by Jane Feather
She was too much of a Douglas to let this pass, and when a strapping lad appeared with the tea chest on his shoulder, she said briskly, “The chimney needs sweeping. There’s probably a bird’s nest up there. Let the fire go out in here, and put a broom up it before morning. Also, ask Mistress Dougherty to bring me tea. I wish to talk with her without delay.”
The lad looked at her with a flicker of respect. From what he’d heard of the talk between the caretakers, Lady Douglas had told them to expect someone of the status of an upper servant, but this lady had a very different air, even though she was hardly dressed like a lady of means. “Right y’are, ma’am.” He set the chest down and vanished
Alex discarded her cloak and walked around the chamber, noting what needed to be done to make it as welcoming as it once was. She turned from wiping a gloved finger down the grimy windowpane as the door opened to admit an elderly woman with a tea tray. “Not got much in the way of tea, mistress,” she said. “Just a bit o’ dust left in the caddy. But I reckon it’ll do.” She set the tray down with a somewhat doubtful air.
“I very much doubt that it will, Mistress Dougherty,” Alex said with a frown. “Where do you normally order your supplies?”
The woman looked a little surprised. “Well, Billings ’n’ me, we don’t need much, just a loaf o’ bread, a pig’s cheek now an’ again, an’ a drop o’ milk, and Billings’s ale, o’ course. I usually gets the necessaries from the barrow boys what comes by every day or so. But they don’t ’ave the likes of tea.” She shook her head. “A bit too refined, that.”
“Well, we’ll have to do better than that.” Alex poured the thin liquid into a cup. It was so pale as to retain almost none of the deep brown she would have expected. “I’ll be here for a week, and I expect a decent cup of tea, Mistress Dougherty, and fresh milk and eggs. We’ll discuss the day’s supplies every morning while I take breakfast.”
“Well, who’s to pay fer this, then?” the woman asked, blinking rapidly.
“Does Sir Stephen not provide you with funds to keep the house running?” Alex knew well that for Stephen, the general management of his estate and tenants’ affairs were of very low priority, but it was hard to believe that he’d leave this couple in charge of such a large house without any funds for essential maintenance.
“Well, now, that Master Riley comes by now an’ again to look the ’ouse over, an’ if there’s summat that needs doin’, then he gives Billings a few shillings. We get by well enough.”
Alexandra knew Master Riley, who had been her father’s agent and estate manager, and Stephen kept him on because he had no idea how to do the job himself. As long as his revenues kept coming in, he never questioned the agent’s business, except when he was required to fund a new roof for a tenant or make repairs to the water mill. Then he moaned and grumbled for days, complaining that his agent was robbing him blind.
No provision had been made for Alexandra’s sojourn in Berkeley Square, so it rather looked as if she was going to have to provide for herself, she reflected grimly.
“I will pay for my own food,” she said. “We’ll discuss the day’s needs every morning, and I will give you the necessary funds.” She set down her teacup with a grimace, looking around at her surroundings again. The neglect was Stephen’s responsibility. If he didn’t provide for the house’s upkeep, then this old couple couldn’t be expected to care for it in any but the most basic fashion. But still, it was upsetting to see what had once been such an elegant and welcoming abode in such a condition.
“I am sure we can do something about this room, Mistress Dougherty. It will cost not a sou to put it to rights. It needs dusting, airing, and the windows cleaned. Would you ensure that’s done before the morning?” She didn’t wait for a response, rising from her chair, continuing with the same brisk determination, “And now I’ll go to my chamber. Would you show me up?”
She knew the way perfectly well, but the housekeeper was not to know that. She followed the woman up the stairs to the small back bedchamber. At least, the fire was not smoking, and an inspection of the bed showed the linen to be freshly laundered. “Bring me some hot water, if you please.” She nodded a pleasant dismissal to the housekeeper, who was not looking best pleased at this disruption to her usual day.
“An’ what’ll you be wantin’ fer your dinner, then?” the woman asked as she turned to leave.
Alexandra thought swiftly. Dinner with Peregrine in the Piazza . . . the very prospect made her toes tap, even though every self-preserving instinct shrieked danger. But it was that or a safe, dreary, and inevitably inadequate meal by the smoking fire in the breakfast parlor. “I shall be dining out this evening. So you need make no preparations,” she said. “We will start afresh in the morning.”
The housekeeper bobbed her head and vanished, reappearing with a jug of tepid water a few minutes later. “Anythin’ else, ma’am?”
Alex shook her head, opening her portmanteau on the bench at the foot of the bed. “No, thank you.”
She examined the contents as the bedchamber door closed on Mistress Dougherty, shaking out the dowdy garments of her charade with a sense of gloom. And then she stopped. Sylvia’s silken parcel lay beneath the hideous bombazine. She untied the ribbons and took out a pale lavender silk saque gown with a small train and a modest décolletage. The lace fichu that had accompanied it was tucked into the folds with a sprig of lavender. She lifted it out, inhaling the delicate fragrance, holding the soft silk against her cheek. It somehow encapsulated her previous life.
Sylvia must have looked through her sister’s wardrobe in the cottage, which held all of her clothes from her life as Alexandra Douglas. And she had not forgotten silk stockings or the stiffened cambric petticoat that would allow the gown to flow from the hips. She had even remembered the dainty lavender kid slippers that went with the gown. What was Sylvia thinking?
But Alexandra knew quite well. Her sister had been thinking about the Honorable Peregrine Sullivan. Alex laid the gown upon the bed, smoothing the silk, a frown corrugating her brow. From earliest childhood, Sylvia’s physical frailty had condemned her to exist on the periphery of other people’s lives. Her only way of participating in those lives was with her eyes and the sharp focus of her intelligence. She saw things below the surface that those who were in the midst of events failed to see. Alex had long respected the accuracy of her sister’s vision. Sylvia had not been a party to Peregrine’s declaration, but she had seen something in the man that her busy sister had missed. Or perhaps had been too scared to acknowledge.
She sank down on the bed, gazing sightlessly at the fire, finally allowing herself to look clearly at everything that had happened since Peregrine Sullivan had walked into Combe Abbey on that first evening. It had been so much simpler to ignore her confusion, to rely on anger at his persistence, rather than attempt to understand what prompted it. Or to attempt to understand why, despite the danger of allowing herself to get close to someone, she was drawn to him in ways that she could not explain.
What if Peregrine’s declaration of love had been sincere? What did that mean? How was she to respond? How did she want to respond? The answer to that last question brought a tantalizing thrill of pleasure, but it was impossible. She could not countenance such a response. Not in the midst of this imbroglio. And if he knew the truth about the whole elaborate fraud she had concocted, then he would fall out of love as quickly as he’d fallen into it.
She looked at the gown, the incredible soft silkiness on the bed. It was singing a siren’s song. Surely, she could permit herself one evening away from the charade. Peregrine would only see what he already knew lay beneath her disguise. She was not revealing anything new to him. But did she dare wear the gown in public?
Of course she did. No one would recognize her. No one had seen her for almost six years, and she looked very different now, even as herself, from the fifteen-year-old she had been on her last visit to London.
With a surge of excitement, she unbuttoned h
er gown and stripped to her chemise. She washed her face and neck, removing all traces of her charade, and then, her fingers trembling slightly, drew on the silk stockings, tying the garters above her knees. She fastened the petticoat at her waist, flicking the stiff folds into position, before stepping into the delicate gown. She hooked the stiffened bodice, which lifted her breasts in a smooth swell above the décolletage, and patted the skirts into place. They flowed over the petticoat just as they should, giving a pleasing curve to her hips and accentuating the narrowness of her waist. She fastened the fichu just above her breasts with the small enameled brooch that was the only piece of jewelry from her past life that she had permitted the librarian.
The mirror was spotted and discolored, but she could still make out the reflection of a young woman in an elegant gown. She pointed a toe, admiring the dainty kid slippers. Her feet were as small-boned as the rest of her, and there had been a time when she’d been rather proud of them. There’d been no place for vanity in the last few months.
She sat down at the dresser and unpinned her hair. Maybe she would wear it loose. It would be such a relief not to have those tight braids or the prim bun at her neck. She brushed out her hair until it shone in a cluster of curling waves on her shoulders. The transformation was complete.
The tall clock in the hall chimed six just as she came downstairs, and in synchrony, the door knocker sounded. Billings shuffled out from the kitchen regions, wiping his mouth on a checkered handkerchief. “I’ll get it, ma’am.” He wrestled with the heavy bolt and pulled the door open. “Oh, ’tis that gennelman what came with you this a’ternoon,” he informed her unnecessarily.
“Thank you, Billings.” She took a step to the door. “Good evening, sir.”
Peregrine’s reaction as he stepped into the hall was everything she had hoped it would be. He looked her over, a sweeping gaze from the glowing rich chestnut head to the toes of her dainty slippers. His eyes widened, and slowly he smiled appreciatively.
“Well, well. Your most obedient servant, ma’am.” He doffed his hat and made a flourishing bow. “I hoped only to escort a sharp-tongued young woman in a pretty, if simple and rather countrified, muslin gown. Instead, I find myself keeping company with an exquisite diamond of the first water.”
Alexandra returned the bow with a deep curtsy of equal formality. Despite her misgivings, her eyes were sparkling with pleasure at the extravagant compliment and, she had to admit, with the delightful feeling that, extravagant or not, it was entirely justified. If her life had proceeded as it should have done, she would have had her debutante season two years earlier, and this lovely sense of pride in knowing that she looked every inch the Society lady would be so familiar as to be barely worth remarking. As it was, it was really the first time that full-grown Alexandra Douglas had experienced herself as the woman she had become, even, if she was permitted a little vanity, the rather attractive grown woman she should always have been if the fates had dealt her another hand. And for the moment, under the appreciative gaze of the Honorable Peregrine Sullivan, she could revel in it.
“You are too kind, sir. I must protest such fulsome compliments.”
He laughed, shaking his head. “Not a bit of it. Come, let us go out upon the town, Mistress Alexandra, and show the world this entrancing new face.” He offered his velvet-clad arm.
Alex laid her hand upon his arm, turning to Billings as she gathered up her skirts in her free hand. “Do not wait up for me, Billings. Leave the key to the side door on the ledge above the doorframe.” She didn’t stop to see the retainer’s reaction to this instruction and stepped out into the cool air of evening, filled with a buoyant sense of promise.
“You seem very familiar with the side entrance to a house you’ve never visited before,” Perry observed.
“No, but I know there must be a side door, and all doors have ledges above the frame,” she responded. It seemed plausible enough, she thought, and Peregrine offered no other comment.
The evening bustle had already begun. Link boys ran up and down the street with their torches, sedan chairmen plied their trade on every corner, carriages with arms emblazoned upon the panels clattered over the cobbles. Alexandra was aware of a surge of excitement. This was all so new, so thrilling, that for a short while, she could forget the trials and tribulations of her present existence.
Perry raised a hand to a hovering hackney, and the jarvey brought the vehicle over. “The Piazza,” Perry instructed as he opened the door, assisting Alex inside with a hand under her elbow. She settled on the bench, turning to look through the window as the carriage started forward. It was a novel experience, being carried through the streets of London in a common hackney, and the streets themselves fascinated her as she gazed out at the passing scene. On the infrequent visits she and Sylvia had paid to Berkeley Square, they had never been permitted to leave the house after dusk, and when they left in the daytime, it was always closely chaperoned in the family carriage.
Peregrine sat opposite, watching her face in the flickering lights of the link boys’ torches. Her expression was one of fascination, as if a whole new world was opening up before her eyes. So, what is she? Her present dress indicated that at some point in her past, it had been intended that she should be a part of this world, and her manner, her speech, her unusual education, and the natural assurance that, as Mistress Hathaway, she worked so hard to conceal under a façade of intimidated diffidence all pointed to a destiny very different from the one she presently inhabited.
Not that this told him anything he didn’t already know. It merely added fuel to the fire. As they approached Drury Lane, he said casually, “Maybe you should have another alias for this kind of excursion.”
Alex looked at him, startled. “What do you mean?”
“Well, merely that Mistress Hathaway is a spinster lady of a certain age, devoted to her books, and in the employ of Sir Stephen Douglas. You’ve made it clear that you’re not prepared to reveal your true identity, an identity that might go some way to explaining your present guise, so it seems logical that for this third identity, you should probably have a different name. If we happen to meet anyone I know, I will have to introduce you, and I find myself at something of a loss.” He smiled a deprecating smile that didn’t fool her for a moment.
“A third identity seems unnecessarily complicated,” she returned.
He shrugged. “If you’ll forgive me, ma’am, the complication is entirely of your own making.”
“It most certainly is not, sir. You were the one who insisted upon this public evening,” she retorted.
He smiled again. “But you, my dear girl, were the one who agreed to it.”
There was no answer to that. Alex regarded him across the narrow space between them with a mixture of resignation and irritation. “I don’t know why you so enjoy putting me at a disadvantage.”
He held up his hands in a gesture of defense. “But that is never my intention, Alexandra, believe me. I’m trying to part an opaque veil of confusion, and you won’t tear aside a single thread to lighten my darkness.”
Alexandra leaned an elbow on the windowsill, staring out at the crowds thronging the streets around Covent Garden’s Great Piazza. Her sensible, rational self told her that Peregrine was quite right. And she probably had no right to expect this level of accommodation from him. So far, he had shown himself willing to go along with whatever charade she was enacting, but how long could she expect him to continue doing so when she refused to give him anything to help him understand why it was necessary?
But then, she reflected, he had pushed himself into this hornet’s nest without an invitation. Why should she compromise the play to reward him for his interference?
Except . . . and it was a big except. His presence was becoming indispensable to her comfort. As she threaded her way through the maze of her deception, Peregrine’s physical presence gave her strength, brought her reassurance and comfort.
The realization shocked her even as she knew it
was telling her nothing she hadn’t already tacitly accepted. She had been so dreadfully alone navigating the rocky channels of her charade that having just one person she could be herself with had somehow become essential to her comfort. She had come to rely upon his presence, even as she raged against his interference. And with this realization came the acknowledgment that the emotional confusion of the last few days was of her own making, and only she could untangle its strands.
She turned to look at him again, feeling the warm concern in his gaze, contrasting with the quizzical gleam in the blue eyes. “Can you think of a suitable alias? I confess my imagination has run dry.”
“I doubt that,” he responded with a flicker of a smile. “But why don’t we take the path of mystery? What d’you think of Mistress Player?”
“It sounds contrived.”
“But of course. ’Tis the beauty of it. For obvious reasons, you cannot belong to the social world you so clearly do belong to, so try another role. As Mistress Player, you could be a courtesan, an actor . . . any one of the dozens of beautiful women who must earn their bread in a certain stratum of London Society. No one will question it. And most will simply assume that you are my mistress.”
“Oh?” Alex began to see the appeal in this. In this unrestricted aspect of London Society, she could have all the freedom of one who had no constraints on her behavior. She could let the inner, playful Alex, whom she barely remembered, run free. And in Berkeley Square, she could be the solemn purveyor of rare volumes. Until she was obliged to return to Combe Abbey, she was free to play on whatever stage she chose, with Peregrine as her opposite.
And then she took in the import of his last words. His mistress. How does one playact a mistress?