Page 1 of The Heiress in Disguise
Prologue
“Angelique, do stay away from the river!”
Eight-year-old Angelique longed to ignore the admonition of her governess. Molly was kind and fair and Angelique liked her very much, but she could also be insufferably dull at times, and Angelique didnotenjoy that about her. She was eight years old now, after all, and she didn’t need a governess watching over her every move. She had been to the river countless times. There were no dangers here that she wasn’t equal to.
“My parents allow me to play by the river,” she said.
“Your parents aren’t at home,” Molly pointed out.
“But they’ll return home from their travels later today, and you can ask them then,” Angelique said. “They’ll tell you it’s all right for me to play by the water as long as I’m not on my own. You’ll see. They don’t mind at all.”
“You’re going to get muddy.”
“Nobody minds that either,” Angelique said with a laugh. “Father says children are supposed to get muddy from time to time!”
Molly sighed. “I suppose he has the right to say it,” she said. “But I hope for both of our sakes that you’re right, Angelique, because I would hate for your parents to get home and see you covered in mud and be unhappy about it.”
“That’s not going to happen,” Angelique assured her. “They’ll be nothing but pleased to see me, Molly. Mother and Father dote upon me, you know that. They’re going to bring me a present from their travels! Father promised that they would.”
“Perhaps that’s them now,” Molly said, turning toward the sound of a carriage coming up the path toward the front of the estate.
“Oh!” Angelique turned, the river utterly forgotten. “They weren’t supposed to arrive home until this evening! They’re early! They must have been so eager to see me that they hastened their journey home.”
“Perhaps,” Molly agreed.
But Angelique frowned. She could see now who was disembarking from the carriage, and it wasn’t her mother and father. Instead, she was looking at her least favorite aunt, her father’s younger sister. Aunt Wilhelmina had dark hair and a stern expression that never seemed to waver, no matter what was going on around her.
She was followed out of the carriage, by her husband, Uncle Clive, and by Angelique’s three cousins, Marcus, Gwyneth, and Grace. Both of the elder cousins were stuck-up, and Angelique found them difficult to get along with, so she took a small measure of satisfaction in seeing that they were staring up at the house with something like awe.
They had been here countless times, of course, and they always managed to act as if it didn’t impress them very much to be in the home of the Marquess of Somerset. They tended to act as if it was all beneath them. But Angelique knew that what she was seeing right now was their true response, saved for a moment when they didn’t know she could see them.
“Perhaps they don’t realize that Mother and Father aren’t at home,” she said to Molly.
“We ought to go inform them,” Molly said. “Come along, Angelique.”
Angelique wished that she could stay by the river—she had no desire to socialize with her cousins—but she knew that would be a losing battle. There was no chance of Molly allowing her to stay here on her own. She trotted back toward the house alongside her governess.
“Well, this is hardly appropriate,” Aunt Wilhelmina said as they approached. “Just look at you, Angelique. Your gown is filthy,” she tutted.
Angelique looked down at the gown she wore. She saw no filth. She hadn’t even gone all the way down to the water, so she hadn’t gotten mud on her gown. She had no idea what Aunt Wilhelmina was referring to.
But then, it was very like her aunt to find fault in something about Angelique. She had always seemed determined to prove that her own children were more satisfactory than Angelique was—especially Gwyneth, who was also eight years old.
“You’d better come inside,” Aunt Wilhelmina said. “We have some things to discuss, Angelique.”
“My parents aren’t home from their travels yet,” Angelique said. “Perhaps we should wait until they return.” She didn’t want to end her day on the grounds just yet, and she was sure that if she went inside, Aunt Wilhelmina wouldn’t allow her to come back out.
“Your parents won’t be coming home,” Aunt Wilhelmina said briskly. “There was an accident, dear.”
“You’re not going to tell her like that, Wilhelmina, are you?” That was Uncle Clive, speaking up for the first time. He was a quiet man, usually content to allow his wife to do the talking for the both of them in social situations. Angelique couldn’t say why it disturbed her so that he had chosen this moment to speak, but she knew that it did.
“What do you mean?” she asked, feeling suddenly chilled, although the weather hadn’t changed. “Of course my parents will come home. They’ll always come back to me.”
“I’m afraid not, dear,” Aunt Wilhelmina said. “We’ve just received word that they were killed in a carriage accident on the way home.”
Angelique felt the world spin slowly around her. She sank to her knees.
“I’m so sorry, Angelique,” Uncle Clive said quietly.
