An Unsuitable Bride

by Jane Feather

  “Sleeping?” Sir Stephen exclaimed, his voice rising. “I’ll have you know, ma’am, that Mistress Hathaway and I had a most fruitful session with my business affairs this afternoon, and if you think the lady is overpaid, you don’t know what you’re talking about. Her financial acumen is worth a lot more to me, indeed, to both of us, than any suitability she might have as a governess. I’ll not hear another word. You leave well alone, Lady Douglas. Mistress Hathaway works for me.”

  Alexandra whisked herself away and around a corner of the corridor as Lady Maude’s door opened, and Sir Stephen, rather red-faced, emerged from his wife’s room. In the safety of her own chamber, Alex stood for a moment in frowning thought. Maude already resented Alexandra’s presence in the household, and matters would not be improved if she fell out with her husband over the librarian. Maybe Maude resented the time Stephen spent with her, Alex thought, but she’d seen no indication that the lady pined for her husband’s company in the usual course of the day. Was there something about herself that put Maude’s back up?

  Whatever it was, Stephen’s castigation would only make it worse. If Maude was obliged to acknowledge defeat in matters concerning the librarian, her natural vindictiveness would be given free rein.

  Still, she reflected, drawing an evening gown out of the armoire, at least she wouldn’t have to deal with Master George. Alex liked children in general, but Stephen’s son and heir was a whining brat, hopelessly spoiled and indulged by his mother. Any attempt to teach him would fall on stony ground, and the governess would get the blame. It would put her in a worse position vis-à-vis Maude than Stephen’s intervention.

  She held up the gown and wrinkled her nose. The dove-gray taffeta was barely an improvement on the dull brown twill she was wearing at the moment. She had a fleeting memory of her mother, who always looked wonderful, richly dressed and ornamented, her coiffure always perfect. For a moment, she could almost catch the fragrance that seemed to envelop the first Lady Douglas. Gardenia, she remembered, seeing in her mind’s eye the little vial on her mother’s dresser. What would Luisa think of her elder daughter now?

  And where was she, anyway? Presumably still in the land of the living, Alexandra thought, stepping into the dove-gray taffeta. Surely she and Sylvia would have heard of their mother’s demise. There might even be an inheritance of sorts. But that brought a cynical smile to her lips. Luisa never had two pennies to rub together. Her extravagance had been another cause of the fierce quarrels between her and Sir Arthur. And as far as Alex and Sylvia had been able to gather, Luisa’s romantic escapades had been just that, flights for romance and excitement rather than the wealth of a new suitor. Not that their mother had ever appeared short of a guinea, Alex reflected as she fastened her gown. Presumably, she and her lovers lived on credit.

  Of course, it was possible that Luisa had occasionally sold herself for money to keep both herself and her current lover in funds. It should be a shocking idea, but Alex didn’t find it so. She and Sylvia had long given up expecting anything as dull as conventional morality from their mother.

  Dressed, she made her way downstairs. Another long evening to be endured in mousy silence before she could attain the peace of her bedchamber for the precious hours of solitude the night gave her.

  As she reached the bend in the stairs, she heard a voice from the hall below that brought her up short. No one had told her that the Honorable Peregrine was to be a dinner guest tonight. But then, of course, why should they?

  Could she escape, plead illness and retreat to her chamber? Despite her earlier resolution to avoid the man, she knew that such a move would merely postpone the inevitable. Peregrine and Marcus would be frequent guests at Combe Abbey while they were staying in the Dower House. If she didn’t confront the situation tonight, she would have to another night. Somehow she must learn to maintain her customary diffident reticence despite his provocations; she must ignore the conspiratorial gleam in the blue eyes, the inviting twitch of his full lips. She must pretend that he wasn’t telling her that he knew she was not what, or rather who, she seemed. And she must pretend that she didn’t find that assumption of inside knowledge immensely appealing. With Peregrine Sullivan, she couldn’t allow her guard to slip for an instant. But why did her own defenses against him seem so fragile?

  She hesitated on the stair, waiting until the group gathered in the hall had entered the salon, so that she could slide into the room without drawing attention to herself.

  Chapter Five

  Peregrine was standing with a glass in his hand, trying to make conversation with Lady Maude, when he noticed Mistress Hathaway sitting on an armless chair pressed into a corner of the room. Her hands were folded in her lap, and she seemed to be concentrating on the pattern of the Turkey carpet at her feet.

  He excused himself from his hostess with a word of apology as one of the other guests came up to make his bow. He took a glass of sherry from a passing footman and made his way to the corner. “Mistress Hathaway. I believe you take sherry.” He bowed before her, holding out the glass.

  “I do not care to drink overmuch, sir,” the lady demurred, not taking the glass.

  “I’m not suggesting you do, or should, ma’am,” he returned, continuing to proffer the glass. “But I can’t help thinking that a little stimulant in this company might not come amiss.” He raised his eyebrows in a gesture of conspiratorial amusement and saw to his satisfaction an answering glimmer in those lovely gray eyes. Somewhere underneath that façade was a very beautiful woman, with a personality to match, unless he was much mistaken.

  Alexandra took the glass with a murmur of thanks. “I trust the Dowager Lady Douglas was feeling well enough to attend her card party this evening.”

  “Indeed. She rested upon her bed the whole afternoon to gain the strength for it,” Perry said solemnly, watching her over the lip of his glass. He was not mistaken, her eyes danced, although she dropped them immediately into renewed scrutiny of her gray taffeta lap.

  “Country life can be quite fatiguing,” Alex murmured, taking a sip of sherry, hoping she had managed to conceal her involuntary amusement. It was happening again, however hard she tried to fight it. The wretched man either deliberately or accidentally made her want to laugh aloud. She suspected it was the former and once again knew that prickle of danger. It would be so easy to become her real self in these exchanges. He was such an attractive man, and she wanted nothing more than to respond to him in kind, to allow those playful and penetrating blue eyes to draw her into the private conspiratorial world he was offering. But she daren’t play games. She had to conceal the urge to respond to him, to meet and match him, however tempting it was . . . however unfair it seemed when, for the first time in her life, she could glimpse what it would be like to enjoy a man’s company and instead had to run from it.

  “Yes, indeed. Charitable visiting, card parties, and the like,” Perry agreed. “Did you enjoy your walk this morning?”

  “Very much, sir. I find when one spends as much time within doors as I do, ’tis necessary to take the air on a regular basis.” Sweet heaven, how much longer could she keep this up with a straight face? It didn’t seem to matter how sternly she took herself to task, the concealed Alexandra kept coming out of hiding. In desperation, she opened her fan and retreated behind it.

  Peregrine took a sip from his own glass and regarded her in a thoughtful silence that she found even more unnerving than his conversation.

  “I wonder if it will rain tomorrow,” she said. “There’s been no rain for over a week. I daresay the gardens are very dry.”

  Peregrine’s expression became one of astonishment at this inane non sequitur. She glanced up at him over her fan with an air of mild inquiry and saw to her relief that she had rendered him momentarily speechless. She plied her fan, averting her eyes.

  Perry struggled for a moment to find a suitable response but in the end accepted defeat. For a few moments, he had thought he was about to break through, but she had now retre
ated, and he could sense that any further pursuit would be pointless. He would return to fight another day. “I daresay, ma’am.” He turned on his heel and walked over to join the group around Marcus, leaving Alex to resume her solitary silence.

  When dinner was announced, Peregrine was directed to take Lady Maude into dinner, and Alexandra was left to bring up the rear with a callow youth suffering from a terminal case of shyness, which suited her very well.

  She was perfectly willing to draw out the young man at the dinner table and put him at his ease. He was far too nervous himself to see in his table neighbor anything but a rather drab spinster with a kind disposition, who was willing to engage him in talk of his life at Oxford and allow him to tell tales of his escapades with his fellow students without making him feel either foolish or too young for adult company.

  Henry Dearborn obviously thought of her as like a kindly old aunt, Alex thought rather ruefully. It was one thing to play the part so successfully but paradoxically quite another to see herself through the young man’s eyes. This charade was definitely not good for her self-esteem.

  “So, Mistress Hathaway, do you care to ride?”

  The unexpected question startled her. The Honorable Peregrine was addressing her across the table, rather against established etiquette, but she supposed he could get away with it where others couldn’t.

  “We are discussing a riding expedition tomorrow, to Durdle Door,” he continued with a bland smile. “I understand ’tis one of the most famous rock formations in the area. I was wondering if you cared to ride. You were saying earlier how taking the air and some exercise refreshed your mind.” Part of him regretted indulging the impulse to force her into the limelight, but only part of him.

  “Ride?” Alexandra was taken aback, and even more so when she became aware that she had drawn the attention of others around the table. Damn Peregrine Sullivan. Her eyes flashed fire at him across the table.

  “Of course Mistress Hathaway don’t care to ride,” Lady Maude declared from the bottom of the table. “I’m sure she has never learned, and even if she has, I doubt she would find it easy to sit a horse. One needs a certain posture.”

  The mean-spirited reference to her humpback took Alex’s breath away as she imagined what she would feel like if it really was a deformity and not a strategically placed pad between her shoulder blades. How could the woman be so insensitive, so blindingly malicious? Even if Maude was getting her own back for her earlier failure to compel Alexandra into the schoolroom, it was still a wretchedly unkind vengeance.

  She was at a loss for words for a moment, and then Peregrine said, as if Maude had not spoken, “So, Mistress Hathaway, what d’you say?”

  She was angry enough now to say, “Had I a mount, sir, I would be delighted. I have always enjoyed riding.”

  “Then I’m sure a suitable mount can be found for you,” Peregrine declared. “Sir Stephen, surely you have something in your stables for Mistress Hathaway.”

  Stephen looked nonplussed, but as he hesitated, Marcus, as indignant as Perry at Maude’s appalling jibe, entered the lists. “Oh, come now, Stephen, you have a stable full of horses eating their heads off. Lady Maude doesn’t ride much, and she has the prettiest dapple gray just aching to shake up her heels.”

  “No . . . no, please.” Alex shook her head vigorously before Maude could vent her indignation. “I couldn’t possibly impose. Indeed, I am perfectly happy to take a walk along the cliff top when I need fresh air.”

  “Yes, I’m sure that’s so,” Stephen said, visibly relieved, seeing his wife’s color mount to an alarming shade of puce. “But should you ever wish to ride, Mistress Hathaway, there’s an old mare in my stables who needs a little gentle exercise. Jackson, my head groom, told me so the other day. A perfect mount for you, nice broad back, gentle gait. You just take her out whenever you wish. I’ll tell Jackson. He’ll make sure you have an experienced groom to accompany you.”

  “You are too kind, Sir Stephen,” Alex murmured, dropping her eyes to her plate.

  But not before Peregrine saw the look of horror cross her face at Stephen’s description of the mare and his solicitous offer of a guiding hand. He smiled to himself. Mistress Hathaway had no more interest in riding a sedate, broad-backed, elderly mare than he would have had. So where had she learned to ride? A bookish childhood spent in an impoverished country vicarage wouldn’t usually provide much access to spirited horseflesh.

  “Ladies.” Maude rose abruptly from the table, her color still high. “Let us withdraw.”

  With relief, Alexandra followed Lady Douglas from the dining room. She glanced longingly at the stairs, wondering if she could make a discreet escape, but Maude instructed sharply, “You must play for us, Mistress Hathaway.”

  Playing in the drawing room after dinner and making a fourth at whist were two tasks that had somehow devolved upon her, and Alexandra could see no way of avoiding either without causing serious offense and making her position even more uncomfortable. She didn’t need to antagonize Maude any more today.

  “Of course, ma’am.” She sketched a curtsy in subdued acknowledgment and followed the ladies into the drawing room, where she took her place at the pianoforte.

  She didn’t consider herself more than an adequate performer, but Maude and her company seemed to have no complaints. If, indeed, they listened, she thought with a dour smile. She selected a Bach prelude, which would provide a pleasant background to their chat, but after five minutes, Maude called, “We’d prefer something livelier, Mistress Hathaway. One of those French folk songs, perhaps, or a country dance. That music is so dreary.”

  Without expression, Alex put aside her music and flexed her fingers.

  “Do you have music? May I turn the page for you?”

  She looked up, startled once again by the almost silent appearance of Peregrine. A quick glance around the drawing room told her that he was the first of the gentlemen to leave the port decanter. “There’s no need, sir. I know the music by heart.” She began to play, acutely conscious of the man standing at her shoulder, a teacup in his hand. She could feel his eyes upon her, could sense the long, supple lines of his body as he leaned closer. Every inch of her was suddenly vibrantly aware of his physical presence, and she almost had to catch her breath.

  Her fingers slipped on the keys, and she took her hands away, pressing her fingertips to her temples.

  “Won’t you go on?” he asked quietly.

  She shook her head, staring down at the black and white keyboard. “There’s no need. No one’s listening.”

  “I was.”

  “You’re too kind, sir.” Her voice was distant as she rose from her stool. “But I’m sure you’ve heard many superior performances.”

  “Maybe so.” He could see little point in denying it. She wouldn’t believe him, anyway, and she clearly had no interest in flattery.

  “So, who’s for cards?” Stephen came in on a wave of port, his inebriated guests crowding behind him. “What shall it be, gentlemen? Bassett, piquet, backgammon?”

  “Chess,” Peregrine said suddenly. “Mistress Hathaway, I challenge you.” He bowed.

  Despite her earlier perturbation, Alexandra felt a rush of excitement. Chess was her game. She played a good game of piquet, but she excelled at chess. And then reality reasserted itself. Was this another of Peregrine’s traps? Every time she accidentally revealed her true self, he was there. And every time it happened, she lost a little of the desperate resolve that enabled her to maintain the charade. She could not afford to weaken herself any further.

  “I find myself a little tired, sir. If you’d excuse me.” She made to move past him, but he laid a hand lightly on her arm.

  “Afraid, Mistress Hathaway?” The penetrating blue eyes were quizzical, but there was a hard determination behind them, and the accompanying smile only increased her dismay. “I may not be your match at whist, but I’ll lay any odds you name that I can take your king.”

  Anger at his persistence
swept through her. To hell with it, she thought abruptly. If he thought he could break her guard, he was in for a surprise. She dipped her head, blinking rapidly. “I do beg you to believe, sir, that I will give you but a sad game.”

  Will you, indeed? he thought with an appreciative smile. Unless he was much mistaken, Mistress Hathaway was incapable of playing a bad game of anything competitive. “Then, if necessary, ma’am, I will weep. But I insist upon a game.”

  On your own head be it. Alex inclined her head in demure acknowledgment. “Very well, sir. If you insist.” She moved aside to a small table in the window, where a chess board was set up. “Will you choose?” She took a white piece and a black piece and held them behind her back.

  “Your right hand,” he said.

  Alexandra uncurled her right hand. “You have the first move, sir.” She put the white pawn on the table and took her seat behind the black pieces.

  Peregrine opened with the standard pawn to king four, and she responded with the customary countermove. Perry brought out his queen’s knight, and for a few moves, they played according to the book, but then Alexandra moved her bishop, exposing her king. Perry blinked. What trick did she have up her sleeve? He examined the board carefully but could see no possible move she could make to recover from the bishop move. He brought his queen into play, threatening her king. “Check.”

  Alexandra frowned and cast him a look of distress. “Oh, dear, I didn’t see that. Now what should I do?” She gazed at the board, her hand hovering tentatively over her king’s rook.

  “You may not castle to move your king out of check,” he reminded her drily.

  “Oh, no, of course not, I forgot.” Her hovering hand dropped into her lap, and her frown deepened as she gazed at the pieces. Then she moved her king one space to the left, out of the queen’s line of fire but by no means out of danger.