An Unsuitable Bride

by Jane Feather

  She couldn’t bear to wear them, not here, not when she didn’t have to.

  For a moment, she stood deep in thought. When her mother had left for the last time, she remembered the dreadful morning when her father had instructed the servants to remove all trace of his wife from her bedchamber and boudoir. Her gowns, her shoes, her cloaks and pelisses, bonnets and shawls, all had gone up to the attics, to be locked away in iron-bound chests. Were they still there?

  It was highly likely, she thought. No one would have remembered that they were up there, and when her father had died and Stephen had inherited, he and Maude had not opened the London house properly. Maude had told Alex that they were going to open it for this winter’s Season, but judging by its present state of neglect, preparations were well in the future.

  She made her way to the attic stairs at the back of the house and hurried up. The dust was even worse up there than in the rest of the house. The storage attic was just as she remembered it. Nothing seemed to have been disturbed. Discarded furniture lay around in a jumbled heap, chests and trunks were stacked against the sloping wall, and a faint gray light came from the small windows set into the slopes of the ceiling.

  There was just enough light to see by, and Alex went to the stacked chests and trunks. She knelt down and examined them. They were not locked, there was nothing in them to steal, but which ones held her mother’s clothes? She opened one at random, lifting the lid carefully. The scent of cedar filled the air, and her mother’s wardrobe lay in carefully tissue-wrapped folds in front of her.

  The styles would be at least five years out of date, but her mother had always dressed in the forefront of fashion, so maybe they wouldn’t look dreadfully old-fashioned. She started to lift them out, one by one, laying them over an old discarded sofa. They were lovely; her mother had never spared any expense on her clothes, and her husband, to Alex’s knowledge, had never complained. He hadn’t really seen his wife in her full regalia, anyway, since he never accompanied her in her frequent forays to town or the Continent.

  At the bottom of the trunk, she found what she was looking for. A dark green riding habit. The coat, to be worn over a cream silk waistcoat, was fitted and had a black velvet collar and cuffs. The skirt was full, with a little train, and there was even a black hat with gold edging. She could wear her own breeches beneath the skirt, and her own boots.

  Alex gathered up her spoils and sped back to her bedchamber. She cast off the dull green gown and stepped into the breeches. The waistcoat fit fairly well, but her mother was rather better endowed than Alex. However, the coat would cover a multitude of sins. She buttoned the skirt to the waistcoat and shook out the folds. Then she slipped on the coat. It was not such a tight fit on her as it would have been on her mother, but it was still pleasingly shaped, she decided, examining her reflection in the spotted mirror. She twisted her hair into a knot at her nape and tried on the hat.

  It was quite startling. She could almost imagine that it was her mother standing there in the mirror. It made her feel rather strange. She knew she and Sylvia both had their mother’s coloring, but she hadn’t given much thought to the resemblance in the last few years. She wondered what Sylvia would say if she could see her sister now as she went downstairs to await Peregrine.

  He arrived punctually, as always, and Alex opened the door for him herself, before Billings could emerge from his kitchen lair.

  Peregrine’s eyebrows crawled into his scalp as he took in her appearance. “Where did that come from? ’Tis most fetching.”

  She shrugged. “I found it in the attic. I don’t know who it belongs to, but since there’s no one in the house but me and the caretakers, I thought it wouldn’t matter if I borrowed it.”

  “I’m sure you’re right,” he said. “I, for one, most definitely approve. Are you quite ready? Shall we go?” He held the door for her, and she stepped out into the street.

  “Oh, what a pretty mare,” she exclaimed, hurrying down the steps to where the mare was tethered with Sam to the hitching post beside the railings. “She looks far too elegant to be a jobbing horse.” She stroked the animal’s silky neck.

  “Oh, she’s not. I borrowed her,” he told her, untethering the reins. “Her name’s Griselda.”

  “Who does she belong to?” She bent her knee so that he could toss her up into the saddle.

  “My sister-in-law. Lady Blackwater.”

  “Didn’t she mind lending her to a stranger?” Alex settled into the side saddle, leaning forward to reassure the mare with a pat on her neck.

  “I assured Clarissa that I had seen you ride.” He swung onto Sam.

  “What else did you tell her about me?” Alex asked uneasily.

  “Why, nothing at all,” he responded with a fair degree of truth. “My family is notoriously uncurious, my dear girl. We don’t probe into each other’s business unless invited.”

  “How reassuring,” Alex murmured, although her uneasiness persisted.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Lady Maude Douglas entered the librarian’s corner bedchamber at Combe Abbey and closed and locked the door behind her. She had no wish to be disturbed by her husband. He was so enamored of Mistress Hathaway that he would probably have some scruples about searching her chamber in her absence. Maude had no such scruples. As far as she was concerned, the woman was a servant, and everything about her should be laid bare for her employer’s scrutiny.

  The chamber was neat, no stray objects lying around. Maude looked through the pile of books on the night table, but they meant nothing to her, and several of them were in Latin. She put them back and pulled aside the coverlet on the bed. People sometimes kept secrets under their pillows or the mattress, but there was nothing revealing in this bed.

  She opened the armoire and riffled through the contents. Nothing she hadn’t expected, just a few more of the librarian’s ghastly gowns and spinsterish shawls. The drawers of the dresser revealed only thick stockings, ugly chemises, and much-mended petticoats.

  Methodically, Maude went through every drawer and explored every corner of the armoire and linen press. She didn’t know what she expected to find, but she was convinced that there would be something revealing about the woman who occupied the chamber. No one could have so little personality, such a nonexistent background, as Mistress Alexandra Hathaway. She was a cipher, and Maude distrusted her with an instinctual suspicion. Quite apart from the fact that she disliked the woman intensely. Whenever she was with her, she felt as if the librarian were looking down on her in some way, felt herself to be superior. It was a feeling Lady Douglas couldn’t shake, however absurd it was.

  Stephen, of course, was blinded by the woman’s ability to make him money. She could do no wrong as long as she continued to increase his fortune, but Maude knew when someone was taking advantage of her, or her husband. She had an infallible nose for such things, and she was convinced that Mistress Hathaway was hiding something, taking advantage of her position in some fashion, and the blanker the canvas, the more obvious it seemed to her. Stephen assured her that Mistress Hathaway had brought letters of reference, excellent testimonials from two gentlemen whose libraries she had catalogued. She was also invaluable, according to these gentlemen, when it came to acquiring rare volumes. She could be relied upon to know when a book was genuinely valuable and what price should be put upon it.

  Maude had insisted upon reading these glowing references, but they were to her mind infuriatingly general. Nowhere could she discover anything about the librarian on a personal level. The woman had vaguely mentioned a village rectory in her past, an educated but impoverished clergyman for a father, but no evidence to support such a background. It was as if she had materialized from the ether. But the plain fact of the matter as far as Sir Stephen was concerned was that she was as good as, if not better than, the references had implied. As far as his wife knew, he had never followed them up.

  Maude got down on her knees and peered beneath the bed. Nothing there but a chamber pot and
a few dust balls. She stood up and looked around again in frustration. There must be some clue to the woman, but it was as if she inhabited the chamber without actually making an imprint upon it.

  But then Maude had another thought. If there was anything suspicious to be found, surely it stood to reason that Mistress Hathaway would have removed it when she’d gone to London. Someone up to no good would not leave incriminating evidence behind. And the woman was undeniably clever. She would not make mistakes. The very fact of this chamber’s sterile appearance was evidence of a kind that the woman had something to hide.

  When Mistress Hathaway returned, Maude decided, she would search again. She left the chamber as she had found it, closing the door behind her.

  Stephen, who was just returning from a shooting expedition, emerged from the gun room as his wife came down the stairs. He saw at once that she was in one of her moods, her mouth pursed, her eyes seeming smaller than usual. “Good morning, my dear.” He tried for a cheerful greeting, hoping that it would turn aside any complaints.

  “It may be so for you, Stephen,” she said. “You have nothing but pleasure to occupy you. I have a host of duties and no one but incompetent servants to assist me.”

  “What in particular is distressing you now, Maude?” His voice was resigned.

  “As I’ve told you repeatedly, that governess is useless. She cannot control the children. I discovered Isabel in the kitchen in a stained pinafore, eating jam straight out of the jar. A baronet’s daughter behaving like a street urchin! That librarian should involve herself with the children, as I’ve said before. At least, she purports to have some education, unlike that useless specimen in the schoolroom.”

  Stephen sighed. “Mistress Hathaway is fully occupied with my affairs, Maude. I don’t know how many times I must repeat that. And when she returns from London, she will continue in the library.”

  “When she returns from London,” Maude said with a sniff. “How do you know she’s conducting your business conscientiously in town? There’s no one to supervise her. She could be amusing herself in any way she pleases at your expense. I would never have let her go alone.”

  Stephen regarded her in astonishment. “Are you really suggesting, ma’am, that Mistress Hathaway could possibly be entertaining herself in London? Mistress Hathaway.” He laughed. “She’s such a timid mouse, I doubt she’ll set foot outside the house. Think of her appearance, my dear. She’s hardly dressed for town dissipation.”

  Maude was obliged to admit the truth of this, although she wasn’t about to give her husband such a victory. “Well, I don’t have time for idle conversation, Sir Stephen.” She swept past him in the hall and went into her own parlor, closing the door with a bang behind her.

  Stephen shook his head. He had thought their social elevation would have pleased Maude, but she seemed, if anything, even harder to satisfy. She was finding it difficult to establish herself among the Dorsetshire County families, or at least to feel that she was accepted as an equal. Her life until her husband had so unexpectedly succeeded to the baronetcy had been that of the wife of a successful Bristol trader, one of the most prominent in Bristol’s lively shipping industry. She had held court as the undisputed leader of their social circle, but country and County life had very different rules and very different hierarchies. She felt looked down upon much of the time, and Stephen couldn’t see how to remedy the situation if Maude herself would do nothing to ingratiate herself. She seemed to think that behaving with consequence and superiority would automatically give her both. But in this thoroughly entrenched society, she merely appeared a parvenu.

  He, however, was perfectly content to be agreeable, to offer hospitality and welcome his neighbors to hunt, shoot, and fish his lands. As a result, he knew himself to be well liked. But living with Maude when she was disappointed and unhappy was a most disagreeable business.

  Alexandra loved Richmond Park from the first moment they rode through the gates. The shaded grassy rides through alleys of trees were almost as delightful as riding in the country. Occasionally, they would run into small parties of fellow horsemen, but for the most part, they rode in peaceful solitude, disturbing grazing deer here and there and scaring up pheasants from the undergrowth.

  “ ’Tis amazing to think this wilderness exists so close to London,” she observed, watching a fawn with its mother disappear into the trees ahead.

  “ ’Tis hardly a wilderness,” Perry said. “There’s an entire army of gamekeepers and wardens employed to keep the wildlife plentiful for shooting and to replant the woodland when necessary. Richmond has been the playground of royalty since before the Norman conquest.”

  “Thank you for disillusioning me,” Alex said with a mock frown. “May we gallop?”

  “Certainly. ’Tis not Hyde Park, where such freedom is frowned upon.”

  Alex nudged the mare with her heels. “Come, then, Griselda, let us see what you can do.” The horse broke into a canter and then a gallop, with Alex riding low in the saddle, leaning into the animal’s neck. Peregrine watched her for a few moments, smiling at the uninhibited enjoyment radiating from the flying figures, and then gave Sam his head. The horse had been straining to follow Griselda and leaped forward, closing the distance between them.

  Alexandra heard the pounding hooves behind her and whispered encouragement to Griselda, but after a few minutes, she drew back on the reins, sensing that her mare was giving as much as she had.

  Peregrine drew up beside her. “Where did you learn to ride like that? The inhabitants of impoverished country vicarages don’t usually have the opportunity.”

  Alex shook her head. “I don’t know why you persist in asking these questions, Peregrine. I’ve said I won’t lie to you, but I won’t answer you, either.”

  “You can’t blame a man for trying.”

  She made no response, but some of the brightness had gone out of the day, and Peregrine sensed that her lighthearted enjoyment in the ride had been spoiled. “There’s a very charming hostelry in the village of Richmond, on the river,” he said cheerfully. “I thought we might take dinner there.”

  “And ride home in the dark afterwards? Is that wise?”

  “I thought that perhaps we would not ride back afterwards,” he said deliberately. “The hostelry has some very pleasant chambers overlooking the river.”

  “Oh, I see.” Alex felt her spirits rise again. As long as she was in Berkeley Square in the morning to receive any responses to her letters, there was absolutely no reason she should return there for the night. “That sounds delightful, sir.”

  He smiled. “Good.”

  They rode for another hour, until the sun was dipping low in the sky, and then Peregrine turned his horse back to the entrance of the park. The little village of Richmond lay immediately outside the park on the banks of the River Thames. The Coach and Horses was a whitewashed, thatched-roof building with an ale garden on the riverbank. Wisteria clung to the walls, framing the mullioned windows and the front door.

  They drew up outside the entrance, and the bewigged landlord emerged instantly. He bowed, his belly straining against the buttons of his brown waistcoat. He was beaming a welcome, but his eyes, like little brown buttons, were sharply assessing the quality of his potential guests. He seemed to find that quality satisfactory, as his bow deepened.

  “Good evening, ma’am, sir.” He rubbed his plump hands together as they dismounted. “Welcome to my humble establishment. I’ll send a groom to take the ’orses, sir.” He yelled over his shoulder, and a boy appeared at a run. “Take the ’orses, rub ’em down, and give ’em a bran mash.”

  Peregrine nodded his approval. “Dinner and a chamber for the night, mine host. We’ve overstayed our time in the park, and I’ve no wish to ride back to town in the dark.”

  “Oh, right y’are, sir.” It explained his customers’ lack of luggage. “Yes, indeed. We’ve an oyster stew and roast partridges in the ordinary, but if you was wantin’ a private parlor, we could do summat spe
cial fer yer dinner.”

  Peregrine nodded. In normal circumstances, he would not have spent good money on a private parlor, but these circumstances were not normal. “Yes, that will do fine, thank you.”

  “Will madam be needing a truckle bed for ’er maid?” The landlord looked around rather pointedly. In general, unattended ladies of fashion did not stop at the Coach and Horses.

  “No, I won’t.” Alexandra spoke up with the natural haughtiness that Perry had noticed before. “My maid became unwell, and we were obliged to send her back to town early this afternoon.”

  “I see, ma’am.” The man bowed again. There was nothing about the lady’s manner to indicate that she was not the lady she appeared to be. Besides, it was all good custom, after all, whether or not she was no better than she should be. A private parlor was his business, nothing else. “If you’d follow me, sir . . . ma’am. I’ll send one of the girls up with ’ot water to wait upon you, ma’am.”

  They followed him into the inn. Oil lamps were already lit, and there was a pleasing air of order about the establishment. They were shown first to a private parlor upstairs and then to a commodious bedchamber across the corridor, overlooking the river.

  “This will do very well.” Peregrine discarded his riding cloak, whip, and gloves. “I will await you in the parlor, my dear, while you refresh yourself.”

  Alexandra curtsied her acknowledgment with a hidden smile. Peregrine was as good a playactor as she was herself. The considerate husband was a part that seemed to suit him rather well.

  Peregrine left her and went into the private parlor, where a bright fire and wax candles burned.

  “And would you be wantin’ to order anything special for yer dinner, sir?” inquired the landlord, who had followed him into the room.

  “I don’t think so. Oyster stew and roast partridge will do us very well. But you may bring a bottle of your best burgundy and a decanter of Madeira, if you please.”