Read Those Endearing Young Charms for Free Online Page B

Then, with one quick movement, she removed her wig. Her blond curls tumbled about her face.
    _"Emily!"_ cried Mr. and Mrs. Anstey.
    "I'm sorry," said Emily. "So very sorry. But Mary was miserable. I thought if I took her place and it was discovered afterward to be me, then the marriage would not be a marriage at all."
    "But you _are_ married," said Mr. Cummings. "I recognized you, so I spoke your proper name."
    The earl continued to stand cold and unblinking, his gray eyes fastened on Emily's face.
    Mrs. Anstey raised chubby hands to her crumpled fat face. "The shame of it," she said, beginning to cry. "The humiliation. To have played such a trick. To have ruined our moment of glory. We shall be the laughing stock of the county."
    Then Mr. Anstey began to berate his daughter, while Mr. Cummings kept demanding to know what had happened to Mary, and Mrs. Anstey bawled at full force.
    In the midst of her misery and shame, Emily suddenly caught a faint gleam of humor in the earl's eyes. He had had his revenge on the Anstey family at last. And she had been the one who had got it for him.
    Her noble gesture would appear to be a vulgar, hoydenish trick. The entire county would say she was jealous of Mary and wanted the earl for herself and so had drugged her sister's chocolate. Emily began to doubt her own sanity.
    The Earl of Devenham felt a weary distaste for the whole business. He realized he did not love Mary Anstey. He felt quite sure it was highly unlikely he would ever repeat that folly of his youth by falling in love with anybody else.
    For a moment, he had enjoyed the humiliation of the Ansteys. But as he looked at Mrs. Anstey's crumpled and pathetic figure, he saw a kindly, silly woman who had tried to do the best for her daughter.
    He, Devenham, would have to marry to secure the line. He wanted children.
    If he accepted the marriage, then he would be spared the tedium of a London Season with its attendant miseries of courtship. Emily was young and beautiful. She was wayward and childish, but she had acted with a certain gallantry.
    His cool voice broke into a babble.
    "I think the best thing to do," he said, "is to let the marriage stand."
    It was then that Emily did faint.
    Fortunately, she was caught by the earl before she hit the floor.

    * * * *
Mary Anstey struggled awake. Her head felt hot and heavy, and her mouth dry. Somewhere at the edge of her consciousness loomed a great black cloud of dread. She murmured sleepily and turned her face into the pillow, determined to go back to sleep.
    And then it struck her.
    This was her wedding day!

    She glanced at the clock ticking busily on the mantel. Two in the afternoon.
    No, it couldn't be that. The clock must be wrong. Her head was so hot. She put a hand up to her brow. Her nightcap felt so heavy. She felt under her chin to untie the strings and then frowned. She wasn't wearing a nightcap. Then what ... ?
    A wig!
    She tugged it off and looked at the blond curls lying on the coverlet. She could almost hear Emily's voice whispering that ridiculous suggestion.
    Mary tugged furiously at the bell rope and then waited. But no one answered. Her first thought was, of course, all the servants are at the wedding.
    Her second -- Emily's done it. She's masqueraded as me. She _must_ not.
    Mary leaped from bed and made a hasty toilet. Her legs felt weak, and she had a dreadful thirst.
    Then she heard the sound of the village band and ran to the window and looked out.
    In true country tradition, the wedding procession was walking back from the church to the house.
    Headed by the band, the Earl of Devenham and Emily led the procession. Even from this distance, Mary noticed that Emily was very white, although she was attempting to laugh at something the earl said.
    Mary sank down in a chair, her head throbbing. It seemed as if the haughty earl -- for she could hardly think of him as Peregrine now -- had decided to go along with the joke. The guests all seemed in high spirits as well.