Gold Elsie

"Gold Elsie" by E. Marlitt is a romance novel, set in Thuringia, about the German aristocracy.
Excerpt:
"Hans von Gnadewitz was to be found not only upon the boughs of the genealogical tree in the hall of the new castle but suspended by a rope around his neck to a bough of one of the actual trees in the forest. The beaten whipper-in expiated the deed upon the scaffold, but that could not bring the last of the Gnadewitzes to life again, for he was dead,—irrevocably dead, the physicians said; and the long tale of robber-knights, wild excesses, hunting orgies, and horse-racing came to an end."