Those Endearing Young Charms Read Online Free PDF Page B

uncomfortably. He was wearing the latest thing in high stiff collars --
    called patricides -- and wished his laundress had not been quite so generous with the starch.
    He was in fact Colonel Chester, late of the 10th Dragoons, but since he had retired from the army, he had dropped his military title and had sworn he did not even want to see a uniform again.
    He was small in stature, with olive skin and a great beak of a nose. He was of a romantic turn of mind and had eagerly traveled to Malden Grand to see his friend marry the girl he had waited for for so long. He was disappointed to find this particular romance on the verge of such an unhappy ending.
    "Well, don't you see," he ventured cautiously, "she's a pretty little thing and very shy. You're so used to ordering men around and fighting battles, well, no one could say you've got a gentle touch with the fair sex. Pity you wasn't marrying the younger gel. Lots of fire there."
    "Miss Emily Anstey is a minx," said the earl coldly. "I like my ladies to behave like ladies. Do you know she had the temerity to waylay me at this inn and tell me that neither I nor her sister was in love."
    "Can't say I blame her for that. She had the right of it."
    The earl poured himself a glass of punch. He suddenly remembered his arrival at The Elms. For a few brief, glorious moments, his return had been all he had ever dreamed it would be. _That_ was what he had dreamed of all these long years. Not revenge. Warm lips, pliant body, surging senses.
    When he had taken Mary for a drive, he had reined in his horses and taken her in his arms to kiss her. She had trembled at his touch, and her lips had been very cold, and her whole body had seemed to shrink from him. Damn that minx, Emily. Had it not been for the warmth of _her_ response, Mary's withdrawal would have seemed the natural response of a virginal lady.
    "She's a doxy!" he said savagely.
    "Not Miss Anstey!"
    "Never mind. It was someone else. The wedding is tomorrow. The guests are all here, and I'll just have to go through with it."

    * * * *
"You can't go through with it!" Emily Anstey said passionately, on the eve of the wedding.
    Her sister raised a tear-stained face from the pillow. "I must."
    "He doesn't love you," said Emily firmly. "Mr. Cummings does."
    "Oh, don't. Oh, that I had never known. Go away, Emily."
    "Listen!" said Emily urgently, edging closer to her sister on the bed. "Do you remember two years ago when we played that trick? I put on a brown wig, and you a blond one. We went to the assembly as each other. We fooled everyone, even Mama and Papa! I will go tomorrow as you, and you will go as me. He will marry the wrong sister, and since I will make my vows as _Mary_ Anstey, the marriage will not be legal, and he will be so shocked he will go away and never see us again. I read such a thing in _Lady Jane's Dilemma._ She was to marry...."
    Mary sat up in bed and stared wide-eyed at her sister. "I have never heard of such a _criminal_
    idea," she gasped. "Peregrine would _shoot_ me. Now, leave me alone this instant and don't let me hear you talk such fustian again. No! Not another word."
    Emily went to her own room and sat in a chair by the window, watching the patterns the rush-light made on the ceiling.
    Somehow the marriage must be stopped. Now just suppose she, Emily, managed to drug Mary.
    While Mary slept, she could put the blond wig on her head and go downstairs in the brown wig, pretend to be Mary, and say that Emily was so ill she could not attend the wedding. That dim, myopic cousin, Bertha, would be delighted to be elected bridesmaid.
    The earl would be furious with her, would take out his wrath on her, but he would not blame Mary.
    So Mary could then marry Mr. Cummings, because after the disgrace, papa would let Mary marry _anybody._ Thank goodness no one had heard of her visit to the earl at The Green Man.
    Emily began to plot and plan. It was no use drugging Mary now. She might have slept off the effects by the