An Unsuitable Bride (35 page)

Once again, Alex was transported until Garrick made his final bow to tumultuous applause, shouts, and cheers. Only then did she take her eyes from the stage to glance around the theatre again. And her breath seemed to stop in her chest. In the box directly across from her sat a lady in a gown of crimson damask, a diamond pendant nestled in her deep décolletage. Her
dark chestnut hair was unpowdered but dressed over pads in a high coiffure studded with diamond pins. Her gray eyes were unusually large and bright, and they were fixed in bemused question upon Alexandra.

Luisa.
What in the devil’s name was her mother doing in the Drury Lane Theatre? Alexandra dragged her gaze away, just as Luisa turned to her companion. Alexandra scrambled to her feet, and Perry seized her arm. “What is it? You’re white as a sheet. You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.”

“I have,” she mumbled. “I must go,
now.”
Blindly, she tried to push past him to the door, but he blocked her path.

“Yes, we will go,” he said in a calm, low tone. “But not in such disorder. Everyone will stare at you, and I know you don’t want that. Now, take a breath.”

“I have to get out of here before she finds me.”

“You’re making no sense. But we are going now. Just take my arm, and walk steadily. We won’t stop, and if anyone speaks to us, leave it to me.”

The cool steadiness of his tone calmed her, and she swallowed the rising panic. Her mouth was unpleasantly dry, and she seemed to find it difficult to draw a deep enough breath, but she took Perry’s arm and let him lead her out into the thronged foyer. The doors stood open to the freedom of the Piazza just a few feet away, and she found it easier to look down at the floor and let Perry guide her, moving through the crowd with a touch on an arm here, a shoulder there, stopping for no one.

They were almost at the doors when she heard what she had been dreading. “Alexandra? Alexandra, is that really you? Wait a moment.”

Alex put her head down and pushed through the throng, heedless of Peregrine’s attempt to restrain her with a hand on her arm.

Peregrine let her go and turned to look behind him. A chestnut-haired woman with striking gray eyes stood a few paces away, staring after Alexandra’s retreating figure as it disappeared through the doors to the street beyond.

Peregrine turned and hurried out of the theatre into the Piazza, where a light drizzle had started. He glimpsed Alexandra almost running along the colonnade. The Blackwater coach was waiting in the line of private carriages, and he jumped in, instructing the coachman, “Go slowly towards King Street. We will pick up Mistress Hathaway there.” He pulled the door closed but leaned out through the open window as the coachman set the horses to a slow walk, following Alexandra.

As she turned onto King Street, Peregrine opened the door, blocking her path. “Get in, Alexandra.” She stared at him, her eyes wide with fear. “Come,” he insisted, reaching down a hand to her. “You’ll catch your death. It’s raining.” He spoke quietly, calmly, hoping his voice would reassure her. The fear in her eyes astounded him even as it horrified him.

Slowly, she took his hand and climbed into the carriage. He pulled the door closed as she sat in the corner,
abruptly closing her eyes. Peregrine sat opposite and said nothing as the carriage moved through the crowds.

Not a word was spoken throughout a journey that to Alexandra seemed interminable. She was afraid every time the vehicle was brought to a near stop by a surge of pedestrians or a stray dog or an oncoming vehicle that she would see her mother peering through the window at her. She knew it was an irrational fear, but she couldn’t seem to shake free of it.

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.