An Unsuitable Bride Page 6

  Restless, Alex got up from the desk. She couldn’t concentrate on her work. A brisk stroll along the cliff path would refresh her mind, concentrate her thoughts properly. She went up to her chamber for her hooded cloak and gloves and took the backstairs to the kitchen. Preparations for dinner were in full swing, and no one acknowledged the almost insubstantial presence of the librarian. She was so self-effacing, so reluctant to draw attention to herself, that over the months, she had succeeded in moving around the house almost as if she was invisible. Now she let herself out the back door into the kitchen garden and took the path to the gate in the brick wall that led to the side path.

  The wind was quite brisk, and she was glad of her cloak as she took a narrow alley between rows of fruit trees in the orchard and from there to the cliff top.

  She walked for half an hour, enjoying the fresh air, the buffeting wind, the white-capped waves beyond the horseshoe entrance to the calmer waters of the cove. She had often swum in the cove in the summer. Even on the hottest days, the water had been chilly, and Sylvia had remained huddled in a blanket on the beach, enviously watching her sister. Sea bathing was forbidden the invalid, as was any exercise more strenuous than a sedate trot in the pony cart. Alex loved to gallop but had forced herself to keep her pony to a walk beside the cart when Sylvia took an outing. No one really knew what ailed Sylvia, but it was decided that she had a weak chest and a less than robust heart. It was true that she tired easily and often developed a persistent cough that could last most of the winter, but Alex often wondered if the strict precautions were really necessary. Sylvia certainly chafed against them.

  After a while, she turned back towards the house, this time taking the main driveway up through the grounds. She was just passing the Dower House when her stepbrother and his guest rounded the corner of the drive in front of her on their way back to the Dower House.

  “Good morning, Mistress Hathaway.” Marcus swept off his hat with an elaborate flourish as he bowed. “Well met. Have you been taking the air?”

  “Just a little stroll on the cliff top, sir,” she responded, curtsying.

  “Don’t blame you. All those dusty books must give you a headache,” he commented cheerfully.

  “Oh, I doubt Mistress Hathaway finds the books in the least dusty, and I should be most surprised to find they gave her a headache,” Peregrine declared with a conspiratorial smile at the lady, even as he doffed his own hat. “Mistress Hathaway and I find libraries most stimulating places to spend time. Is that not so, ma’am?”

  Alex felt words of eager agreement rush to her tongue, as an answering smile set her eyes dancing and her lips moving. And then she bit back the words, swallowed the smile. “I’m sure your scholarship far exceeds mine, Mr. Sullivan. I merely do what I am employed to do.”

  Perry felt a wash of disappointment. He had sensed that she had been about to say something quite different. His pleasure in seeing her again so soon had surprised him, as had the ease with which he had slipped into the chatty, companionable ease they had adopted in the library. Mistress Hathaway, however, seemed to have forgotten that. She was avoiding his eye now and had taken a sideways step on the path as if to increase the distance between them.

  “Will you come in for a moment, Mistress Hathaway? My mother was asking after you just the other day. She would enjoy a visit, if you could spare the time, ma’am.” Marcus’s smile was cajoling. He spent much of his time finding entertainment for his parent, and it was true that the Dowager Lady Douglas had expressed curiosity about the Abbey’s librarian after meeting her at dinner a week or so earlier, when the dowager had been dutifully invited to the Abbey by the current Lady Douglas to join a select gathering of local society.

  Alexandra hesitated. She was curious herself about her stepmother, whom she’d only met the one time, and she knew that Sylvia would be agog to hear her sister’s opinions of the lady who had supplanted their own mother. But if she went in, she would find herself in the company of the Honorable Peregrine again. And her earlier unease had come back in full force the moment she’d seen him on the drive. It sounded farfetched, and yet she couldn’t deny the conviction that the gentleman’s company was dangerous. Not only did he seem to see too much, but she found it very difficult to maintain her charade under the inviting gaze of those penetrating blue eyes. Perhaps she was imagining it . . . no, she wasn’t.

  “Do come in,” Marcus urged, seeing her hesitation. “Just for a few moments. My mother is an invalid and sees so few people.”

  The hesitation had been her undoing. An instant refusal on the grounds of a pressing engagement with Sir Stephen would have been sufficient excuse, but now it would appear so churlish as to be discourteous and would certainly draw unwelcome attention to herself. She really had no choice but to satisfy Sylvia’s curiosity.

  “Of course, I should be delighted to call upon Lady Douglas, sir.” She bobbed a curtsy.

  Marcus beamed and offered her his arm up the path to the front door. Perry followed, reflecting that it would be interesting to see how the reclusive Mistress Hathaway conducted herself on a social visit. She had not shown herself to be much of a conversationalist at the whist table the previous evening. He knew she could more than hold her own in a private conversation, but he suspected that no one else at Combe Abbey had experienced that spirited tongue. Why? Why did she keep it on a leash?

  Marcus ushered Alexandra into the hall. “Is Lady Douglas down, Baker?”

  “She came down to the yellow drawing room an hour ago, sir. May I take your cloak, ma’am?”

  “Thank you.” Alex let the butler assist her with her cloak and then accompanied her stepbrother to a cheerful, firelit salon at the rear of the house.

  “Mama, I have brought you a visitor.” Marcus ushered Alexandra ahead of him into the salon. “Mistress Hathaway was passing the house, and I persuaded her to pay you a morning visit.”

  “Oh, how delightful.” The light and rather youthful voice emanated from an astonishing assortment of scarves, silk draperies, and fringed shawls elegantly disposed upon a day bed before the fire. A white hand emerged from the drapery. “Mistress Hathaway, do take a seat, and we shall have a comfortable coze. Ratafia, Marcus. I’m sure Mistress Hathaway must be chilled to the bone out there in all that wind.”

  Alex took the proffered hand and curtsied. “Lady Douglas, I’m sorry to see you unwell.”

  “Oh, ’tis nothing, Mistress Hathaway. I am always in ill health. Such a nuisance, but one must play the cards one’s been dealt,” Lady Douglas said with a vague wave of the white hand. “I’m a martyr to rheumatism, and when the wind blows, ’tis like being tortured on the rack.”

  “You have my sympathies, ma’am.” Alex took the slipper chair beside the day bed. “A member of my own family suffers from persistent ill health, and I know what a trial it is.”

  “Oh? And who is that?” Eliza Douglas’s gaze sharpened with interest. “A close relative?” She took the glass of ratafia her son placed at her elbow.

  “A cousin, ma’am.” Alexandra took a sip from her own glass and then hastily put it back on the table. For a moment, she had forgotten that the cordial was revolting.

  “How old is she, this cousin?” Eliza nibbled a sweet biscuit.

  “She has twenty summers, ma’am. But her ill health has persisted since childhood.”

  “Oh, what a trial. Poor girl.” Eliza sighed. “And where are you from, Mistress Hathaway? Not from these parts, I’m sure.”

  Alexandra became aware that Peregrine had removed her glass of ratafia and was replacing it with a glass of tawny liquid. “I feel sure you will prefer sherry, ma’am,” he murmured, setting the glass down beside her.

  “Thank you,” she muttered, taken aback. Had her distaste been that obvious? She must remember to watch her facial expressions—as well as everything else—around this man. He was watching her too closely again.

  “A little village just outside London, Lady Douglas,” she said, averting her head
slightly so that he could not read her expression. “My father was the vicar. A very scholarly man.”

  “I see.” Eliza nodded sagely. “That would explain your own bookishness, then.”

  “My father taught me himself. His stipend was too small for a more formal education,” Alex continued fluently. This narrative she could sustain for as long as necessary. She and Sylvia had rehearsed it for days before the game had started, and her unease receded a little.

  “And what of your mother? Did she approve of such an extensive education? My own dear parents considered it quite unnecessary for their daughters to learn anything beyond drawing, the pianoforte, the harp perhaps, and, of course, dancing and deportment.”

  “Indeed, ma’am.” Alex suppressed a slight shudder at the prospect of such a dull and mentally constrained existence. “For a lady destined for marriage, such skills are indeed necessary.”

  “Unlike the pursuits of the mind, Mistress Hathaway?” Perry inquired, leaning his shoulders against the mantel, a slightly derisive smile on his lips as he watched her. “Do you believe an educated wife is undesirable?”

  “I have no opinion on such a subject, sir. How should I? ’Tis a question best asked of one of your own sex. What think you, Mr. Crofton? Would you look for education in a wife?” That smile annoyed her. The Honorable Peregrine was challenging her. Of course, he knew she couldn’t have no opinion on the subject, not after their session in the library, but why couldn’t he just leave her alone? His pointless little games were making the charade even more difficult to maintain, and one slip, and she would be lost. Everything would be lost.

  But of course, he didn’t know that.

  Marcus seemed startled by her question. He shared many of Perry’s intellectual interests, science first and foremost, but he would be the first to admit that they were not always paramount in his pursuit of enjoyment. Perry, he had always thought, had a mind of a higher class altogether. “I doubt I would enjoy a wife who had no interest in things of the mind. But I would not wish for a bluestocking, either.”

  “Indeed. Such ladies can be infuriatingly opinionated on occasion,” Peregrine observed.

  Alexandra shot him a look of scornful disbelief and then saw too late that he was grinning. She realized to her chagrin that he was teasing her, and she had fallen neatly into the trap. And then it came to her that he was teasing her. Not Mistress Hathaway, the librarian, but herself. She took an overhasty gulp of sherry and spluttered as it went down the wrong way.

  Peregrine removed the glass before it spilled in her lap and solicitously proffered his handkerchief. She shook her head, waving it away as she fumbled for her own, her cheeks scarlet.

  “Oh, poor Mistress Hathaway,” exclaimed Lady Douglas. “Fetch water, Marcus, at once, before she chokes.”

  “No . . . no, indeed, ma’am. It will pass.” Alex gasped into her handkerchief. It was all too absurd. She felt foolish and childish, the shell of her carefully constructed character disintegrating into a million cracks.

  Once the paroxysm had passed and she had herself in hand again, she rose to her feet. “I fear I must go back to the Abbey, ma’am. Sir Stephen will be looking for me. We have some business to deal with this afternoon, and I have been absent from my duties for too long already.”

  “Oh, I was hoping you would stay and have a light nuncheon with me,” Eliza said with a moue of disappointment. “I am so starved of company, sometimes I think I will begin talking to myself. And that, you know, is a sign of madness. I’ll probably end my days in Bedlam.”

  “Oh, ma’am, don’t be absurd,” Marcus declared, half laughing. “You know perfectly well I will not countenance such a thing. Besides, you have an engagement to play cards this evening with Lady Lucas, her sister, and her cousin. They’ll talk the hind leg off a donkey, given half a chance.”

  “Oh, for shame, Marcus. Such vulgarity,” his parent exclaimed.

  “Thank you for your hospitality, Lady Douglas.” Alexandra curtsied and made for the door.

  “Allow me to accompany you to the house, Mistress Hathaway.” Peregrine, with alacrity, had reached the door ahead of her and was bowing her through.

  “There is no need, sir. I know my way perfectly well,” she said, ducking her head in the manner she had acquired as she resumed the part of the dowdy Mistress Hathaway. It had the advantage of concealing her eyes where she knew he would still read her anger at him for playing with her when he had no idea what was at stake.

  “Oh, I wasn’t presuming to guide you, ma’am,” he said, taking her cloak from the hook by the door. “Allow me.” He draped it around her shoulders, his fingers for an instant brushing against her neck, sending an electrifying tingle down her spine. “But I intend to protect you from bears and any other evil creatures lurking in the woods.”

  “There are no bears in Dorset,” she retorted, feeling her character slip again. Firmly, she set her lips and determined to say not a word on the walk back to the house if he insisted on accompanying her.

  Chapter Four

  Peregrine made his way back to the Dower House after his silent walk with Mistress Hathaway. Infuriatingly, she had refused to answer any of his conversational sallies, however outrageous they had been. He had been trying to provoke the swift comeback she had given to his provocative comments in Lady Douglas’s salon, but the sparkling challenge of one Mistress Hathaway had been replaced with the dull monotones of the other. Did no one else see this dichotomy? How could they miss it? But then, he reflected, perhaps she didn’t show it to anyone else. Now, that was an intriguing thought. Could it be that in his company, the lady found it hard to resist revealing her other self? Just as he found it impossible to resist trying to ferret that other self out of the burrow in which she had so thoroughly buried it? The reflection put a spring in his step and a smile on his lips, although it did nothing to answer the question of why she needed to pretend to be someone she wasn’t.

  “Did you enjoy your stroll with Mistress Hathaway?” Marcus asked as Perry rejoined them in the yellow drawing room.

  “Not much,” Perry confessed, picking up his neglected sherry glass. “For some reason, the lady refused to open her mouth beyond the barest platitudes. Maybe she allows herself a certain quota of words a day, and she reached that already.” He shook his head with a resigned shrug and sipped his sherry. Whatever his suspicions about Mistress Hathaway’s true incarnation, he was prepared to keep them to himself. She must have her reasons, and until he knew for certain that they were not good and sufficient for this game she was playing, he would not risk exposing her.

  “She’s an odd creature, I grant you that.” Marcus brought over the decanter to refill his glass. “Can’t make her out at all.”

  “She seems very shy,” the Dowager Lady Douglas put in, waving the vial of sal volatile beneath her nose. “But her background is rather obscure. She’s clearly from a rather bourgeois family, but at least she doesn’t give herself any airs. I might cultivate her, when I feel a little stronger.” She wafted the vial languidly. “I can’t imagine why a parent would ruin a girl’s chances of marriage by educating her out of the market. But then, I doubt a respectable parti could have been found for her. Such an unfortunate appearance . . . that crookback and the birthmark.” She shuddered. “Poor woman, to be cursed in such a way.” She set aside the vial. “I shall be kind to her, offer her a little distraction. It will help to pass the time. Marcus, assist me into the morning room. I told Baker to lay out a light repast, and I’m feeling a little faint.”

  “Of course, Mama.” Marcus helped his mother rise from the sofa in a soft billow of silks. “I doubt Perry and I could manage another mouthful. We had an enormous second breakfast up at the Abbey with the fruits of our morning on the river, but we’ll be happy to keep you company.”

  “Indeed, ma’am,” Perry said hastily. “More than happy.”

  He was amused to see how Lady Douglas interpreted a light repast. The dining table in the morning room groaned un
der an array of savory tarts, a glistening ham, a dish of scalloped oysters, and a marzipan confection with crystallized fruits. The dowager took her place, accepted a cup of watered wine, and began languidly to eat her way through the offerings. Perry gazed in growing astonishment at the food that disappeared into that dainty mouth. On her insistence, he toyed with a cheese tartlet and drank a glass of claret. Marcus followed suit, while Lady Douglas ate and engaged Perry in a detailed examination of his family history.

  “Your brother, the earl, he’s recently married, I understand.” She nibbled a piece of marzipan.

  “Yes, ma’am. And my twin brother also. I’m the only bachelor among us now.” He tried for an easy smile to accompany the statement but found it difficult to produce. It brought to the forefront the one issue he was trying to forget, at least for this weekend.

  “Oh, yes, you have a twin. The Honorable Sebastian, is it not?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” He sipped his wine and tried to change the subject. “How long has Mistress Hathaway been in residence at the Abbey?”

  “Oh, a few months, I believe. But tell me, how do you find your brothers’ wives, Peregrine . . . I may call you Peregrine, may I not?”

  “Of course, ma’am . . . I wonder how Sir Stephen found such an accomplished librarian. Did he consult an employment agency, d’you think?”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t know about such things. I make it my business to leave all matters of hiring staff to Baker, and I really don’t know how one goes about finding suitable people.” Lady Douglas waved a hand in dismissal of such an irrelevancy. “But do tell me about your sisters-in-law.”

  She leaned forward slightly, her brown eyes shining with curiosity in her smooth, rather plump, but undeniably pretty face. “Lady Lucas was asking me just the other day, when we passed in our carriages in the village. She was agog to know that we were hosting the Honorable Peregrine Sullivan.” She smiled and nodded encouragingly at Perry.