The Gilded Web

by Mary Balogh

  MORE THAN AN HOUR later Alexandra was standing at the window of her room, staring sightlessly out. She was brushing idly at her hair, though there was really no need to do so. Nanny Rey had already given it its obligatory two hundred strokes for the night. And her touch had been none too gentle either. She had been told about the broken engagement and their imminent departure from Amberley.

  “You don’t know your own mind,” she had said, pulling out the last hairpin and spreading Alexandra’s hair over her shoulders in preparation for brushing it. “All these years you have not been given a chance to live, and now, when you are being offered all that life has to give by way of happiness, you are not satisfied.”

  “I know I am being foolish,” Alexandra had said meekly.

  “Foolish?” The first vicious stroke of the brush had dragged Alexandra’s whole head backward. “Lunatic, I would call it. Such a lovely lord that I can scarce believe he is real. And not good enough for you.”

  “Ah, I did not say that, Nanny,” Alexandra had protested. “He is too good for me, perhaps. Goodness had nothing to do with it. I have to be free, that is all. For once in my life I have to be free.”

  “That is the silliest word I ever heard tell of,” Nanny Rey had said, making no effort whatsoever to tease the brush through a tangled curl, but pulling at it unrelentingly. “I can see it being in the French language or the Italian language, but not in the English language. The English are supposed to be sensible people. Free! There is no such thing as freedom, I am here to tell you.”

  “If I were a man I could be free,” Alexandra said. “Ouch, Nanny. Can you not be a little more gentle?”

  “Do you want to go to bed with tangles?” Nanny Rey had asked severely. “Hold still now, lovey. Men are no more free than we are, I do assure you. We are all born to a certain way of life, and we have to make the best of it. The person does not live who can do just whatsoever he pleases. Oh, some of those Eastern princes, perhaps, with their harems and other heathen trappings, poor lost souls. But I’ll wager even they have to do what is expected of them. What if one of them wants only one wife? Everyone will laugh at him and think he is less than a man. So he is forced to fill his harem with fifty wives.”

  “Ouch! Nanny!” Alexandra had complained.

  “Hold still, lovey” had been the only sympathy she had received. “If you spend your life running around in search of freedom, you will be running to your dying day and still no nearer than when you started.”

  “Perhaps,” Alexandra had said. She never had been able to argue with Nanny, whose homespun wisdom always sounded incontestable.

  “If I were you, I would run to his lordship in the morning and beg his pardon,” Nanny had said. “He will forgive you, lovey, and still marry you, I would wager. I have never known a kinder gentleman.”

  “Nor I,” Alexandra had said. “But the deed is done anyway. I will want you to pack my bags tomorrow morning, Nanny, if you please.”

  And finally she had been left alone, unhappy, her victory feeling very hollow indeed. And James gone. Perhaps she would never see him again. Perhaps she would never even hear from him. There had been no time to think of a place where he could send a letter and she be sure to receive it. Lady Amberley or Madeline might be very reluctant to forward a letter to her under the circumstances. Lord Amberley would, her mind told her unbidden. But she shook off the thought.

  And then she saw him. He was standing outside the house, his hands clasped behind him, his legs apart. He was looking up to the sky. She held her breath and watched him, the brush suspended in her hair. He stood there for a long time, not moving. The urge began to grow on her to go down to him, to stand beside him, to talk to him. She wanted to ask him what his thoughts were, what his feelings. Too late she had remembered that there were two people involved in any relationship. She had not been the only person involved in their betrothal. He had been too.

  She would have to get dressed, she thought. She would not have to pause to do her hair. He would not mind if she merely tied it back at the nape of her neck. She removed the brush slowly from her hair and stared down at him, undecided.

  But before she could put her half-formed plan into action, Lord Amberley moved. He strode away from the house in the direction of the stone bridge. He was no longer wearing his ball dress, she could see, but riding clothes. He did not go for a horse, though. He crossed the bridge, turned up the valley, and disappeared from view behind the trees.

  Alexandra stood at her window for another half-hour, her forehead against the pane, waiting for him to return, knowing that he would not do so. She knew where he had gone. And as the minutes passed, she ached to follow him there. He wanted to be alone. That was why he had gone. She would be the last person he would want to see. She had told him once that it would be his private place. She would never go there again.

  It was a losing battle. She lost it at the end of the half-hour, when she hurried across her bedchamber and into the dressing room, changed quickly into her green velvet riding skirt and green silk blouse, rejected the jacket, and reached for a woolen shawl. She did not possess a hair ribbon and could not at the moment think of anything else that would serve the same purpose of tying back her hair. She tossed it back over her shoulders, drew the shawl around her, and let herself quietly out of her room.

  A half-hour later she was not feeling at all sure that she had done the right thing to come. It was all wrong, of course, to pursue him here to his most private place, on the same night that she had told his mother and her own parents that they were no longer to be married. All wrong. Madness, in fact. But she held that awareness at bay. She did not have leisure to think about such matters. She needed all her wits to see where she was going.

  Even though it was not a dark night, it was dark enough among the trees to make it very difficult to see the ground beneath her feet. If it had not been for the river flowing along beside her, she would have been hopelessly lost. And there was the constant worry that she would not know where to turn off in order to climb to the stone hut and that she really would be lost when she started to ascend.

  She stood for a long time on the bank of the river at the spot she thought was the right one. She did not fancy at all the idea of climbing up among those dark trees. How could she tell who or what was up there?

  She shrugged finally and turned resolutely upward. It was either that or return to Amberley again alone. And if she did get lost, it would not be forever. Dawn could not be too far in the future. Besides, all she had to do was go downward until she reached the valley floor and the river.

  She thought she was not going to be able to find it. She must have wandered a little to her right in the ascent. But she did find it, more by luck than judgment, she thought. There it was, the small clearing among the trees, and the stone hut against the hill, its door standing open.

  She stood for a long time, more reluctant than ever, now that she was there, to move forward and make her presence known. Why had she come anyway? What more was there to say? What comfort was she looking for? Or hoping to give?

  She crossed slowly to the doorway and stood looking in. There was a candle burning on the table. He was lying on the straw bed, the blanket spread beneath him. He was wearing only his shirt and breeches. One leg was drawn up at the knee, his bare foot flat on the bed. One arm was across his eyes, the other reaching to the floor beside him.

  She must have made some sound or created some shadow. He pulled his arm sharply away from his eyes suddenly and turned to look at her. There was a moment’s pause, and then he was on his feet and coming toward her.

  LORD AMBERLEY DID NOT KNOW QUITE HOW he had got through the ball. The necessity of circulating constantly among his guests, making conversation, dancing, making sure that everyone was enjoying himself, and of smiling, smiling, smiling, had been almost beyond his powers of endurance. Up until suppertime he had kept up his spirits tolerably well by blanking his mind to what he knew must come tomorrow. But even the n
ight had been stolen from him. Lord Beckworth had asked an awkward question and Alex had answered it directly.

  Somehow he had smoothed over the moment—with help from Sir Cedric, he seemed to remember. But there had been no more pretending after that. Dancing with Alex had been an agony. He had felt the need to smile even for her so that she would not suspect the full truth. And for the rest of the evening he had been left to worry about her, to wonder where she had gone, what she was doing. And the cold demeanor of Beckworth and the troubled, sympathetic glances of his mother had been equally disturbing.

  He could not go to bed after the last guest had taken his leave or retired to his assigned room. He had sent the servants away, insisting that all the tasks of clearing away might be left for the morning. And he had gone to his own room, undressed, realized that he could not lie down, donned riding clothes, and gone back downstairs with the intention of saddling a horse and riding up onto the cliffs. Perhaps the sea air would drug his mind, tire him enough so that he could rest.

  But he had changed his mind. Once outside, he had longed for peace and quiet, total solitude, so that he could get his mind in order for the coming day. It was not forgetfulness he needed at the moment, or sleep, but tranquillity of mind, the ability to deal with the difficult day ahead. He must appear calm. It must appear that what Alex wanted was what he wanted too.

  And so, late as it was, he had gone striding off up the valley up to the hut, which had never failed him. He could not afford to spend more than a few hours there, but he would make them enough. He would be able to think better there, relax better there, than in his own room at home.

  He had lit a candle, thrown off his coat, spread the blanket over the straw on the rough bed he had made several years before, and lain down. It was a warm night; he had left the door open. He stared up at the ceiling for a while, and then threw an arm over his weary eyes.

  Alex. He had known her for only a few weeks. Before he had met her, he had thought himself quite self-sufficient. He really had not felt the need of anyone else to help him along with the business of living. It was true that he had contemplated marriage with Eunice, but more because he had felt that life would be pleasant and comfortable with her than because he had felt any real need of her.

  Just a few weeks ago! Could he have changed so drastically in such a short time? Surely he was just as capable now of living alone, of relying on himself for all his needs? Surely another person could not so quickly and so easily have become indispensable to him?

  The prospect of living out the rest of his life, all the years ahead, seemed so dreary without Alex. He had meant right from the start, of course, to love her. He had intended to marry her, and it had seemed to him that he must love his wife. But he had not known at that time what love was—not the total love of a man for a woman. He had felt affection before, and responsibility, and respect, and friendship, and sexual desire. He had felt them all. But never all together, centered in one person, with that indefinable something in addition to all the parts that made her like the half of his own soul.

  He had not known that he would grow to love Alex like that for the simple reason that he had not known such a love existed. And how was he now to smile and let her go? And how was he to pick up the threads of his old life and carry on, seeing to Mama’s comfort and Madeline’s happiness, protecting them as best he could from the anxiety of knowing Dominic in the army and in battle, looking after the running of his estate, the welfare of those dependent upon him? He did not think he had the will to carry on.

  Something was at the door. He pulled his arm from his eyes and turned quickly toward the opening, expecting to see a deer or some other wild animal. At first he could not see beyond the candlelight. And then he was on his feet and crossing the room to the door.

  “Alex?” he said, looking out at her in some wonder.

  “I promised I would never come here,” she said.

  He shook his head. “I told you that you did not need to make such a promise,” he said.

  There seemed to be nothing to say after that. They stared at each other. She was wearing the blouse she had worn on that first occasion when he had brought her here. Her hair was loose and in riotous curls down her back. Her eyes were large and wary. She looked remarkably as she had the first time he saw her.

  He reached out and touched his fingertips to her cheek. Then he ran the backs of his fingers along her jawline to her chin.

  “Why did you come?” he asked.

  He felt her swallow against his fingers. “I don’t know,” she said. And then she reached up and caught at his wrist. “Yes, I do know. I want to make love with you.”

  He closed his eyes briefly. “Alex,” he said, “I cannot so dishonor you.”

  “I do not intend to marry,” she said. “No one will ever know except you and me. It is what we both want, is it not?”

  “In a marriage bed, dear,” he said.

  “No. Not there,” she said. “There it would be my duty to submit to you. It would not be making love. I want to give myself to you freely. I am free now. I want to give.”

  “I may get you with child,” he said.

  She looked stricken for a moment, and then she shook her head.

  He looked up to the sky behind her head. There were no stars, though it was not total blackness. When he looked back down at her, she was looking back, her dark eyes large and calm. She was waiting for what he would decide. She still held to his wrist.

  He drew her inside the hut, leaving the door open behind her. He framed her face with gentle hands and threaded his fingers in her hair. He looked into her eyes and answered the question there with his own.

  She reached up and began to unbutton her blouse. She pulled it from the waistband of her skirt when she reached the lower buttons and shrugged it off her shoulders. She let it drop to the floor behind her. She reached behind her, worked at the buttons of her skirt, and let it also fall to the floor. She stood before him in a thin silk shift. His hands had remained in her hair, his fingers lightly massaging her head, his thumbs rubbing against her cheeks and temples. He watched her eyes as they roamed over his face and his shoulders and chest.

  Then her hands were on his shoulders briefly and moved to undo the buttons of his shirt. Her fingers were trembling. He did not help her until she drew the garment free of his breeches and he lifted his arms so that she could pull it off over his head.

  He could see through the thin shift that her breathing had quickened. She buried her face against his naked shoulder suddenly and set her hands at his waist.

  “I am so very frightened,” she said with a breathless laugh.

  He hooked his thumbs beneath the straps of her shift, pulled it free of her shoulders, and slid it down her body. She straightened her arms downward without lifting her head. He undid the buttons of his breeches, slid them down over his hips, and kicked free of them, before putting his arms around her and drawing her against him. She gasped and lifted her head to look into his face.

  “Shall I put out the candle?” he asked.

  She shook her head. “No,” she said. “I want to see you. I want you to see me.”

  He lowered his head and kissed her. And took instant fire. He had never held anyone quite so incredibly feminine, or anyone who put herself against him with quite such heated and naked abandon.

  There was to be no gradual building of desire, no slow and erotic exploration, no careful preparation of an uninitiated virgin. Hands, lips, tongues, bodies touched ungently, urgently, with the mutual and desperate need for union and release. She clung to him, moved against him, moaned at his touch, at his kiss, which ravished her mouth.

  He tumbled her to the bed, following her there in his urgency and drawn on top of her by the desperation of her arms. And without any further preparation, without any agonizing over how he might avoid giving her pain, he was between her thighs and stabbing deeply into her. She cried out and clung to him with both arms and legs when it seemed that he migh
t draw back.

  “No,” she cried to him. “Come to me. Come to me. Oh, please, Edmund. Please.”

  And she pushed up against him, twisted against him while he drove into her all the unleashed power of his passion. They cried out together, clung tautly to each other, and descended together into the world beyond passion.

  She was sobbing and trembling beneath him. Lord Amberley disengaged himself from her body and moved to her side. He gathered her into his arms, smoothing back her hair with one hand, feathering soft kisses over her face.

  “I hurt you,” he said. “I hurt you, Alex. I frightened you.”

  “No.” She shook her head. She had stopped sobbing, though her body still shook against his. “No.”

  He watched her as her eyes fluttered closed and her body gradually grew still and relaxed. He listened to her breathing grow steady and slow. And he smiled in some wonder. He did not believe he had ever before put a woman to sleep.

  She was beautiful. Quite incredibly beautiful. Her hair was in wild disarray around her face and over her shoulders. Her cheeks were flushed, as far as he could see in the faint light of the candle, which was about to burn itself out. Her lips were parted in sleep. Her skin was petal smooth and creamy. Her breasts were firm and generous, her waist small, her hips provocative. Her legs—her long, shapely legs—he could feel against his own.

  And she had given herself to him. Given with a passion he did not know women capable of. Given, merely because she was free to do so and wished to do so. And what of tomorrow? But he cut off the thought before it could even develop in his mind. Let tomorrow take care of itself. He would take the free gift of this very brief portion of the night.

  He closed his eyes.

  ALEXANDRA KNEW INSTANTLY WHERE she was when she woke up. She could feel her lover’s arm warm beneath her head, his breath against her hair. She could feel the warmth of his body close to hers, the cool air from outside against her back. She opened her eyes and found that she could see part of his chest and one broad shoulder. But it was not candlelight by which she could see.