An Unsuitable Bride (2 page)
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2012 by Jane Feather
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information, address Pocket Books Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.
First Pocket Books paperback edition August 2012
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ISBN 978-1-4391-4526-5 (print)
ISBN 978-1-4391-5551-6 (ebook)
Contents
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Epilogue
J
ANUARY
1763
“But I don’t understand.” Alexandra Douglas stared at the two objects the lawyer had placed on his desk in front of her. “These are our inheritance?” She touched the heavy gold signet ring and the diamond fob before looking up at Lawyer Forsett, her clear gray eyes bemused. “Sylvia and I were to have ten thousand pounds each on Papa’s death. He told me so himself.”
The lawyer pulled at his chin and stared down fixedly at the blotter on his desk. He cleared his throat. “Mistress Douglas, yours and your sister’s circumstances changed when Sir Arthur divorced your mother.”
“I’m well aware of that, sir,” Alexandra responded somewhat tartly. “When my mother ran off for the last time, I was sent to St. Catherine’s Seminary and Sylvia to live with our old nurse. Quite different circumstances from our previous life at Combe Abbey. We were under no illusions, sir.”
The man looked at his visitor with a hint of compassion. “There was another aspect to your changed circumstances, Mistress Douglas, that perhaps you
did not fully understand.” He cleared his throat again. “Your legal status changed as well.”
A little needle of apprehension pierced Alexandra’s customary composure. “Legal status?” she queried.
The lawyer sighed. It was a damnable business. He’d told his client, Sir Arthur Douglas, many times that he owed it to his daughters to explain what his divorce meant for them, but Sir Arthur had waved away any urgency. “All in good time, my good man.” The lawyer could hear the brusquely dismissive tones as if the man were sitting right in front of him, instead of dead and buried in the family mausoleum. In essence, Sir Arthur had not had the courage to inform his daughters of the ghastly situation his own selfish actions had put them in. And now it was up to his lawyer to do his dirty work for him.
“Your father obtained a divorce from his wife, your mother,
a vinculo matrimonii,
” he began.
“What does that mean?” his visitor interrupted before he could continue.
“It means, ma’am, that the marriage in question was null and void from its inception, either because of an improper blood relationship, insanity, or . . .” He paused, a slight flush on his cheek. “Or because of nonconsummation. On such grounds, the marriage is dissolved as if it had never been, and all children of the union in the first two causes are declared illegitimate. Your father had your mother declared insane in absentia.”
Alexandra began to see where this was leading, and the needle of apprehension became a knife of fear. “So Sylvia and I are bastards, sir? That is what you’re saying?”
His flush deepened, and he coughed into his hand. “In a word, ma’am, yes. And as such are not legally entitled to inherit anything from your father’s estate, unless specific provision has been made.”
The young woman was very pale now, but her voice was steady, her eyes focused. “And am I to assume that no such provision was made?”
“Your father intended to do so, but his death was rather sudden, before he had managed to settle anything on you or your sister. However . . .” Lawyer Forsett opened a strongbox which stood on a small pedestal table beside his chair. “Sir Stephen Douglas, your father’s heir, has agreed to allow you and your sister fifty pounds apiece from the estate, just to tide you over until you find some means of employment.” He pushed a bank draft across the table to Alexandra.
She looked at it in disgust. “Cousin Stephen? That’s what he considers fair?”
The lawyer’s distress increased visibly. “I did suggest to Sir Stephen that he honor your late father’s intentions and make a one-time payment to each of you in the sum of ten thousand pounds. Unfortunately, Sir Stephen did not see the matter in the same way.”
“No, of course he didn’t,” she returned with a bitter little smile. She had never met this distant cousin,
but her father had never had a good word to say for his putative heir. The need to disinherit Sir Stephen by producing a male heir of his own was the main reason, she had always assumed, for her father’s hurried second marriage.
She folded the bank draft and tucked it into the deep pocket of her muslin skirt. The signet ring and fob followed it as she rose to her feet. “I thank you for your time, Lawyer Forsett, but I won’t take up any more of it.”
He rose himself, saying awkwardly, “Have you considered your next step, ma’am? You must find gainful employment. Perhaps the seminary would employ you as a teacher, or maybe you could hire out as a governess in some respectable family. Your education will stand you in good stead.”
“No doubt that was my father’s intention when he sent me to the seminary in the first place,” she stated, her eyes burning. “And I presume it will be up to me to earn sufficient for my sister’s care in addition to my own?”
“I could approach Sir Stephen again, ma’am, appeal—”
“Indeed not, sir,” she interrupted his awkward speech. “I would not ask my cousin for the parings of his nails. I bid you good day.”
The door closed on her parting vulgarity, and the lawyer shook his head, mopped his brow with a large linen handkerchief, and sank back into his chair.
Alexandra went out onto the freezing wind of a London
winter’s day. Chancery Lane was busy with traffic, iron wheels splashing through puddles, sending up sprays of dirty water from the kennel. For a moment, she stood, heedless of her surroundings, numbed by the prospect of a future that was no future. She had been brought up to believe that her world would never significantly change, that she would tread the path well trodden before her by other young women of her position in Society. Not even her parents’ divorce, an almost unheard-of circumstance among her peers, had caused undue alarm over the prospect of the next stage of her life. She had settled happily enough at St. Catherine’s, close enough to her sister, who was being well cared for by their former nurse, and waited patiently for the doors to the life to come to swing wide.
Instead, they had been slammed shut.
S
EPTEMBER
1763
The Honorable Peregrine Sullivan drew rein on the high Dorsetshire cliff top and looked out over the calm waters of Lulworth Cove. The sea surged through the horseshoe-shaped rock at the entrance to the cove in a flash of white water and then smoothed out as it rolled gently to the beach.
Perry was not familiar with this southern coastline, having spent his own growing in the rugged wilds of Northumberland, where rough mountains and hilly moors were the usual scenery, but he found it rather soothing, the expanse of water sparkling under the Indian summer sun, the rough grass of the cliff top, the air perfumed with the clumps of fragrant pinks crushed beneath his horse’s hooves. It was altogether a softer part of the world, and none the worse for that, he reflected.
His weary horse raised his head and whinnied. Perry leaned over and stroked the animal’s neck. “Almost there, Sam.” He urged the horse forward with a nudge
of his heels. It had been a long ride from London, three days in all. The Honorable Peregrine was not overly flush with funds and had decided a post chaise would be an unwarranted expense, and he didn’t wish to change horses on the road, leaving Sam in an unknown stable, so they’d taken it slowly, at a pace that the gelding could comfortably manage, but now they were within two miles of Combe Abbey, their final destination.