The Heiress Read Online Free PDF

dirt where the dogs had leaped at her affectionately. ‘If there is anything you need for your master and mistress, or yourself, go to my steward Jean; only don’t speak to him in English. He doesn’t understand it. Good afternoon, Annie. And welcome.’
    She ran up the wide stairs; like the hall they were made of the finest Carreras marble, exported from the Italian quarries at enormous cost. There were alcoves along the wall where her ancestor had placed the early Roman sculptures he had collected. As a very small child Anne used to amuse herself by skipping down the staircase, making faces at the figures as she passed. The man her guardian wanted her to marry had been a little boy who used to join her in that game; it was one of the few things she remembered about him except that he was older and she much preferred his younger sister. She and Jeanne Macdonald de Mallot were still close friends who wrote regularly to each other, though they seldom visited. She could remember very little indeed about Charles. She walked quickly along the upper corridor, which was really a fine gallery hung with portraits; generations of de Bernards looked down at her, some in hunting dress with their dogs beside them, others in armour mounted upon rearing horses, others with their wives and children in stiff groups. The ancestress who had married a Scottish Earl and gone to live with him at Clandara in the Highlands was one of the prettiest of the pictures in the gallery; Anne was her great-niece and Charles Macdonald was her great-grandson. At the far end of the gallery she almost knocked into a man; he had been standing with his back to her, staring at the picture of the dead Countess of Clandara, Marie Elizabeth de Bernard, at the age of twenty, wearing the costume of Diana.
    â€˜Monsieur!’
    Charles turned and bowed. ‘I beg your pardon, Madame. I didn’t see you.’
    â€˜Nor I you,’ she answered. He was staring at her coolly, and to her annoyance she blushed. There was something about him, some mocking look that was familiar.
    â€˜I was just admiring this picture,’ he said. ‘She’s the only pretty one among the whole gallery; the de Bernards are not an attractive family, don’t you agree?’
    â€˜No,’ Anne said, ‘I’m afraid I don’t. I happen to be Anne de Bernard!’
    He turned back to her and smiled. ‘I know,’ he said lightly. ‘I recognized you the moment you bumped into me so clumsily. Even as a child you were always bumping into things or rolling on the lawns with your dogs. As soon as I saw someone in a riding habit, covered in mud to the eyes, I knew it was you. I’m your cousin Charles. Did you recognize me? I hope I’ve changed!’
    â€˜Not very much,’ she answered. ‘I don’t remember much about you except that you always made me cry. You haven’t altered at all. Excuse me, I’m going to change my dress and go down to greet your mother.’
    He stood and watched her as she ran down the rest of the gallery and disappeared through the door at the end. He had lied when he said he recognized her at once; as a child her hair had been brown and her face quite unremarkable; there was no distinguishing feature to identify her twelve years later. Now the mousey hair was the colour of the burnished beech trees in the park outside, and the eyes which had filled with tears at his rudeness were large and very blue. She was quite beautiful, but it was not a beauty which appealed to him in the least. He did not know what he had expected and he had not really cared; he was determined to dislike her because she was not his choice. But this naïve, unsophisticated gentlewoman who blushed and blundered into him like an awkward schoolgirl … He put his hands in his pockets and began to walk slowly down the gallery. He was being made to pay a heavy price for his debts and the estates in Scotland he had never