by Jane Feather
Peregrine was more than happy to draw the librarian as his partner. Not only would her skills offset his own inadequacies, but she had piqued his curiosity with that sotto voce riposte. Had he really heard her correctly?
“I fear you have drawn the short straw after all, ma’am,” he murmured as he moved into the chair opposite her. “I shall do my best not to let you down.” He hid a smile as he waited to see if she would rise to the bait.
Mistress Hathaway glanced across at him. “If you play as well as you are able, sir, I must be satisfied,” she responded, her voice as soft as ever, her expression as demure as before. “But I do beg you to remember in your bidding that a librarian’s purse is not particularly plump.”
There was an unmistakable glimmer of amusement, of challenge even, in the gray eyes. Perry’s lips twitched. She had not disappointed him. But he was still deeply surprised by such a sharp undertone that seemed completely out of keeping on the lips of this dowdy, downtrodden woman. And there was something about those eyes that did not match the face. They were young, bright, and very sharp. He leaned closer, his own gaze sharpened, but she instantly dropped her eyes to the cards she was sorting in her hand, and he sat back, for the moment prepared to bide his time.
Why on earth had she allowed herself to respond like that? Alexandra cursed herself roundly for such a foolish impulse, but there was something about the Honorable Peregrine that piqued her, that drew from her an urge to engage with him in some way. Maybe it had something to do with his knowledge of the Decameron—she longed to discuss the library with someone who might share her delight in its treasures—and maybe it had something to do with his sharp put-down of Sir Stephen’s pretensions. Whatever it was, it was as ridiculous as it was dangerous. She bit the inside of her cheek hard until the pain distracted her.
Perry realized quickly that his partner was indeed an expert. It was true that he’d never seen the appeal in cards—there always seemed more interesting ways to pass an evening—but he had a mathematical mind, and after a few hands, he found an unexpected pleasure in the intellectual exercise of memory and calculation at which Mistress Hathaway appeared to excel. There was something supremely satisfying in finding that they were completely in accord, each knowing how the other would follow a lead.
Once or twice, his partner would glance at him when they took a game, and he would see a light in her gray eyes that seemed at odds with the slack, faintly dark-shadowed skin beneath them. But she never spoke except to call her bid. She laid down her cards with the same brisk purpose with which she added up the scores and the wins and losses at the end of each rubber.
A formidable lady, whose outward appearance completely belied the efficiency of her play. Peregrine wondered if anyone else noticed the paradox as the evening finally broke up and he rose from the table with a respectable sum in his pocket. He shook hands with his opponents and then turned to where Mistress Hathaway had been standing, a smile on his lips, his hand outstretched, only to discover an empty space behind him. The librarian was nowhere to be seen, and Marcus appeared at his elbow, yawning.
“Stephen’s gathering a fishing expedition tomorrow at sunrise,” Marcus said. “D’you fancy joining it?”
“Certainly,” Perry responded with enthusiasm. “I’ve more stomach for fishing than for whist.”
Marcus chuckled. “You had a profitable evening, though, I gather.”
“Yes,” Perry agreed thoughtfully. “Not in some small measure thanks to Mistress Hathaway.”
“Yes, she’s an unusual woman. Don’t find too many of the dear souls with wits to match hers,” Marcus agreed, yawning again. “Still, with such an unfortunate appearance, ’tis good she has the wit at least to compensate.”
“Yes, I suppose so,” Perry agreed as they went out into the starless night to walk down the drive to the Dower House.
Chapter Two
Alexandra Douglas reached the haven of her own bedchamber, closing the door behind her with a sigh of relief. She leaned against it, listening to the sounds from the hall below as the party broke up. She had made her escape so abruptly as to be considered discourteous, but she doubted anyone would have noticed. Except perhaps for her fair-headed whist partner, the Honorable Peregrine Sullivan. Those deep blue eyes had a disconcertingly penetrating quality that made her very uneasy. But what could he have seen?
Of course, she hadn’t helped matters with her impulsive responses. For some reason, the man had brought out the carefree Alexandra Douglas she used to be. She’d always enjoyed verbal challenges and lively sparring with anyone willing to engage with her. But she’d learned to quell the urge, or, at least, she thought she had. It was so difficult sometimes to hide her self in this dim carapace. Beneath the dull gray surface of her outward guise, the flame that was Alexandra Douglas burned just as brightly as ever, and not a day passed without her longing at least once to be free of the whole wretched business.
She straightened from the door, checking that it was securely locked, and then went to examine her reflection in the long pier glass. Her appearance was still in order. There was nothing untoward. Surely the Honorable Peregrine couldn’t have detected anything out of the ordinary. Her reflection showed a hunched, middle-aged dormouse in a dowdy bombazine dress of nondescript color, an unsightly birthmark disfiguring her cheek.
And once again, that wave of resentful depression washed over her. She didn’t want to look like this. What would the Honorable Peregrine have thought if he could see her as she really was? She had a sudden unreasoning longing to show him that this incarnation was merely a charade, and with a muttered imprecation, she reached up to take the pins out of her hair, shaking it free of the tightly braided plaits knotted at her nape, running her fingers through it to ease the tangles.
And then she wondered why on earth it should matter to her that a perfect stranger should see only an ugly old woman in a shabby gown. It was exactly what she wanted him to see. Even when she was resenting it, she triumphed in the success of her disguise, feeling a welcome sense of superiority to all those she was deceiving. So what was different about the Honorable Peregrine? Not that it mattered in the least, she told herself fiercely. Only the plan mattered. She must never lose sight of that.
Leaning closer to the mirror, she peered closely at the strands of gray artfully woven into the dark chestnut mass. They would need retouching in a day or two. She unbuttoned her gown, letting it fall to her ankles, and untied the tapes of the small pad that sat between her shoulder blades, before sitting in her shift at the dresser and cleansing her face with a soft cloth dipped in water from the ewer. The dark smudges under the eyes came away with one sweep of the cloth, the birthmark took a little longer to remove, but eventually, Alexandra Douglas looked upon her own face and not that of Mistress Alexandra Hathaway.
It was a relief to have herself back, even if only for the night. She would begin the whole laborious process again soon after dawn, but for now, she could feel the tension of deception slide from her as the disguise was removed.
She rose from the dresser and slipped a woolen night robe over her shoulders, wrapped it tightly before pouring herself a small glass of Madeira from a bottle she kept hidden in the bottom of the armoire. It wouldn’t do for the servants to discover that Sir Stephen’s secretary and librarian was a secret tippler. Not that she ever allowed herself more than this one solitary nightcap a day. It relaxed her after the day’s stresses and loosened the tight controls that she had to live with every minute away from the safety of this corner bedchamber.
Alex sat on the deep windowsill, looking out over the lawn to the silver glimmer of the moonlit sea. It was a beautiful night, but soon the leaves would turn and fall, and the winds of winter would blow strong from the sea. She had always loved the winters at Combe Abbey, the crisp frosty fields, the bare trees bending beneath the gusting wind, the smell of burning logs in the great fireplaces. Her own bedchamber, once she and her sister had left the nursery floor, had been at the fro
nt of the house, Sylvia’s adjoining it. Lady Maude, Stephen’s wife, kept them both as guest chambers these days. But Alex was happy enough in her small corner chamber. It was secluded from the rest of the house, more easily reached by the backstairs than from the grand staircase leading up from the front hall.
Only a few short months before, she had been contentedly moving from day to day in a world where everything followed an accustomed pattern, until that early December afternoon . . . could it possibly have been only eight months ago?
Resting her chin in her elbow-propped hand, she let her mind drift back to that chilly afternoon . . .
“Mistress Alexandra? Oh, there you are. I’ve been looking all over for you.” The young maidservant adjusted her cap as she ducked beneath the bare branch of an apple tree. She was somewhat breathless, pink-cheeked from the brisk winter wind.
“Well, now that you’ve found me, Dorcas, what can I do for you?” Alexandra closed her book over her gloved finger and smiled up at the girl from the bench beneath the apple tree in the relatively sheltered orchard.
“ ’Tis Mistress Simmons, miss. She wants you.”
Alexandra uncoiled her lithe frame from the bench and drew her cloak more tightly around her. “Then she must have me. Where is she?”
“In her parlor, miss.”
Alexandra nodded. “Thank you, Dorcas.” She walked quickly away down the avenue of apple trees, her stride like that of a restless young colt eager for the pasture. She broke through the neat rows of pollarded fruit trees at the foot of a sweep of green lawn leading up to a pleasant gray-stone house, the pale sun deepening the hue of the red-tiled roof. She paused for a moment, enjoying the vista. The house had been her home for the last five years, and while she still had moments of longing for her childhood home, Combe Abbey, standing high on its Dorset cliff top overlooking Lulworth Cove, St. Catherine’s Seminary for Young Ladies had given her much to be thankful for.
She strode off towards the house, heading for a side door. The narrow corridor was filled with familiar scents of beeswax and lavender, and she could hear the girlish chatter of young voices coming from one of the schoolrooms as she passed a closed door. She smiled faintly—not so long ago, her voice would have joined those. She crossed a square, sunlit hall and tapped on a door.
“Enter.”
Alexandra entered the room, smiling a greeting. “Dorcas said you wished to see me, Helene.”
“Yes, my dear.” The middle-aged woman behind the desk took off her pince-nez and rubbed her eyes wearily. “Sit down.”
Alexandra obeyed. She had spent many hours in the last five years in this room, part parlor, part office, part schoolroom, avidly inhaling every scrap of knowledge Helene could impart. Now, however, she felt a tremor of alarm. Her friend and mentor for once seemed to be at a loss for words . . .
Helene Simmons regarded the young woman in compassionate silence for a moment. She had owned St. Catherine’s Seminary for Young Ladies for more than ten years and was accustomed to trying, and failing for the most part, to educate young and frivolous female minds to respond to the stimulation of the intellect. The young girls who came under her tutelage were generally the daughters of the landed gentry, for whom lay ahead only good marriages, the amusements of the Season, the long heartbreaking years of childbearing. They had little interest in the finer pursuits of the mind, although they were eager enough for dance classes, music lessons, and instruction in deportment. Alexandra Douglas was very different.
From the first moment the fifteen-year-old girl had arrived at St. Catherine’s, Helene had known she had a potential protégée at last. Alexandra’s curiosity knew no bounds, and everything fascinated her, whether it was a mathematical equation, some finer point of agriculture, the intricacies of beekeeping, or the poems of Catullus. Helene, with sheer joy, had honed the girl’s undisciplined mind and seen her grow into the highly accomplished young woman sitting across the desk from her on this chilly December afternoon.
And now she had to give Alexandra news that would have who knew what consequences for her future.
Alex became increasingly uneasy as the silence stretched, until Helene said simply, “I have some bad news, my dear.” She took a sheet of parchment from her desk. “This is from your father’s lawyer in Chancery Lane. I’m very sorry to have to tell you, Alexandra, but your father has died very suddenly.”
Alex blinked and swallowed the lump that had grown in her throat. “Papa is dead?”
Helene nodded, pushing the letter across the desk to her. “Read for yourself, my dear.”
Alexandra stared down at the black, lawyerly script, the seal of an inn of Chancery at the bottom. It was a simple statement of the death of Sir Arthur Douglas on the fifteenth day of November, in the year of our Lord 1762. The following paragraph merely said that there were estate matters to discuss with Sir Arthur’s daughters, and Lawyer Forsett would be happy to make the journey into Hampshire to impart these matters to Mistress Alexandra and Mistress Sylvia Douglas, unless they would care to wait upon him in his chambers in Chancery Lane.
“I am so sorry, my dear,” Helene repeated, seeing the girl’s pallor, the sheen of tears in her eyes.
Alexandra shook her head as if to blink the tears away. She hadn’t seen her father for five years. Every Christmas, there had been a token of some kind but never a letter or anything really personal. She had wondered at first what she and Sylvia had done to cause their father’s hostility, but as time went on, she had learned to shrug it off. Their mother’s final romantic escapade had probably been sufficient for their father to cut himself off from their shared offspring, and when news of the divorce and his remarriage had reached them in a terse note from this same lawyer, his daughters had accepted the situation. Alexandra’s upkeep and tuition at St. Catherine’s was paid for regularly, and Sylvia’s financial needs and her care under their former nurse continued uninterrupted. Alexandra had vaguely assumed that their father had made some provision for their future and ceased to question his silence.
Until that freezing January afternoon in Lawyer Forsett’s chambers.
Alexandra brought herself back to the reality of the present, the moonlit evening, the quiet chamber at her back, the oh so familiar surroundings of her familial home. So familiar and yet so unfamiliar now. She felt the old, cold anger begin to spiral within. She had learned painfully over the years the need to control her mercurial temper. She was a natural hothead, and it had taken many unpleasant lessons to teach her both the need and the tools to keep it on a tight rein. Injustice had always been the first trigger, and the injustice that presently tyrannized herself and her sister constantly threatened to overwhelm those hard-won controls.
She fought her silent battle for a moment, until she felt the anger subside under the equally cold but twice as useful determination. Her loathsome cousin Stephen was, all unwittingly, paying for his avarice, and he would continue paying until she had safe the ten thousand pounds apiece that her father had intended to leave his bastard daughters.
Not that the money would confer legitimacy on either herself or Sylvia, she reflected with a renewed burst of fury, this time directed at her father. How could he have done that to his daughters? Alex remembered him as an affectionate parent, somewhat distracted at times, and she remembered the many hours he and she had spent in the library . . . the library downstairs at Combe Abbey where she now spent the better part of her day.
Her father had introduced her to all of his literary treasures, those acquired by his father and by himself. As much a bibliophile as his own parent, Sir Arthur had recognized the same passion in his daughter, and from the moment she had learned to read, he had encouraged her to have free rein among his books. She couldn’t remember his ever raising an eyebrow at the volumes she roamed through during long winter afternoons curled up in a corner of the sofa. And he’d always answered her questions about the content of the books, even when, as she now understood, neither the content nor the questions had be
en appropriate for a young girl’s mind.
That knowledge stood her in good stead now, she reflected grimly. Who else was better suited than she to catalogue the volumes in the library for their new owner? Stephen’s interest was only in their value, but Alexandra had every intention of turning that to her own and Sylvia’s advantage.
She yawned suddenly and stood up with a sigh, slipping the robe off her shoulders before climbing into the high bed. She leaned sideways to snuff out the candle and then lay back, watching the play of moonlight on the wall opposite the window, listening to the faint sound of waves breaking on the shore of the cove. A sound that had lulled her to sleep throughout her childhood.
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.