The Mysterious Heir (27 page)

Now as she watched Lord Beverly pace and cry out at the injustice of it all, she began, for the first time, to think of the reception that awaited her at home. Uncle would never be so unkind as to blame her, and Mother and Aunt would doubtless condole with her about the wickedness of the wide world. But their hopes would be dashed. There was no way that she could envision that Anthony had been designated heir. One did not, after all, expel one's heir presumptive from one's house in the dark of night. Owen, then, or Richard, she thought. But it no longer mattered which of them the Earl had decided upon. Their own cause was lost.

When the footman informed them somberly that the coach had come, and had begun to carry their luggage out, Elizabeth at last awoke from her reverie. “Is he…his lordship not seeing us off?” she asked Lord Beverly in a whisper.

The fair young nobleman flushed to his eyebrows. Then he bent his head and kicked at a trunk. “No,” he said, as though in shame, “he has appointed me to the task. He is busy with his man of business.”

Elizabeth had not expected the others. Lord Kingston had been nowhere in evidence since their afternoon encounter. Perhaps, she thought bitterly, he had feared she would reconsider his offer. She was not surprised at Lady Isabel, nor at Owen's absence, and Cousin Richard was gone from the area. But she was staggered to hear that their host was not there to see them gone.

Not even a good-bye, Elizabeth thought in shock. Then they were truly in disgrace. To leave in the night, to leave upon orders, was insulting enough, but that he had not even bade them farewell was the last crushing blow. But curiously, that knowledge did not sink her further. Instead, a great and white-hot, healthy fury rose in her breast, burning away all the wretched self-condemnation and pity she had been engaging herself with. It was, she thought, bringing up her head, unjust. It was, moreover, uncharitable, unfair, and needless to heap that last glowing coal upon their heads.

“Well,” Elizabeth said, so fired with anger that she scarcely knew what she spoke, “so be it. You need not bother, Bev, to make any lengthy farewells to us, nor to stay any longer. We are obviously lepers, and we shall leave the way we came, alone and unattended. Good-bye, Lord Beverly. I don't know if we shall ever meet again, but it has been a pleasure knowing you. Come along, Anthony, it is past time that we left.”

“Dash it all, Elizabeth,” Lord Beverly cried, seizing her traveling case from her gloved hand. “Do you think me a flat? I swear I deserve better. Much I care what Morgan thinks. You two are my friends, and I shall at least ride as far as the village with you. And if I had my way, it would be the others I was waving farewell to, and well you know it, too. So don't come saucy with me, or I shall… I shall ride on the roof of your carriage if you don't let me in.”

Even in the midst of all her turbulent emotions, Lord Beverly was able to wring a giggle from Elizabeth.

“Come, then, if you wish,” she said at last. “But as I think it only foolish to prolong our good-byes, I cannot see the point to it.”

“Much I care,” that gentleman muttered darkly, as he escorted his silent friend and his cousin to the waiting carriage, “if you see the point or no. It is what I shall do.”

But no sooner had they settled in the carriage, and the footman had closed and latched the door, than Lord Beverly took on a new aspect. He sat up straight and waited for the coachman to crack the whip and start the horses moving. Then he leaned forward with an excitement and enthusiasm that they could see in the flickering carriage-lamp flame was written large upon his face.

“The point is, my friends,” he chortled, “that we are not going to Tuxford. Not this night.”

Even Anthony came out of his trance at this statement. “What the devil are you saying, Bev? Of course we are going home.” Then with some of his more characteristic fervor, he said, “We haven't the funds to go sporting to London. We are not quite of your class, Bev, we are, after all, only a poor milliner and her layabout cousin.”

Elizabeth was startled to hear Anthony's new assessment of himself, but before she could refine too much on it, Lord Beverly leaned so far forward his nose was almost touching the belligerent Anthony's.

“Oh, do be quiet, Anthony! Or shall I call you ‘Tony,' as your so dear old chum Harry does? At any rate, be quiet. I waited until we were alone. Lyonshall's bristling with ears. I have a plan.”

Elizabeth groaned. “Bev, Bev…” She half-laughed. “Do let it be. It is over. His lordship himself has said so. Let it be.”

“Oh, ‘his lordship,' is it?” Bev said mockingly. “When only a few days past you two were smelling all of April and May, and it was all ‘Morgan' this and ‘Elizabeth' that, and I vow that if it had gone on one more hour it would have been ‘Morg' this and ‘Liz' that, and the devil knows what else an hour from then.”

Elizabeth flushed and sat back abruptly. Anthony turned to look at her with curiosity. She was sure that he had never even noticed the closeness that seemed to have sprung up between his host and his cousin.

“Are you two,” Bev said in ringing tones, “going to take this meekly, like the little sheep that graze in Tuxford hills, or are you going to fight back?”

This coherent, almost poetic phrase was so unlike their old friend Bev that both Anthony and Elizabeth sat speechless.

Lord Beverly looked very pleased with himself and let the moment's silent applause for his statement lapse. Then he went on eagerly, “No, I tell you no, and no again. That would be spineless and cowardly. You have to fight back, I say.”

“Yes,” Anthony said sourly. “What do you propose, Bev? Shall I set fire to Lyonshall, or shall I have Elizabeth
creep back to steal a few family treasures? Really, she is right, it is quite clear that Morgan is quit of us. Somehow we have given him a disgust of us, and he wants to see our backs as soon as can be.”

Elizabeth, stunned to find Anthony unusually mature and reasonable and Bev almost sensible in his speech, sat back and let the two previously incoherent males of her acquaintance carry the conversation forward.

“Yes, but why?” Bev asked slyly. “Because there have been all sorts of smoky doings to cast you in the shade. Secret notes, and gossip, and such. And that rogue Kingston making up to Elizabeth like she was a cyprian, when I suspect he's got no more interest in her that way than he would in his horse, begging your pardon, Elizabeth,” he said belatedly.

“Certainly,” Elizabeth said, feeling both vindicated and vexed by his appraisal of Lord Kingston's interest in her.

“Not,” Bev said hurriedly, “that you're not a smasher, not that I have any designs in that way either, of course, but not because you're unattractive, you understand.”

“I do understand,” Elizabeth said kindly, wishing to rescue him from the net he was weaving about himself.

“Then,” he went on, “I think it would be fainthearted, and craven, yes, craven,” he cried as Anthony tensed, “to just go creeping back to Tuxford without attempting to at least clear your names.”

“And how,” Anthony asked wearily, “are we to do that? For I shall not come crawling like some sort of serf, to beg his high lordship to pardon me for my sins.”

“Nor I,” Elizabeth said softly, thinking of the terrible look in the Earl's eye when they had last met, and knowing that not for all the profit in the world, nor for Uncle, nor for Anthony, nor especially for herself, would she face such a look again.

“No, no,” Bev said impatiently, “that's not what I had in mind at all. Can't do a thing without proof. And I shall try to get at that proof, indeed I shall. But what to do with it if you two are back home and miles from the spot? I want you both to stay on.

“I will not have allies, and who am I to trust at Lyonshall? I don't like that Cousin Richard above half, he's so cat-footed and sneaking, there's no telling what he's up to. And Owen? He'd sell his soul for a pudding. And Isabel? The lady has got no warm feeling for you, Elizabeth. And as for Kingston, I know he's a bad sort, only I can't puzzle out what he's got to gain. He ain't even a relative of yours, for which you should thank your lucky stars, for you've got a right bad lot as it is to call kin. No, I need you,” he concluded. “You must stay on.”

“Where are we to stay?” Anthony asked, his interest growing, but his newfound reasonableness taking the upper hand. “Hidden in the stables?”

“Really, Anthony,” Lord Beverly answered, at last leaning back, “there is a perfectly good hostelry in town. It is rather old, of course, and had fallen on hard times. But new owners came last year and spruced it up a bit. You'll be tolerably comfortable there. Why, you know it already, it's the Rose and the Bear. The landlord's a good sort of chap and a few coins will buy his silence. You two register as Mr. and Miss Smythe or Jones, or whatever, and none will be the wiser. In that way, as soon as I get wind of something, you can come running. Your family don't expect you back at any time in particular, do they?”

While Anthony admitted that was true, Elizabeth did rapid calculations in her head. “Bev,” she said sadly, “even if we were to agree to this scheme, we could not stay above a few days.”

As Lord Beverly began to protest that the matter would not take above a few days, she went on, “And we would not stay upon your charity.”

“No, indeed,” Anthony echoed.

“And,” Elizabeth said, oddly unwilling to defeat their friend's scheme, but impelled by her own straight thinking to attempt to do so, “really, Bev, if we do have enemies who have sullied our names, what can you hope to discover, after all? The heir has been named, that is done. And I doubt any evidence of malice would deter his lordship from his course. He has evicted us. He believes the worst of us, and there is
little to dissuade him. And even if you do, what will it profit us?”

Lord Beverly stood up in indignation. Only to sit down again promptly, as he had struck his head upon the ceiling of the carriage.

“Gain?” he gasped when he was able. “Why, what is more to a man than his good name?”

As the carriage slowed to a stop in front of the Rose and the Bear, all the occupants were silently pondering the irrefutable truth Lord Beverly had spoken.

The inn was a comfortable one, Elizabeth noted as the posting boy rushed to gather up her luggage. It was a long, low building, half-timbered and worn with age. But new carpets and curtains gave it a friendly appearance, and the sparkling cleanliness of the place was pleasing. A great fire roared in the grate in the common room and Elizabeth sank gratefully into an inviting overly padded chair. The events of the past day were beginning to tell upon her, and as Anthony and Lord Beverly held conference with the innkeeper, she could no longer know if they were doing the correct thing. She only yearned for a wide, soft bed and hours of uninterrupted oblivion.

She had only just closed her weary eyes when the innkeeper's wife came bustling up to her. Elizabeth sat up to see a very good-looking, softly pretty blond female of middle years peering down at her anxiously.

“Oh, you're that tired, then?” the woman said. “Then it's only like the gentlemen to leave you sitting here alone, cold and lonely. Come along, Miss Smythe, and I'll have you tucked up into the sweetest bed, as soon as you can stare. Now, now, the shot's been paid, and all's set. I'll just take you along to your room, it's the finest one we have, and get you to bed. Don't bother to seek them out,” she said as she led the dazed Elizabeth up the dark and winding stair. “I'll tell the gentlemen where you've gone.”

Elizabeth walked obediently, tugged along by the woman, to the highest regions of the house. She soon found herself within a charming room done up in shades of rose and white.

But the first thing to catch her eye was the huge canopied bed that dominated the room.

“Yes, it is lovely, isn't it?” the woman said comfortably. “It cost the world, and Ferdie wondered at the expense of it, but I say, and have always said, that a bed's the most important part of a house, and so it is. For you take care of the spirits and the horses, I said,” the woman went on, deftly stripping Elizabeth's pelisse from her and assisting her to undress, “and leave the beds to me. Well, I won't tell a young miss what he said to that, but if you come back in a few years, I will, it was that clever. Now, then, dear,” she said, helping Elizabeth into her night shift, “off to bed with not a care. For I know all, and all is safe with me. If you need aught before morning, give out a call for ‘Rose'—that is me. ‘Ferdie' is the ‘Bear,' you see,” she sang from the door, after she had led Elizabeth to the bed and blown out all but one candle. “And we both welcome you. Now to sleep.” Elizabeth, smiling gently in the dark, felt, just before Rose's expensive bed called her far from the room and her troubles, that all might not be so dark after all. But that she would have to wait for morning to see clearly.

*

Lord Beverly arrived at Lyonshall as the clock was striking the hour of a new day. He gave his cloak to a sleepy-eyed footman and made his way, with exaggerated stealth, to the Earl's study. The room was dark, save for a few candles burning and the glow of the fire in the grate. Lord Beverly stole into the room and closed the door quietly behind him. But even that small sound alerted the occupant in the room. He did not rise from his chair, nor turn around, but the Earl's weary voice only said quietly, ‘It is done, then?”