An Unsuitable Bride by Jane Feather Read Free Book Online

Maude had a certain malicious cunning, and she was all too quick to sense a slight where there was none and all too willing to invent insolences and incompetence when it suited her.
    If she suspected for a moment that there was more to the dowdy librarian than met the eye, she would nose it out, poking, probing, questioning, until she came up with something that suited her. Sir Stephen lived in trembling fear of his wife’s ill temper, and if Maude came up with a reason to get rid of her husband’s librarian, he would find it hard to resist her. And that would be the best-case scenario. Alex didn’t want to consider the worst—an accusation of fraud, of fictitious references, anything that could put her on the wrong side of the law. Just a few questions could untangle the entire web of deception that maintained the charade. And the consequences for both herself and Sylvia were unthinkable.

Chapter Three

    Peregrine watched the silver flash arc gracefully through the air as he reeled in his fourth catch of the morning. The trout were plentiful in this river-fed stream. All three Blackwater brothers were practiced fishermen and had spent many a silent but companionable dawn or dusk fly-fishing on the family estate in Northumberland. Perry was relieved to find that his present companions were not talkative, either, and in the gentle rhythm of casting and reeling, he slipped into a meditative trance.
    His mind went, as it so often did these days, to his uncle, Viscount Bradley, and the vexed issue of his will, or, rather, of the one stipulation in the will that would make his three nephews equal heirs to his massive fortune. Peregrine felt the familiar surge of anger whenever he thought of the old man, who, while insisting that he was dying, still contrived to make the lives of everyone around him miserable with his malicious manipulations.
    Three brothers, three wives. It sounded reasonable on the surface. One could believe that Viscount Bradleywas looking out for the future of the Blackwater family, except, of course, that he was doing the opposite. Perry’s line twitched, and he began to reel it in slowly. Bradley had decreed that the three wives had to be fallen women in some respect—An incautious movement made his rod jerk abruptly, and he cursed as he watched the fish on the end of his line wriggle, twist, and vanish back into the green-brown water below.
    Damn Bradley. He pulled in his line and rebaited the hook. Just the thought of the viscount’s twisted malice broke his concentration. Somehow, his brothers seemed to find it easier to accept than he did. Jasper was probably right that Bradley had his own good reasons for wanting to rub the noses of the Blackwater family prudes and sticklers for convention in the ordure of a city kennel. But it was still a pact with the devil. Maybe he did want revenge on the family, maybe he was even entitled to it, but Bradley didn’t give a damn what his nephews thought about being compelled to marry women of less than stainless reputation, women they wouldn’t ordinarily find themselves in the same room with, unless, of course, it was a brothel. And his nephews had never done him any harm.
    Perry walked a little way along the riverbank and cast his line again, watching the hook sink below the surface, smooth as silk. Jasper, of course, had no reason to complain, he thought with a wry smile, trying not to indulge in the familiar little niggle of resentment at the ease with which the fifth Earl of Blackwater, Peregrine’seldest brother, had managed to beat the old gentleman at his own game. The wife he had chosen, Clarissa Astley, had been practicing her own deception in London when Jasper had met her. On the surface, she was a whore, a denizen of one of the most renowned Covent Garden nunneries, and thus perfectly suited to satisfy Viscount Bradley’s condition. However, Clarissa was not at all what she seemed.
    The titian-haired beauty had fooled Bradley, or at least