"you have no right to dispose of yourself without my permission"

As if to prove my point from yesterday, The Castle of Wolfenbach has gone into the story of the Countess of Wolfenbach and why she was found trapped in the castle and later kidnapped.  Also the evil uncle has caught up with Matilda and is demanding she marry him.

Since I didn't talk much yesterday about the book, here is a general rundown.

Matilda is running from her uncle, who clearly has some gross designs on her.

She winds up in the Castle of Wolfenbach and finds the imprisoned Countess of Wolfenbach, Victoria.  Before Matilda learns much about Victoria, Victoria is kidnapped and her servant is killed.  But not before Victoria secures it so that Matilda can go hide out with her sister.  And yes, to get to the point where Victoria's story is still a mystery but they are close enough that the sister relationship gets set up does take a bit of implausible talking about everything BUT the important stuff.

All we know is that both Victoria and her sister were forced into marriage by their father.  It worked out well for the sister since she married a Marquis and they fell in love.  It didn't work so well for Victoria because she married a count and he is EVIL! (As all counts are. It is a job requirement.)

Don't worry too much about the Countess Victoria.  She rapidly escapes from the kidnappers and runs to England, though I don't know how yet.  The uncle has caught up with Matilda and is trying to make her marry him.  She says she will go become a nun instead.  He says the line in the title of the post, that she can't enter into anything without his permission, even to god.  So Matilda is getting the eff out of Dodge.

There are a couple of other side stories about the friends of the Marchioness who also were married to terrible men against their will, but by the time of the story they are fine, doing well after the husband died and left them all their money.  Let's just say Parsons has a big thing against arranged marriages and she is making that point clear.

Really, this is a book entirely about girls.  The men are either good or evil.  When Matilda and her friends go out to a ball, "a swarm of beaus surrounded them, but [Matilda] thought their conversation, their fopperies, and fulsome compliments truly disgusting, on a comparison with the sensible and elegant manners of her newly-acquired female friends."

Fainting Fit Count: 2

--I'm a bit disappointed really.  By everything I was expecting this book was supposed to be endless crying and fainting and all the worst gothic has to offer.  Isn't Radcliffe supposed to be the queen of the sensible heroines and the rest were silly and supernatural?  This is what I was led to believe.  But Matilda has only lost consciousness twice.  While Emily St. Aubert is fainting at the worst possible time, Matilda is helping the old servant Joseph to hide the bodies.