The Dashwood Sisters Tell All Read Online Free

this trip that I hadn't given it a real chance. Ethan offered to get me another drink, and I decided that, really, it would only be sporting to try and enjoy myself. My mother might have sent Ellen and me on a rather morbid errand, but it looked as if there might be some compensation in store in the form of one genuine Austen-issue hero.

    Mimi was the one who was always late, not me. Yet here I was, hurrying from the stable block to the welcome reception more than fifteen minutes behind schedule. I felt I should be forgiven for my lateness, though, given the bombshell that had been dropped in my lap. What had my mother been thinking?
    The diary couldn't be real, of course. In all the years I’d listened to my mother ramble on about all things Austen, I’d never heard any mention of Jane Austen's only sister keeping a diary. I suspected it must be a fake, but Daniel hadn't been as convinced of that as I was.
    “We’ll need to have it authenticated,” he’d said. “No wonder your mom wanted me to come on this tour.” He hadn't asked to touch or hold the diary but had been content to peek over my shoulder while I did. “I don't have a lot of contacts in England, but I can make some calls.”
    “It can't be real, Dan.” Couldn't he see that it was bait? Daniel bait?
    “Your mother never struck me as someone who would lie about something like this.”
    “I know.” That troubled me. The hopeless romantic part of my mother might have stooped to a little trickery in the name of true love, but the Jane Austen devotee in her wouldn't have been inclined to manufacture a fake diary and sign Cassandra's name to it.
    Before we returned to the hotel, Daniel had agreed not to mention the diary to anyone until I told him he could. The first person I needed to talk to was Mimi, of course. Maybe she knew something about this mysterious family heirloom, although I doubted it. She was so eager to get her hands on our inheritance for whatever business proposition she had up her proverbial and fashionable sleeve. If she possessed any knowledge of an authentic, priceless Austen artifact in the family, she would have sprinted to the nearest auction house.
    And now that diary had made me late to the welcome reception. I picked my way across the crushed-shell walk between the stable block and the main building, and then dashed across the terrace. A set of French doors stood open to the waning afternoon, so I ducked inside, crossed through a conference room, skirted my way around the edge of the bar, and stepped into the library.
    I paused just inside the door to catch my breath and smooth the skirt of my sensible blue shirtwaist dress. My efforts didn't remove the suitcase-induced wrinkles. I should have stayed safely in my room, ironing, instead of opening mysterious packages and fanning old flames. My throat was dry, but I couldn't tell if it was from summer pollen or simply from nerves.
    I plucked a glass of champagne from the tray on a nearby table. My hand shook, but I was afraid to hold the glass too tightly. The last thing I needed was for the stem to snap. I’d spent my life not calling attention to myself. A champagne glass shattering in my hand was definitely not my style.
    I declined the offer of a shrimp puff from a server and forced myself to sip, rather than gulp, my drink. Composure was a matter of rising above one's circumstances. At least that's what my mother had always said. I’d believed her and made that my mantra. It's just that I never would have imagined having to follow her advice after she’d dumped a priceless Austen heirloom on me.
    “There you are.” Mimi appeared beside me in a strapless, rosy confection that showed off her lightly tanned shoulders. She twirled her glass between her fingers as she surveyed the room, perfectly at ease. “You have to come meet Ethan.”
    “Who's Ethan?” The glow in her cheeks came from something other than Elizabeth Arden.
    “He's a yummy singleton from London who's