Chapter Seven
Lady Alex’s ordeals as a young wife
Thomas Pelton’s incarceration gave him ample time to reflect on his life in general and his marriage to Alexandra in particular. At the time of their marriage, Alex had been a green girl of eighteen years, a renowned beauty, refined in speech and manners, cultivated and civilised, and totally innocent of the ways of the world.
At sixteen Alexandra had achieved a certain celebrity because her portrait had been painted by a famous artist of the time; everyone who saw the picture marvelled at her way the painter had captured her delicate beauty. She appeared in a very striking blue dress with low décolletage and wearing an intricately painted necklace around her white throat, the flesh tones were such that viewers of the portrait felt she a
