The Elusive Heiress Read Online Free PDF

as their lack of male escort. However, when Kate employed her sweetest smile and fluttered her impossibly long eyelashes at him he’d relented.
    Unfortunately, the chaise eventually provided wasn’t quite the bargain it had seemed on first sight. The showy paint work couldn’t disguise its neglected interior or its abominable springing. Before they’d gone a mile Kate was regretting that they’d been forced to deplete their slender resources on hiring such an uncomfortable vehicle.
    Her generous mouth twisted. For all the good it had done, they might as well have saved their money! The visit to Crawford Hall had been a disaster!
    What would his high-nosed lordship think if he knew the real truth of her identity? If he knew that she was a professional actress, paid to parade herself on the public stage? Without a doubt, he would despise her! Good God, even her own father had cast her off and refused to have anything more to do with her!
    ‘Do you know, Mary,’ Kate said abruptly, forcing herself to eject the detestable Lord Redesmere from her thoughts and concentrate on more important matters. ‘I think that the Sullivans probably do imagine Kitty to be dead. They certainly intended she should drown.’
    ‘Aye, she would have done too if Ned Gillman hadn’t picked that particular stretch of the river bank for your stroll.’ Mary let out a cackle of mirth. ‘Right unlucky he was, if you ask me! Moonlight, a soft gentle breeze and the bit of privacy he’d engineered all gone to waste!’
    ‘Mary! You know I have no romantic interest in Ned. I like him and find him easy to work with, but he is just a friend.’ A flush of rosy colour stained Kate’s cheeks, betraying her embarrassment.
    Fearing her outspoken colleague would argue that the actor-manager of their small company would happily play a much larger role in her life if only she’d let him, Kate hastily brought the conversation back to the problem in hand. ‘We shall have to seek out Lady Edgeworth and try to engage her support. If Kitty’s godmother is seen to accept me, it will lend weight to my claim. She might even have some influence with the lawyers.’
    Mary nodded. It was worth a try.
    ‘I wish John Nixon hadn’t left everything in Redesmere’s control.’ Kate’s slim fingers drummed against the cracked leather seat. ‘The lawyers will be very reluctant to go against him even if I can persuade them to acknowledge me.’
    ‘Maybe Lord Redesmere will change his mind when he sees that letter and the locket Kitty gave you,’ Mary suggested hopefully.
    Kate shrugged eloquently. ‘I doubt he is the vacillating type. He’ll probably say I stole them!’
    Her dark gaze fixed itself upon the campion and lady smocks rioting in the passing hedgerows, but all she saw was a pair of bright blue eyes narrowing with contempt. It was strange how much it had hurt.
    Her gloomy expression suddenly brightened. ‘Still there is one thing even Randal Crawford must take into consideration. Gerald Sullivan claims Kitty is dead, but he cannot prove it, not without producing her body.’
    Mary began to chuckle. ‘I’d like to see him try!’
    Kate grinned back at her. ‘So it is his word against mine and everyone knows that he is desperate for money.’
    Her rich laughter soared to fill the coach.
    ‘Onwards to Chester and ! The game is still afoot!’
    * * * *
    The sun was already hot when Kate emerged from the Hop-Pole Inn in Foregate Street the next morning. Unfurling her blue silk parasol to shade her delicate skin, she had the satisfaction of knowing it set off her demure outfit to perfection.
    She had taken a great deal of care with her appearance for this meeting with Lady Edgeworth. A wealthy widow in her mid forties, Kitty’s godmother was one of the leaders of local society and said to be a generous hostess.
    ‘But I don’t really know much about her,’ Kitty had informed them apologetically. ‘She and Papa were childhood friends and she wrote a