Louisa and the Missing Heiress Read Online Free

her! In front of all of us! I still blush to think of it . . .” And the speaker, young Miss Sarah Brownly, did blush, right to the roots of her white-blond hair, barely visible under her own beribboned and beflowered hat. The speaker’s teacup and saucer trembled ever so slightly with excitement . . . and another emotion that I and everyone else pretended not to observe. Miss Sarah Brownly, the hostess’s sister, pretty and vivacious and known for her elegant movements through the complications of a gavotte in the ballroom, had never fully recovered from the discomfort of having her plain younger sister married before she was. We suspected Sarah Brownly’s only consolation, whispered to herself each night before the mirror as she gave her hair its hundred strokes, was that the marriage was sure to be a failure.
    “He said, and this is a direct quote, ‘Miss Brownly’ . . .” jumped in Edith Brownly, who found her twin sister’s pace of narrative too slow for the subject, “‘Miss Brownly, if you will do me the honor of being my wife I will cherish and protect you all my days. My heart is yours and whatever your answer this evening, I will never love another.’ That is what he said, right there at the dinner table.”
    Sarah’s pretty face reflected the longing for a similar adventure. She sighed and pouted.
    “Right out of a bad play, if you ask me,” grumped Edith, who had never played with dolls and saw no need, nor advantage, in marriage.
    “Damn cheek, if you ask me,” sputtered Edgar Brownly. His face, round, ruddy, only half-finished with the labor of chewing a canape, reflected no such longing for a tender emotion . . . or a family scene. I imagined he was already wondering what the roast for dinner would be at home, and if roly-poly pudding would be served after.
    It was said of Mr. Edgar Brownly that he had planned to woo several of Boston’s fairest, at different times, of course, only to be checked in his plans by his mother, Mrs. Harriet Brownly, whose expectations of any future daughters- and sons-in-law far excelled anything this world has to offer. It was said of Mr. Edgar Brownly that he would probably marry very late in life (after his mother had passed on to her final reward) and that it would not be a love match. Some had suggested, acerbically and in a very low voice, that the church door would have to be widened considerably by the time Mr. Edgar Brownly made his way down the aisle to his special someone, and that the ring bearer would also be bearing a platter of Dutch chocolates to tide the groom over to the nuptial feast.
    “Well, of course our poor Dot swooned on the spot.” Sarah Brownly grabbed back the conversational reins from her sister and whipped the tale to its conclusion. “I had to catch her head before it fell into her soup bowl—the Limoges set, painted with those sweet little shells and seahorses. We had to carry her to the little sofa in front of the window . . . you know the one, Louisa, the gray-and-blue-striped silk-covered one. I had so hoped Mother would re-cover it with yellow paisley, but she didn’t wish the expense.”
    “Yellow paisley would have been lovely, I’m sure,” I said, stifling a yawn.
    “And Dot’s mother almost had an apoplectic fit.” Aunt Alfreda pursed her mouth. “Well, we all know what the popular estimation of Mr. Preston Wortham is.” This last was said rather loudly. From somewhere deeper in the bowels of the house a pot clattered and voices mumbled.
    “Mr. Wortham is in the kitchen, not the Arctic,” I gently reminded them. “You should not tread so on his feelings. We are his guests, after all, eating his cake and sandwiches.” I looked sideways at Edgar, who was gobbling another.
    “Married!” chirped Aunt Alfreda, and while the word carried a certain amount of joy, of promises of white lace and pink-faced babes and pleasant evenings before the domestic hearth, I saw again the disapproval in the women’s