The Mysterious Heir Read Online Free Page B

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.
    “You must accompany him,” her uncle said with finality, as she stopped again and stared at him aghast. “There it is. Think about it. There is no