In Memory of Elizabeth Ellington-Pryce

Name: Elizabeth Alicia Mercia Ellington-Pryce Age: 28 Position: Countess Place of Birth: Buckinghamshire, England Date of Birth: 28th December, 1977 Hair: Long, blonde Eyes: Blue Height: 5’10’’ Weight: 121 Ibs Hobbies: Reading literature and novels, horse riding, fencing, writing, theatre, opera, good red wine Family: Father, Lord Arthur Langrishe, the Viscount of Tennington. Mother, Lady Alicia Langrishe, the Viscount of Tennington. Eldest brother, Lord Alexis Langrishe. Eldest sister, Lady Jane Howard, the Viscountess of Nelford. Elder brother, The Honourable Charles Langrishe. Elder sister, The Honourable Lara Langrishe. Marital Status: Widowed. Late-husband, Lord James Ellington-Pryce, the Earl of Selton *deceased* Seat: 2 J

Background: Born as the third daughter and fifth child to Lord and Lady Langrishe, Elizabeth Alcia Mercia was never considered as important as her two brothers. Her parents were aristocrats in the true sense of the word, both in blood and behaviour. Although her parents afforded her very little time or attention themselves, they employed Masters to see both to her education and upbringing. In her education, she was schooled in everything a well bred young lady should be fluent in...languages, literature, art, music, history amongst them. In her other lessons, she was taught everything a well bred young lady should *be*, from social etiquette amongst the elite and appropriate titles to use with other members of the aristocracy, to how the daughter of a Viscount should speak and behave at the dinner table of a formal banquet and how to dance at the ball afterward. Above all, she was taught that her place amongst the aristocracy made her elite to other ‘normal’ people in society. She was kept away from other children, and only really interacted with other people outside of her family and staff when she started to attend formal social functions.

It became apparent as she grew older that whilst the oldest son’s gift was the title he’d inherit, the second son his political wit, the eldest daughter the main dowry of the three girls upon marriage, the second daughter her intelligence, Elizabeth’s attribute would he her pretty face and appealing figure. Despite the elegant beauty of her features though, her blue eyes remained more often than not lacking in warmth and life, after all, those weren’t thinks taught to her in her lessons. As she approached her eighteenth birthday, the most important thing on her father’s mind was using her looks to marry her off quickly to a man that would make a good political match to another powerful family in the aristocracy that suited him. At nineteen, her father finally settled on Lord James Ellington-Pryce, the Earl of Selton, a man more than twice her age at thirty-nine. Despite not knowing the man very well and feeling anxious about married life, she looked forward to the marriage...after all, she would marry an Earl, giving her the title of Countess, and will have risen in the ranks of the aristocracy, as well as knowing she’d be provided for. The truth of married life quickly stabbed Elizabeth in the back. From the aggressively consummated wedding night, to the constant demands put upon her to be the perfect wife, married life was simply a living hell. She had no interest in the older man sexually, but that wouldn’t stop him from taking what he wanted from her, regardless of any objections or struggles. She would have to keep a perfect mask of smiles as they went together to formal occasions and in public, so that he could show off his trophy wife, when behind closed doors they either argued or remained in icy silence with each other. She felt completely trapped, and no more so than when it occurred to him that she was taking an awfully long time in becoming pregnant. He blamed her for their inability to conceive, and from then on grew even more aggressive and violent with her. What had been just arguments became physical fights where he would beat her as he pleased. What had been forced sex with a wife from her husband became out and out violent and humiliating rape. It was one such night when he actually tried to strangle her that something snapped inside Elizabeth. She had always been somewhat of a cold woman with a lack of encouragement to show or even feel emotion as she was growing up, and she’d always had an edge to her, that made her stubborn and determined, that kept her chin held high with pride through difficult times and made for a feisty woman who was used to getting what she wanted...but now, it turned into a ruthlessness to protect herself from this dangerous man, the husband who gave her nothing but pain and made her life miserable. She’d had enough...she knew it had to be either him, or her...and she had no intention of letting him come out on top.

She went about her research of poisons methodically, checking and double checking all of her options. In the end, she chose morphine. She started slowly, lacing his drinks with just a little here and there, building it up over many weeks, stretching into months. The idea was to make him an addict, and it worked. She stopped giving it to him, and of course, he got pain from the withdrawal, so she casually suggested that he use a little morphine to help. He did so, but of course, it would only work for a while, for as soon as withdrawals started again, he would need another dose to ‘stop the pain’. She even managed to persuade him to take some on three separate occasions when he had close, trusted friends visiting so that they would see he was taking it. She carefully moved into the final step of the plan. When giving him his by then routine injection of morphine to ‘help his pain’, she gave him an overdose to kill him. No second thoughts, no looking back...she took her chance to kill him without regrets. She waited before phoning for an ambulance, knowing he was already dead, and put on the performance of her life as the distraught widow to the police. The best part was, because she’d got him hooked on it before, she had the three friends to back up her story that he’d been using it for sometime, and so the verdict of accidental death by overdose was given at the inquest of his death. Elizabeth had literally gotten away with murder.

She settled back, waiting for her chance of a good and happy life now he was gone, but it wouldn’t be so simple. The solicitor informed her that whilst her husband had once had a very large amount of money, he had gotten himself into all sorts of debt behind her back. All of the money that should have been left to her instead was taken to pay off all of his debts. Yes, she had the title of Countess still, and yes, she had inherited the large mansion house and two areas of land that he had owned...but she was penniless. If she’d have been able, she’d have killed him again for it.

Now, she faced a different sort of prison...that of poverty. She couldn’t sell the land, or everyone would know she had money problems, and in the aristocracy, it wasn’t the truth that mattered, but what you seemed to be. So long as she could convince everyone she was just as rich as ever, she’d still be accepted amongst them. Slowly but surely, she had to sell off a lot of the more valuable antique furniture and furnishings of her home. She kept the main rooms filled with the best of furniture to impress guests and stop suspicions of her lack of money, and instead shut up the non-essential rooms of the mansion with absolutely nothing left in them from where she’d had to sell their contents. She had to have the very best in quality of dresses, or the others would know something was wrong, so she could only buy a strict few of the expensive garments, and became an expert at unpicking and redesigning from old dresses to make a ‘new’ one. She cut back on staff in the mansion, only keeping those absolutely necessary. She refused to heat the enormous place in winter, lying to the staff by saying she didn’t feel the cold. The stress piled on top of Elizabeth, always desperately searching for ways to make ends meet and yet having to play the rich, perfect Countess to everyone else. She stopped sleeping and eating, and instead took to sitting in a chair or on her bed, staring straight ahead with unseeing eyes as she frantically racked her mind for ways just to get from one day to the next with no money, let alone how to get out of the predicament all together. The hell she had lived with her husband had simply turned to a different kind now he was gone...and what really got to her was the fact that it was all his doing...even in death, he’d managed to ruin her life.

It had been Jane, her sister, who had organised the holiday to Japan, noticing, despite Elizabeth’s best efforts as only a sister could, that she was looking stressed. Elizabeth went with her, trying to unwind, but finding her mind constantly drifting to what on earth she would do when she got back to England. Instead of going straight on there, she decided to go to Seattle first, to look up an old friend who might have been able to give her some advice, but the plane went missing before she could arrive.

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