An Unsuitable Bride (43 page)

In Stratton Street that afternoon, Peregrine could settle to nothing. Every ounce of his being yearned to go to Alexandra; it was almost like being pulled apart in a tug of war. And he didn’t know why he was depriving himself of the pleasure of her company. It was cutting off his nose to spite his face, he thought irritably as he got up from his chair for the second time in five minutes. Why couldn’t he simply resign himself to the inevitable, let her get on with her mission, and look forward to starting their life together when she had satisfied herself that she had taken care of Sylvia’s future? It wasn’t as if he were in a position himself right now to guarantee that future. But he knew that he couldn’t do that. Every moment she spent in Combe Abbey endangered her, and she didn’t seem to understand the reality of that danger. Fraud was a capital offense; stealing as much as a penny loaf was a capital offense. He couldn’t possibly stand aside while the woman he loved stubbornly persisted in putting herself in such an impossibly dangerous position.

“Why so glum, Perry?” Sebastian came into the sitting room, rain dripping from his hat. “ ’Tis foul out there. You’re much better off in here by the fire.”

“It doesn’t feel like it,” his twin said, flinging himself back into his chair. “I am so angry with her, Seb, and yet I can’t bear to be away from her.”

“There’s no point in being angry, believe me.” Sebastian stood in front of the fire, drying his damp boots. “For some reason, we Blackwaters are drawn to exasperatingly
independent, stubborn women who won’t see reason, let alone do as they’re told.” He shrugged with a light laugh. “Accept it, Perry. ’Tis our fate.”

“I don’t believe in fate,” Peregrine muttered, but already his mood was lightening. “Oh, to hell with it, Seb. You’re right. I love her. Sometimes it feels as if there was never a moment when I haven’t loved her . . . even in that ghastly gown, with the humpback and the birthmark and the gray hair. How could that be?” He shook his head in amazement.

“No idea, since I’ve only ever seen her looking utterly delectable,” Sebastian responded cheerfully. “Put it down to fate, if I were you. So, did you get the license?”

“Yes, I have it.” He patted the inside pocket of his waistcoat. “I just have to get through the rest of today without rushing around to Berkeley Square. I just hope she’s as miserable as I am,” he added, and then joined his twin in laughter at the absurdity of such a declaration.

“Where’s Serena?” Peregrine asked suddenly, once his amusement had died down.

“Oh, she’s visiting an old friend, Mistress Margaret Standish, I believe she said. She lives on St. James’s Place.” Sebastian had visited the house once, when he and Serena had met again after three years of estrangement. He remembered the occasion all too well. It was at that meeting that he had realized that however angry and hurt he had been with Serena since her betrayal,
he had never stopped loving her. And he had the first inkling then that it had been the same for her.

“I’m going to change into dry clothes,” he added, going to the door. “Then I suggest you and I go to White’s for a mutton chop and a bumper of porter.” With a grin over his shoulder, he went out.

Chapter Twenty

The next morning, before sunrise, Mistress Alexandra Hathaway entered a post chaise outside the house in Berkeley Square and began the long journey back to Combe Abbey. The dreadful sense of being completely alone flooded her once more. It seemed like an eternity since she had felt like this, before Peregrine had come into her life—had taken over her life, it seemed sometimes. And the feeling was worse than ever now that she knew what it was like not to be alone. If only they could have parted company properly, with words and kisses and the promise of renewal.

She told herself that it was better this way; indeed, it was the only possible way for this to happen. She had to tear off the bandage in one sweep, otherwise everything would become muddled and tangled again. She would need the whole journey alone to assume once more the internal character of Mistress Hathaway. The physical characteristics were one thing, but once more, she had to subsume her self into the character of the self-effacing, timid little mouse of a librarian. Already, she was beginning
to feel as if the manifest glories of the last few days had been no more than a chimera.

Peregrine ran lightly up the steps to the house on Berkeley Square, a smile of anticipation on his lips. He could feel the crisp presence of the marriage license in the inside pocket of his coat. The leaves in the square garden were turning, their rich autumn red, yellow, and copper aglow in the sunlight. The previous day’s rain seemed to have washed away the summer’s accumulation of dust and grime, and the city air smelled fresh for once.

He banged on the door with a vigor to match his mood and waited impatiently, tapping the railings with his silver-knobbed swordstick. The door opened, and Billings surveyed him with a jaundiced air.

“Yes?”

“Good morning,” Peregrine said cheerfully, stepping adroitly past the retainer. “Will you tell Mistress Hathaway that I am come to call?”

The old man blinked at him. “She’s not ’ere.”

“Oh?” Perry looked surprised. It was still quite early in the morning. “I’ll wait, then. Did she say when she would be back?”

Billings shook his head. “No, left in a chaise afore dawn this morning.” He turned and shuffled to a dusty table in the corner of the hall. “Said I was to give you this.”

Peregrine stared at him, feeling a cold certainty
lodge in his belly.
She has gone . . . left me.
Wordlessly, he held out his hand for the package the old man proffered. For a moment, he stood, holding it, looking around him. He could feel Alexandra’s absence in the chill, neglected air of the house. He turned, still silent, and left the house, walking quickly back to Stratton Street.

Sebastian called out to him from the parlor as Perry entered the house. “You’re out early, Perry. Have you breakfasted?”

Peregrine ignored his brother and ran upstairs to his own chamber. He closed the door and stood leaning his back against it as he slit the wafer on the package. There was a book and a letter. He turned the book over in his hands. It was the Chaucer, the one volume that Alexandra said meant more to her than any of the others in her father’s library. Slowly, he opened the folded letter.

My dearest Perry,

Forgive me. I have to complete my mission before we can be together. I cannot risk any harm coming to you through my actions. I must do what has to be done, and when it is over, we can come together without hindrance. But I will understand if my actions now kill whatever love you have for me. I know it’s cowardly to run away, but I don’t trust myself when I am with you. You can be so very persuasive, my love. Please keep the Chaucer for me in the certainty that I will come back as soon as my work is done. If you will still have me.

A.

He read the missive twice, noticing the smudges on some of the letters. He wondered distantly if they were tears, and he hoped they were. He hoped she was in pain, suffering from her own selfish stupidity. A red burst of rage banished the cold shock of his initial realization that she had left him, and he crumpled the letter, hurling it into the fire.

“Perry?” At his brother’s voice from the corridor, he moved away from the door as Sebastian lifted the latch. He turned as his twin pushed open the door.

Sebastian took in Peregrine’s ashen countenance, the hollowness of his eyes, the air of one stunned by some disaster. He came quickly towards him. “Oh, God, Perry, what has happened? Has there been an accident? What is it?”

“She’s left me,” Perry said. “Alexandra . . . she’s gone back to Combe Abbey to put her head in a noose for this foolish compulsion of hers, and she didn’t even have the courage or the basic courtesy to face me with it. Does she think everything that has happened between us can be dismissed like that? What of
love,
Seb? We spoke of love, declared love. And she can throw it away on a whim and without a word of warning.” He turned from his brother with a gesture of disgust.

Sebastian said nothing for a moment. He knew how
his brother was feeling; he had gone through that agony himself a long time ago, when Serena had betrayed him in much the same way. And his brothers had been there with words of comfort when he needed them and silent supportive sympathy when that was what he needed. Now he wondered what to offer Perry.

“Did she leave a letter?” he asked.

“Yes . . . she left a damned letter with the caretaker in Berkeley Square.”

“Did she say anything about coming back?”

Peregrine shook his head in the same disgust. “Once she’s finished her work, she’ll come back if I’ll have her. I’m supposed to accept that, sit here twiddling my thumbs, out of my mind with worry that she’ll be exposed . . . every minute she’s down there, she’s risking her neck.”

“She’s managed to avoid exposure so far,” Sebastian pointed out.

“By some kind of miracle,” his twin snapped. “I found her out quickly enough. Why won’t someone else?”

“What are you going to do?”

“Nothing,” Perry said harshly. “She’s made her bed; she must lie in it.”

Sebastian hesitated. He had never heard Perry use such a tone, but he could feel his twin’s hurt, the rage it fueled, and he understood it. “The journey will take her several days,” he observed, thinking that would give Perry time to think clearly again.

“At least,” Peregrine agreed shortly.
Will she make a detour to Barton again?

To hell with it. She can do whatever she wants. She made it clear that she wants nothing from me, and I am happy to oblige.

Throughout the tedious journey, as the wearisome miles rolled under the iron wheels of the chaise, Alex wrestled with her unhappiness and a growing sense of uncertainty.
Have I done the right thing? How did Peregrine respond to my letter?
It would have angered him, she knew, but maybe he also understood. She had tried so hard and so many times to explain the need, the compulsion she had to complete this mission. Apart from her burning need for justice, Sylvia’s future had to be secured.
But what if he doesn’t understand?
That fear seemed to exaggerate the widening distance between herself and Peregrine as they crossed the county line into Dorsetshire.

She arrived at Combe Abbey in the late afternoon of the third day. There had been no time to write to Stephen telling him of the success of her mission and when he should expect her return, so she was not expecting a welcome when she stepped stiffly from the post chaise and stood on the gravel sweep looking up at her childhood home.

No one came to the door, and the coachman unloaded her portmanteau and the tea chest of books
directly onto the gravel and drove off, leaving her standing at the front door, her hand raised to the knocker.

Her knock was eventually answered by the butler, who greeted her with an unsmiling bow. “We weren’t expecting you, Mistress Hathaway.”

She ducked her head in a self-deprecating gesture. “So sorry to have disturbed you . . . such a nuisance in the afternoon, of course. I’ll just go straight to my chamber to take off my cloak and hat. If it wouldn’t be too much trouble to ask one of the footmen to bring in my portmanteau . . .” She gave him a shy, slightly scared smile as she indicated her bag sitting in lonely state on the driveway.