Fool's Masquerade by Joan Wolf

Author:Joan Wolf [Wolf, Joan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Romance
ISBN: 9780451157164
Publisher: Signet
Published: 1984-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

That should do it, I thought. Mrs. Emerson wouldn’t open a letter addressed to Lord Leyburn, and by the time she got back to Carlton to deliver it, I would be at Ardsley. I took one last look around and then sneaked out of my room and down the stairs. There was no one in the front hall, so I was able to make at least a partially dignified exit from the Earl of Leyburn’s town house.

I had decided to go to an inn in the hopes of being able to get a seat on either a stagecoach or the mail. As it happened, luck was with me, for the mail came thundering into the White Boar only fifteen minutes after my arrival, and it was going through Lincoln on its way to London. I got the last seat.

It wasn’t until I was bouncing along in the safety of the crowded coach, that I put my mind to what I was going to tell my grandparents.

****

In Lincoln I hired a coach to take me to Stainfield, where I knew my grandparents resided. Their house proved to be very different from the great and ancient castle inhabited by the Earl of Leyburn. Ardsley was a Palladian mansion, is style classical and dignified. I got out of the coach and looked with some misgivings at the austere and symmetrical pillars of the front entry. I was terribly conscious of my cropped head and my baggy dressed. I squared my shoulders.

"Are you sure this is where you want to go, miss?" the driver asked me.

"Yes," I said dismally.

"You sure you don't want me to wait for you?"

"Yes." I looked at him ruefully. "They'll have to take me in, you see. I'm a relation."

"Hmph. That don't mean nothin', Miss. They know you're coming?"

"No."

"I'll wait awhile," he said, and settled back on his seat and crossed his arms.

I had to smile. "That is very kind of you," I said, and began to walk up the front stairs. I really didn’t have too many doubts that I would be turned away. Papa had told me to come and I was quite certain Papa had made previous arrangements. I rapped the knocker.

A very proper-looking butler answered.

“Good afternoon,” I said. “I have come to see Lord and Lady Ardsley. I am Valentine Langley, their granddaughter.”

The starchy look on the butler’s face altered. He held the door open.

“Come in, miss. I will inform my lady that you have arrived.” I turned and waved to my faithful coachman before I followed the butler into the house.

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