Read Online The Heiress by Lynsay Sands - Free Book Online Page B

return.”
    “ ‘S what I said,” Christiana pointed out. Stopping, she flopped her hand vaguely about.
    Holding onto the arm attached to that hand, Suzette pursed her lips, not sure what the woman was doing. It was Lisa who sighed pitiably at Christiana’s state.
    “What are we going to do, Suzie? We can’t let her stay married to him.”
    “Oh.” Christiana swung toward Lisa, tugging at the arm Suzette held, but she kept a firm grip on her, afraid she would fall on her face. Christiana stopped trying to get free and simply said, “Don’ worry. I’ll fixsh it.”
    “How?” Lisa sounded as dubious as Suzette felt.
    “I’ll get to the bottom of it,” Christiana announced, and then burst into a bout of inexplicable laughter.
    Suzette watched her uncertainly for a moment, but then shared a worried glance with Lisa who seemed just as confused by this reaction as she was. Neither of them could find anything funny in the situation.
    “Perhaps we’d best get her to bed,” Lisa murmured. “She appears to be getting worse.”
    “Aye,” Suzette said dryly and they began to urge Christiana up the stairs.
    “I think they’re gone.”
    Daniel didn’t immediately react to that whisper from Richard. He was considering what he’d heard. It seemed Christiana was a little the worse for drink. He hadn’t caught much more than that before the women had moved away up the hall, their voices fading. He and Richard were hiding in one of the guest rooms at the Fairgrave townhouse. Well, he, Richard and George were. Daniel sighed and shook his head at finding himself in this predicament. It was a natural progression of events that had landed him here. He’d garnered all the info he could on what George had been up to this last year as Richard “Dicky” Fairgrave, then gone to Richard with the information as well as the suggestion that the easiest way to handle the situation was for him to simply step back into his life and replace George as if he’d never left it.
    Richard hadn’t been as resistant to the idea as Daniel had expected once he’d pointed out that it would help him to avoid a lengthy court proceeding to prove he was the Earl of Radnor. Richard had also preferred the idea of evading the scandal revealing George’s antics would have brought about, and claimed he’d rather not cast Christiana and her family into scandal and ruin over her not legal marriage. After all, she and her family were innocent victims of George just as he was and really the woman had suffered enough being married to the man this last year. Since revealing all wouldn’t punish George, who was beyond punishment now, all going to the authorities at this point would have done was punish everyone else.
    In fact, Richard’s one protest had been about the marriage itself and the worry that he and Christiana might not suit. After all, the woman did seem to dislike the Dicky she thought she was married to.
    Daniel had understood, but pointed out that some time might ease that should Richard treat her well. He’d then suggested that if he wished a little time to decide one way or another they could always remove George’s body for now and keep him handy. That would give Richard at least a day or so to get to know Christiana better and decide if he could bear marriage to her. If he did decide they would do well together, they could get rid of the body. If not, they could place George back in his bed and then Richard could go to the authorities as if he had only just now returned to England.
    Daniel had barely finished making the suggestion when Richard was striding out of the ballroom, determined to make his way to the townhouse to find said body and move it before the women returned from the ball and realized something was amiss. It wasn’t as easy as it sounded. First of all, they could hardly walk in the front door when the dead George hadn’t walked out and was thought to be ill in bed by the servants in the house. On top of that,