Read Online The Emperor's New Clothes by Victoria Alexander - Free Book Online Page B

work.”
    â€œWork?” Jenny buried her face in her hands and groaned. She peeked at her sister through her fingers. “Only your convoluted way of thinking would see swindling as a job.”
    â€œThank you,” Ophelia said modestly.
    Jenny picked the book up off the bed where Ophelia had tossed it, stared for a long moment, then heaved a heavy sigh of resignation. “What exactly are you planning to do?”
    Ophelia pulled her brows together in consideration. “I don’t know yet.” She rose to her feet and paced the room. “It seems to me there is a great deal of potential here, but I can’t quite put my finger on it.”
    â€œWell, you can’t very well try to sell them fabric that doesn’t exist,” Jenny said in a matter-of-fact manner. “Besides, I doubt anyone in Dead End, Wyoming, is particularly interested in the latest fashion.”
    â€œNo, not fashion,” Ophelia said thoughtfully. What were these people interested in? The answer seemed to linger just out of reach. What was it Tye Matthews had said tonight? “That’s it.” She clapped her hands together with delight.
    â€œWonderful.” Jenny’s voice carried all the enthusiasm of a doomed man waiting his turn for the gallows. “What’s it?”
    â€œWhat the fair residents of Dead End—pardon me, I mean Empire City—want.”
    â€œAnd what do they want?” Jenny studied her with a wary eye.
    â€œCivilization. Respectability. Sophistication!” Ophelia fairly crowed with delight.
    â€œAnd you’re going to try to sell them that?” Jenny raised a skeptical brow. “It’s hard to believe anybody, outside of a fairy tale, would be that witless.”
    Ophelia smiled sweetly. “Don’t forget, these are nice people.”
    Jenny shook her head in disgust. “Just what are you going to do?”
    â€œI haven’t the vaguest idea.” Ophelia planted her hands on her hips and directed an irritated glare at the younger girl. “And I do wish you would stop asking me. I’ll come up with a plan and it shall be quite brilliant.”
    â€œBrilliant?” Jenny raised a skeptical brow. “It had better be if you’re going to sell this town respectability.”
    â€œNot me.” Ophelia cast her a triumphant glance. “The Countess of Bilgewater.”
    â€œBridgewater.” Jenny groaned.
    Ophelia barely heard her sister’s correction. Far too many plots and schemes flew through her head to allow the acknowledgment of petty details. At any rate, it scarcely seemed to matter what she called herself. It was simply a role in a play that had now taken on the proportions of a command performance.
    A command performance that could set the stage for the rest of their lives.
    Â 
    The stars spilled across the heavens and the blue-black Wyoming sky seemed to stretch forever, the serenity of the night disturbed only by the sounds of nature herself and the muffled, rhythmic clop of his horse’s hooves on the hard-packed ground. It was a hell of a night to be alive.
    Ever since Tye had started back to his place, long after the party had ended and way past the point when he’d thought the countess might yet return downstairs for a breath of fresh air or a late-night snack or to see if he was still around, an insane feeling of buoyant expectation had clung to him. He couldn’t stop grinning. He wanted to laugh out loud. He wished the evening would never end.
    She was something, all right. Pretty, sharp-witted for the most part, with a subtle sense of absurdity that put a sparkle in her eyes and a smile in his. To top it off, she was rich and a widow. Not that he cared about the money, of course, even if it would make his life easier.
    In spite of the encouraging looks he’d received from his aunt whenever he went near the countess, he had no desire for a wife. And a wife was exactly what he