thought I’d previously had my hand on your bare leg?” Lysander stepped sideways away from me.

“No. No.” I had to take control of this conversation. “I thought you were the man who kissed me, for we had planned it thus. Remember our plan?”

“I was delayed, so instead you kissed the prince?”

I repeated, “I told you, I thought he was you!”

Lysander stared at me as if he wanted to strangle me.

“You and I, we’ve never exchanged a zealous kiss to seal the indenture of our love. How was I supposed to know the difference between your blushing lips and his?”

To me, that was logical.

Apparently, Lysander didn’t view the matter as I did. Leaping up, he said, “You kiss by the book!” and stormed away, leaving me in much the same condition as I was when he arrived, only more wretched and confused.

I put my head in my hands and moaned, then jumped when I heard a thud behind me.

My younger sister Imogene hated to stitch, speak softly, and sit with her knees together. She loved to climb trees, shout, and dig in the dirt. She had just jumped out of the tree that grew beside my alcove and stood looking at me quizzically. “Rosie, you bungled that one.”

“I know, but I don’t know why.”

She seated herself beside me. “You know how men say, ‘All cats are gray in the dark’? And they snigger?”

“Yes.” I didn’t get it.

“I didn’t know what that meant, so I asked Mamma. Everyone says you’re the smart one, Rosie. Can’t you figure it out?”

I thought. “You mean Lysander thought that, despite my inexperience, I should be able to discern the difference between my One True Love and the very prince of deceit.” I thought some more. “Lysander was insulted.”

“Yeah.”

“I am fortune’s fool! I pass the crown. You’re the smart one.”

She stuck a finger through the hole in her gown. In tones of great gloom, she said, “Nurse is going to yell at me. She’ll tell me I’m twelve years old, that Mamma married Papà when she was thirteen, and I need to stop having fun.”

I’d heard that lecture myself. Had heard it for years and years. “I’ll fix it for you. I owe you for the explanation. Nurse doesn’t have to know.”

“Thank you, Rosaline.” Imogene swung her feet. “Are you still mad at everybody?”

“Honey, I’m not mad at everybody. I’m mad at me for being so careless and”—I remembered what Lysander said about the men laughing at me—“I’m . . . humiliated.”

“Why?”

“I have to marry Verona’s podestà, Prince Escalus the younger of the house of Leonardi. Because he decided he wanted a wife and I would do nicely because of my organizational abilities, my virginity, and my nice tette.”

“He said that?” Even Imogene was horrified.

“That was the gist of it. After he . . . he . . .”

“Despoiled you?”

“No, he did not despoil me. It was merely a few kisses.”

“Oh. Because I was in the oak over by the wall and I heard Lady Luce and Lady Perdita talking on the street and they said he despoiled you.”

“They have ever been monstrous neighbors.” I didn’t want to know, but I had to ask. “Were they mirthful?”

“Um. Sort of. Snorting and smirking.” Imogene got a worrisome smile on her face. “You know those nasty worms that spin those webs and eat all the leaves on the trees?”

I glanced up at the white webs on the ends of the branches. “Yes. Gardener has been trying to get rid of them, but he says it’s an infestation and we’ll have to wait for winter to put an end to them.”

“I threw a branch full of worms and webs on the ladies.”

After I got done laughing, I asked, “Did they see you?”

Grinning, she shook her head. “They screamed and did the icky worm dance.”

I hugged her. “I love you—and not merely for that!”

“But you don’t love the prince?”

“No. No! Aside from the fact Lysander is my One True Love, and I’ll never love another, organizational ability, virginity, and tette? Makes you swoon at the romance, doesn’t it?”

“No.” Imogene might be a hoyden, but she understood romance. As a daughter of Romeo and Juliet, it was required.

“Me neither.” Yet that was the essence of last night’s coup d’état speech masquerading as a proposal. Or maybe it was a proposal masquerading as a coup d’état speech. Hard to tell.

She slipped her hand into mine. “What are you going to do, Rosie?”

“I’ll marry, for this time even this unready maid must bear the yoke.”

“No!” She squeezed my fingers. “You don’t have to. You could stay here with us. We could be a family forever and ever!”

This time, I wrapped both arms around her. “Honey, we are a family forever and ever. But although I’m still a virgin”—Blessed Mary, how I’d come to hate that word!—“my virtue has been besmirched. I must either get me to a nunnery or get married to the man who did the besmirching.”

“Why?” she wailed. “Why can’t you stay here?”

“Prince Escalus is not a bad man. I don’t believe he’ll beat me or lock me up or tell me to change to be a wife more suitable for the podestà. Indeed, he was married once before to Princess Chiarretta, and he treated her with great deference and mourned when she died in childbirth with his son. Prince Escalus seems very aware of what I am like—”

“Nice tette,” Imogene muttered.

“Yes. For that, and other reasons, is why he graced me . . . with the honor . . . of being his wife.” I was descending into bitterness and sarcasm, and that wasn’t the purpose of this conversation. My duty now was to explain clearly to Imogene the results of her earnestly given suggestion, so I pulled up my big-girl camicia and said, “If I fail to marry or retire with my shame to a convent, the family will be ostracized. You’ll be ostracized. No other family will allow their son to marry you.”

“I don’t care.”

She meant it, I knew . . . now. “There’s more.” I lifted one finger. “No other family will allow their sons to marry Katherina or Emilia. Cesario will never be able to find a bride to carry on the noble line of Montague. Our married sisters won’t be allowed to visit us. We’ll wither and die in Casa Montague. Last but not least, my darling Imogene, the legend and romance that is Romeo and Juliet will be forever tarnished.”

She swallowed and gave a curt nod of understanding. “Then it is thus. Can I help you prepare for your wedding?”

“I’ll need you to help me prepare for the wedding. We’ll make it a proper Montague celebration.”

Imogene brightened. “That would serve the ol’ prince right!”

“Oh, man, do we have to?”

“It could be fun.”

“A tour of the palace? Nuh-uh.”

“Probably there’ll be art and, you know, culture.”

Gloomy silence.

“It won’t be so bad. We like Princess Isabella.”

“I love Princess Isabella.” Cesario was six years old and infatuated with Prince Escalus’s sister, who was twelve. He saw no impediment in the age gap—like my father, he had incredible confidence in himself and his own powers of persuasion.

“And we like food.” Katherina, thirteen, was trying hard to look on the bright side.

“The palace is infamous for its kitchen.” Emilia had just turned eight; she was the family wit and food critic.

“We’ll have to use our best manners.” For Imogene, this was clearly the worst of the upcoming ordeal.

“Tuesday is tomorrow night.”

More gloomy silence.

“ ‘Within the hour’? Who says that?” Papà was incredulous.

“One assumes the prince,” Mamma said sensibly.

“We’re stuck.” Imogene expressed solid despair better than any of us.

Gloom deepened over my family: my parents, Romeo and Juliet, and my younger, still-living-at-home siblings Katherina, Imogene, Emilia, and Cesario. Mamma had called us to the family table in the atrium of our spacious home in Verona for the reading of the invitation. It was chilly out here; autumn had arrived early, but she was at the overheated portion of her pregnancy.

I spoke up. “I’ll write back and accept?” I asked brightly.

“Better let me do it.” Mamma lifted herself carefully out of her chair, hand on her back. Papà’s hand hovered behind her, but he didn’t dare help. She was also at the snappish part of her pregnancy. “I’m tactful, unlike everyone else in the family.”

Our faithful family nurse hurried over to offer her arm. Mamma took it and we watched them enter the library.

“It’s true,” Papà said. “Juliet can tell you to go to hell and make you look forward to the journey.”

“You would know.” Katherina grinned at him.

He didn’t grin back. “Yes . . . there’s something about having a baby that makes her look unfavorably on men in general— and me specifically. It might have something to do with waking up all night long to piss.”

“You could get up with her,” Imogene suggested.

“I tried that. It makes her angrier. Like a serpent maddened by night’s candleflames, she hisses at me.” The greatest swordsman in Verona actually looked frightened.

My mother is one of the kindest, most gentlewomen on the face of this flat earth and, it goes without saying, the most beautiful. She was also one of the most formidable as the rude, curious, and unwary frequently discovered to their dismay. I half hoped Prince Escalus would step over the line and find out the hard way, but I also half hoped Prince Escalus tripped and fell face-first in a pile of donkey dung, so you could say that, no matter my advanced age, my maturity was not to be admired.

“I’m sorry, dear famiglia, for being such an idiot.” If I’d apologized once, I’d apologized a hundred times.

Emilia asked what all my siblings were wondering. “Rosie, did you really f—”

Papà and I answered at the same time. “No!”

“Why not?” She may have been only eight, but in our family, what with the noises that came from our parents’ bedroom, we all had a good grasp of human nature, or at least human nature as related to Romeo and Juliet. Romance and flirting led to passion, which led to singing bed ropes, which led to Mamma tossing her biscotti every morning and another baby in the family.

To Papà, the answer was easy. “We caught them in time.”

The real reason was a little different. “I realized I had the wrong gentleman in my arms and kicked him in the hairy hangers,” I replied.

Cesario and Papà winced and flinched.

“You kicked the prince? Good for you!” Imogene imitated a solid kick.

“Did you bring him to his knees?” More than the rest of us sisters, Emilia felt the indignation of being subservient to men, and fully supported bloodlust to right the unbalance.

“Not quite, but his breath’s release made a gratifying whooshing noise.” I’d lived on the satisfaction of that sound ever since.

Emilia got right to the heart of the matter. “Who was the right gentleman?”

I looked at her. Just looked at her.

Emilia had the makings of the second most sensible of the Montagues after me; now she exploded with exasperation. “You were going out to meet Lysander? In the garden? In the dark? You could have been debauched! You could have been kidnapped! You could have been found with a knife in your chest! Remember Duke Stephano, your most recent betrothed, who was stabbed in that very garden!” She pointed, as if I didn’t remember the location of Duke Stephano’s stabbing. “Rosaline, what were you thinking?”

I exploded back at her. “I was thinking that Lysander’s family had said no to a match with me, and he loves me and asked me to figure out a way we could be together, and, you know, the swiftest path to marriage is the one through the bedroom!”

“That’s also the swiftest path to the nunnery!”

“The plan should have worked!”

“It didn’t!”

At the same time, Emilia and I realized our mother had returned from the library and stood viewing us both with disfavor. She handed the sealed paper to our footman and in a soft voice said, “Please make sure that is delivered to Princess Isabella.” She turned to her family and said in an even softer voice, “The volume of Montague voices is most displeasing in young ladies and”—her own volume rose—“for at least the next two months or until I deliver this blessed babe, could I please have evidence that my daughters show some semblance of a proper upbringing rather than shaming me by braying like two donkeys?”

At once, Emilia and I were on our feet and curtsying. “Yes, Madam Mother. As you command, Madam Mother.”

Mamma continued, “Tomorrow night, we leave at seven. Before we leave, make sure you’re clean, dressed in the proper garments, and lined up for inspection. There will be smiles. There will be manners. There will be no excuses accepted.” She waited until everyone was on their feet and bowing and curtsying and announcing, “Yes, Madam Mother. As you command, Madam Mother.” Then she pinned me with a level look that promised bloody retribution should I defy her. “We go to support our beloved Rosie as she faces the future she created for herself, and to that end, Rosie will sweep aside her disgraceful indulgence in self-pity.”

“That’s not fair!” I protested. “Prince Escalus admits he eavesdropped on the plan to unite Lysander and me as a couple, diverted Lysander, and substituted himself—”

“Rosie’s disgraceful indulgence in self-pity, and her whining complaints of what is fair and not fair, will now end. Because what have I always told you children?” Mamma pointed a finger at us.

We cowered and recited, “‘Justice and life seldom walk hand in hand.’ ”

Her attention returned to me. “What does that mean?”

“ ‘Life ain’t fair.’ ” I now believed it fervently.

She used her gaze to hold mine. “Neither by word nor deed will Rosie sabotage her betrothal to the prince. With her deliberate attempt to take destiny in her own hands, she has angered the Fates and now she must face the consequences, which most in her position would consider an honor.”

While the prince’s union with me formed a short footbridge over a small social chasm and was in itself perfectly unremarkable, nevertheless the Montagues and the Capulets, wildly successful merchants all, didn’t regularly intermarry with the dukes and princes of Verona.

“Do you understand me, Rosaline Hortensa Magdelina Eleanor?” Mamma demanded.

It was always bad news when she called me by my full name. I curtsied and said, “Yes, Madam Mother.”

“What do I mean?”

I muttered, “That I can’t secretly meet Lysander ever again and I can’t say anything to Prince Escalus that will give him a disgust of me.”

“More than that, you’ll display the sweet side of your nature, which we as your family well know, to the prince, your betrothed.”

I nodded sullenly.

“What?” she snapped.

“Yes, Madam Mother. I will do as you instruct, Madam Mother.” I dared not put the slightest hint of defiance in my tone, and my deep curtsy reflected my absolute obedience to her as my commanding officer.

If her waiting stillness was anything to go by, she still wasn’t satisfied.

As I knew I must, I added, “I do so swear.”

Mamma’s gaze swept across me and my siblings like a scythe, leaving us awed, afraid and silent. In that tone that both condemned and commanded, she said, “Love teaches even asses to dance.”

The quiet continued until she entered her bedroom and Nurse delicately shut the door behind them.

“Not sure, Rosie,” Imogene said, “but I think Mamma is irritated with you.”

Heads nodded in unison.

“At least it’s not me,” Papà said cheerfully, and strode off whistling.

I’m so glad someone had something to be happy about. Gentle reader, in case you don’t know . . . that was also sarcasm.

Please don’t tell my mother.

The Montague family was preparing to go to the palace for that intimate dinner. The image should have conjured up glamour, excitement, music, food, and wine.

Alas, it was not so.

Earlier, Nurse had helped Mamma into her voluminous gown with a high waist to accommodate the baby bump. As always, Mamma personified glamour and beauty, Verona’s ideal noblewoman ripe with child.

Now in my bedroom, she reclined on my bed with pillows behind her shoulders and supervised as Nurse and her staff helped Katherina, Imogene, Emilia, and me into our layers of chemises, stockings, underskirts, bodices, and skirts.

In the adjoining bedroom, Papà had volunteered himself and his manservant to wrestle Cesario into his formal clothing.

For my sake, my sisters attempted to maintain their good humor, joking that because of the reported dismal state of dining at the palace, I should strap on the scabbard Nurse had given me, but leave out the dagger and instead stuff it full of bread, cheese, and dates.

Yet, as Emilia said morosely, that wasn’t funny when it sounded like such a good idea.

We did, of course, each have our eating knives attached to our belts with a scabbard, but we couldn’t leave those home any more than we could walk the streets without shoes. A guest who arrived at a meal without a blade would likely go home hungry and defenseless.

I had a new silk gown—bodice and skirt, never worn—made for Mamma before she fell pregnant. The color, an intense teal, should have been too bold for an ingenue, but as Mamma said, I was too old to play that role, the prince was too sensible to expect it, and because she’d passed her dramatic coloring on to me, the color presented me like a dewy pearl in a velvet setting. Overnight, Nurse had driven our seamstresses to lengthen the hem (I was taller than Mamma), let out the bodice (my shoulders and rib cage were broader than Mamma’s), and create a matching pearled cap to cover my dark hair and matching beaded sleeves to be laced onto the bodice.

I felt like the prize pig at an auction.

“Should she carry a dagger?” Nurse was serious. “For the first time, she’s going to the palace as the prince’s betrothed, an important role in these treacherous times, and enemies may lurk in the dark corners and hidden places.”

No one scoffed. My recent ordeal with Verona’s first serial killer had left more scars than the one on my chest. We . . .