An Unsuitable Bride (32 page)

Alexandra loved Richmond Park from the first moment they rode through the gates. The shaded grassy rides through alleys of trees were almost as delightful as riding in the country. Occasionally, they would run into small parties of fellow horsemen, but for the most part, they rode in peaceful solitude, disturbing grazing deer here and there and scaring up pheasants from the undergrowth.

“ ’Tis amazing to think this wilderness exists so close to London,” she observed, watching a fawn with its mother disappear into the trees ahead.

“ ’Tis hardly a wilderness,” Perry said. “There’s an entire army of gamekeepers and wardens employed to keep the wildlife plentiful for shooting and to replant the woodland when necessary. Richmond has been the
playground of royalty since before the Norman conquest.”

“Thank you for disillusioning me,” Alex said with a mock frown. “May we gallop?”

“Certainly. ’Tis not Hyde Park, where such freedom is frowned upon.”

Alex nudged the mare with her heels. “Come, then, Griselda, let us see what you can do.” The horse broke into a canter and then a gallop, with Alex riding low in the saddle, leaning into the animal’s neck. Peregrine watched her for a few moments, smiling at the uninhibited enjoyment radiating from the flying figures, and then gave Sam his head. The horse had been straining to follow Griselda and leaped forward, closing the distance between them.

Alexandra heard the pounding hooves behind her and whispered encouragement to Griselda, but after a few minutes, she drew back on the reins, sensing that her mare was giving as much as she had.

Peregrine drew up beside her. “Where did you learn to ride like that? The inhabitants of impoverished country vicarages don’t usually have the opportunity.”

Alex shook her head. “I don’t know why you persist in asking these questions, Peregrine. I’ve said I won’t lie to you, but I won’t answer you, either.”

“You can’t blame a man for trying.”

She made no response, but some of the brightness had gone out of the day, and Peregrine sensed that her lighthearted enjoyment in the ride had been spoiled.
“There’s a very charming hostelry in the village of Richmond, on the river,” he said cheerfully. “I thought we might take dinner there.”

“And ride home in the dark afterwards? Is that wise?”

“I thought that perhaps we would not ride back afterwards,” he said deliberately. “The hostelry has some very pleasant chambers overlooking the river.”

“Oh, I see.” Alex felt her spirits rise again. As long as she was in Berkeley Square in the morning to receive any responses to her letters, there was absolutely no reason she should return there for the night. “That sounds delightful, sir.”

He smiled. “Good.”

They rode for another hour, until the sun was dipping low in the sky, and then Peregrine turned his horse back to the entrance of the park. The little village of Richmond lay immediately outside the park on the banks of the River Thames. The Coach and Horses was a whitewashed, thatched-roof building with an ale garden on the riverbank. Wisteria clung to the walls, framing the mullioned windows and the front door.

They drew up outside the entrance, and the bewigged landlord emerged instantly. He bowed, his belly straining against the buttons of his brown waistcoat. He was beaming a welcome, but his eyes, like little brown buttons, were sharply assessing the quality of his potential guests. He seemed to find that quality satisfactory, as his bow deepened.

“Good evening, ma’am, sir.” He rubbed his plump
hands together as they dismounted. “Welcome to my humble establishment. I’ll send a groom to take the ’orses, sir.” He yelled over his shoulder, and a boy appeared at a run. “Take the ’orses, rub ’em down, and give ’em a bran mash.”

Peregrine nodded his approval. “Dinner and a chamber for the night, mine host. We’ve overstayed our time in the park, and I’ve no wish to ride back to town in the dark.”

“Oh, right y’are, sir.” It explained his customers’ lack of luggage. “Yes, indeed. We’ve an oyster stew and roast partridges in the ordinary, but if you was wantin’ a private parlor, we could do summat special fer yer dinner.”

Peregrine nodded. In normal circumstances, he would not have spent good money on a private parlor, but these circumstances were not normal. “Yes, that will do fine, thank you.”

“Will madam be needing a truckle bed for ’er maid?” The landlord looked around rather pointedly. In general, unattended ladies of fashion did not stop at the Coach and Horses.

“No, I won’t.” Alexandra spoke up with the natural haughtiness that Perry had noticed before. “My maid became unwell, and we were obliged to send her back to town early this afternoon.”

“I see, ma’am.” The man bowed again. There was nothing about the lady’s manner to indicate that she was not the lady she appeared to be. Besides, it was all
good custom, after all, whether or not she was no better than she should be. A private parlor was his business, nothing else. “If you’d follow me, sir . . . ma’am. I’ll send one of the girls up with ’ot water to wait upon you, ma’am.”

They followed him into the inn. Oil lamps were already lit, and there was a pleasing air of order about the establishment. They were shown first to a private parlor upstairs and then to a commodious bedchamber across the corridor, overlooking the river.

“This will do very well.” Peregrine discarded his riding cloak, whip, and gloves. “I will await you in the parlor, my dear, while you refresh yourself.”

Alexandra curtsied her acknowledgment with a hidden smile. Peregrine was as good a playactor as she was herself. The considerate husband was a part that seemed to suit him rather well.

Peregrine left her and went into the private parlor, where a bright fire and wax candles burned.

“And would you be wantin’ to order anything special for yer dinner, sir?” inquired the landlord, who had followed him into the room.

“I don’t think so. Oyster stew and roast partridge will do us very well. But you may bring a bottle of your best burgundy and a decanter of Madeira, if you please.”

“Right y’are, sir. I’ve a good burgundy from ’50. One o’ the best years for burgundy, if I may say so.”

“Then bring it, if you please.” Perry nodded a pleasant
dismissal and went to warm himself at the fire. The ease with which the gently bred Alexandra took to the life of seduction amused him as much as it intrigued him. She didn’t appear to have any scruples at all. But then, why should someone who was conducting a monstrous deception every moment of her life have any scruples about any other conventional issue of morality? It seemed that what exasperated him about her on the one hand benefitted him on the other. He shook his head in rueful amusement and kicked a fallen log back into the hearth.

He turned at a light tap on the door and called, “Enter.” A young serving girl bobbed a curtsy in the doorway. “Beggin’ your pardon, sir, but madam says as ’ow she’ll be a while, so could you delay dinner?”

“I’m sure I could, but is there a particular reason for the delay?”

“Aye, sir, madam’s desirous of takin’ a bath. I’m to fetch up ’ot water.”

Peregrine smiled slowly. “Is she, now? Well, you may tell madam that dinner and I will await her pleasure.”

“Very good, sir.” The girl bobbed another curtsy and vanished.

Alexandra was full of surprises, Perry reflected, still smiling. And she appeared to be learning the art of seduction with remarkable aptitude. The landlord appeared with a crusted bottle of burgundy and a decanter of Madeira. He set them on the sideboard and
drew the cork on the burgundy, sniffing it with an air of reverence. “Will you take a drop now, sir?”

“If you please, and put dinner back for half an hour. Madam is taking a bath.”

“Oh, yes, sir, so Hester said. The boys are taking up jugs of ’ot water right now. I’ll serve dinner in forty-five minutes, if that’ll do, sir. The ladies do like to take their time over a bath.” He filled a wine glass and brought it over to his guest.

“I’m sure you know best.” Perry inhaled the bouquet and took a delicate sip. “You’re right, landlord. ’Tis indeed a fine vintage.”

The host looked pleased. “I’ll send up someone to lay the table, sir.”

Perry filled a second glass with Madeira and left the parlor. He lifted the latch of the bedchamber door with his little finger and elbowed it open. Steam rose from behind a screen in front of the fire, and the scent of orange flower and rosewater perfumed the warm air.

“Who’s there?”

“Only me. Who were you expecting?” He stepped across to the fire screen and peered over the top, resting his arms along it, the two glasses in his hands. “What an entrancing sight.”

Alexandra looked up and felt a moment’s self-consciousness that vanished almost as soon as she felt it. “Is one of those for me?” She reached up a hand, and her breast lifted above the water with the movement.

A perfect breast, Peregrine thought. Rounded, creamy white, delicately blue-veined, rosy-tipped. He leaned down to give her the glass of Madeira. Her knees, drawn up in the copper hip bath, broke the surface of the water. Her hair was fastened on top of her head, revealing the slenderness of her neck and the graceful slope of her shoulders. He hadn’t really absorbed her body visually the previous night, but now he allowed his gaze to drift slowly over her, guessing at the hidden pleasures beneath the water.

She took a seductive sip of the tawny wine and flicked her eyelashes at him. It was a gesture of such entrancing sensuality that it took his breath away. Where had this country virgin learned such a trick?

He set down his glass and came around the screen. “May I help, ma’am?” He hung his coat over the screen and slowly rolled up his sleeves, before kneeling on the thick sheets spread beneath the bath. He reached for the cake of soap in the dish on the floor and lathered his hands. “Lean forward.”

Alex obeyed, reaching for her toes as she bent forward over her knees, exposing the creamy length of her back. Her skin was tingling in anticipation, and she could feel once more that sinking, surging sensation of desire in her belly.

Perry smoothed his soapy hands down her back, letting his fingers slide beneath the water in a more intimate exploration. Alex gave a little gasp of surprise and then moved seductively beneath the probing fingers.
He chuckled and kissed the soapy nape of her neck, his hand slipping around between her thighs, finding her center. She closed her eyes as the exquisite sensation began to build, his fingers and the wash of the water working together to fill her with a confused delight. Her back arched, and her knees lifted as the wave crested, and she gave a little cry of pleasure, folding forward again into the water.

Peregrine smiled and slowly withdrew his hand. Alex raised her head and turned to look at him. Her gray eyes were a little dazed, her cheeks delicately flushed, but she managed to say with a fair assumption of normality, “Is that the way you usually wash a person’s back?”

He laughed and kissed the corner of her mouth, before pushing himself back onto his heels and standing up. “I can’t say washing a lady’s back in the bath is a habit of mine. But I find it a most pleasing activity.” He took a towel from the screen and shook it out. “Will you step out, ma’am?”

Alexandra rose in a shower of drops and stepped over the edge of the tub, turning into the towel as he held it out. He wrapped it around her, saying, “I suspect I’m quite competent at drying.”

“I think I should do this myself,” she said firmly. “But thank you for the offer, sir.” She wrapped herself tightly and bent to pick up her glass, which she had set beside the bath. That delicious little interlude had scrambled her senses, she discovered, making her
movements unusually clumsy. She took a steadying sip of Madeira.

Peregrine moved the screen aside and picked up his own glass. He regarded her towel-swathed figure with a raised eyebrow. “Have you given thought to what you might wear to dine in?”

She grimaced. “Actually, I hadn’t considered the question, but I don’t want to put sweaty riding clothes on top of my nice clean skin.” She glanced around the chamber for inspiration. “Oh, I know. I’ll fashion something out of the bedsheet.” She pulled back the coverlet and extracted the top sheet. “This will do very well.”

Peregrine watched with some astonishment as she wrapped, folded, tied, and tucked until she was clad in something resembling a Roman toga. “Ingenious,” he commented.

“Oh, Sylvia and I as children often fashioned costumes from—” She stopped abruptly. That line of conversation could become dangerous.

“From?” he prompted.

She shook her head and went to the washstand. “It was nothing.” She brushed damp tendrils of chestnut hair from her forehead and then abruptly unpinned the knot and let the whole cascade to her shoulders, muttering, “I wish I had a brush,” as she ran her fingers through it, pulling out the tangles.

Perry didn’t pursue the topic, fascinating though he found it. “Shall we go in search of dinner?”

“Oh, yes, I’m famished.” Alex gathered up the folds of her toga and hurried to the door. “Can you bring the glasses? I daren’t let go of the sheet in case it comes loose.”

“Which would be no disaster,” he murmured, picking up their glasses and following her into the corridor.

“It would in the middle of a public passage,” she retorted, casting him a grin over her shoulder as she went into the private parlor, where the table in the window was set for two.

Perry merely smiled. So, she and Sylvia had dressed up as children, wherever it was that they had grown up. Maybe that explained the ease with which Alexandra assumed her various parts. Could they possibly have come from a family of traveling players?

It would explain so much, but not the education and her passion for intellectual interests. Traveling players, much like Romanys, never spent long enough in one place to acquire a decent education. He refilled his glass. “One might almost think you grew up on the stage, the ease with which you play so many parts.”

Alexandra laughed, thinking of her father’s horror. But then she thought of her mother. Luisa had much of the actor about her. She could play many parts, the apparently dutiful wife, the doting mother, the Society grande dame, the dilettante courtesan. Could her daughters have inherited that facility?