An Unsuitable Bride (6 page)

But tonight sleep proved elusive. She wondered whether Sylvia was asleep in the modest cottage in Barton, in the neighboring county of Hampshire. The sisters had never been this far apart. When Alexandra had been sent to St. Catherine’s just outside Barton, Sylvia had remained with their former nurse, who had continued to care for the invalid girl long after Sylvia no longer inhabited the nursery at Combe Abbey. Someone—their father, they had always assumed—had provided a small cottage in Barton, only a quarter-mile from the seminary, for his second daughter and her nurse, and from then on, Sylvia, like Alexandra, had had no contact with her parent.

Matty was devoted to Sylvia, who had been in fragile health since birth, and the stipend she received from Sir Arthur Douglas to continue caring for the girl was a welcome addition to her miserly income. Without that stipend, she would not be able to keep Sylvia or afford the medicines and tonics she needed.

Alexandra tossed onto her other side. She was always worried about Sylvia now. She knew that Matty would not abandon her, and the fifty pounds Stephen had been willing to part with would keep her for almost a year, but after that, if Alexandra was unable to put things right, to restore justice to this muddle of their lives, Sylvia’s future didn’t bear thinking of.

Alexandra had given some thought to the lawyer’s suggestion that she take up employment as a governess or teacher. Helene had accompanied her to London but had remained at the hotel during Alexandra’s meeting with Lawyer Forsett. When she’d heard the full story on Alex’s return, she had instantly offered her protégée a position at St. Catherine’s. She’d stressed how it was an ideal solution. Alex would be able to stay in the home she’d grown accustomed to, in the company of her best friend, and within a mile of her sister.

But resignation did not come easily to Alexandra Douglas, and she had considered the possibility and dismissed it in the next breath. It was not right, it was not just. She and Sylvia had been deprived of their due through a trick of the law, and she would get it back for
them. Stephen could well afford to honor Sir Arthur’s intentions, and sheer avarice kept him from doing so. Well, his avarice would turn the tables on him, and he’d never know.

She smiled a little and felt sleep creep over her at the familiar resolution.

Peregrine slept the deep, untroubled sleep of a man who has spent the last few days on horseback. He was woken at dawn by John, bringing hot shaving water and coffee.

“Master Crofton will meet you in the breakfast parlor in half an hour, sir,” the valet informed him, setting down his burdens and drawing back the curtains.

Perry struggled up against his pillows, blinking in the gray dawn. “At this god-awful hour? The sun’s not even up,” he muttered. “Oh . . . fishing, I remember now.” Reluctantly, he swung his legs from the bed and stood up, stretching, glancing longingly at the warm sheets behind him. “Riding breeches, then, John, and the green worsted coat.” He soaked a cloth in hot water and held it to his face, feeling the blood begin to flow again.

He dressed swiftly, pulling on leather boots sturdy enough to withstand the damp and mud of a riverbank, and went downstairs. Marcus was already attacking a plate of sirloin in the breakfast parlor. He greeted Perry
with a wave, his mouth full, and gestured to the sideboard, where covered dishes steamed gently.

Perry helped himself to kidneys and bacon, poured himself a tankard of ale, and sat down. “I hope you have a rod for me, Marcus. I didn’t come supplied.”

His host swallowed his mouthful. “Oh, no difficulties, dear boy. I have rods aplenty. The trout should be biting this morning.”

“Where do we meet Sir Stephen?” Perry buttered a thick slice of wheaten bred.

“Up at the Abbey. There’ll be quite a party of us. Very fond of country pursuits is Sir Stephen. Anyone would think he’d been a country man all his life.”

“He hasn’t?” Perry was curious.

Marcus shook his head. “Not a bit of it, and believe me, it shows where it matters.”

“Oh?” Perry raised an inquiring eyebrow.

Marcus took a swallow of ale. “Shouldn’t really talk out of turn, but the man hasn’t the first idea about estate management and husbandry. Sir Arthur knew every blade of grass on this estate, decided which crops to plant where and when, took care of his tenants and laborers . . . even down to whose roof needed repairing. He always said to me, if a man doesn’t look after his own people, he’ll come to ruin.”

“And Stephen doesn’t believe that?”

Marcus shrugged. “I don’t think he gives it a moment’s thought. Believes that basically the estate runs itself, and all he has to do is take what he wants from
it. If it weren’t for the agent, good man that he is, who knows how matters would stand.”

“So where did Sir Stephen come from, then?” Peregrine speared a kidney.

“Bristol, I think. He’s a townie, that’s for sure. I think his branch of the family had something to do with shipping, but they were definitely the poor relations. Social pretensions aplenty, Lady Maude in particular, and they do enjoy lording it over the County gentry around here.”

Marcus spoke with all the casual derision of one who had no need for pretension. Perry knew that his friend’s late father, the Dowager Lady Douglas’s husband before Sir Arthur, had been a baronet of considerable lineage and estate. Marcus, as the younger son, had inherited an enviable competence.

“There are children, presumably?”

“Oh, mewling brats . . . I don’t know how many, but Lady Maude is always sending for the physician or demanding that Sir Stephen sack the nursemaid because she’s neglecting one or other of them.” Marcus chuckled. “Hate to say it, but I wouldn’t be in Stephen’s shoes for all the tea in China.”

Peregrine absorbed this as he cut a rasher of bacon. “The librarian, Mistress Hathaway, how does she fit into the household?” He kept his tone casual, hoping to conceal the depths of his curiosity about the woman, whose rather lovely gray eyes held a deep spark of liveliness that belied her appearance.

“Not quite sure,” Marcus confessed. “I think she’s more than a librarian these days. I gather she handles Stephen’s business affairs. He’s a gambler through and through and loves to play on ’Change. Our librarian is apparently quite an expert at such matters, odd though it may seem.”

“Mmm.” Perry chewed reflectively. It did seem odd. “So where does she come from?”

“No idea.” Marcus tossed aside his napkin. “If you’re done here, Perry, we should head up to the Abbey. Stephen will be champing at the bit.”

Perry finished his mouthful, wiped his mouth with his napkin, took a final draught of ale, and pushed back his chair. “At your service, sir.”

They walked up the driveway to the Abbey. The morning air had a chill to it, and a sea fret blanketing the gray waters of the Solent rolled in over the cliff top. On the circular drive in front of the Abbey, a group of men waited, buttoned into their coats, servants behind them carrying rods, hooks, flies, and all of the usual fishing paraphernalia.

Sir Stephen greeted the new arrivals with a pointed look at his fob watch. “Good, you’re here at last. If we don’t hurry, we’ll miss the first rise. They bite best before sunup.”

“Forgive us, Sir Stephen,” Perry said with a conciliatory smile. “Your hospitality was too good last even. I found it hard to leave my bed this morning.”

Stephen looked somewhat mollified. “Well, let’s be
going.” He waved an encompassing arm at the other men. “I daresay you’ll make your own introductions, but Marcus knows most of the company.” He strode towards the rear of the house, and the rest fell in behind them.

Alexandra watched them pass the house from the corner window of her chamber. Her gaze went unerringly to the tall figure of the Honorable Peregrine. He walked with a long, loose stride, his fair head bare, the golden locks gleaming in the early-morning gloom. He carried his gloves in his hand and was in animated discussion with Marcus Crofton, walking beside him.

He wanted to see the volume of the
Decameron,
she remembered suddenly. Was he a collector? Certainly, such a desire indicated a literary turn of mind, a bibliophile, even. A little thrill of excitement ran through her as she moved to her dresser to begin the long process of assuming her disguise. Combe Abbey these days was a den of Philistines, in her admittedly jaundiced opinion. The conversation was exclusively limited to the affairs of local society, the complaints of Lady Maude, and, in the private conversations that Alexandra had with her employer, the handling of accounts, the value of books, and the acquisition and manipulation of stocks and bonds on the Exchange.

She so desperately missed talking to anyone who shared her own passions that she’d be happy to spend
time in the library discussing its contents with anyone, even a snuff-covered ancient with rheumy eyes, a stained waistcoat, and a beard to his knees, but Mr. Sullivan came with his own undeniable attractions. Those wonderful blue eyes, the color of a summer sky, she thought fancifully. And that golden head of hair coming off a broad forehead with a deep widow’s peak. Dear God, what was she thinking of? She sounded like some half-daft romantic without a sensible thought in her head.

Fixedly, she gazed at her reflection in the mirror, deftly shading the skin under her eyes with a stick of moistened charcoal, smudging it with her finger until it was barely there but there nevertheless. She was going to have to be very careful in the Honorable Peregrine’s company.

She must keep her mind fixed upon the plan. A few hours wrestling with Sir Stephen’s investments would chase all unwelcome distractions from her mind. It was an activity she loved; it stretched her mental abilities, satisfied her love of figures and calculations, and gave her the glorious satisfaction of funneling profits here and there into her own private fund. When she reached the exact sum their father had intended to leave them, Mistress Alexandra Hathaway would disappear from Combe Abbey, never to be seen again. Sir Stephen and Lady Maude would be none the wiser, and certainly not injured in any way. She now had a very firm grasp of her father’s estate and the fortune he had left and
knew to the last penny what every necessary expenditure cost the estate.

She leaned closer into the mirror. The birthmark was a little more difficult to achieve than the shadows beneath her eyes, but a thin paste of rouge applied with the tip of a quill pen created the desired effect. She was always careful to keep out of the direct light, and her downcast eyes and hunched posture helped to draw attention away from her face.

She and Sylvia had so enjoyed charades as children. They had developed the most elaborate scenarios. On one of her infrequent visits to Combe Abbey, their mother, in a moment of benign distraction, had been persuaded to donate to her daughters whatever items of her wardrobe no longer pleased her. Swathes of velvets, silk ball gowns, ostrich plumes, heeled kid slippers, even discarded powder and paint from her own paint box, had provided all the props they had needed. Alex had always been the instigator, the creator of the scenarios, and her main pleasure was seeing how her sister came out of herself and seemed to take on a flush of health in her enthusiasm for the play. Sylvia was always exhausted afterwards, but even Matty had refrained from more than minor grumbles at the toll such games took on the girl’s strength.

So where is our mother now?
Alexandra began to braid her hair into tight plaits. The Contessa Luisa della Minardi, once Lady Douglas, was presumably somewhere on the Continent with her second husband, unless
she’d moved on to a third. Alex and Sylvia remembered vividly the times when Combe Abbey would fall ominously silent, and their father would never be in evidence, shut up in his business office or the library. Alex had known whenever their mother had made one of her not infrequent disappearances to keep away from the library unless she was certain her father wasn’t there. She and her sister hadn’t known what took their mother away, but servants’ gossip was impossible to miss.

The first Lady Douglas had had a roving eye and was susceptible to beautiful young men. And, a beautiful woman herself, she had attracted the adoration of many an Adonis.