An Unsuitable Bride

by Jane Feather

  At last, the carriage drew to a stop in the quiet of Stratton Street. Peregrine jumped out and lifted Alexandra down to the street. “Thank you. I won’t need you again tonight,” he informed the coachman.

  “Right y’are, Master Peregrine. Good night, madam.”

  She managed to acknowledge the courtesy with a vague gesture. Peregrine ushered her to the door, opened it with his key, and almost thrust her inside.

  “There, you’re safe now,” he said with a touch of grimness. “You can stop looking like a petrified cat and start breathing normally.” He opened the door to the sitting room and urged her inside. “Let me pour you a cognac. ’Tis very good for shock, I’m told.” He poured a generous measure into a goblet.

  Alexandra was standing by the fire, her hands shaking as she took the glass from him. She was still as pale as a ghost, and her eyes as she looked at him were desperate. She cradled the glass, inhaled its powerful fumes, and took a tentative sip. It warmed her and did seem to steady her.

  Peregrine poured his own goblet and drank it slowly, watching her all the time. “Finish it,” he instructed when she was about to set it aside. “And when you’ve done so, we shall have the first truly honest discussion of our association.”

  There was a harshness to his voice now that paradoxically restored her composure more quickly than gentle compassion and understanding might have done. She drained her glass and stood turning it between her hands, staring down into the fire.

  “That lady was your mother,” he stated after a moment. There was no question in his mind. The resemblance had been startling. “Who is she?”

  Alexandra shrugged slightly. “Who knows?”

  “That’s no answer, and you know it,” he snapped.

  She looked up at him. “Well, it is and it isn’t.” She saw his expression darken and real anger flash in his eyes. She explained with another tiny shrug, “No one ever knows what part my mother is playing.”

  “I see,” he said drily. “Like mother, like daughter.”

  “You may think that’s fair, but it is not.”

  Peregrine took a deep breath and said with more moderation, “Come, take off your cloak and sit down. I’ll pour you another cognac while we thrash this out.”

  He unclasped her cloak and took it from her, laying it over a chair back, then refilled her glass. “Sit down.”

  “No, I would prefer to stand.” She took the glass, however. “The last I knew, my mother had eloped with the Conte della Minardi. But as that was about six years ago, who knows who she has moved on to now. My mother devours men like a black widow devours its mates.” She sipped the cognac, feeling her body loosen, the rigidity dissipating.

  “An Italian . . . did she go to live in Italy?”

  “Apparently. She was not very good at keeping her family apprised of her movements.” Alexandra gave a tight smile, setting her glass aside on the chimney piece.

  “And now she’s back in London.” Peregrine nodded. “So, I need the truth now, Alexandra. Who was your father . . . or is he still living?”

  She shook her head. “No.”

  “You do know how easy it will be for me to discover everything about your mother, and thus everything that you are hiding,” he said quietly. “But if you force me to do that, and I will, make no mistake, then there can be nothing more between us. If you will not trust me sufficiently to tell me yourself, then . . .” He shook his head, and a bitterness entered his voice. “Then I cannot trust you, and without trust, there can be no love. Either you tell me everything now, or I take you back to Berkeley Square and we will never see or speak to each other again.”

  The ultimatum shocked her even as she understood that she should have expected it. It was all over now, anyway. Once Peregrine knew the whole story, the outcome would be the same as if she had left him to discover the truth for himself. Not even love could withstand this truth.

  “There is no need for ultimatums, Peregrine. I am well aware that you have no scruples when it comes to asking questions about me.” It came out as an accusation, and she made no attempt to soften it.

  “What does that mean?” he asked quietly.

  “I know you went looking for information from Helene Simmons. What possible right did you think you had to do that?” It felt good suddenly to be the accuser, but the moment didn’t last.

  “Yes, I did,” he said. “And I make no apologies for it. You were . . . are . . . in trouble, Alexandra, and I love you. It is not in my nature to stand aside when those I love could use my help.”

  “You cannot help me, Peregrine. Only I can help myself, and you are just making it more difficult for me.” She stood staring into the fire, her fingers pressed to her lips.

  “You can stop me asking questions if you tell me the truth yourself, Alexandra.” His voice was quiet but utterly determined. “Trust me.”

  She had reached the Rubicon, it seemed. Her voice was dull with resignation. “You leave me no choice. But you should understand that what I have to tell you will give you such a disgust of me that you will never wish to lay eyes upon me again.”

  “Why don’t you let me be the judge of that?” A sudden smile lightened his expression and warmed his eyes. “Believe me, Alexandra, I have imagined you to be engaged in every criminal activity short of murder, and I haven’t shrunk from you yet. So, try me.”

  “ ’Tis hard to know where to begin . . .” She started hesitantly but gradually gained confidence as she saw that his gaze never wavered, his expression never changed, even as she described her scheme to defraud her cousin out of the twenty thousand pounds she considered hers and her sister’s just inheritance.

  “So, there it is,” she finished at last. “I promise I have told you everything to the last detail.”

  He rose to throw another log on the fire and then stood with his back to the warmth, sipping his cognac and regarding her thoughtfully. “How much have you managed to squirrel away thus far?”

  It was asked in a matter-of-fact tone that was as surprising as the question itself. “About five thousand.”

  “Not bad for only three months. How long do you think it will be before you can cease this felonious activity?”

  Alexandra stared at him. Was it possible that he wasn’t going to try to stop her? She said hesitantly, “Well, I intend to make a certain amount on the sale of the library, and if my own investments prosper—” She stopped as he held up an arresting hand.

  “No, don’t tell me any more,” Peregrine stated. “The less I know about the details, the better.”

  “You did ask.”

  “Yes, and ’twas a grave error. I have the salient facts, that’s all I need to know.” He shook his head. “Well, all this unusual truth telling has made me hungry. Mistress Croft will have left a light supper in the kitchen for us. I’ll fetch it.”

  Alexandra wasn’t sure how to interpret his reception of the story. Why didn’t he show the revulsion she had expected? The revulsion any man of honor would show? She followed him into the kitchen, feeling a little like a lost sheep. “Are you going to say nothing?”

  He was examining the covered dishes on the kitchen table. “What is there to say? I asked for the truth, and you gave it to me. Shall we eat this in here? The range is still hot, and ’tis quite comfortable.”

  “Yes, if you wish.” She lifted the covers off the remaining dishes while Peregrine took a candle and went down to the cellar for a bottle of wine.

  “It looks a very fine veal and ham pie,” she commented when he reappeared. She felt as if she were acting yet another part, that of a perfectly normal woman in a perfectly ordinary situation. But if Peregrine could behave as if nothing momentous had occurred, then so could she.

  “One of Mistress Croft’s specialties.” He uncorked a dusty bottle and set it on the table. “There should be some glasses in the dresser.”

  Alex found them, and Peregrine filled them, before sitting on the bench on one side of the table. Alex took the opposite one
and cut into the pie, placing a slice on his plate, while he carved wafer-thin slices from a glistening ham.

  They ate in silence for a while, until Alex could bear it no longer. She said abruptly, “You must have something to say, Peregrine. I’ve just told you I’m a bastard, an embezzler, a thief, in essence. How could you say nothing? Aren’t you shocked? Outraged? Disgusted?”

  “No,” he said cheerfully. “None of those things. As it happens, I’d imagined much worse.”

  She began to feel as if the world had spun off its axis. “What could be worse?”

  He shrugged. “Murder, certainly. A different kind of stealing, perhaps.” He smiled. “Be that as it may, I appear not to be as shocked as I’m sure I probably should be.” He forked a mouthful of pie. “Eat your supper.”

  Alexandra relaxed. And slowly, a little bud of happiness opened within her. She had told the worst, and the worst had not happened. An immense lightness seemed to flood her, as if somehow all the miseries and anxieties, the dread and the tension, the terror of discovery, became as nothing, as if she had never experienced them. And she thought how delighted Sylvia would be—Sylvia, who had seen this possibility almost from the first. Of course, it was not over yet; she still had to complete her self-appointed task, but at least she was no longer deceiving Peregrine.

  She ate veal and ham pie, a thick slice of ham, rice pudding, and spiced pears and drank her share of the wine. Peregrine ate well, too, but he watched her covertly with a secret smile. Alexandra was still presenting him with a few hurdles, but once they were jumped, he would be on the home stretch, and his own happiness would complete his familial obligations.

  At last, Alexandra set down her spoon. “I have never eaten so much at one time,” she declared in wonder. She yawned. “But I am most unaccountably sleepy.”

  “Hardly unaccountably.” Laughing, Peregrine stood up. “Come, let me get you to bed. You have much to sleep off and, I think, to sleep on.”

  “So astute, as always,” she murmured dopily, letting her head fall on his shoulder. “My legs don’t seem as strong as usual.”

  He supported her up to his chamber, unlaced her gown, divested her of petticoats and chemise, untied her garters, and slipped her stockings down the smooth length of her legs and over her narrow feet. He dropped one of his nightshirts over her head and bundled her under the covers. “I must go down and snuff the candles, but I’ll be up in a moment.”

  “Mmm,” Alex murmured from the depths of the coverlet.

  Peregrine smiled and left her. He extinguished the candles downstairs, all but his carrying candle, and returned upstairs. As he’d expected, Alexandra was deeply asleep. He undressed and slipped in beside her, sliding an arm beneath her to roll her into his embrace. She murmured but didn’t awaken, merely curled against him.

  He lay holding her, watching the firelight flicker on the ceiling, thinking how best to extricate her from a situation in which he knew she would fight tooth and nail to remain. He knew his Alexandra by now. She would not give up until she had completed what she had set out to do. But there was no need for her to do that now. So, how to convince her?

  Chapter Sixteen

  Alexandra awoke from a sleep as deep and relaxing as any she could remember. She rolled onto her side and looked at the sleeping Peregrine. He lay on his back, his arms flung above his head, his breathing deep and regular. He seemed as untroubled as she felt herself to be that morning. She touched his mouth with her fingertip, and his eyelids fluttered. She leaned over and brushed his lips with her own, a light butterfly kiss, and with the growl of a bear awakened from hibernation, he seized her and rolled her beneath him. He leaned over her, his eyes wide awake and filled with laughter.

  “Beware the sleeping beast,” he said, nuzzling her neck, his hand sliding down her body to part her thighs.

  She laughed and opened her body for him, curling her legs over his hips as he entered her, pressing her heels into his buttocks with the rhythm of his thrusts. It seemed so deliciously familiar now, this lovemaking, familiar and yet always different. She found that she approached her peak from many different angles, and the intensity was as varied. Sometimes she felt as if she were torn apart, her body disintegrating into a diffused scatter of little pieces, and other times it was as if she was sliding gently into a warm whirlpool of delicate sensation that left her soft and formless. But this morning, it was a long and wonderful climb as the ultimate promise built within her, ever tightening, growing ever closer. She heard herself beg her lover not to stop, not to slow his movements, to keep the tightness building within her. The glorious explosion hung just on the periphery, and when she reached the edge, she heard her own cry, mingling with Peregrine’s as he fell heavily atop her, gathering her up tightly against him as their bodies throbbed and pulsed in unison.

  At long last, Perry rolled sideways, lying on his back, his breathing still fast, his skin damp with sweat. He turned his head to smile at Alex, who lay prone in a similarly exhausted condition, her own skin glowing, her eyes dreamy with fulfillment. He moved a hand to rest indolently on her belly.

  “I think I died a little,” Alex murmured when she could catch her breath again.

  “Le petit mort,” he said. “It happens sometimes when one is incredibly lucky.”

  “Did it happen to you?” She put her own hand over his as it rested on her stomach, twining her fingers with his.

  “I do believe it did,” he murmured with a soft chuckle. The little clock on the dresser chimed. “Eight o’clock. I think ’tis time to put on the day.”

  Alexandra groaned in faint protest as he swung himself out of bed. “I don’t have anything to do until this afternoon, when I have to meet someone at Berkeley Square. He wishes to look at the volumes then, and after him, there is one other gentleman at four o’clock. I am hoping they will bump into each other, just to stimulate a healthy rivalry. It should drive up the price.”

  “Well, I have a few things to do this morning.” Perry thrust his arms into a dressing gown. “You may stay abed for as long as you wish.” He bent down and kissed the corner of her mouth. “I’m going to ring for hot water, so stay where you are behind the curtains while Bart is in here.”

  Alex lay back against pillows in the seclusion of the bed curtains, her tranquility disturbed as the image of her mother drifted into her mind. Just what was Luisa doing in London? Was she still married to the Count? Did she know how her daughters’ legal status had changed when her husband divorced her? It was not a fact that would have interested her particularly, and it was equally possible that she didn’t know that Sir Arthur had died without making provision for them. Quite simply, it wouldn’t have occurred to her to ask about them. And she wouldn’t be interested now, even if her curiosity had been momentarily piqued by seeing her daughter at the theatre. She would soon forget or assume she’d been mistaken. But the thought that she might accidentally bump into her mother again in town was an alarming one. She couldn’t risk it, so her outings with Peregrine would have to be curtailed.

  But in a few days, she’d have to return to Combe Abbey, anyway, and this delightful idyll would be over. But maybe only temporarily over, she thought with a little frisson of excitement. Why shouldn’t she be the Honorable Peregrine’s mistress? When she’d first had the thought, it had seemed both exciting but impossible; now, however, she could see nothing impossible about it. She would be her own mistress financially, no burden on Perry’s already overburdened finances. There was no reason at all why she shouldn’t lead her life exactly as she pleased. That had been the aim of this charade from the very beginning, although then she had thought only of a quiet, comfortable, independent life with Sylvia and Matty.

  Now she remembered how Sylvia had expressed reservations at that vision, at least as far as Alex was concerned. And Sylvia was, as usual, probably right. Alex needed more in her life than rustic tranquility. She was still a very young woman with her life ahead of her, once the reins of that life were firmly in he
r own hands.

  So, when would be the right moment to present my vision to Peregrine?

  She heard the door open and Peregrine’s voice talking to the lad, Bart. The sounds of movement in the room were followed by the door closing again, and the bed curtains were opened once more. Peregrine was fully dressed. “I’m just going out. But there’s hot chocolate, and the fire’s ablaze.” He tossed a brocade dressing gown onto the bed beside her. “That should keep you warm when you’re ready to leave the bed.”

  “How long will you be?” Would this morning be the right time?

  He considered. “It depends . . . but an hour, maybe a little more.”

  She nodded. “Hurry back. I shall miss you.”

  He laughed and kissed her lightly. “The sooner I go, the sooner I’ll be back.”

  The door closed behind him, and Alexandra pushed aside the coverlet. She reached for the gown, thrusting her arms into the sleeves. When she stood up, the garment enveloped her and puddled around her feet, tripping her as she walked to the fire. The rich material was imbued with Peregrine’s special scent, and she buried her nose in the crook of her elbow, inhaling deeply, smiling a reminiscent smile. She poured herself a cup of hot chocolate from the jug on a tray by the fire and sat down on an ottoman.

  She was still sitting there, contemplating the glories of her grand plan, when Peregrine returned within the hour. “Good Lord, are you still abed, lazybones?” he greeted her as he came in, bringing the coldness of the fresh air with him, his blue eyes sparkling, diamond bright.

  “Not exactly,” she defended herself. “I am up, in a manner of speaking.” She lifted her face for his kiss, running a caressing finger along his cold cheek.

  “In a manner of speaking,” he agreed. “Have you broken your fast?”

  She shook her head. “The hot chocolate is sufficient. Where have you been? Or may I not know?”

  “Oh, ’tis no secret,” he responded easily, shrugging out of his riding cloak. “I went in search of your mother.”