An Unsuitable Bride Read Online Free PDF Page A

was a secret tippler. Not that she ever allowed herself more than this one solitary nightcap a day. It relaxed her after the day’s stresses and loosened the tight controls that she had to live with every minute away from the safety of this corner bedchamber.
    Alex sat on the deep windowsill, looking out over the lawn to the silver glimmer of the moonlit sea. It was a beautiful night, but soon the leaves would turn and fall, and the winds of winter would blow strong from the sea. She had always loved the winters at Combe Abbey, the crisp frosty fields, the bare trees bending beneath the gusting wind, the smell of burning logs in the great fireplaces. Her own bedchamber, once she and her sister had left the nursery floor, had been at the front of the house, Sylvia’s adjoining it. Lady Maude, Stephen’s wife, kept them both as guest chambers these days. But Alex was happy enough in her small corner chamber. It was secluded from the rest of the house, more easily reached by the backstairs than from the grand staircase leading up from the front hall.
    Only a few short months before, she had been contentedly moving from day to day in a world where everything followed an accustomed pattern, until that early December afternoon . . . could it possibly have been only eight months ago?
    Resting her chin in her elbow-propped hand, she let her mind drift back to that chilly afternoon . . .

    “Mistress Alexandra? Oh, there you are. I’ve been looking all over for you.” The young maidservant adjusted her cap as she ducked beneath the bare branch of an apple tree. She was somewhat breathless, pink-cheeked from the brisk winter wind.
    “Well, now that you’ve found me, Dorcas, what can I do for you?” Alexandra closed her book over her gloved finger and smiled up at the girl from the bench beneath the apple tree in the relatively sheltered orchard.
    “ ’Tis Mistress Simmons, miss. She wants you.”
    Alexandra uncoiled her lithe frame from the bench and drew her cloak more tightly around her. “Then she must have me. Where is she?”
    “In her parlor, miss.”
    Alexandra nodded. “Thank you, Dorcas.” She walked quickly away down the avenue of apple trees, her stride like that of a restless young colt eager for the pasture. She broke through the neat rows of pollarded fruit trees at the foot of a sweep of green lawn leading up to a pleasant gray-stone house, the pale sun deepening the hue of the red-tiled roof. She paused for a moment, enjoying the vista. The house had been her home for the last five years, and while she still had moments of longing for her childhood home, Combe Abbey, standing high on its Dorset cliff top overlooking Lulworth Cove, St. Catherine’s Seminary for Young Ladies had given her much to be thankful for.
    She strode off towards the house, heading for a side door. The narrow corridor was filled with familiar scents of beeswax and lavender, and she could hear the girlish chatter of young voices coming from one of the schoolrooms as she passed a closed door. She smiled faintly—not so long ago, her voice would have joined those. She crossed a square, sunlit hall and tapped on a door.
    “Enter.”
    Alexandra entered the room, smiling a greeting. “Dorcas said you wished to see me, Helene.”
    “Yes, my dear.” The middle-aged woman behind the desk took off her pince-nez and rubbed her eyes wearily. “Sit down.”
    Alexandra obeyed. She had spent many hours in the last five years in this room, part parlor, part office, part schoolroom, avidly inhaling every scrap of knowledge Helene could impart. Now, however, she felt a tremor of alarm. Her friend and mentor for once seemed to be at a loss for words . . .
    Helene Simmons regarded the young woman in compassionate silence for a moment. She had owned St. Catherine’s Seminary for Young Ladies for more than ten years and was accustomed to trying, and failing for the most part, to educate young and frivolous female minds to respond to the stimulation