The Gilded Web

by Mary Balogh

  She was not ugly. Quite the contrary, in fact. When he looked at her objectively, he could admit that she was rather lovely. She had a body that could be voluptuous and a face that could be beautiful. Indeed, she had appeared both to him during that first encounter in Madeline’s bedchamber. But she was not voluptuous and she was not beautiful. He did not find her in any way attractive.

  He could not quite explain to himself why not. Was it the character within that was unlovely? Yet she was perfectly well-bred. And she certainly had self-possession and dignity and courage that he could admire. But she was so totally untouchable. He had looked at her once at the theater when she was watching the action onstage. He had looked at her well-formed mouth and tried to picture himself tasting her lips with his mouth and his tongue. He just could not imagine it. His eyes had swept her body. He had tried to imagine it spread beneath his own in bed as it would be when they were wed. It could not be done. He could not picture himself making love to the girl, or even simply having intercourse with her.

  Yet she was to be his wife!

  Beckworth must be largely to blame for her strange character, of course. From a few facts she had let slip, he understood that she must have had an incredibly narrow and strict upbringing. And was that upbringing ingrained in her very character? Or was there some hope of softening her, making her more human with the patience of his regard?

  And he must cultivate a regard for her. He must learn to esteem her, to respect her, to love her even. He could not tolerate in himself a willingness to do the right thing by marrying her if he ended his obligation there. Making her respectable was not simply a matter of speaking a few words at the altar so that she might acquire the protection of his name. It meant making her his wife, making her half of his life for the rest of his days. It would be a formidable task.

  Lord Amberley sighed and lifted the forgotten glass to his lips. He was relieved when the door was suddenly opened and his brother’s head appeared around it.

  “Ah, you are still up, Edmund,” Lord Eden said, coming into the room and setting his hat and cloak on a chair by the door. “I thought you would be in bed. I did not mean to be late. But it is Bates’s birthday, you know—today, that is, and I had agreed to help him and a few other fellows celebrate it. I understood it was to be at the other end of the day—tomorrow, so to speak—but nothing would do but for us to toast him as soon as midnight struck.”

  “I have been having a brandy,” Lord Amberley said, elevating his glass. “Have one, Dom?”

  “No,” his brother said. “I have had enough for one night. Listen, Edmund, I wished to talk to you tonight. About Miss Purnell. It won’t do at all, you know. I am the one who should be marrying her.”

  “Too late, Dom,” Lord Amberley said with a grin. “She prefers me.”

  “Poppycock!” Lord Eden said, jumping up from the chair he had just taken and beginning to stride about the room. “The poor girl just discovered what spite the ton is capable of, that is all. I heard what happened at Lady Sharp’s. I should have been there. And I should have been the one to go back to Curzon Street this afternoon. I will marry her. I will go there tomorrow and explain.”

  “You will do no such thing,” his brother said, yawning so that his jaws cracked. “The matter is all settled, Dom. Let’s go to bed.”

  “It is not at all settled,” Lord Eden said. His face was flushed. “Miss Purnell seems to be a sensible female. She will see immediately when I explain why things must change. She will be just as happy to marry me, I daresay. I can offer as much respectability as you, Edmund.”

  Lord Amberley placed his almost empty glass on a small table at his elbow and rose to his feet. “Enough, Dom,” he said, a note of finality in his voice. “Miss Purnell is my betrothed. I owe her as much protection as if she were my wife already. Protection even against you. I will not have her harassed. You will have me to answer to if you try.” He looked his brother steadily in the eye.

  Lord Eden looked rebellious. His face was still flushed. “But you cannot possibly wish to marry her, Edmund,” he said. “She is like a marble statue.”

  Lord Amberley’s lips thinned. “Miss Purnell is to be my wife,” he said softly. “You will do well to be careful of what you say about her, Dominic. I will not countenance any remark that even hints at disrespect.”

  Lord Eden ran a hand through his hair, leaving it considerably disheveled. “You know very well what I meant,” he said. “You are taking her into the country—Mama said tonight. I am coming too, Edmund, unless you expressly forbid me the house. And I am going to take her from you. I am going to persuade her that she prefers me. I won’t have you doing this for my sake. And I know that that is why you are doing it rather than urging me to do what is right. You do not want to see my life ruined. You would rather ruin your own.”

  Lord Amberley grinned unexpectedly into the tension that had developed between them. “Should we send for the dueling pistols now?” he asked. “Somehow I think not. We might damage the walls and books in here, not to mention each other’s person. And we would undoubtedly alarm the servants. Leave matters as they are, Dom. If you had lived hundreds of years ago, you could have ridden off in a cloud of romance to the Crusades. Unfortunately, you are living in the very prosaic nineteenth century. Let us go to bed.” He set a brotherly arm around the other’s shoulders.

  “I shall do it all the same,” Lord Eden grumbled as his brother lifted the branch of candles and they left the room together. “I am not a boy any longer, Edmund. I wish you would realize that. This is entirely my problem, and I do not need your protection. I am going to take her from you.”

  LORD EDEN WAS FEELING MORE CHEERFUL than he had a right to be feeling, he thought, considering the fact that he was about to try to take on a life sentence. But the sun was shining outside, Lord Beckworth had not been home on Curzon Street, nor the rather disconcerting Mr. Purnell, and Lady Beckworth had been quite gracious, giving it as her opinion when he had waited upon her during the afternoon that it would be quite unexceptionable for her daughter to drive in the park with him. Miss Purnell herself had raised no objection.

  And Miss Purnell was really not a bad looker after all, he was relieved to find. She was wearing a primrose dress that made her look far more youthful than anything else he had seen her in. The matching pelisse and straw bonnet she donned in order to ride out with him made her look rather like a ray of sunshine. He did not know quite what had given him the impression during his first interview with her that she was a thin, plain, and uninteresting lady. Indeed, when he thought about the matter, he believed that she had looked rather handsome the night before when he had seen her at the theater with Edmund.

  Lord Eden handed Alexandra into his curricle and took his seat beside her. She was looking rather tense, but that was not unflattering. He was forever conscious of his age, which was not very advanced at all for a man. He was accustomed to not being taken very seriously by his elders. With very young ladies, of course, those below the age of twenty, he had had considerable success. But Miss Purnell was no girl. He was not even sure that she was not older than he. It was encouraging to know that she took him seriously enough to feel nervous with him.

  “Are you comfortable?” he asked, smiling reassuringly at her. “Some ladies are a little apprehensive about the high seat, but you may rest easy. I handle the ribbons with great care, especially when I have a lady’s safety in my hands. Even Edmund will admit as much.”

  “I feel perfectly safe, thank you,” she said. “I trust your driving implicitly, sir.”

  Her voice was quite grave. Most young females of his acquaintance would have sounded breathless and even adoring saying the same words.

  Lord Eden winced as he grasped the ribbons and gave the horses the signal to start. His arms were feeling deucedly stiff. He would have thought himself in better physical condition. Of course, the morning’s boxing bout had been no ordinary one. He smiled to himself. Yes, there was another reason for his p
resent cheerful mood.

  “Did you enjoy the play last evening?” he asked conversationally, and settled into a pleasant verbal exchange of trivialities as he maneuvered his curricle along the streets leading to Hyde Park.

  Harding-Smythe had put in an appearance at Jackson’s that morning. Five of Lord Eden’s acquaintances had had a bet on the question of whether he would do so or not. Three of them had felt that the prospect of facing Eden’s well-known fists would keep the man away. Two had believed that the challenge had been made so publicly that Harding-Smythe could not stay away without losing face.

  It was difficult to make serious business of a boxing match at Jackson’s. It was not easy to give one’s opponent a thorough drubbing. Gentleman Jackson had not acquired his nickname without reason. Rigidly applied rules and gentlemanly etiquette determined that no one lost his temper and no one got seriously hurt at the famous saloon. The punishment of Harding-Smythe had had to be carefully planned.

  Faber and two of his other cronies had volunteered for the task of distracting Jackson’s attention. Not one of the three was up to the task of challenging the pugilist to a bout, but they had gathered around the man who had, making a great deal of noise and peppering Jackson with questions on strategy when the bout came to an early end. One true and rash friend had even offered his body for demonstration purposes.

  They had created a long enough diversion. By the time Jackson had noticed the crowd of interested spectators gathered around the ring in which Lord Eden had taken on Harding-Smythe, that reptile was reeling and seemed not quite to know where he was or what he was doing there or from what direction the next punishing fist was likely to come. He had been down on the canvas, twice, but Lord Eden had stood over him, not laying a hand on him, finding just the right taunting words to bring him staggering to his feet again.

  He would know for days to come that he had been used as a punching ball. He would be more careful in future of what he said about his own cousin and about Edmund. Implying that Edmund had enjoyed Miss Purnell while she was still tied to Madeline’s bed, indeed! Clearly the man and his friends knew nothing whatsoever about the Earl of Amberley!

  The sore arms were worth enduring, Lord Eden thought, turning his horses carefully through the gates of the park and noting that the sun had brought out conveyances and horses and pedestrians by the score. The public and scathing setdown he had received from the lips of Jackson, no respecter of persons, was cheap at the price too, and the week’s banishment from the boxing saloon for ungentlemanly conduct. He would cheerfully do it all again if he could.

  Miss Purnell’s chin lifted when they entered the park, he noticed with interest. She looked more like the proud and severe lady he had confronted a few mornings before with his marriage proposal. But the straw bonnet, trimmed with yellow and blue flowers, spoiled the effect. It was decidedly pretty.

  “I wish I had been at Lady Sharp’s two evenings ago,” he said impulsively. “I would have had a thing or two to say to a few people. I would have made very sure that no one harassed you, Miss Purnell.”

  “Really, no one did,” she said. “I was merely made to feel that I had been set down in the middle of an ice house. I had no idea that people could behave so, and for such a trivial cause.”

  “How you must hate me!” he said. “I marvel that you can sit there, ma’am, and be so civil to me. I cannot imagine what possessed me. Looking back now, I can think of a hundred courses of action that I might have taken under the circumstances. The easiest would have been to have stalked over to Fairhaven the moment I heard him talking of an elopement and drawn his cork right there. It would have been embarrassing in the middle of a ballroom, I suppose, but at least only I would have suffered. And he, of course. Though as for that, he deserves to suffer too. He has run off with Miss Turner and caused a pretty scandal.”

  “It is easy to think of the right thing to do or say after the event,” Alexandra said.

  “I wish I had been at Lady Sharp’s all the same,” he said. “If I had, I would have known sooner that you were in need of my protection. I would have been the one to take you about and present you as my future bride. And I would have been the one to call on you yesterday morning. And I would now be a happy man. Good day, ma’am.”

  He raised his hat to Lady Fender, who had given the signal for her barouche to come to a halt alongside his curricle.

  “Ah, Miss Purnell,” she called, nodding graciously at Lord Eden, “my felicitations, my dear. It seems that Amberley did prevail upon you, then, to accept his offer. I wish you joy. You cannot do better than to ally yourself to the Raine family, you know.” The plumes of her bonnet waved again in Lord Eden’s direction.

  “Thank you, ma’am,” Alexandra said unsmilingly. “I am very sensible of the honor that is being done me.”

  “She was present in Lady Sharp’s drawing room?” Lord Eden asked as they drove on.

  “Yes,” she said.

  “The old tabby!” he commented. “How do you do, my lord? My lady?” He bowed to a couple who passed them in a landau, nodding and smiling in Alexandra’s direction.

  Alexandra inclined her head. She did not smile, Lord Eden noted with some satisfaction, at any of the people they passed and greeted in the next few minutes.

  “I want you to reconsider, Miss Purnell,” he said abruptly, as soon as it seemed his conversation would not be overheard by a dozen people.

  “My lord?” she asked, looking at him blankly.

  “I want you to marry me,” he said. “It is far more fitting. I am the one who compromised you. And besides, I am more of an age with you, better able to take you about and entertain you. Edmund is something of a dry stick, you know.” He flushed at the disloyalty of his words.

  “But the matter is no longer open for discussion,” she said. “I have accepted Lord Amberley, my lord. And our betrothal is common knowledge already, as you can see for yourself this afternoon.”

  “It can be changed,” he said. “A betrothal is not like a marriage. It is not binding. Besides, the summer is coming. We can leave town. We can marry immediately if you wish, and retire to my estate in Wiltshire. People will soon forget. I will be able to bring you back here next year or take you traveling. You will not have a dull life, Miss Purnell. I promise you that. And I promise to be a faithful and considerate husband.”

  “Why are you doing this?” she asked quietly. “There is no need, you know. I have been restored to respectability, as you can see. These people seem to be satisfied by the fact that I am now engaged to your brother. Why are you willing to face another scandal?”

  “I want to marry you,” he said. “I feel a deep regard for you, Miss Purnell. I love you.” He looked at her, embarrassed by his own words. They were so patently overdone, so obviously untrue. And yet they did not feel entirely untrue at that moment. He had turned his curricle out of the main path and taken a quieter, more shaded one through the trees. The patterns of light and shade that passed over her, the sunny yellow of her clothes, the pretty straw bonnet, all made her look unexpectedly appealing. Her dark eyes fixed steadily on him enhanced her beauty.

  “It is your brother, is it not?” she said. “You love him a great deal. I have noticed already that there is a closeness of regard in your family. I can sympathize with that. My brother is very dear to me. I think I would sacrifice a great deal to see him happy. You are prepared to sacrifice the whole of your future, my lord?”

  “Oh, I say,” he said, feeling himself flush and wishing that he could make his reaction more manly.

  “I have really bungled, have I not? I really meant what I said just now, Miss Purnell. I do feel a regard for you. I do not know you, of course, but I have seen enough to find that I admire you greatly. Not many ladies would have lived through the last few days with as much dignity as you have shown. You are a woman of strong character, I believe. I would be truly honored to be entrusted with the protection of your name.”

  “I think I will like you to
o,” she said, “when I know you better. You have done something rash and impetuous and you are willing to take the consequences. Unfortunately for me, I am the consequences. I do not enjoy my role, my lord, but I have been persuaded that my best course of action is to engage myself to marry your brother. I must live by that decision. All sorts of people, including me, would be embarrassed, if I were to change my mind now, today. I thank you, but I must beg you to say no more.”

  “I cannot give up so easily,” he said. “I will not.”

  “Is it such a bad thing for your brother, then,” she asked, “to be marrying me?”

  He looked at her unhappily. This plan had seemed so right to him before he had begun to put it into operation. He had been all persuasive charm, she all timid and yielding femininity. Why was it that now it seemed so wrong?

  “I have succeeded in sounding very insulting, have I not?” he said. “As if you are a burden that either Edmund or I have to take on. That is not true at all, I do assure you. I really want to marry you, Miss Purnell. I find the prospect more and more appealing.”

  “And your brother does not?” she asked.

  He felt himself flushing anew. “I do not know,” he said. “I have not discussed feelings with Edmund. But I think for your own sake, Miss Purnell, that you will be better off with me. Edmund is a very private person. He does not mix readily with other people. I think he prefers to be alone. Perhaps he would not…Maybe he is not the sort of man who…” He drew a hand along his jaw and sighed. “I cannot talk for Edmund. It would be unfair. I can only talk for myself. I am not doing a very good job of this, am I?”

  She laughed unexpectedly, a light, amused laugh. “Yes, I think you are,” she said. “Not a very good job of persuading me to marry you, it is true. But you are doing a wonderful job of making me like you. You are an honorable man and a loyal brother, my lord. I am glad you asked me to drive with you this afternoon. I confess I have been feeling dreadfully depressed about this whole matter and unwilling to come out again to face people. I have not liked what I have seen in the past week. You have restored my faith in humanity.”