An Unsuitable Bride

by Jane Feather

  My love as always,

  S.

  Alex sat with the letter in her lap for a long while. How dare he? After everything she had said, after begging him to accept her as she was, he was still probing, asking questions, trying to catch her out. He was making her position untenable without beginning to understand the stakes involved. Had he no sense of the danger she stood in if she were found out? And now he was no longer confining his questions to her. He was spying on her behind her back, putting her friends into impossible positions if they were to protect her. Forcing Helene to lie to protect her. Oh, it was unforgivable.

  She wrestled with the urge to search him out immediately, track him down wherever he was, and confront him with such a dastardly cowardly betrayal. She was half out of her chair but then sat back again. Acting on impulse, particularly when her temper was roused, had always been a mistake. And maybe there was some excuse for his actions. Maybe loving someone who would give him nothing of herself could explain a need to discover what he could for himself. He was not a passive man, not someone who would run from a challenge. Could she blame him?

  He did truly love her. She knew that in every fiber of her being, just as she knew now how much she loved the Honorable Peregrine Sullivan. It was a love tinged with sadness, because it would come to nothing. And that was why she could not speak the words he wanted to hear. He could sense her love, intuit it, experience it, but she could never speak it.

  The sons of earls did not marry the bastard daughters of insignificant baronets, let alone those daughters who were also master embezzlers.

  But maybe there was an answer, one that Peregrine had already suggested.

  Alex let her head fall back against the cushions of the chair and closed her eyes, indulging herself for a moment in a dream that she could almost imagine a reality. A mistress of independent means.

  “Any news of Seb and Serena?” Jasper asked his brother as they sat before the library fire in Upper Brook Street. “D’you expect them back soon?”

  “I know no more than you, Jasper.” Peregrine sipped his sherry. “Sebastian’s been an unreliable correspondent on this voyage. I feel quite bereft of news.”

  “They had three years of wreckage to repair,” Jasper said, indolently resting his boot on the andiron. “We mustn’t begrudge them a few months to themselves.”

  “Certainly, I don’t,” Perry responded. “But I own I do miss them both. Seb, of course, but Serena grew on me, once I got to know her.”

  “We both had our prejudices,” his brother agreed. His eyes, which had been half closed, snapped open abruptly, and their sharp black gaze fixed on Perry. “So, tell me about your mysterious theatre companion.”

  “I can’t,” Perry said simply. “I don’t know anything myself. Oh, I know she’s clever, I can’t defeat her at chess, she can talk astronomy with Maskelyne, and she rides like a gentlewoman, but I also know she’s practicing some monumental fraud on the world for purposes that I strongly suspect are probably criminal, and I love her. Hopelessly, helplessly.” He shrugged and drained his glass. “Does that answer your question, Jasper?”

  “Merely raises a whole host of others,” the earl replied. “Does she return your regard?”

  “I believe so. But for yet more reasons of her own, she cannot say so.” Perry uncurled himself from the chair and stood up, stretching. “I never expected to find myself in this pickle, Jasper. ’Tis the very devil.”

  “What are you doing about it?”

  “Persistence, just persistence.” Peregrine went to the door. “I must go. I’m engaged to join a discussion on a new translation of Homer’s Odyssey. It promises to be lively.”

  “I’m certain it does,” Jasper murmured. “Enjoy Garrick tonight. I gather he’s magnificent. Clarissa saw him the other night while I was engaged in a debate in the Lords.”

  “I have every expectation of doing so.” Perry raised a hand in farewell and left his brother to his brief repose.

  He spent a pleasant afternoon in White’s Coffee House with a group of like-minded Homer scholars and returned to Stratton Street to dress, dine alone, and then collect Alexandra for the theatre.

  Alexandra, having achieved a degree of reconciliation with herself, went up to the attic for further exploration among her mother’s long-discarded wardrobe. She found a pink silk robe à la française embroidered in an enchanting sprig pattern in palest apple green. Darker green velvet banded the sleeves at the elbow, and a cascade of lace fell to her wrists. The décolletage was deeper than she had ever worn before, and this gown had no fichu. But then, she was no longer a virginal debutante, Alex thought with a wicked chuckle. She could bare her breasts with the best of them. She found a delicate mother-of-pearl fan and pink kid slippers with a small heel. There was no jewelry in the attic chests, but then, she hadn’t expected there to be. If her mother had left any, her father would have kept it. But Alex didn’t think her mother had left anything of value. As flighty as Luisa could appear when it suited her, she had a shrewd head.

  Something else that she had inherited from her mother, Alex thought as she examined herself in the glass. The resemblance to Luisa was as striking tonight as it had been before. Her décolletage was not as stunning as Alex remembered her mother’s to be, but side by side, everyone would know them for mother and daughter.

  She went down to the breakfast parlor with no great hopes for dinner. She had given Mistress Dougherty some money and asked her to prepare a simple meal, so she was pleasantly surprised at the dish of sautéed calves’ livers with creamed leeks, removed with a fine piece of Stilton cheese and an apple pie. It was certainly simple but well cooked. When she had finished, she went into the kitchen to compliment the cook.

  The caretakers and Archie were eating their own dinner when Alex entered the kitchen. She raised a hand as they pushed to their feet. “No, please, don’t disturb yourselves. I came only to thank you for an excellent dinner, Mistress Dougherty.”

  “Well, I’m glad it pleased you, ma’am.” The housekeeper sat back at the table. “We’re ’avin’ a bite o’ beef ’earts, but I thought as ’ow ye’d prefer summat a bit more refined like.”

  Alexandra smiled her agreement. “Well, thank you again, and enjoy your dinner. I shall be going out later.”

  “An’ will ye be comin’ back t’night, ma’am?” Billings asked through a mouthful of fried onions.

  “You may leave the key above the ledge at the side door, as usual,” she said, resorting to the haughty tone of the mistress once again.

  “Oh, aye. As you say, ma’am.” Billings reached for his ale pot and buried his nose in it. Mistress Dougherty merely nodded, and Alex took her departure.

  It was close to eight, and she reread Sylvia’s letter, trying to decide whether, now that she had cooled off, to challenge Peregrine with the contents or leave it be. Was anything to be gained by challenging him with it? By opening the discussion herself, she would be giving him the opportunity for more questions, and she was beginning to feel increasingly vulnerable under his probing. She tried to keep up her guard, but it was so hard to do now. How could she keep her innermost self from him when she opened her body to him with such wholehearted delight? In those glorious sensual tangles on the bed, when her skin melded with his, when she could feel his heart beat as if it were her own, she wanted nothing more than to share every thought, every hope, every inch of herself with him.

  No, Alex decided. For the moment, she would let this particular sleeping dog lie. She folded Sylvia’s letter and took it up to her chamber. She tucked it into a concealed pocket in her portmanteau and took up her cloak and gloves, then ran downstairs just as the knocker sounded. She reached the door before Billings emerged from the kitchen and opened it herself.

  Peregrine stood smiling on the doorstep, dressed in rich black velvet with creamy Mechlin lace frothing at his throat and wrists. His fair hair shone guinea gold against the deep black, and his blue eyes took on an almost purple hue. He absorbed Al
ex’s appearance with a wordless nod of appreciation as he bowed and offered his arm.

  “What a magnificent conveyance,” Alex said, seeing the large coach in the street behind him, its panels emblazoned with the Blackwater arms. “The earl’s?”

  “Yes, I borrowed it to go with the theatre box,” Perry said, escorting Alex to the carriage. “We might as well start the evening appropriately.”

  The coachman had let down the footstep and bowed. “Good evening, madam.”

  “Good evening.” She returned the greeting with a smile and stepped up into the coach. The interior was well-worn but still comfortably luxurious despite its rather old-fashioned appearance. Perry stepped in beside her and draped a fur robe across her lap.

  “What luxury.” She settled back as the coach moved forward. “I feel as if I’m living under false pretenses.”

  “As indeed you are,” Perry said. “You should be used to it by now.”

  “I suppose you’re entitled to that,” Alexandra responded, stung.

  “Oh, I didn’t mean it unkindly,” he protested, taking her hand. “I was just stating a truth.”

  “I’d like to enjoy this evening without being reminded at every turn.”

  “I don’t think I do that, do I?” he asked seriously.

  “I don’t think you can help it.” She took her hand back and plaited her fingers restlessly. She had to accept that she was living a lie, but there was no reason she should feel happy about it.

  Peregrine was silent for a moment, then he said, “I pledge to do everything in my power for the rest of this evening not to give that impression.” He reached out and turned her face towards him in the darkened carriage. “Will that do?”

  She smiled with a hint of sadness. “Thank you.” He might promise such a thing, but she wouldn’t be able to forget.

  But once they reached the theatre, Alex discovered that in the magic of the glittering crowd, the brilliantly lit theatre, the velvet and brocade box, the noisy, chattering throngs in the pit, she forgot everything except the moment. She gazed transfixed with fascination around the boxes, with their lavishly dressed occupants, the ladies with high powdered coiffures, peering through opera glasses at the inhabitants of the neighboring boxes, fanning themselves under the heat of the chandeliers and the humid press of highly perfumed bodies. She was quickly aware that many of those opera glasses were trained upon the Blackwater box, and she could almost hear the buzz of gossip as people whispered and pointed.

  “We seem to be as much of an attraction as the stage,” she murmured to Peregrine behind her fan.

  “We’ll have visitors in the interval, I daresay,” he returned. “But they’ll know nothing, and they’ll discover nothing. People just love intrigue, particularly when it smacks of an illicit affaire.”

  “Which is, after all, for once entirely the truth,” Alex said with a mischievous chuckle that gladdened her companion’s heart. The part of the Honorable Peregrine’s unknown mistress was one she could enjoy playing without an ounce of guilt. She leaned forward, resting her arms along the padded edge of the box, looking down into the pit.

  One or two of the young bucks were ogling the occupants of the boxes through quizzing glasses, and Alex returned their stares with unabashed curiosity until Perry said urgently, “Sit back, Alexandra. That’s the worst kind of attention you can attract. ’Tis one thing to be the discreet object of interest among the fashionable set, quite another to be an object to be ogled by the bucks in the pit as if you were no better than a denizen of a nunnery.”

  “Oh, I beg your pardon.” Alex sat back instantly. “I’m not accustomed to drawing any kind of attention, so I’m not adept at telling which kind is good and which is not.”

  “Mistress Hathaway, of course, makes it her mission in life to fade into the background,” Peregrine said. Then he sighed. “Forgive me, I was forgetting my pledge.”

  Alex made no response. She was too fascinated by the scene around her to be bothered by such reminders this evening. The initial appearance of the actors stepping onto the stage did little to quiet the buzz of the audience throughout the first scene. People were still entering the theatre, taking their seats in the boxes, waving and calling greetings to acquaintances across the theatre.

  Alexandra was outraged as the actors struggled to make themselves heard throughout the first scene, but it all changed in the second scene, when David Garrick as Hamlet strode onto the stage. He was a man in his mid-forties, but his lithe figure, his utter assurance in the part, the wealth of power and emotion that invested his performance made it irrelevant that he was playing the part of a man less than half his age. The theatre fell completely silent the moment he began to speak, and Alex leaned forward again, her gaze riveted to the stage, and she barely moved a muscle until the interval.

  Only when the last actor had left the stage did she sit back and draw a deep breath. She gazed at Perry. “I have never been so transported.”

  “No,” he said with a smile. “I could see that you were. Garrick is magnificent.” He turned as the door to the box opened behind him. “Ah, gentlemen, good evening.” He greeted the trio who crowded into the box.

  Alexandra responded to introductions with what she hoped was a mysterious smile. One set of visitors was replaced by a second and a third, and throughout she kept her seat and spoke only as much as courtesy demanded. Peregrine was giving nothing away, either, engaging only in the most innocuous small talk. Their visitors were all gentlemen, the ladies remaining in their seats to receive their own visitors. When movements on the stage indicated that the play was starting again, the gentlemen returned in leisurely fashion to their own seats, and the chatter died down again.

  Once again, Alex was transported until Garrick made his final bow to tumultuous applause, shouts, and cheers. Only then did she take her eyes from the stage to glance around the theatre again. And her breath seemed to stop in her chest. In the box directly across from her sat a lady in a gown of crimson damask, a diamond pendant nestled in her deep décolletage. Her dark chestnut hair was unpowdered but dressed over pads in a high coiffure studded with diamond pins. Her gray eyes were unusually large and bright, and they were fixed in bemused question upon Alexandra.

  Luisa. What in the devil’s name was her mother doing in the Drury Lane Theatre? Alexandra dragged her gaze away, just as Luisa turned to her companion. Alexandra scrambled to her feet, and Perry seized her arm. “What is it? You’re white as a sheet. You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.”

  “I have,” she mumbled. “I must go, now.” Blindly, she tried to push past him to the door, but he blocked her path.

  “Yes, we will go,” he said in a calm, low tone. “But not in such disorder. Everyone will stare at you, and I know you don’t want that. Now, take a breath.”

  “I have to get out of here before she finds me.”

  “You’re making no sense. But we are going now. Just take my arm, and walk steadily. We won’t stop, and if anyone speaks to us, leave it to me.”

  The cool steadiness of his tone calmed her, and she swallowed the rising panic. Her mouth was unpleasantly dry, and she seemed to find it difficult to draw a deep enough breath, but she took Perry’s arm and let him lead her out into the thronged foyer. The doors stood open to the freedom of the Piazza just a few feet away, and she found it easier to look down at the floor and let Perry guide her, moving through the crowd with a touch on an arm here, a shoulder there, stopping for no one.

  They were almost at the doors when she heard what she had been dreading. “Alexandra? Alexandra, is that really you? Wait a moment.”

  Alex put her head down and pushed through the throng, heedless of Peregrine’s attempt to restrain her with a hand on her arm.

  Peregrine let her go and turned to look behind him. A chestnut-haired woman with striking gray eyes stood a few paces away, staring after Alexandra’s retreating figure as it disappeared through the doors to the street beyond.

  Peregrine turned and hurr
ied out of the theatre into the Piazza, where a light drizzle had started. He glimpsed Alexandra almost running along the colonnade. The Blackwater coach was waiting in the line of private carriages, and he jumped in, instructing the coachman, “Go slowly towards King Street. We will pick up Mistress Hathaway there.” He pulled the door closed but leaned out through the open window as the coachman set the horses to a slow walk, following Alexandra.

  As she turned onto King Street, Peregrine opened the door, blocking her path. “Get in, Alexandra.” She stared at him, her eyes wide with fear. “Come,” he insisted, reaching down a hand to her. “You’ll catch your death. It’s raining.” He spoke quietly, calmly, hoping his voice would reassure her. The fear in her eyes astounded him even as it horrified him.

  Slowly, she took his hand and climbed into the carriage. He pulled the door closed as she sat in the corner, abruptly closing her eyes. Peregrine sat opposite and said nothing as the carriage moved through the crowds.

  Not a word was spoken throughout a journey that to Alexandra seemed interminable. She was afraid every time the vehicle was brought to a near stop by a surge of pedestrians or a stray dog or an oncoming vehicle that she would see her mother peering through the window at her. She knew it was an irrational fear, but she couldn’t seem to shake free of it.