Rachel Francis

Rachel Francis was a young, red-haired woman whose temper was as fiery as her hair. She married an older man named Henry Francis and the two embarked upon a scheme to abduct a young heiress named Grace Fontaine. They kept Grace perpetually drugged and provided her with the alias of Henry’s daughter, Dorothy. Rachel began posing as Henry’s other daughter, rather than his wife and pretended to act as a live-in nurse for the invalid Dorothy.
In June of 1967, the Francis family began lodging at Collinwood. Henry was once very close to Collinwood’s matriarch, Elizabeth Collins Stoddard, and as such, she was able to provide a quiet place for Rachel and the others to conduct their business. It was Rachel’s job to administer the sedative that would keep Grace in a state of near-catatonia.
Henry frequently abused Rachel and as time went on, she began to care less and less for his scheme. To get back at him, Rachel began cavorting about with Roger Collins. As she was posing as Henry’s daughter (rather than his wife), there was very little that Henry could say in the matter.
Rachel found another foil however in the form of Victoria Winters. Vicki was persistently loitering about the Francis’s apartment and both Henry and Rachel grew concerned that she might inadvertently discover their scheme. Whenever Vicki came near their quarters, Rachel would frequently bark at her and muscle her away from the room. Henry and Rachel struck back against Vicki by executing several failed attempts to end her life.
Ultimately, Henry Francis’s kidnapping plot was exposed and he died in a shoot out with a Philadelphia police detective named Paul Caine. Presumably, Rachel was arrested shortly after this incident.
== Notes ==
* The character of Rachel Francis is exclusive to the Paperback Library novels. She has never appeared on the original Dark Shadows television series.
== Appearances ==
Victoria Winters
Category:Novels Characters