The Mysterious Heir by Edith Layton Read Free Book Online Page A

told herself, as she tucked herself up into her own bed for the last time in the knowable future. Uncle had said she could hold her head high, for her own birth and bearing were of the finest. And she had a case of new clothes and a mission to carry out. Why, then, she thought sleepily, with all those riches and all that opportunity, did she feel so very frightened and so very guilt-stricken?

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    Elizabeth examined Anthony covertly in the available lurching light that shone through the travel-stained windows of the coach. Yes, she thought finally, he’ll do. His hair, his jacket, even his boots were correct to the last and least degree. There was no fault, she sighed, at least none that could be seen by the eye. Aye, that’s the problem, she sighed again, leaning her weary head back and closing her own eyes. But then, that was in the hands of fate fully as much as in her own two neatly gloved members.
    Anthony had been in excellent spirits throughout the long journey. While Elizabeth was nominally his keeper, in charge of both his baggage and his behavior, oddly enough it was Anthony who had taken charge at the White Hart in Derby and demanded more commodious rooms, and Anthony who had grown angry with the innkeeper at Stourbridge when he had discovered an overcharge on their luncheon bill. While Elizabeth knew more of the world than he did, by dint of her reading and her six years’ majority, she had never traveled a mile farther than her junior cousin. She was by far the more reticent of the pair as well, for Anthony, having been absently indulged by three females since birth, was never one to let a slight go by. That prickliness of his served them well on their trip. All who encountered the impatient young gentleman and his attractive companion thought the pair Quality. Uncle’s every shilling had been spent to create just that illusion.
    Uncle’s pocketbook had stretched to provide them clothes, but even a magician could not have ferreted out one more coin after the cost of wayside accommodations for both the going and return journey had been calculated. Their fare cost nothing, as the local squire, with visions of Anthony as Earl of Auden, and with the omnipresent vision of his own unmarried daughter fixed firmly in his mind, gladly gave them the use of his coach and his cattle for the trip.
    But for supposed scions of a fashionable family there was still a great deal they did not have. Thus what they did not have they were fully armed with excuses for. Elizabeth’s fictitious maid was to be explained away as suffering from both coachsickness and homesickness to such a degree that she never made the journey past the town limits of Tuxford. Anthony’s valet, that sentimental and imaginary fellow, had, of course, to be back in London seeing to his aunt’s decent interment. Elizabeth, it was decided after a long night’s conference, had never made her come-out in London, as her mother had been ailing and she had feared to leave her delicate mama for so long a time. And when Aunt Emily had protested that it was an unlucky sort of excuse, Elizabeth’s mother had shushed her firmly by stating that if Anthony let a fortune slip through his fingers for superstition’s sake they would all be a great deal unhealthier in future.
    Elizabeth’s head was so filled with admonitions, excuses, and outright lies that she feared to open her mouth lest the whole budget spill out unbidden. Anthony, although equally primed by Uncle, had an unusually devil-may-care attitude about him from the very moment of agreeing to the scheme. In fact, Elizabeth noted with dismay, he seemed to be wearing a perpetual smirk of self-satisfaction. It was that very sunny air of compliance that disturbed her even more. For she knew Anthony well, and it was not at all in his style.
    But now she had no further time to worry, for the coach was at last turning in through a pair of iron gates and even Anthony sat up straighter as they proceeded down the