The Mysterious Heir (3 page)

“You say nothing?” He laughed into her neck. “Too busy thinking, no doubt. Well, rest easy. For I wouldn't mind.”

He felt the sigh of relief as it swelled in her chest. But then he felt a new tension in her, saw it begin to cord her smooth neck.

“But, my dear,” she said softly, “then that would be the end of…us, wouldn't it? And wouldn't you mind that?”

He laughed again and lowered himself to her. “I never said that, now, did I? Now, that I would mind.”

“Still,” she said before she gave herself up to his morning ritual of awakening for them both, “it seems unfair to Morgan, doesn't it? I mean, after Kitty, especially.”

The gentleman drew away from her and looked at her steadily. She returned his gaze openly.

“Morgan, is it, eh?” he said with a little rise of anger. “He is a catch, isn't he? What did you say, ‘He got the funds and the looks'?”

Seeing his anger, the lady put out one little hand and placed it on his lips to prevent him saying another thing.

“Truly,” she said playfully, “you are a bear in the morning. You know, it is all you, you, you. How could anyone ever take your place in my heart? I would only do what I must do for my future. You know that,” she said wistfully, dropping her gaze and pouting.

“Never forget the rules,” the gentleman said, as he relaxed. “You may play your husband false whenever you choose, but you must remain constant to your lover…especially if you wish your lover to remain discreet…about many things.”

“Why are you saying this to me?” the lady sniffed, allowing a tear to well artfully in one blue eye. “When have I ever given you cause for complaint? Now”—she smiled through the tear, which amazingly had already begun to retract—“are you going to spend the morning berating me? Or delighting me?”

“Witch,” he said, dropping to whisper into her left ear. “Bitch,” he said into her right ear. “That is what I like about you. Your single-mindedness.”

But she did not hear what he whispered then or later, and he did not see that through most of his ministrations that morning, she kept her eyes closed so that he would not see her rapid calculating as she weighed her options.

*

The second letter to be delivered lay outside yet another door. This letter could not be delivered till late afternoon, as the address was a locale on the unfashionable outskirts of Town. This one did not lie upon rich carpeting, but rather upon a cold, somewhat grimy floor. And a floor, moreover, that was three stories up and in a public hallway. So that by the time the recipient saw it lying there, a glowing white rectangle in the dim hall, it already bore a heel print.

But the gentleman scooped it up and peered at the crest,
and made sure of the name it was addressed to, for he did not at first believe that it was for him at all. But it read clearly “Richard Courtney.” Then he carried it into his room and closed the door tightly, as if against intruders, before he settled himself in a somewhat threadbare chair near the window to read it before the last light left the afternoon sky.

He, too, read it through several times before he rose and paced the room. It was a small room, badly furnished with what looked like castoffs from someone's attic. An iron bed, a few dispirited chairs, and a table that looked as though it might swoon if it held a large meal, comprised the decor. A small bundle of wood lay ready to be lit in the grate, but it would not be lit until the temperature truly tumbled, for the price of fuel was prohibitive for the occupant. The gentleman who paced the floor looked no more able to hold a substantial repast than his mean table did. He was tall, but bone thin. His shoulders were wide, but wide with the raw look of adolescence, though he appeared to be a man in his second decade of life.

His was not a handsome visage—it was too stark for that; each feature seemed too large for the background it was placed upon: the nose too long, the chin too long, only the long brown eyes seemed to complement the thick brown hair. But as he paced, the long mournful face began to take on light and life, lending animation to the whole.

Finally the gentleman stopped in his tracks, then went swiftly to a large book that stood almost alone in the one bookshelf in the room. He scanned the back pages of the old Bible, tracing names that had been written so long ago that the black ink was growing rusty with age. Then, and only then, did he allow a wide grin to form upon his wide mouth. He rose and inspected himself in the mirror above the fireplace. His clothes were clean and his brown jacket and biscuit pantaloons fit well and seemed newer and more rich than any other objects in the room. He scanned his shining boots for dust, and finding none, he smiled again and went hurriedly toward the door, still clutching the letter.

He looked at the letter once more before putting it carefully into his pocket. For it was the letter that he would bring to his ladylove. And it was the letter he knew that would mean more to her than candy, than flowers—more, perhaps, he thought, halting only for a moment in sorrow, than himself.

*

The third letter had a long and weary journey and finally arrived limp after more than a week's travails. It bore upon its formerly pristine surface the fingerprint of a coachman in Leicester, a small warp from a rainstorm over Nottingham, and the scars from a drubbing it had received when it fell from the pouch near Mansfield. But now it lay safe and snug next to the beating breast of a tall, stout gentleman as he stood outside a shop window in Tuxford.

The gentleman was engaged in tapping a coin upon the window to attract the attention of those within. But after a few moments, when, from what he could see looking into the shop from behind a quantity of bonnets and feathers that impeded his view, no one turned to see him, he sighed, dropped the coin back into his pocket, and went in through the door. Three elderly women were debating the correctness of having a purple feather upon a mourning bonnet and a young girl and her overbearing mother were debating about the merits of a chip straw against the wisdom of a rather more dashing white satin bonnet with what the young girl tearfully maintained were the sweetest blue flowers. No wonder, the stout gentleman thought, grimacing, no one had heard his steady tapping.

The elderly parties were being waited on by a weary elderly woman, who nodded like a metronome at their every opposing comment. And the girl and her mother were being served by a slender young woman dressed serviceably in brown. When she looked up for a moment and saw the stout gentleman, her wide light brown eyes grew wider in dismay and the faint blush on her white cheeks fled. She began to step toward him, but he shook his head and smiled back at her to alleviate her distress. He took out his watch and pointed to it, nodded, and went out of the shop again. At that the young woman relaxed and went back to the transaction she had been overseeing, which was beginning to end in a
flood of tears on the girl's part and a tight-lipped nod on the mother's side.

The stout man stood sighing and rocking back and forth on his heels in impatience outside the shop. He did not like to go into the shop where Elizabeth worked. It always filled him with dismay and a feeling of incompetence when he saw the way she actually had to go out and earn the money she contributed to the household every week. Deuce take it, he thought savagely, she ought to be making the rounds picking out bonnets to adorn herself with, rather than creating and selling them like a common shopgirl. His niece, working as a shopgirl. His niece, still on the vine, and such a fine-looking girl too, but with no husband and no prospects of one and no dowry and no prospect of one. He felt the familiar guilt and sorrow he always experienced when he thought of Elizabeth, but this time he pushed the thoughts away with the force of the rising excitement he felt about the letter he now bore, beating wildly with every wild beat of his heart.

It was only after the girl and her mother left, the girl sniveling, the mother looking triumphant, that Elizabeth herself came flying out the door. She had thrown her pelisse over her dress, her light brown hair glinted like satin where the westering sun touched it, and her fine topaz eyes were bright and wide with excitement. Her uncle thought again, with a pang, of roses born to blush unseen, and so with none of the preamble he had been rehearsing, he pulled the letter from his coat and thrust it at her.

“What is it, Uncle?” Elizabeth breathed, unable to take in the fact of the letter till her eyes had scanned his face. “You never come to the shop. Is it Mother? Or Aunt? Or Anthony? Miss Scott let me out early, for even she knows it is not your habit to come to the shop. Oh, please, what is it?”

“Nothing dire. Nothing amiss with anyone at home. It's only that I've such exciting news, it couldn't wait until you got home,” he said with truth. For it was of prime importance that Elizabeth read and absorb the contents of the letter before she got home, and more importantly, before she spoke with her cousin Anthony.

“This letter?” Elizabeth asked, puzzled.

“Yes, the letter,” her uncle said impatiently. “Read it. Read it and then ask questions.”

Elizabeth stood in the center of the street and rapidly scanned the letter. Halfway through it, she looked up at her uncle, her speaking face lit with radiance. But her uncle shook his head and urged her, “Read on, read on.”

“Oh, Uncle,” Elizabeth gasped when she had finished, “it is too incredible! Anthony has a chance to become the heir presumptive to the Earl of Auden. It seems unbelievable.”

“Incredible and unbelievable,” her uncle said slowly, “but quite true. Your aunt babbled on for so many years about how her dear Howard had expectations but died too young, it became a joke. We none of us believed her. But we've checked the Bible and the peerage and there it is. And now she's sitting at home like a cat after a bowl of cream. It's true, all right. Anthony's in the direct line. Do you know what it would mean for us, Elizabeth? No more working in a shop for you. We could give up that slum of a house we're dwelling in and get a proper home. And for you, my dear, there would be a chance to shine as you were meant to do in the society where you belong. Above all this,” he said, dismissing the entire town with a wave of his hand, “for with such expectations my credit would rise. I could do everything I've always wanted to do for our little family.”

“Uncle,” Elizabeth said with a small, happy sigh, “it's beyond everything wonderful. What did Anthony say?”

“Ah, well,” her uncle said wretchedly, “I didn't tell him yet. I couldn't. Not yet. Not till you and I had a chance to talk about it. Well,” he said, not meeting her eyes, “you know what he would say.”

“Oh, yes,” Elizabeth said, shaking her head sadly and then seeming to let out all the radiance with a long sigh. Her face grew still. “Well, then, so much for your dreams, Uncle. Let's go home,” and she turned and began to walk again.

Her uncle caught at her arm. “No, we can't let it go like that, Elizabeth, we can't. Think of the opportunity.”

“Yes, and think of Anthony,” Elizabeth said grimly.

“I am thinking of Anthony,” her uncle retorted in an
undertone,
pausing to touch his hat to a neighbor, “and
I cannot
in all conscience let him pass up such an opportunity.
There
will come a day,” he went on sweepingly, like an
orator
upon the stump, “when he will put all this childishness behind him. And then he will regret his lost chance.
We
,”
her uncle said, gazing at Elizabeth, “cannot let him pass up such a chance.”

“You know,” Elizabeth said as she paced on toward home, “that I will do the best that I can. But even so, I think you refine too much upon it. There are so many ifs in the case. There is no cause to believe Anthony would be chosen as heir above the others; rather the opposite, I should think. And even if he were, why, even in that unlikely eventuality, it might be years before the Earl passed on and Anthony came into the inheritance.”

“I know for a fact,” her uncle said eagerly, “that the Earl is quite an old chap. I met him years ago when I was in clover. He had two sons, I recall. I know the elder died young, and the other, last I heard, was in the wars. Pity, he must have been killed. And so Anthony stands a very good chance at the succession. One man's misfortune is the making of another's; no one lives forever.”

Seeing Elizabeth's shocked, barely concealed expression of distaste, her uncle hurried on, “But even if the old chap lives to be Methuselah, Elizabeth—and of course I hope he will—think of what it would mean for Anthony to be designated heir! It would mean,” he said, staring wonderingly at his niece, “that as his uncle, my credit would be restored. That I could bring our fortune back.”

“I'll do my best,” Elizabeth repeated earnestly. “I'll prime him like a pump, I'll find a way to convince him of the rightness of it, if it takes me days on end. And then we'll dress him up and send him off to the Earl as a prime candidate for the office. I promise, Uncle,” she said firmly. “Will that suit?”

“Not quite,” her uncle said slowly. “That won't be quite enough. You know Anthony, Elizabeth. That won't be quite enough.”

Elizabeth tensed. She knew, with a terrible certainty, what was coming.