An Unsuitable Bride (4 page)

She was called upon to make a four whenever there were uneven numbers among the guests, and Mistress Hathaway cursed her stupidity in revealing her skill at cards one afternoon, when her employer wished for a game of piquet. She had always been too competitive for her own good, she reflected irritably. If she had let Sir Stephen win, she wouldn’t be in the abominable position of having to obey every summons to the table that her employer issued.

She glanced sideways at her reflection, at the small but unsightly hump at the base of her neck. The candlelight caught the faint brown birthmark below her right cheekbone and the scattering of gray hairs above her temples. Mistress Alexandra Hathaway sighed, even as she nodded her satisfaction. Everything was in order. She picked up her pince-nez and her fan from the dresser, drew on her black silk mittens, and went downstairs.

She was crossing the hall to the drawing room as the butler opened the door to two young men. She recognized Marcus Crofton, but his companion was unknown to her.

“Good evening, Mistress Hathaway.” Mr. Crofton greeted her in his customary genial fashion. She dropped a curtsy, lowering her eyes, murmuring a greeting in a barely audible voice.

“Allow me to introduce my guest, ma’am. The
Honorable Peregrine Sullivan.” Marcus gestured to his companion, who was handing the butler his hat and cane. “Mistress Hathaway is the genius in residence, you should understand, Perry. As I explained earlier, she is cataloguing Sir Stephen’s magnificent library.”

Peregrine was eager to meet the guardian of the library and bowed with a warm smile. “Mistress Hathaway, an honor.”

“Sir.” She bobbed another curtsy, not meeting his gaze.

Peregrine frowned a little. What a strange little dab of a creature she was. Not at all what he’d expected of someone capable of appreciating and cataloguing such an intellectual treasure house as Sir Arthur Douglas’s library. However, looks could be deceiving, he told himself.

“I am most eager to view the volume of the
Decameron,
ma’am. I understand it is part of Sir Stephen’s collection.” Mistress Hathaway seemed to wince a little as he said this, but perhaps her misshapen back was paining her, he thought with a flash of sympathy.

“Indeed, sir,” she responded after a barely perceptible pause. She raised her eyes for the first time. Large and gray under surprisingly luxuriant dark lashes. “I would be delighted to show it to you at some point. But at present, my employer is expecting me at the whist tables.” She moved away to the double doors to the salon.

There was something puzzling about the lady, Peregrine
reflected. Something slightly off kilter, but it was none of his business. He followed Marcus into the salon.

“Lady Douglas, may I present my houseguest, the Honorable Peregrine Sullivan?” Marcus bowed over the hand of an angular woman in a saque gown of magenta silk that hung from her thin frame as if from a coat hanger. Her décolletage revealed an expanse of sallow freckled skin, and her pale red hair was dressed in an elaborate coiffure of frizzed curls on her brow and tight ringlets curling to her sharp bare shoulders.

She greeted Peregrine’s bow with a nodded curtsy, subjecting him to a scrutiny that seemed to find him wanting. “Mr. Sullivan. You are welcome, I’m sure,” she murmured with a distant twitch of her lips that Peregrine thought could have been a smile with sufficient imagination.

“An honor, Lady Douglas,” he responded with impeccable courtesy.

Sir Stephen Douglas was a tall, well-built man of florid complexion. His belly pushed against the silver buttons of his striped waistcoat, and the seams of his green damask breeches strained against the fullness of his thighs.

A sportsman who was also a little too fond of the pleasures of the table and the decanter, Perry guessed, bowing as he greeted his host. In his late middle years, he would run to seed. It was an uncharitable
reflection, but something about the man put his back up, even though he couldn’t pinpoint the cause.

“The Honorable Peregrine Sullivan, eh? One of the Blackwaters, I believe.” Sir Stephen took snuff as he responded to Peregrine’s bow. “I am slightly acquainted with your brother, the earl. We belong to the same London club. I don’t, however, believe I have met
you
there.”

“I’m sure I would have remembered had we met there, sir,” Peregrine responded with a smooth smile. “But I am not overly fond of cards. Blackwater, on the other hand, is quite taken with ’em.”

“Not overly fond of cards . . . Gad, sir. What
gentleman
is not fond of cards?” Stephen exclaimed, sneezing snuff into his handkerchief in vigorous punctuation.

“We are a rare species, Sir Stephen, but you find us in all the best circles,” Peregrine responded with an amiable smile that did nothing to conceal an edge of disdain to his voice. He became aware of a strange sound over his shoulder. A slight choking noise. He turned his head sharply, but only the librarian was close by, and she was plying her fan, gazing into the middle distance.

“Oh, good . . . good.” Belatedly, it seemed to occur to Stephen that he might have implied that his guest, a scion of the august Blackwater family, somehow lacked gentlemanly attributes. Disconcerted, he blinked and stuffed his handkerchief into the deep pocket of his
coat. “Well, we have three whist tables set up. Mistress Hathaway has agreed to make a fourth at the third table. I trust you have no objections, Mr. Sullivan.”

“How could I?” Peregrine asked blandly. “If the lady has no objection to playing with a self-confessed amateur.” He glanced at the librarian with an inquiringly raised eyebrow.

“Maybe I will not draw you as partner, sir,” the lady murmured from behind her fan. “In which case, I can only be delighted to find myself playing against an amateur.” She moved away to one of the card tables set up on the far side of the salon.

Peregrine swallowed his surprise at this riposte. His host clearly hadn’t heard the sotto voce response and was busily allocating players to tables. The party divided, and Perry took his place at the third table with a keen-eyed gentleman in a suit of a vivid shade of turquoise and a lady of an uncertain age, dressed in a fashion too youthful for her slightly raddled countenance, the décolletage of her crimson gown revealing too much wrinkled flesh, none of it improved with copious applications of paint and powder. Mistress Hathaway took her place rather diffidently, keeping her eyes down as they cut for partners.

Peregrine was more than happy to draw the librarian as his partner. Not only would her skills offset his own inadequacies, but she had piqued his curiosity with that sotto voce riposte. Had he really heard her correctly?

“I fear you have drawn the short straw after all,
ma’am,” he murmured as he moved into the chair opposite her. “I shall do my best not to let you down.” He hid a smile as he waited to see if she would rise to the bait.

Mistress Hathaway glanced across at him. “If you play as well as you are able, sir, I must be satisfied,” she responded, her voice as soft as ever, her expression as demure as before. “But I do beg you to remember in your bidding that a librarian’s purse is not particularly plump.”

There was an unmistakable glimmer of amusement, of challenge even, in the gray eyes. Perry’s lips twitched. She had not disappointed him. But he was still deeply surprised by such a sharp undertone that seemed completely out of keeping on the lips of this dowdy, downtrodden woman. And there was something about those eyes that did not match the face. They were young, bright, and very sharp. He leaned closer, his own gaze sharpened, but she instantly dropped her eyes to the cards she was sorting in her hand, and he sat back, for the moment prepared to bide his time.

Why on earth had she allowed herself to respond like that? Alexandra cursed herself roundly for such a foolish impulse, but there was something about the Honorable Peregrine that piqued her, that drew from her an urge to engage with him in some way. Maybe it had something to do with his knowledge of the
Decameron
—she longed to discuss the library with someone who might share her delight in its treasures—and maybe it had something to do with his sharp put-down of Sir Stephen’s pretensions. Whatever it was, it was as ridiculous as it was dangerous. She bit the inside of her cheek hard until the pain distracted her.

Perry realized quickly that his partner was indeed an expert. It was true that he’d never seen the appeal in cards—there always seemed more interesting ways to pass an evening—but he had a mathematical mind, and after a few hands, he found an unexpected pleasure in the intellectual exercise of memory and calculation at which Mistress Hathaway appeared to excel. There was something supremely satisfying in finding that they were completely in accord, each knowing how the other would follow a lead.

Once or twice, his partner would glance at him when they took a game, and he would see a light in her gray eyes that seemed at odds with the slack, faintly dark-shadowed skin beneath them. But she never spoke except to call her bid. She laid down her cards with the same brisk purpose with which she added up the scores and the wins and losses at the end of each rubber.

A formidable lady, whose outward appearance completely belied the efficiency of her play. Peregrine wondered if anyone else noticed the paradox as the evening finally broke up and he rose from the table with a respectable
sum in his pocket. He shook hands with his opponents and then turned to where Mistress Hathaway had been standing, a smile on his lips, his hand outstretched, only to discover an empty space behind him. The librarian was nowhere to be seen, and Marcus appeared at his elbow, yawning.

“Stephen’s gathering a fishing expedition tomorrow at sunrise,” Marcus said. “D’you fancy joining it?”

“Certainly,” Perry responded with enthusiasm. “I’ve more stomach for fishing than for whist.”

Marcus chuckled. “You had a profitable evening, though, I gather.”

“Yes,” Perry agreed thoughtfully. “Not in some small measure thanks to Mistress Hathaway.”

“Yes, she’s an unusual woman. Don’t find too many of the dear souls with wits to match hers,” Marcus agreed, yawning again. “Still, with such an unfortunate appearance, ’tis good she has the wit at least to compensate.”

“Yes, I suppose so,” Perry agreed as they went out into the starless night to walk down the drive to the Dower House.

Chapter Two

Alexandra Douglas reached the haven of her own bedchamber, closing the door behind her with a sigh of relief. She leaned against it, listening to the sounds from the hall below as the party broke up. She had made her escape so abruptly as to be considered discourteous, but she doubted anyone would have noticed. Except perhaps for her fair-headed whist partner, the Honorable Peregrine Sullivan. Those deep blue eyes had a disconcertingly penetrating quality that made her very uneasy. But what could he have seen?

Of course, she hadn’t helped matters with her impulsive responses. For some reason, the man had brought out the carefree Alexandra Douglas she used to be. She’d always enjoyed verbal challenges and lively sparring with anyone willing to engage with her. But she’d learned to quell the urge, or, at least, she thought she had. It was so difficult sometimes to hide her self in this dim carapace. Beneath the dull gray surface of her outward guise, the flame that was Alexandra Douglas burned just as brightly as ever, and not a day passed
without her longing at least once to be free of the whole wretched business.