Alissa Baxter Read Free

for Mr Chanderly’s coach to draw up alongside them, aware that it was incumbent upon her to thank him for escorting her home and make him an offer of some refreshment. The dictums of propriety required it, however much she wished she could ignore them in this instance.
    When Mr Chanderly had descended from his coach once again, she formally thanked him for his assistance.
    “The pleasure was all mine, Miss Grantham,” he said politely, although Alexandra had the uncomfortable feeling that he was amused at her belated attempts at civility.
    “May I offer you some refreshment, sir, before you continue on your journey?” she asked, determined not to be betrayed into incivility again, realising that it only set her at a disadvantage in the face of Mr Chanderly’s faultless good manners.
    “Thank you, but no, Miss Grantham. I must continue on my way.”
    Alexandra smiled sweetly. “As you wish, Mr Chanderly. Good afternoon.”
    “Good afternoon, ma’am,” Mr Chanderly said, bowing. He made to move away, then turned back to say softly, “I hope we meet again sometime, Miss Grantham. Your attempts at civility have reassured me to the fact that you may not be a complete baggage. Perhaps you will even improve upon further acquaintance.”
    Alexandra stared speechlessly at Mr Chanderly’s back as he re-entered the coach, unable to believe the arrogance of the man, and it was only when the coach had moved off and disappeared round a bend in the road that she recovered her breath sufficiently to order Ben to continue up the drive of Grantham Place.
    On returning home, Alexandra hurried upstairs to her bedchamber to bathe and dress for dinner, her thoughts in complete disarray. Never before had anyone upset her equilibrium to the extent that Mr Chanderly had done. There was something about him, she reflected uneasily as she brushed her hair a little later, a perceptiveness, and a quiet steadiness of purpose which quite unnerved her. Shaking her head at her reflection in the mirror, Alexandra decided that the best thing she could do was put him from her mind. There was very little chance of her ever encountering Mr Chanderly again, so there was no reason why she should worry about him, she told herself firmly. No reason at all.

 

Chapter Two
    Sunlight filtered down through the leaves of the old oak tree which stood on the bank of the stream, gilding the hair of the young girl standing there, turning it a burnished copper colour. Alexandra Grantham stood casting, at the end of a fallen tree-trunk which extended into the stream, patiently waiting for the wily old trout, with which she had battled on many occasions in the past, to take the fly on the end of her line. She looked around with unseeing eyes at the beauty of her surroundings. Usually the wooded glade where she had spent many childhood hours alternatively fishing, reading or just daydreaming filled her with delight, but today she hardly noticed it in her troubled state of mind. She was thinking of the letter which she had received from her esteemed Grandmama earlier that morning, a letter which seemed destined to change the course of her life forever.
    Her usually placid grandmother had written to her in the strictest terms that she had had enough of Alexandra’s dilly-dallying and excuses for not being presented in London in the upcoming Season, and had stated unequivocally that she would not countenance Alexandra’s refusal to come to Town. “Because in all truth, my dear child,” she had written, “I cannot possibly imagine what could be your reason for wishing to remain in that rural backwater — unless you imagine yourself in love with the Squire’s son, or some such nonsense. But rest assured, my love, that if that is your reason for refusing to come to London, then the attentions of the polished London gentlemen you will meet, all veritable Tulips of the ton , I assure you, will make you forget any young man on whom you may have set your heart. And, my