The Gilded Web

by Mary Balogh

  “The tide is out this morning, according to Walter,” Madeline said. “I am glad. The beach is a great deal larger when it is out. You will be able to see how very splendid it is. Five miles of glorious golden sand, Miss Purnell, and almost a mile from the cliffs to the edge of the tide. When the tide is in, it comes right up to the cliffs so that there is almost no beach at all.”

  “I am not familiar with the sea,” Alexandra said. “But I love wild nature. I love the moors near our home, though they are desolate and can be dreary in poor weather.”

  “The sea is never dreary,” Madeline said. “It is always different. Mama always says that it is the big frustration of her life. She likes to paint it, you see, but she can never capture in paint what she sees before her, she says. For my part, I have never tried. I prefer to paint something that stays still and does not change. Do you paint?”

  “It is one of my great loves,” Alexandra said, “though I do not believe I have any great talent. But I can sympathize with Lady Amberley. I can never quite reproduce what I see and feel. Perhaps that is the fascination of the task, though. Where would be the satisfaction in doing something that one felt one could do perfectly? There would be no challenge.”

  Madeline laughed. “You and Mama will get along famously,” she said. “Shall we use first names, by the way? I hate calling you Miss Purnell. It makes you sound like an aging spinster. And I noticed that you called me Lady Madeline at breakfast. It sounds horribly formal when we are to be sisters, does it not?”

  Alexandra smiled. Informality seemed to be a characteristic of the Raine family. Unfamiliar as she was with such an attitude, she was not sure that she disliked it. “Very well,” she said. “I think that is a good idea, Madeline.”

  She looked closely at her companion as they rode on, talking easily. She envied her. How wonderful it must be to glow so openly with love of life. Madeline was perhaps not beautiful in any obvious sense. She had regular features and hair of no extraordinary color. In height and build she was not very different from Alexandra herself. Her eyes, which were a dark green, were her only unusual feature. And yet she gave the impression of quite vivid beauty. The full force of a sunny personality was in her face and in the graceful, energetic movements of her body.

  “We should be able to see the sea in a minute,” Madeline said. She raised her voice in order to include the group of four riding a little ahead of them. “There is a strange illusion when you first see the water, is there not, Dom? You would swear that it is much higher than the land. It can be quite frightening. You can imagine it rushing in to swallow up the valley and you in it. You used to tease me about it, Dom. Do you remember?”

  Lord Eden turned to look back at them. He wore a boyish grin. “I used to tell you horror stories,” he said, “that had you shrieking in terror.”

  “And then I would chase after you and beat you wherever I could lay my fists,” she said.

  “When you could catch me,” Lord Eden added with a laugh.

  “Brothers are dreadful horrors, are they not, Alexandra?” Madeline said, turning to her companion for support.

  Alexandra met her brother’s eyes and exchanged a smile with him. She could not remember a time when she had had cross words with James or when they had teased each other. She had always assumed that they had a normal relationship for a brother and sister. Was it possible that even in that they were different from others? But she did not care. She would not have things any different.

  “There is to be a dance tomorrow at the Courtneys’,” Anna said. “Everyone is to be there. Except me, that is. I have begged and begged to be allowed to go. I am fifteen, after all, and this is only the country. But Mama says no, and Papa will do nothing but make jokes. I will wear my feet out before I even make my come-out if I attend dances too soon, he says. Is not that ridiculous, Dominic?”

  “It is hard to be almost grown up,” he said, smiling indulgently at her. “I tell you what, though, Anna. When you do start attending dances, you will be so pretty that the men will not let you sit down all night. You will be able to dance to your heart’s content.”

  “Oh, do you think so?” she asked, brightening.

  “Of course,” he said, “that is not much consolation at the moment, is it? We must have Edmund play the pianoforte one day and I shall dance with you in the music room. Just the two of us, and a waltz too. Agreed?” He winked at her.

  “Oh, will you, Dominic?” She gazed eagerly and worshipfully at him.

  Alexandra caught sight of the sea at that moment. They had ridden to the point at which the valley widened and the river spread into an estuary. The grass had coarsened and was interspersed with sand. Madeline was right. The water did seem higher than the land, even though it was far away, across a wide expanse of golden sand.

  “Oh, look, James,” she said. “How perfectly magnificent!”

  Lord Eden rode up beside her. “It is lovely, isn’t it?” he said. “Unfortunately, when one grows up in such a place, one takes it very much for granted. It is only since I have realized that this is not really my home but Edmund’s that I have come to know what a very uniquely beautiful place it is. We always like to think that this is one of the most magnificent beaches in Europe, though we have not seen many more to compare.”

  Alexandra breathed in deeply. There was a salt freshness to the air that was irresistibly exhilarating.

  “The beach is a lovely surface to gallop along,” Lord Eden said. “I can remember many races here.”

  Alexandra turned to him with shining eyes. “Is it?” she said. “Oh, yes, I can see that you must be right. May we gallop?”

  “Now?” he asked doubtfully. “Are you sure you are up to it, Miss Purnell? Edmund has not given you the friskiest horse from the stables, I see, but he has not given you the most sluggish either.”

  “It is perfectly manageable,” Alexandra said. “Oh, please, may we?”

  He looked at her assessingly. “Well,” he said, “if you insist. Let me see, now. Do you see that black rock? The one that looks as if it must have toppled down off the cliff?” He pointed off to their right to a large rock isolated on the beach about a mile or more distant.

  “Yes,” she said, shading her eyes with her hand.

  “I’ll race you to it,” he called with a laugh, spurring his horse forward in a spray of sand before Alexandra could guess his intent.

  But she was not to be outdone so easily. While the others turned to watch in some surprise, she urged her horse forward and was after Lord Eden. The sandy surface was unfamiliar to her, but she gave the horse more rein as she became aware of the firmness underfoot and bent low over the horse’s neck. With every fiber of her being she was aware of the thundering of the horse’s hooves, the salt air whipping against her face, and the horse of her adversary just too far ahead to be caught.

  She was laughing when she finally came up to him at the black rock. He had already thrown himself from the saddle and was reaching up, grinning, to swing her down to the sand beside him.

  “Unfair!” she said breathlessly. “I demand a rematch, sir. With nothing less than a starting pistol.”

  “It would make no difference,” he said. “Come, Miss Purnell, you must admit that you have met with superior horsemanship. If I were to give you a head start, I should still be waiting here ready to lift you down by the time you finished.”

  “You will rue those words one of these days,” she said, and glanced back along the beach. The others seemed a great distance away. She began to feel uneasy. She should not have ridden off with Lord Eden like this, unchaperoned. Mama would have a fit.

  He saw her look and grinned. “The others are coming this way, I believe,” he said. “We might as well sit and wait for them.”

  He suited action to words and seated himself on a flat part of the black rock. After a moment’s hesitation, Alexandra joined him there. It did not seem so very wrong to be alone with him like this. She liked Lord Eden greatly. He was sunny-natured,
like his sister, handsome, charming, boyish. Yet totally unthreatening. She was as comfortable with him as she was with James.

  She supposed that she should dislike him, or at least resent him. He was at the back of all her woes. Without him, she would not at present be at Amberley Court, trapped in a betrothal that was none of her choosing. But she could not resent him. She could almost imagine how that whole mad episode had developed, Lord Eden on the spur of the moment dreaming up an unnecessarily complicated and risky plan to save his sister from a rash elopement. Madeline would have been furious if everything had proceeded according to plan, of course. The two of them would have probably ended in a noisy fistfight. Alexandra smiled to herself as her mind contemplated behavior that was so alien to her own nature and experience. Yet she liked them both.

  For his part, Lord Eden was feeling somewhat dazzled. In the past few minutes Miss Purnell had been transformed before his eyes into a strikingly beautiful young lady. Her cheeks were flushed from the exercise, her eyes dancing with merriment, her hair somewhat disheveled beneath the green riding hat she wore, her mouth curved into a smile. For the first time he had become aware that she could be a vibrant and astonishingly lovely woman.

  He had brought her on the ride in the hope of having a private word with her. He had hoped to charm her, to entice her into falling in love with him. He had not expected the task to be easy. Miss Purnell was markedly different from all the young girls he could so easily attract. She appeared to have far more character and to be far more serious. But he had set himself the task anyway.

  He must rescue Edmund. Not that he had disliked Miss Purnell in London. Indeed, he had found her surprisingly likable and approachable during that drive in Hyde Park. But he had thought her overserious, not at all the right bride for Edmund. Edmund was quiet and serious himself. He needed a bride who would bring gaiety and brightness to his life. Miss Purnell could never do that. Together they would live a life of unrelieved gloom.

  Those had been his thoughts. Now he was not so sure. Perhaps there was a great deal more to Miss Purnell than was apparent on a short acquaintance. Certainly the idea of marrying her himself was becoming far more palatable. But then, by the same token, perhaps Edmund too was finding the prospect of marrying her more appealing. Perhaps he would not be thankful after all for being rescued. And it would be deucedly awkward to announce to the world at this late date that Miss Purnell was to marry Dominic, not his elder brother.

  Lord Eden gazed out to the distant line of the incoming tide. He hated having to deal with ticklish problems. Give him a daredevil deed to do and he would face it eagerly, without a qualm of fear. Give him a mental problem, and his mind stagnated and his head began to ache. As it was doing now. He shook the problem from his mind and turned back to his companion.

  “You have done lots of riding?” he asked. “I will concede, you see, that you are an accomplished horsewoman. Almost worthy of racing against me.” He grinned.

  She raised her eyebrows and gave him a mock-severe look. “On the moors,” she said, “there are miles and miles of wide open space. And I wager I would beat you soundly there. Indeed, I should probably have to ride back to you in order to bind up a broken limb. You would doubtless stumble into a foxhole or a rabbit hole.”

  He laughed. “I like any kind of outdoor activity,” he said. “Hunting, fishing, fowling, playing cricket. Anything. Sometimes I think there are not enough activities in this world to use up all my energy. Perhaps I should try your moors sometime.”

  “I have never been allowed to spend much time outdoors,” she said rather wistfully.

  “Wiltshire is lovely too,” he said. “That is where my own home is, you know, though I never seem to be able to get out of the habit of thinking of this as home. My estate is quite close to Stonehenge. I hope you will see it one day. Do you like to travel?”

  “I do not know,” she said with a smile. “In my mind, yes. I would love to see Paris and Florence and Venice and a hundred other places. But perhaps the discomforts of travel would make the reality less appealing than the expectation.”

  “Ah,” he said. “Perhaps we will both see those places one day, Miss Purnell, when the wars are over. Perhaps I will take you on a gondola in Venice. In the moonlight.”

  She laughed. “And you will sing me a serenade?” she asked. “Or will you hire someone to do it for you?”

  He looked sidelong at her smiling face. “I will have to think about that one,” he said.

  They sat in companionable silence for a few minutes as the other four riders drew closer. Should he say anything? Lord Eden thought. Should he suggest to her yet again that she change her fiancé? Damnation, the idea sounded ridiculous when put in quite those words. Like changing a hat or gloves. He said nothing.

  “Dancing tomorrow at the Courtneys’,” he said finally. “I will wager it is all in your honor, Miss Purnell. I must have a dance with you. May I?”

  “It will be my pleasure, sir,” she said. “Shall I write your name in my card now before it fills up?”

  “By all means,” he said. “I see Walter and your brother thundering along to reserve their own sets.”

  They were both laughing when the others came up to them.

  Alexandra was feeling more carefree than she could remember being as she rode back along the beach with Anna on one side of her and Madeline on the other. How lovely it was to have friendly acquaintances, she thought. How much she had missed during her life. And how she wished now that she had accepted Lord Eden’s offer of marriage. She could feel relaxed with him. She could enjoy his company. She could have been feeling happy if she were here as his betrothed.

  But perhaps not, she thought after some reflection. Perhaps her feelings would be different if she really were betrothed to him. It was rather different being a gentleman’s acquaintance and friend and being his future bride. It would spoil her pleasure in his company, perhaps, to know that she must be his wife, that at some time in the near future she must share the intimacies of marriage with him.

  Her carefree mood was not to last for the remainder of the morning, she discovered as they turned their horses into the grassy valley again. Lord Amberley was riding toward them.

  “I must have been mad,” he said, drawing his horse alongside hers after greeting everyone, “to think that I would be able to concentrate on account books this morning. I have wasted an hour staring at columns and figures that refused to penetrate any deeper into my consciousness than my eyes.”

  “We have been along the beach for a mile,” she said. “I raced with Lord Eden, but he beat me. It was unfair, of course. He was off before I was ready.”

  “That’s Dom,” he said. “He was fortunate he was racing against you and not Madeline. I assume you behaved like the perfect lady when you finally came up to him. Madeline would have launched herself at him, fists first.”

  They lapsed into silence. But it was not the comfortable silence she had felt earlier with Lord Eden. Alexandra found herself searching her mind for something to say. She found herself stiffening and feeling dull and uninteresting. She found herself so thoroughly aware of him that she forgot the presence of the five other riders quite close by.

  “You are an experienced rider, then?” Lord Amberley said. “I was not sure when I was selecting a horse for you. I suppose I should have asked you at breakfast. What are your other interests, Alex? I know so little about you.”

  “I like music,” she said, “and painting.” She did not want to answer. She did not want any of her inner life to be known by this man. She wanted to protect herself against him.

  “Music?” he said. “Do you play an instrument? Or sing? Or do you prefer to listen?”

  “I play the pianoforte,” she said. “I have no particular talent. I play for my own amusement.”

  He smiled. “I play too,” he said. “I will enjoy showing you the music room this afternoon, Alex. I look forward to hearing you play. But if you are like me, you prefer to play w
hen there is no audience. You must feel free to use the room whenever you wish.”

  “Thank you,” she said. She glanced across into his face. Did he understand? He liked to be alone too? She could not bear it if he was forever encouraging her to play for him. She would not be able to do it. She would come to hate music.

  “What do you like painting?” he asked. “I am afraid I have no skill with a brush. Mama likes to paint, though why, I do not know. Her attempts seem to frustrate her more than bring her pleasure.”

  “I can understand that,” she said. “She is an artist, not just a dabbler, I would guess. No one who takes an art seriously can gain unalloyed pleasure from it.”

  He looked at her keenly. “Ah,” was all he said.

  “I have a library I am proud of,” he said. “Do you read?”

  “My father’s library is restricted,” she said. “I am afraid my reading has been confined mainly to the Bible and some sermons and poetry.”

  “Wordsworth?” he asked. “Have you read any of his poems?”

  “No,” she said.

  “I will lend you my copy of his Lyrical Ballads,” he said. “Perhaps you will not like his poems. They are very different from what has been written in the last century. But if you like nature—wild nature, I mean—then I think you will at least understand what he is trying to do. He is intent on showing us the natural world not as we see it with the eyes but as we feel it with the heart.” He laughed. “Am I making sense to you?”

  She looked back at him with wide eyes. For the moment she had forgotten her awkwardness with him. “Oh, yes,” she said.

  The house had come into view ahead of them, past the green valley. It was quite breathtakingly lovely. Alexandra felt almost an ache inside her as she gazed along the gray stone of the eastern front with its pillared and pedimented entranceway and at the south wing with its tall arched windows. It was such a magnificent tribute to the work of man, and yet blended so perfectly with the scenery.