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

long and stately drive toward Lyonshall. Elizabeth gave not one more thought to Anthony as her gaze took in the full splendor of the Earl’s principal seat. There was a wide and well-manicured greensward where not one blade of grass dared presume to lift its head higher than its fellows at one turn; masses of purple rhododendrons that were so riotously profuse in their spring flowering that they colored the very air about them with an aura of lavender at another; and then finally, after passing what appeared to be a detachment of gardeners engaged in drilling a display of tulips and lilies to stand properly and not slouch as inferior blooms might tend to do, they caught sight of the great house itself.
    Seeing its vast outline, its tall white form dominating the landscape, Elizabeth caught in her breath and frankly goggled. It was as well that she did not catch a glimpse of her cousin’s face as he took his first look at the stately pile that might, if the fates were kind, someday be his. For she would have seen his lips form the words “disgraceful” and “parasite.”
    By the time Anthony had aided her in descending from the coach and Elizabeth’s legs were used again to firm unmoving ground beneath her, they had to ascend the marble steps. Before they could pause, they were shown into the great house itself. Breathless from the climb, and struck speechless by the vault of a front hall, scarcely able to register the beauty of her surroundings in the light flooding in through high stained-glass windows, Elizabeth could only mutely follow the butler who led them farther into what seemed to her to be the Earl’s treasure cave of a mansion.
    So it was that by the time she had given her bonnet and wrap to a footman and the polished oaken doors to the withdrawing room had swung open, Elizabeth was reduced to merely attempting to keep her composure so as not to present a picture of a gawking peasant to whoever awaited her within. Thus when the butler stentorianly announced “Mr. Anthony Courtney and Miss Elizabeth DeLisle,” the assembled company saw an unremarkable young man saunter in followed by a very attractive but very dazed-looking young woman. Indeed, the first feature of hers that anyone noticed was a pair of remarkable hazel eyes, as wide, but unfortunately also as blank, as saucers.
    Anthony moved into the room as if he were indeed to the manner born. And as she followed, Elizabeth was aware of a group of people posed as if in tableau, in various indolent positions in various parts of the room. They looked, she thought with despair, as intimidating and as unreal as figures from a fashion plate. The brightest spot of color in the room came from a grouping on an elegantly curved gold settee. There sat an exquisite little Dresden figure of a woman, looking in all her gold-and-pink splendor much like the very figurine poor Uncle had sold in order to purchase the stylish tea-colored walking dress Elizabeth now wore. Next to that blond vision of a female sat a small, plump boy, all done up to match the lady, even down to his golden ringlets and lacy cuffs. A tall gentleman sat in a maroon chair to the fair-haired couple’s left; another exquisitely stylish-looking fellow with buff pantaloons and boots so shined they twinkled in the afternoon light stood near him, seemingly interrupted in midsentence by their arrival. And a tall, imposing man stood easily by the fireplace mantel, one hand upon a gold-tipped walking stick, the other cradling a tall snifter of brandy. Caught in that one frozen moment of interruption, they were all gazing at Anthony and Elizabeth with the liveliest curiosity. And for that one moment, Elizabeth had the mad impulse to simply drop a curtsy, pick up her skirts, and flee out the door, back to the coach, and back to her home again.
    It was the tall man by the fireplace who first spoke in a slow, deep, rich voice. “Welcome, Cousin,” he said smoothly as Anthony came toward him. “You come