The Gilded Web

by Mary Balogh

  He stared into her eyes for a long time before speaking. “You wish to be free?” he said at last. “You would prefer that to marriage with me?”

  She stared mutely back.

  “Let us not be hasty,” he said, passing a hand over his eyes. “I must think, Alex. It cannot be done. I cannot see you exposed to all that.” He was silent for a while before looking up into her eyes. “The Amberley ball is to take place in just over a week’s time. Let us wait that long. After that, if I know you unhappy still, if we both feel as you do now that we cannot make a successful marriage out of our union, I will allow you to break our engagement. I will not argue. I will allow you to be free. Do you agree to this?”

  She shook her head. “I want you to break the engagement,” she said. “You insisted upon it. You break it.”

  “Alex!” he said, aghast.

  “You constantly watch over me!” she said. “Like a spider over a fly. Except that yours is a benevolent tyranny. But I am caught in your web, Edmund. Your gilded web. I am to be protected at all costs. It will be easier for me if I am the one to break the engagement. I will not be seen as such an abandoned creature. I don’t want your protection, Edmund. I have never asked for it. I am smothered by it. I cannot breathe.”

  “Very well,” he said curtly, his eyes holding hers. He was still very pale. “Unless something happens between now and next week to change matters, I will break our engagement after the ball. Does this please you?”

  “Yes,” she said. “Yes, it does.”

  He laughed suddenly, rather bleakly. “I will be a pariah,” he said. “Have you ever heard of a gentleman breaking off his engagement, Alex?”

  “No,” she said.

  “Sometimes…” He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Sometimes—in the past few weeks—I have felt that we are both quite mad.”

  And unexpectedly they smiled at each other as if a great tension between them had been lifted.

  “Alexandra Purnell,” he said, “I have never known anyone quite like you, and I believe I must thank my good fortune for it. You look quite remarkably pretty this afternoon, by the way. Have I told you that before?”

  “Yes, Edmund,” she said, “but it bears repeating.”

  “Does it?” he said. “You have such very beautiful hair. Why do you usually confine it all so ruthlessly?”

  “Papa’s training,” she said, “and force of habit. I feel very conscious of myself with any of it down, and imagine that everyone is looking at me.”

  “You are probably right there,” he said. “I have not been able to keep my eyes from you this afternoon. And if you are to be mine—or almost mine—for only a week longer, I plan to let my eyes feast their fill.”

  She smiled rather ruefully as he reached up and undid the bow that tied the wide pink ribbons of her straw bonnet beneath one ear. She lifted her chin to make his task easier. He eased the bonnet from her hair and dropped it to the ground.

  He framed her face with his hands and trailed his fingers through her ringlets. He smiled into her eyes.

  “And how am I to let you go?” he asked, his mouth very close to hers. “Tell me that, Alex. The chains of love work both ways, you know.”

  But he did not give her a chance to reply or to show in any way the shock his words had created in her mind. His lips touched hers very lightly, closed, brushing teasingly across hers until she tipped back her head, parted her lips, and invited his kiss.

  It was not like the last embrace they had shared. She found that her arms were up around his neck and her breasts against his coat, but his hands at her waist held the rest of her body away from his. His mouth opened and moved over hers, teasing, tasting, caressing, but he did not use his tongue. She felt all the masculine attractiveness of him without any of the threat of the physical unknown.

  He still held to her waist when he had lifted his mouth from hers, and she forgot to remove her arms from his neck.

  “I envy the man you will finally choose for your own, Alex,” he said.

  “No one will ever have me,” she said with a rueful smile. “Will you return to Mrs. Borden?” She flushed, mortified, as she heard the words come from her lips.

  “No.” He smiled. “I have told you she is in my past, Alex. She will remain there, no matter what happens between you and me.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  He grinned. “If I thought your question was motivated by jealousy,” he said, “I would readily forgive you. Shall we go back for tea and hope that some kind soul has kept us something? I suddenly realize that I am hungry.”

  He stooped to pick up her bonnet and watched as she tied the ribbons beneath her chin.

  “Is Mrs. Rey the one responsible for the interesting angles?” he asked. “Hats to one side, ribbons tied beneath one ear? If so, I shall have to tell her that she is a born seducer. One would never suspect it of such a birdlike little person. Now, you, on the other hand, have to have everything straight and no nonsense. Perhaps I should be grateful that you did not create your own hair.” He pulled at one ringlet and watched it curl back into place again.

  “Nanny is a holy tyrant,” Alexandra said, taking his offered arm and beginning the walk back to the picnic site.

  “If I decide to marry you after all,” Lord Amberley said, “and if you decide to marry me, I shall have to raise Mrs. Rey’s salary and tell her to continue the good work.”

  THE FOLLOWING MORNING, ALEXANDRA was riding with her brother along the cliff top, a safe distance from the edge. The day was cold and damp. Heavy clouds hung low over the water, looking as if they were about to disgorge their moisture at any moment.

  “I am going to be leaving here soon, Alex,” Purnell said. “I know that you have been invited for the whole summer and that I promised to accompany you here for moral support. But I don’t think you really need me any longer. Do you?”

  “But why must you leave?” she asked. “You just admitted yourself, James, that this must be one of the loveliest parts of the country. And everyone is excessively kind. What will you do? Where will you go?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said. “I am not going back home, Alex. Not now that you are safely away from there. I haven’t yet decided where I actually will go.”

  “Can you not reconcile with Papa?” she asked, looking across at him with pleading eyes. “He is your father, James. I know that you feel he wronged you, and indeed he did, but he did what he thought was best at the time. Papa always does what he thinks is right.”

  “Yes,” he said viciously. “The trouble with him, Alex, is that he believes no one else can possibly be right. He would probably find fault with God if they ever came face-to-face.”

  “James!” she said, distressed.

  “I cannot forgive him,” he said, “even if he acknowledged that what he did was wrong and begged my pardon. Oh, perhaps then I would. But of course he will never do any such thing. He interfered with my life in an unpardonable way. And in the process he destroyed all my hopes of future happiness and irrevocably altered the course of two other lives. Whether for better or worse, who is to say? No, I cannot go home, Alex. Home! I have no home.”

  “Yes, you do!” she cried passionately. “Home is where I am. You will always have a home with me.”

  He smiled tenderly at her. “Amberley Court?” he said. “You have done well for yourself after all, Alex. You will be happy here?”

  “I don’t know,” she said, her expression guarded. She shivered as a gust of wind caught her in the face and tugged at her cloak. “I don’t know, James. I think it very possible that I will not marry Lord Amberley after all.”

  “What?” he said. “You do not like him, Alex? He does not treat you well? I must confess that I have grown to respect him, suspicious as I was at first.”

  “It is not that,” she said. “I like him very well. He is exceedingly kind. Compared with the Duke of Peterleigh, he is kindness itself. I don’t think I could ask for a better hu
sband.”

  “What, then?” he asked.

  She shrugged. “I don’t know,” she said. “I think perhaps I woke up when this scandal happened. I mean, really woke up for the first time in my life. I suppose I was never happy—both you and Nanny Rey were always telling me that. But I did not know myself unhappy. I was quite content to be groomed as the bride of a stranger, though I knew all the time that as a husband he would be very similar to Papa. He would have been a strict and a demanding master, I believe. But I had always accepted that. It was only when suddenly his grace would have nothing to do with me and Lord Amberley and Lord Eden were vying for my hand that I realized what pawns women are in a man’s game.”

  “I am afraid you are very right,” he said. “But surely Amberley would be different, Alex? I would say you are fortunate to be engaged to a man who will not oppress you.”

  “I know you are right,” she said. “I think if he had asked to marry me for any other reason, I would be happy, or contented at least. But he asked me because he felt he must, James. And even after I had refused, he came back and more or less forced himself upon me in order to save me from humiliation and ostracism. And I am grateful. Of course I am grateful. But can you not see, James, how very helpless it all makes me feel? How very useless?”

  He looked across at her and said nothing for a while. “Yes,” he said. “I think I can imagine, Alex. And sympathize. I always knew there was extraordinary strength in you, if only someday you recognized it yourself. So you will reject Amberley even though you know that you could be happy with him?”

  “I keep telling myself that I am a fool,” she said. “But, yes, I think I will have to.”

  “Does he know?” he asked.

  “He is going to break off the engagement himself,” she said, “after the ball next week, if I have not already done so.”

  “He cannot do that!” Purnell said, appalled. “That would be unbearable humiliation for you, Alex. I will call him out if he does any such thing.”

  She smiled at him unexpectedly. “No,” she said. “It is what I want. I don’t want to be treated as the helpless female who must be protected at all costs. I will honor him if he does it, James, more than I can say.”

  He shook his head. “You are a strange pair,” he said. “Are you sure you do not love each other, Alex?”

  Her smile faded. “No,” she said. “But I respect him.”

  “This rather changes my plans,” he said. “I was hoping to leave tomorrow. But you are going to need me, by the look of it.”

  She smiled at him. “I want you to stay, James,” she said, “but only if it is what you wish. I am not going to lean on you anymore. You are free to go and do what you wish. Or to stay here. I have kept you from your own life for long enough.”

  “Alex!” he said, drawing his horse to a halt and staring at her. “You really have changed. I love what I am seeing and hearing, though I must admit I think you are doing a corkbrained thing where Amberley is concerned. But what are you going to do? Life with Papa will be hell after all this.”

  “I will not be living with Papa,” she said. “I have been thinking about it all night. I will apply for a position as a governess or companion. You must admit I am eminently suited, James. I am used to a dull and disciplined life. But at least this will be a life of my own choosing.”

  He shook his head. “Where are we, by the way?” he asked. “We must be miles from the house. We had better start on the way back.”

  “Why must you go?” she asked. “And why so soon?”

  He shrugged. “I am restless, I suppose,” he said. “I have to get away, Alex, somewhere where I can unleash all the energy and anger inside me without hurting any innocent person.”

  “But you are not hurting anyone here,” she said.

  He smiled grimly. “I think I am going to leave this country altogether,” he said. “Go somewhere where I am not expected to live an idle life as a gentleman. Somewhere where I can use my muscles and my brain.”

  “I will miss you,” she said. “Write to me?”

  “Of course,” he said. “Oh, of course, Alex. You must know that you are the only important person in my life. Without you, it would lose all meaning.”

  “You are going tomorrow?” she asked bleakly.

  He hesitated. “I will wait until this ball is over,” he said. “Not to protect you, Alex. But I want to know what your fate is to be.”

  “Good,” she said, and smiled across at him. “That I will have you for another week, that is.”

  They rode onward in silence, both alone with their thoughts. Purnell’s plans had been complicated somewhat. He had planned to leave the next day. He was shaken by what had happened the day before. He had looked on the world and its people with some contempt for the past five years, but his hatred had never before focused upon one person, if one discounted his father. Never on an innocent person.

  And really, the rational part of his mind had to admit, there was no reason at all why he should hate Lady Madeline Raine. Hate was a powerful emotion. She had done nothing to offend him. And yet he could not look at her or even think of her without wanting to hurt her. He had recognized his feelings during the Courtneys’ dance, but he had thought himself sufficient master of his own impulses that he would never actually do her violence.

  Even the tongue-lashings he had given her had disturbed him. He was not normally openly ill-mannered, especially to a lady. Yet the day before, he had used physical violence on her. It was true that all he had done was embrace her, but despite all appearances it had not been an embrace. He had wanted to hurt her with his hands and his mouth. He had wanted to lay her down. He had wanted to take her right there on the hard ground.

  And it was only afterward, when he was no longer touching her, when she had turned away from him, that he had felt the full horror of his own actions. Only then, when it was far too late, had he wanted to take hold of her with gentle hands, to gather her against him, to soothe her with his mouth and his voice and his body.

  And that impulse of sudden tenderness had alarmed him almost equally with the violence. No, not that again. Never that again.

  And so he had decided he must leave. For Lady Madeline’s sake and for his own, he must go. Alex did not need him any longer, he had concluded. Amberley would look after her. And yet now that situation had complicated. He was delighted at Alex’s newfound spirit. It was what he had always hoped for, and had always thought possible, though he could have wished it to show itself in a way other than the rejection of a man who would undoubtedly make her a good husband. But he knew he would not be able to leave until he knew more certainly what was to happen to his sister.

  And Alexandra for her part was feeling an unreasonable mixture of exhilaration and depression. Exhilaration at the fact that she had finally been able to sort out all her confusing feelings of the past weeks and know that she had her own life in her hands and that she could, within certain limits, do what she wished with it. The outlook was bleak—a breaking-off of her engagement, a dreadful scene with Papa, a future as a servant. But it was her future, and she felt excited at the prospect of being able to shape her own destiny for the first time in her life.

  But there was depression too. James was going away, probably for a long, long time—perhaps forever. And she must not even try to hold him back. Indeed, she must encourage him to go, to find his own destiny. James must go in search of whatever it was that would release him from the terrible bitterness he felt against life.

  And there was depression to know that she must go away from Lord Amberley just at the time when she realized she was beginning to care for him. He was a truly kind man. She doubted she would ever meet his like again. And a very, very attractive man. She had feared his touch at first because she had not understood the physical responses it evoked. Now she did understand. His touch appealed to the sexuality that had long been suppressed in her, that she had always been taught was the sin in her.

  That sexu
ality could blossom at Lord Amberley’s touch. She knew that. When he touched her, when he kissed her—even when he looked at her with those smiling blue eyes—she came alive in a way she had never known and never dreamed of. She had known of the physical duty marriage would bring her, but she had always expected it to be just that: a duty, the most unpleasant one of her married life. Something she would do because she belonged to a man and existed to bear his children and give him pleasure.

  But she wanted to be intimate with the Earl of Amberley. She wanted to go beyond kisses, beyond the touch of hands and bodies. She wanted everything, everything there was to experience, even that always dreaded penetration of her body that she knew was at the heart of the marriage act. She wanted him inside her body. Edmund!

  And yet she had decided that she must leave him, for no other reason than that he had offered her marriage in order to protect her. She must have windmills in her head! And he would end their betrothal because he respected the freedom of others too deeply to hold her to an engagement that was against her wishes.

  Mad! She must be mad, Alexandra thought, the wind buffeting her from behind as she rode beside her brother, back along the cliffs toward Amberley. She was excited and depressed, jubilant and unhappy, all at the same time.

  WELL, DOM.” LORD AMBERLEY, HIS COAT collar pulled up, his hat drawn forward, felt reasonably comfortable despite the chill of the morning. He and his brother were riding side by side on the road from the village, having just called on Mrs. Peterson to see how she and the boys did. “It seems an age since we had the chance of a talk together.”

  “That sounds ominous,” Lord Eden said. “Do you have something particular on your mind, Edmund?”

  His brother laughed. “No,” he said. “Merely a certain elder-brotherly envy. You do attract the females, don’t you?”