The Mysterious Heir (11 page)

“Oh, that,” Anthony said. “Well, it's true. So you needn't worry, for nothing's changed at all.”

“That makes no sense,” Elizabeth challenged him.

“Well, it does,” Anthony said. “He's not going to have a son, and so whoever he names as heir shall stay as heir. That's what you and Uncle wanted, isn't it?”

“And I suppose he told you that?” Elizabeth said on a sigh, thinking of the long effort she had ahead of her, trying to apprise Anthony of their new situation.

“No,” Anthony said, a slow flush starting on his neck, “but deuce take it, Elizabeth, leave off. I just know it. That's the way it will be. Believe me.”

Elizabeth walked up to her cousin and gazed steadfastly at him as he tried to turn his head away from her.

“Anthony, you'll have to do better than that. Uncle beggared himself to send us here. And you must tell what it is that you know. Why, Anthony, you're red as a beet. Whatever is it?”

“There are some things,” Anthony said staunchly, “that one just can't discuss with a female.”

“Anthony!” Elizabeth said in shock. “Whatever has come over you? You are the one who read me all those pamphlets about the equality of the sexes. You are the one who vowed that if you had been in London, you would have marched side by side with the ladies for woman suffrage. And you are the one,” she said with spirit, “who first told me about Mary Wollstonecraft! How comes this sudden reticence?”

“Well, that's all true,” Anthony said sulkily, “but you ain't a woman precisely, Liz, you're my cousin.”

“That beats all,” Elizabeth said angrily, seeing for the first time how a man's lofty ideals may collide with his personal relationships. “I tell you, Anthony Courtney, that if you don't explain yourself, we will leave on the instant for home, where you can find Uncle's more fittingly masculine ears to pour your story into. Or you can stop blushing like a schoolgirl and treating me as one, and tell me what it is.”

“Bev told me,” Anthony said, looking fixedly at his dresser top, as he spoke in a low, quick monotone. “Didn't ‘tell' me, precisely, but it's what popped out by the way. The Earl's been wounded in combat, you know. Well, anyone with eyes can see the way he hobbles about. But his leg's not all. He's looking for an heir now because some fellow's been running up debts in London claiming to be his rightful heir, and he needs to name one to stop the business. But he needs an heir anyhow, you see, because he won't be having any sons. Nor getting married either. He was married once, and he lost his wife and son in childbirth. But if he marries again, this time there wouldn't be any childbirth or any true marriage. He can't marry. You see?”

Elizabeth stood still and tried to take in Anthony's hurried speech.

“Not exactly,” she said slowly.

“Don't be such a slow-top,” Anthony cried. “He can't have one. It's a war wound. Devil take it, Elizabeth, you aren't usually so slow on the uptake.”

“Lord Beverly told you this?” Elizabeth asked, aghast.

“Not exactly. But I can total one times one, you know. He said that between Morgan's marriage and his wounds, ‘he's got more scars than any man can rightly be expected to bear. ' And that he'll never marry again because of both scars. Now, devil take it, Coz, what else would it mean? Why else would a man the Earl's age be looking so desperately for an heir?

It's as plain as the nose on your face. Why should a lofty fellow such as Auden bother with poor relations like us if he could just go out and get an heir on some female? Not that he knows we're poor relations. Uncle was right enough in that. For the rich never give a care to those less fortunate. It's what will be their downfall. Even Bev, who is the best of fellows, don't know what I'm on about when I talk about the poor.”

Elizabeth let this potentially enlightening slip of Anthony's tongue go by her, she was so startled by his revelations.

And Anthony, realizing that he had inadvertently let Elizabeth know that he had spoken forbidden words on his favorite subject, said hurriedly, “That's probably why Lady Isabel's so keen after him. She's got a brat already, and wouldn't mind being shackled to a fellow who can't do more.”

Elizabeth even let that blindingly inaccurate summation of a female's expectations of the marriage union go by, as she stood and thought about the Earl and his grievous wounds.

“Both scars?” she only asked weakly.

“Yes, both, Bev said. Now I suppose you want me to take the Earl aside and ask him if I can have a quick look, to satisfy my cousin's curiosity?” Anthony said angrily.

Elizabeth, forgetting all her outrage at his previous reluctance to speak about such things with a mere woman, gave Anthony a withering look. “A fine sort of thing to say to a female, Anthony. I'm sure your mother would be proud of you.”

“Fiend take it, Coz, there's no pleasing you,” Anthony said in exasperation.

“I think,” Elizabeth said loftily, to cover her inner confusion and her need to be alone with this new information, “that I ought to leave here and we can discuss this matter at another time when you are less excitable.”

She gave him a brief haughty nod and slipped out the door. She flew back to her room down the long corridor as though there were wolves at her heels, although there was no more than the slow, soft closing of a door at the end of the hall as she passed, as the watcher silently took note of her flight from that quarter of the house.

It was a strangely subdued Elizabeth that came slowly to
dinner that night. Not that any of the assembled company could tell the difference between an ebullient or enervated Elizabeth, she had been so withdrawn since her arrival at Lyonshall. But Elizabeth knew the difference, and she felt subtly altered. She wore her hair back, letting a few curls drift against her forehead, softening her look. She had chosen a deep blue frock, which she felt exactly matched her mood, not noticing or particularly caring about how the color accented the other worldly air about her tonight.

For her mind had been filled all afternoon with a great and deep sorrow for the Earl. She had thought him the most overpowering and virile man she had ever encountered. Her new knowledge of his infirmity did not detract from his attractiveness to her one whit; in fact, it enhanced it, and lent him an air of desperate poetry. Elizabeth had no experience of what went forth between a man and a woman beyond the few embraces she had received in the course of her three-and-twenty years, but knowing that the Earl could not further that knowledge even in the unlikely chance that he might choose to saddened her deeply.

She shied from trying to visualize the possible extent of the wounds he must have suffered and thought instead of how firmly apart his debility must have set him from the common run of men. Then, in her thoughts, he had become not so much unmanned as he had become a supremely unattainable male. Her head being already filled with all the tales of immortal chivalry and courtly love that she had read to pass the time when most other young women her age were actually experiencing life, the Earl now seemed to her to have become a true figure of tragic romance.

Too shy to contemplate the possibility of actual dalliance with the vital man she had first met, she was now easy prey for infatuation with the romantic figure she envisioned. Especially since nothing could come from such a love. Although basically a very honest sort of creature, Elizabeth could not know that she was so unsure of herself as to be a perfect victim for such an impossible sort of passion. Where she had previously thought that an inexperienced nonentity like herself could have no place in such an exalted man's life, now she thought only of how lonely he must be, and how, in that at least, she might be able to help him. Where the seven-year-old Elizabeth had once gazed down into a cradle and lost her heart to a helpless babe, the adult Elizabeth now saw before her a grown man who she perceived had need of a friend. And at that moment, alone in her room, she irrevocably gave her heart away again. And with it, felt a lightening of her whole person, as her fear and shyness fled. The Earl of Auden was a man in need of a friend, and Elizabeth knew she could and must be that friend.

And so the seventh Earl of Auden, seating himself at dinner with about as much enthusiasm as a man trudging to the scaffold, envisioning another evening of uphill conversation with, as he had confided to Lord Beverly, as rare a set of blockheads as he had yet encountered, found himself instead looking into the direct gaze of as fine a pair of topaz eyes as he had ever seen. And then found himself the bewildered recipient of as sweetly soft and welcoming a smile as he had ever experienced.

“Good evening, Elizabeth,” the Earl said with awakened interest, for the girl was still bending a look upon him of such warmth as to make all his previous thoughts flee. “I see you are in high good looks this evening. The air of Lyonshall must agree with you.”

For a wonder, the chit did not drop her gaze or color up, or stammer, as she previously had whenever he addressed her. She only smiled again and said in a delightful throaty voice, “Ah, but as the heir of Lyonshall is still a mystery, I cannot say if he does agree with me. But it is a fine evening.”

Delighted with this new turn of events, the Earl laughed lightly and said, “But, Elizabeth, the pleasure of a mystery comes in the telling of it. Do not say that you are the sort of reader who cracks open the last page to see who the villain truly is before all the passages filled with mysterious clankings and apparitions have been gotten through? What joy could you have had with Mrs. Radcliffe, if you expected to be let in on all the secrets immediately you had begun her book?”

“Never say,” Elizabeth countered with mock alarm, “that a gentleman admits to familiarity with such romances?”

“Heavens, Elizabeth,” the Earl said, enjoying himself hugely now, “how long have you been sequestered in Tuxford? For the Regent himself, it is rumored, takes to his bed with a stack of such tomes and an equal pile of comfits, each night. Can a mere Earl do less that follow such an example?”

“Dear me,” Elizabeth said with a pretty air of confusion, “why, in Tuxford we had heard he retired with more stimulating company of an evening. How very lowering to discover our error.”

While the Earl laughed appreciatively and Lord Beverly called, “Have a care, Morgan. The chit's leading you into deep water. Ain't proper at all to talk about what Prinny takes to bed of an evening,” Lady Isabel sat and gaped at Elizabeth. She could not have looked, Elizabeth noted, more shocked if her buttered crab had reached up out of its plate and pinched her.

But Elizabeth felt strangely giddy and unencumbered, free at last from her own self-consciously induced constraints. And she sat and bantered happily with the Earl.

Over the first course they pursued the topic of novels, and somehow, by the time dessert was brought out, Elizabeth was laughing helplessly as the Earl expounded on the personal habits of a poet of his acquaintance while Lord Beverly called impossible corrections to every detail related. There was no question that when she and the Earl had begun their odd, joking conversation, a thrill had passed along the table, and that by the time dinner was done, nearly everyone seated there had become part of a general raillery. Anthony and little Owen laughed immoderately. And even Richard Courtney allowed himself rare smiles. Lady Isabel, while still attempting every so often to add something to the conversation, occupied herself in the main by emitting little trills of laughter and patting at the Earl with her bejeweled white fingers when he said something she considered supremely amusing. But all the while she kept her eyes on Elizabeth, as though seeing her for the first time and disbelieving her eyes.

While the company waited patiently for Owen to finish his
second serving of sweets, for even laughter could not stay him from the enjoyment of his favorite course, the Earl smiled down at Elizabeth and then asked the others negligently, “Now, what's to do this evening? For I cannot think it right that we should all retire immediately with stacks of novels, as, I insist, our Regent does.”

“Let's have a few hands of cards,” Lord Beverly said. “I'm curst tired of having you clear the chessboard in an hour, Morgan, and Isabel and I have sung out our entire repertoire by now, I think.”

While Lady Isabel began, quite prettily, to protest that she had only just begun and would not at all mind presenting a solo serenade, Anthony interrupted glumly, “Now, don't say cards while Elizabeth's in the room, for she'll skin you.”

“What?” the Earl asked with a show of disappointment. “The lady does not approve of gambling? I had thought her more venturesome.”

“It's not that,” Anthony put in quickly. “It's that she beats everyone to flinders each time she plays. Uncle taught her, you see. And she has more of a head for it than I. It's not that she has such luck, you see,” he told Lord Beverly. “It's her face. Why, she can look at the cards she holds with such a gloomy expression that you think your way is clear, and then a second later she has you in the net. Then, next hand, she looks so happy with them that you just know she can't be dissembling. But she is. She's a wizard at cards,” Anthony said. “Now, don't color up, Elizabeth, I'm only stating facts.”