The Mysterious Heir by Edith Layton Read Free Book Online

servants, and the other aspirants for the honor of being chosen heir, it would be enough to keep her awake this night.
    Three-and-twenty, she thought, roaming her room, almost blindly finding her way about in the dark, and nervous as a schoolchild of going out into the world alone. But wasn’t that just what she had been secretly praying for all these years?
    She had never complained about her lot. How could she when Uncle had been kind enough to take her and her widowed mother in after Father had been lost in the wars? For though an officer gave his life for King and Country, his country seldom gave his family more than a lovely written commendation to be taken out and wept over by his survivors on the anniversary of his death. Uncle had unhesitatingly taken in his other widowed sister and her infant son as well. Elizabeth often wondered if the burden of living with his widowed sisters prevented Uncle from marriage, even though he always laughed and declared that with three females at his beck and call he had little need of another as wife. She often consoled herself with the thought that he had been a case-hardened bachelor long before tragedy had befallen his family.
    But by then he had also lost what remained of his funds, all but this meager holding of the house and enough to keep their bodies and souls together. So how could an ungrateful chit of a girl quibble about her lost opportunities for a social life?
    Nor had she complained about being unable to join the other girls at their play. She had been told often enough that she was a lady born, and as such could not mix with common village girls. But all these common, laughing girls of her youth were wed now, and most with babes of their own. And only she, Elizabeth DeLisle, lady born, had no more to show for her years than a tenuous position in a millinery shop—of the better sort, of course.
    How many nights had she sat by her window, hugging herself against the night wind, wondering if life would ever touch her? How many nights when a roving gypsy moon would cause panic to well in her as she wondered how many more years would go by as she sat by a window and waited. Twenty-three, thirty-three, forty-three… On those nights she would think in despair how long it would be till she became exactly as her mother and her aunt, waiting on Uncle and Anthony, watching the years creep by.
    For there was no money for a come-out at eighteen, no funds for a dowry at twenty, and no hope for anything at twenty-three. There had been young men—the world is filled with young men—but none for her. The smith’s son, Edmond Priestly, had eyed her when she was nineteen and then quite properly proposed to young Elsie Fairchild when he was twenty, as both their families expected. Robert Mason, the hard-drinking squire’s son, had walked out with her when she was twenty and stolen hasty whiskey-scented kisses. But then he, too, had turned with many a backward sigh to wed the young Litchfield heiress as his family had ordained. Elizabeth too had sighed, but with relief. Even for Uncle’s sake, she could not have made a match with Robert. Now James Wattle, owner of the only apothecary shop in town, was casting glances her way, but when she thought of her reaction to his perennial sniff and condescending manner, she knew he would soon turn away and make a match with some other, more obliging lady.
    Now her wish had been unwittingly granted by some ancient, ailing member of the aristocracy. She was to have an adventure. She was, at last, to leave Tuxford, if only for a space. But as in all fairy tales, there was a condition attached. She must pretend to be wealthy. She must help to convince a poor old man that Anthony was an upstanding young fellow, well able to shoulder the burdens of title and fortune. And she, she who had never spoken to a more exalted personality than the squire, was to pretend that she was used to hobnobbing with the Quality.
    It would be a grand adventure, she