The Gilded Web

by Mary Balogh

  Suddenly a little pink whirlwind that was looking back over its shoulder collided with his chest and stepped with a light slippered foot on his toe.

  “Oh!” Susan looked up at him, all blushes and confusion. “Oh, my lord, I do beg your pardon. I was not looking where I was going. I was going to slip outside for some fresh air.”

  “What?” he said, catching her by the arms to steady her. “Alone, Susan? You are not dancing?”

  “I had promised to humor Colin and dance with him,” she said. “But I told him I must go outside. It is so hot.” Large hazel eyes gazed up into his.

  Lord Eden felt every resolution slip from him. He could not let her go outside alone. True, this was the country and not town, but even so he had had painful proof within the past few weeks of what might happen to a young lady wandering alone outside a ballroom. Besides, she looked so deuced pretty.

  “By strange coincidence I am partnerless for this set too,” he said. “Perhaps you will save me from being a wallflower, Susan, and walk with me?”

  “Oh.” She giggled. “You a wallflower, my lord? How funny you are.”

  He was relieved to find that they were not the only couple on the terrace. Even so, their footsteps somehow took them to the far end of it, where the lights from the chandeliers did not reach. There they stopped and gazed out into the darkness.

  “I think I have offended you,” she said so quietly that he had to bend his head down to hear her.

  “Offended me? You, Susan? Impossible,” he said.

  “You have not danced with me,” she said. “I know I should not expect it because I am a mere nobody and you are Lord Eden. But I did think perhaps you would ask for one set.”

  He was quiet for a while. “It is not that I did not want to, Susan,” he said. “Believe me, my dear, I have scarcely been aware of anyone all evening except you. I dared not dance with you or come near you, that is all.”

  “I have done something to offend you, then,” she said, gazing up at him with troubled eyes.

  “No.” He smiled at her and resisted the urge to cup her face in his hands. “You have offended me only by being so very pretty and so very sweet, Susan. But I respect you too deeply, I love you too dearly to try to take advantage of you. And I cannot offer you more than flirtation. Not now, anyway. Perhaps never.”

  Even in the half-light he could see her eyes brighten with tears. “I have never expected anything from you,” she said. “I know I am unworthy.”

  “Susan!” he said. “Oh, don’t say that. You are so very dear to me. I must take you back inside. I cannot trust myself to be with you any longer.”

  “I love you,” she said, clasping her hands to her bosom. “Is that so very wrong? I would not demand anything. Only the chance to love you. Oh…No, I must not say more.”

  “I cannot offer you the life I would wish to offer you,” he said. “Not at present anyway. It would be cruel to draw you into the life I am about to lead, Susan. I must not, dear. Come back with me now to the ballroom, or I will lose my resolution and hate myself for the rest of my life.”

  She put her hands to her mouth and looked at him with large tear-filled eyes.

  Lord Eden raked one hand through his hair, leaving it looking considerably disheveled. “I am a monster,” he said. “A monster. I have never wanted to make you cry, Susan. You were not made for tears. I cannot marry you, dear, and I will not offer you anything less.”

  One tear spilled over and trickled down her cheek. Suddenly Susan brushed past him and hurried in the direction of the ballroom.

  Lord Eden did not turn to watch her go. He stood with teeth and fists clenched and eyes gazing fixedly up at the dark sky. Temptation had almost got the better of him. If she had stayed one second longer, he would have had her in his arms and then there would have been no letting her go until he had begged her to marry him.

  The thought had been the first to leap to his mind when Miss Purnell had refused him earlier. He was free, he had thought, free to marry Susan. But of course he was no more free than he had been before. He could never ask Susan to be an officer’s wife, not during a time of war, anyway. She was so sweet and timid and fragile. It would be cruel to ask her to face the life of constant anxiety that must be the lot of every soldier’s wife. And it would be self-indulgent in the extreme to ask her to wait for him, to wait until the war was over. It would be no less cruel to ask her to wait on the chance that he would still be alive and whole at the end of it all.

  No, he had decided, he must leave her free to marry a man who could look after her and offer her the security she deserved. And she would have many an offer. Susan was not highly born, but she had the manners of a lady and the looks and character of an angel.

  But the pain was somewhat hard to bear at the moment. He had found himself a few minutes before making the painful choice between Susan and the army. And he had chosen the army. He must live now by that decision. He must live with his misery and hope that the new life he faced would soon drown out all else but the adventure and excitement of military action.

  If only he could have saved Susan from misery! If only he could convince himself that he had done nothing to encourage her. But he had flirted with her from the start and unconsciously done what he had always determined never to do. He had raised hopes where he could not fulfill them.

  Lord Eden rested his arms on the stone balustrade that bordered the terrace and stared out into the night.

  ALEXANDRA HAD BEEN IN the chapel for half an hour. She had taken a single candle with her and set it on the altar. And she had knelt at the back, looking up to the darkened windows, beyond which were the hills, as she had seen on two previous visits.

  A God of love, he had said. Not a God of vengeance and restrictive commands, but a God of love. It had sounded wonderful. After a life in which she had been taught that she had to live up to the high expectations of a vengeful God, it had been a sweet, seductive idea that perhaps God was simply love.

  But love is not a powerful enough force, she had discovered, to be God. Love is not enough. She loved the Earl of Amberley. Yes, she really did. She could not think of one way in which she did not love him. And she had reason to believe that perhaps he returned that love. And yet they had just publicly ended their betrothal. Tomorrow or the day after at the latest, she would be going away from him and would probably never see him again.

  Love was not enough. Why not? she wondered. If God was love and God was everything, why was not love enough?

  She had discovered that her self-respect was more important to her, her need to assert herself as a person. Lord Amberley was the kindest, most considerate man she could ever hope to find. He would be most women’s dream of a husband, someone who would care for a wife and protect her for as long as they both lived.

  But she had found his protectiveness suffocating. She would have had no sense of her own worth, of her own personhood, if she had allowed their marriage plans to proceed. She had to assert herself. She had to know that she could, if she must, exist without a man to dictate her every action or protect her from pain.

  And so she had been forced to give up the one man who could have filled her life with joy and companionship. She had been forced to give up love in order that she might know herself as a person.

  And now that it was done, did she feel more of a person? She had grown up for twenty-one years as the obedient daughter of a man who had given her not one moment of freedom, not one opportunity to think or do for herself. And she had been passed on to a man who would have protected her with his life for the rest of her days. In a strange way, opposites as they seemed to be, Papa and Lord Amberley were two sides of the same coin.

  Yes, she felt more of a person now. She was in control of her own life. She was not happier. She was not at all happy, in fact. But then, she had not expected to be. Happiness was not the point at all. The point was that she was now a person as well as a woman. It was not a great victory. She could not now go out to conquer
the world. She was, when all was said and done, still a woman living in a man’s world. But she did not have to be a puppet, a simple possession.

  Yes, she was unhappy. She could be with Edmund now, in the final hours of the ball, enjoying herself, looking at his handsome figure and knowing that he was hers, furthering her acquaintance with his relatives and friends. She could be looking forward to marriage with him, to a lifetime spent at Amberley. She could have been happy. She could have chosen love.

  But she had not. And what about Edmund? Could she really accuse him of being similar to Papa in any way at all? When he had finally known what he was doing to her, he had not tried to justify his actions. He had understood and sympathized. He had made it easy for her to be free. He had even been prepared to take upon himself all the blame for the breakup of their engagement. He had not tried to hold her against her will. He had let her go.

  Edmund lived by love. What greater sign of his love could he have given than his willingness to set her free? It sounded like a paradox. But Edmund had shown the ultimate unselfishness. He had ignored his own feelings entirely in a concern for her. He had even been willing to face about the worst scandal a gentleman could face. He was doing, in fact, what he had always done, according to his family: he was living for someone else.

  He had never lived for himself, if other people were to be believed, and if the evidence of her own experience was typical. Always for others. One almost forgot that he too had needs. That he was a person. He had been left with the responsibility of being head of his family at the age of nineteen, and it seemed that he had taken that responsibility very seriously ever since.

  How much freedom had Edmund ever known? In his own way, he had been as bound as she had ever been. Bound by his own concern for others and his desire to make life easier for them. He had added her to his list of responsibilities when his brother had spoiled her life. And he had protected his brother at the same time.

  And what had been his reward? What had ever been his reward? Lord Eden was off to the wars to fulfill a life’s dream. And she was on her way out of his life in search of a future of her own making. And Lord Amberley was left with his home and his estates and his dependents, his mother, his sister. His loneliness.

  He was a lonely man. She had not realized it before. So many people depended upon him, and even loved him, that one tended to miss the obvious fact that he was lonely. He had no particularly close friend, no confidant, no lover.

  She might have been all three.

  And so which of them was in the more enviable situation now? He for whom love was all? Or she for whom self-respect was more important?

  Who was the more selfish?

  And therefore ultimately the more unhappy?

  Alexandra, her elbows on the pew in front of her, her forehead resting on her clasped hands, could not answer her own questions. Or would not. She rose after a while and left the chapel, taking her candle with her. She must go back to the ballroom, she decided. She must see this night, at least, through to the end.

  “Alex!” She turned as she passed through the great hall, having deposited her candle on a table. Her brother was hurrying down the stairs, no longer in his ball dress. He was wearing riding clothes.

  “James?” she said.

  He caught her by the hand and hurried her through the front doors, which stood open, and down the marble steps.

  “I have been searching everywhere for you,” he said. “I thought I was going to have to leave without speaking to you.”

  “To leave?” she asked, staring at him blankly. “Where are you going?”

  “I am leaving,” he said. “I can’t stay any longer, Alex. Not even for another night. I have to go. It is not a dark night. I will be able to see where I am going.”

  “But it is past midnight,” she said, “and in the middle of a ball. What has happened, James? Is it Papa? Has he said something?”

  He shook his head and grasped both her hands in his. “I cannot explain,” he said. “Don’t ask it of me, Alex. I have to go, that is all. I have left a letter for Mama and Papa. But I wanted to see you. You will be all right? You still feel as you have felt for the past week? You do not need me?”

  She gazed at him in silence for a moment, biting her lip. “No,” she said finally. “I want you to do what you must. But where will you go, James? This is so sudden, though I have known it is coming. I cannot think.”

  “Out of the country,” he said. “I have to get right away. Canada, I think. There is room there, and opportunity. There is work there, and challenge, and it does not matter there who one is or what one possesses. I think Canada.”

  She clung to his hands and rested her forehead against his chest. “Go, then,” she said. “Write to me.”

  “Yes,” he said. “But I will not know where to write, Alex.”

  She frowned suddenly and looked up at him. “Write here,” she said in some agitation. “Write here, James. I will let them know where I am going to be. Lady Amberley, maybe. Or Madeline.”

  They looked at each other with the desperation of an imminent parting.

  “Live again, James,” she pleaded. “Give life another chance. I love you.”

  “Yes,” he said, taking her into his arms and hugging her so hard that she could not draw air into her lungs. “Yes. Alex.”

  And he was gone from her, striding in the direction of the stables without looking back. Alexandra stared wildly after him until he disappeared from sight. Then she hurried up the steps and into the house. She could not wait until he rode into sight again.

  MANY OF THE GUESTS had left or were leaving when Alexandra returned to the ballroom. Lord Amberley stood just inside the doorway with Lord Eden, Madeline, and his mother, saying good night to an almost continuous stream of neighbors. She had no choice but to join them.

  “A terrible ball, Edmund,” his Uncle William was saying. “Terrible. Next year you will have to hire an orchestra that plays at half the speed. This one is like to kill us all from heart failure after torturing us with blisters. Terrible ball.” He chuckled.

  “Oh, William!” his wife said. “You know you have been saying all evening what a splendid time you have been having. Take no notice of him, Edmund. He is just a tease. Miss Purnell will be taking you seriously, William. She does not know you yet.”

  Lord Amberley smiled. “I did not notice you suffering, Uncle William,” he said. “Every time I have spotted you this evening, you have been dancing.”

  “Merely practicing,” his uncle said cheerfully. “Next year we will have to bring Anna. She almost drowned in her own tears this year because Viola said no—and I dare not defy Viola, you know. Next year, my boy, I will have to dance with Anna. And you had better reserve the opening set with her soon, Dominic, or she will break her heart.”

  Mr. and Mrs. Courtney were the next to leave. Their boys were close behind them, Susan hovering in the background, Lieutenant Jennings beside her.

  “Well, your lordship,” Mr. Courtney boomed, extending a large hand to his host, “a thoroughly grand evening, as always. My little one here will remember it for as long as she lives, I’ll wager.”

  Lord Amberley smiled at Susan. “You have been a great success, Susan,” he said. “I am still chagrined over the fact that when I asked you, you had not one free set to offer me.”

  She blushed and hung her head.

  “It is supposed to be a secret,” Mr. Courtney whispered so loudly that no one in the group had any difficulty hearing. “I am not supposed to say anything until the lieutenant has had a chance to communicate the news to his family. But they will not mind present company knowing. Lieutenant Jennings here offered for Susan this afternoon, and Mrs. Courtney and I gave our blessing, and she has accepted him this evening.” He beamed around at everyone who stood and listened to him.

  “Papa!” Susan said in an agony of embarrassment, allowing the lieutenant to lift her hand and lay it on his sleeve.

  “Well, then,” Lord Amber
ley said, “my ball has been a memorable occasion indeed. My congratulations to you both.”

  Lieutenant Jennings bowed. Susan would not lift her head.

  “My little girl the wife of an officer!” Mr. Courtney said. “Can you imagine it, my lord? My lady?”

  “I am sure Susan will do very well,” Lady Amberley said. “I believe she has a great deal more backbone than anyone gives her credit for. And is it true that the regiment may be going to Spain, Lieutenant?”

  Madeline, who had not looked at or spoken to her brother all evening, moved quietly to his side and slid a hand through his arm. She laid a cheek lightly against his shoulder for a moment. He hugged her arm to his side, his own as taut as iron.

  “We will be taking ourselves off to bed,” Lord Beckworth said, approaching the door with his wife on his arm. He nodded stiffly and unsmilingly to his host. “We will talk to you in the morning, Amberley. And Alexandra.” He gave her a direct and cold look. “Where is James?”

  Alexandra hesitated. “He has left,” she said. She looked up at Lord Amberley. “Did he tell you?”

  “Yes,” he said briefly. “I am glad he found you, Alex. He was looking for you.”

  “Left?” Lord Beckworth said. “What in thunder do you mean by that?”

  “He has gone away, Papa,” Alexandra said quietly. “I think permanently.”

  “In the middle of the night?” Lady Beckworth said. “And in the middle of a ball? What can have possessed him? There must be some mistake. Where is he going?”

  “To Canada, he said.” Alexandra looked around her. “He left you a letter. Perhaps I can accompany you upstairs, Mama.”

  She said a hurried good night to everyone else, linked her arm through her mother’s, and left the ballroom.

  Lord Eden’s free hand had come across to grip his sister’s. Looking down at their clasped hands, Madeline wondered idly whose knuckles were the whiter with tension, his or hers. She concentrated on their hands, giving them the whole of her attention. Only so could she save herself from falling down the long, dark tunnel that was waiting to receive her.