Free The Mysterious Heir by Edith Layton

remember being glad then that you, at least, had said no.”
    “Morgan,” Lord Beverly said after a quiet moment, rising to see that his friend’s eyes were slowly closing, and taking the glass from his unresisting hand, “you cannot judge all women by Kitty, you know.”
    “I don’t,” the Earl said in a barely audible voice. “I only wish I could. And then have done with them.”

5
    “Country hours” may well have been what their host had specified, but most of the Earl’s guests had their minds and bodies firmly set to London time. And so it was that when a lovely spring morning dawned there were a great many people abustle at Lyonshall, but in the main they were servants who had never had the habit or opportunity to sleep the day away. Their life-style marked them firmly as provincials, but much the dairy maids cared as they felt the dewy grass beneath their feet. The housemaids felt no social stigmata settle on their shoulders as they worried at the dust that had settled in the night, and the stablemen were too busy whistling and joshing with each other to fear that their being abroad so early on such a fine morning put them firmly beyond the social pale.
    For as the sun rose higher in the sky, Lady Isabel sighed and snuggled deeper into her feather pillow; Lord Beverly tossed in restless sleep as his valet labored over a worrisome smudge on the fine leather of his master’s left boot; Richard Courtney slept as a dead man, for he did not often have such leisure and had a great deal of catching up to do; and Anthony Courtney slumbered on as only the heedless young may do until something more interesting tempts them from their beds. Owen Courtney, however, already had one large blue eye open, as hunger had begun to nudge him into the world of reality.
    But Elizabeth DeLisle had been awake for hours and she sat by her window and waited for the morning to blossom into full day. She yearned to be up and about as was her wont to do at home. But Uncle had warned her that even if she were to whistle, or to scratch her buttock, no single act would point her out as a shopgirl more than if she rose before noon. But she was a shopgirl, she thought sadly. Yet obediently she sat pent in her room so as not to let the rest of the world know of her ignoble position and her charade. Elizabeth waited for the stroke of noon like a daylight Cinderella, so that she could spring up and be out at last.
    She had settled herself in for a long morning and amused herself by watching the many servants of the house and grounds as they went cheerily about their business. But then her eyes widened as she spied the unmistakable figure of the Earl himself making his laborious way past her window toward the stables. Only moments later she saw the Earl, clearly this time, mounted upon a huge black horse, cantering into view upon the drive. She could clearly see that she had not been mistaken in thinking him an athlete. For the mount and rider were one, restless, graceful, and imperative. While she watched, the Earl looked toward the house, and seeing her at the window, raised his hand in slow salute before turning and galloping off in the direction of the near wood.
    He had seen her awake and alert at this unfashionable hour, Elizabeth thought with dismay, turning too late from her window. She rose and walked with determination to her writing desk. For she had erred again, and Uncle must know, she vowed, as she reached for paper and ink. Uncle must know that I must go home, for Anthony is behaving just as he ought, all on his own. And it is I, she despaired, who will bring the whole scheme down around our ears.
    Charles Morgan Courtney, seventh Earl of Auden, Viscount Louth and Baron Kitteredge, let his horse, Scimitar, of even more impressive pedigree, have his way and lost himself in the flow of motion and the steady rhythm of their passage. It was the mindless pleasure of speed and movement that he had sought this morning. So he neither