Fenella J. Miller Read Online Free Page A

mattered as no one would have given her a second glance.
     However, already there were several young men in the vicinity who believed they were enamoured of her sister and professed themselves unbothered by her disability. One of them, the squire’s son, Edward Masters, had told her it was part of Sarah’s charm.
           Pushing such thoughts aside, she turned to her brother. ‘I shall come up to your chambers with you. You can tell me exactly why you have arrived like this once we are private.’
    * * * *
    Eliza paced her brother’s sitting room, anxiously waiting for him to re-emerge from his bedchamber in clean clothes. How long did it take, for heaven’s sake, to wash one’s face and change one’s outer garments? She heard the communicating door opening slowly and turned, clenching her fists, waiting to hear just how bad things were.
           ‘Eliza, I’m afraid it is far worse than even you could possibly imagine.’ She watched him closely and saw the glitter of tears in his eyes. ‘I’ve lost everything. No, please don’t interrupt me. I don’t just mean my inheritance, I mean everything . The estate, this house, the farms, your dowry. It’s all gone.’
    Eliza felt her dinner threaten to return and clenched her teeth until her stomach settled.
    She collapsed into a convenient chair; ashen faced and stared at her brother. ‘Edmund, it cannot be? Tell me, not everything? Are we destitute? What about the smaller estate, Hockley House, surely that’s not gone as well?’
           ‘Everything. I lost it all to Lord Wydale. His friend, Mr Reed, warned me not to become involved with him, but I ignored his advice. ‘
           He sank into a similar chair and dropping his head in his hands. She had no sympathy. He was a young man, he could join the army go to the Americas; it was not he who would have to endure the bleak prospect that faced the women in his family. She waited for him to recover, too angry to speak.
           He raised his head. ‘It could have been far worse. We have three months; it would have been three days, but Mr Reed persuaded him to allow us at least that much time to try and come about.’
    He watched her, his expression eager, reminding her of the many times she had pulled him out of scrapes in the past. He had come home to her believing that she would be able to find a solution, after all she had always managed it before.
     

Chapter Four
     
    Eliza felt despair overwhelm her. It was as if the news had sent her spinning back to the time she was facing the double disaster of the death of her beloved father and her fiancé. They had nothing left if Hockley House had gone as well. She gazed, unseeing, at her brother unable to offer him the comfort and reassurance he craved. She watched him drop his head again in despair. Even a man full-grown needed support and someone to guide him through the perils of being a landowner in an uncaring society.
           Watching her brother’s shaking shoulders, seeing him unmanned, made her realize that the fate of the family rested upon those shoulders unless she pulled herself together, and tried to give him some comfort. If she was unable to offer even a semblance of a resolution, her brother might do something foolish. She had heard recently that the eldest son of a baron in the next county had blown his brains out on finding himself in a similar situation.
           She blinked away the tears of self-pity and straightened. They had three months; maybe a miracle would happen and they could find the money to repay this massive debt. She stood up, intending walk across and offer her brother the comfort he needed, but stopped. Something her father had told her when he gave his permission her to become engaged to Dickon, something he had said that had seemed odd at the
    time, but now made absolute sense.
    Papa had said that whatever happened she would never be destitute. If she was widowed, left alone in a