The Devil's Web

by Mary Balogh

  “It is a novelty to be invited to English parties, I must confess, ma’am,” Duncan Cameron said. “And to waltz. But I do believe the lure of the wilderness is in my blood. I am hoping that next spring I can be on my way back there.”

  “Do you feel the same way, James?” Ellen asked.

  Madeline’s hands were twisting in her lap, he could see out of the corner of one eye. He turned cold for a moment when he realized that he had been about to reach out to take one of them in his.

  “In my blood?” he said. “I am not sure I would put it quite like that. But it is a great experience. One comes face-to-face with oneself when surrounded with such vast emptiness and such harsh living conditions. I can well imagine that it could become essential to one’s being.”

  “You make it sound very romantic,” Jennifer said.

  “Of course,” Duncan said with a grin, “there are the mosquitoes and black flies to eat one alive in the summer and the snow and the ice to bury one alive in the winter.”

  They all laughed. James was watching Madeline’s hands. White, long-fingered hands. She was twisting a ring on her right hand. Those hands had once touched him with desire. They had been warm on his face and in his hair.

  Her hands clenched suddenly in her lap, and when he glanced quickly into her face, it was to find that her jaw was set and she was staring down at her hands. He looked away from her.

  Duncan was describing how the voyageurs, or canoe-men, portaged all the contents of the canoes and the canoes themselves around rapids. He added some details of his own. It was inevitable, James supposed, that people here would be curious about their lives as fur traders. He did not resent the questions.

  His father, he noticed, had come for supper, but he had not approached their table. He was seated with the dowager countess and Sir Cedric Harvey.

  Madeline’s hands were alternately still and fidgeting. She had scarcely spoken. And for his part, he could not recall a time when he had felt quite so suffocatingly uncomfortable. He turned to her impulsively. Only a few people had risen and left the room. Most were still eating.

  “May I escort you back to the ballroom?” he asked.

  She rose to her feet as the other occupants of the table looked at them in some surprise.

  “To some private room,” he said to Madeline as they left the dining room. “We need to talk for a few minutes.”

  If she felt surprise, she did not show it. Or reluctance. He had half expected her to refuse to be alone with him. She led him to a small room at the front of the house. A morning room, he guessed.

  She crossed the room to the fireplace as he closed the door behind him, and she set both hands on the mantel, above the level of her head. A single candle burned there.

  He stood just inside the doorway, his hands clasped behind him, his feet set slightly apart.

  “Is there anything we can do about this awkwardness between us?” he asked.

  He thought she would not answer. She gripped the mantelpiece and stared downward. “I suppose,” she said at last, “we could contrive to stay away from each other. I would leave London if I could. But it is not easy being an unmarried lady in our society. My mother is in town, as are my two brothers. It seems that I have no option but to remain here too.”

  “I thought Lady Madeline Raine lived for London and the Season,” he said. “You must dislike me indeed if you would leave rather than have to meet me.”

  “Of course,” she said, and she lowered her hands and turned to face him, “the frivolity of London society is the only thing I am capable of enjoying. I had forgotten that you discovered my darkest secret years ago, the secret that I have a brain full of feathers. And as for my disliking you, you have never given me reason to do otherwise.”

  “Ah,” he said, advancing one step farther into the room, “plain speaking. I found it difficult meeting you again this summer. And no easier after the first time. I have noticed that you share my embarrassment. I suppose the nature of our last encounter before this year has something to do with it.”

  “Where was that?” she asked. “I have forgotten.” She raised her eyebrows coolly, but she flushed.

  “You are a liar,” he said. “There is no reason why we should both remember that occasion quite so vividly. Even at the time we were both undoubtedly adult, and embraces happen between adults. But the fact is that we do remember it, and it has created this awkwardness. Is it because I left so abruptly and did not face you the following morning?”

  “It was, as I remember, a rather hot embrace,” she said, lifting her chin. “It was doubtless due to the moonlight and the music and perhaps the wine. There was nothing particularly unusual about it, sir. I am sure you have done the like with many women, as I have done with many men.”

  “I suppose I owed you marriage after what happened,” he said. “But instead I left.”

  She laughed. “Then it was doubtless as well you did,” she said. “You might have found my reception of a marriage offer somewhat humiliating. You are the very last man on this earth I would ever consider marrying, Mr. Purnell.”

  “And yet,” he said coldly, “you told me on that night that you loved me.”

  Her eyes flashed at him, and he knew that was the one detail he should never have confronted her with. He had done so only because her words had inexplicably hurt.

  “Well,” she said, “you have called me liar this evening. It seems I was a liar then, too. You at least were honest, I seem to recall. You told me that it was nothing but lust you felt. I was a lady. I would not admit to a purely physical craving. I dressed it up in respectable terms. How could I have loved you? You treated me with as much contempt then as you have shown me since your return.”

  “Your problem,” he said, “is that for years you have had nothing but adulation from the gentlemen around you. You have come to expect it as your due. If a man does not fawn on you and sigh over you, you feel insulted.”

  “What a ridiculous notion,” she said. “Your problem, sir, is that you have never felt it necessary to afford other people the common courtesies. You smile when you wish, and you speak when you wish. And it is not very often that you wish to do either. It is your moroseness and your silence that create awkwardness.”

  “Ah, the old story,” he said. “I remember your saying as much four years ago. And on one of those occasions I remember undertaking to entertain you for the whole of a walk of two miles or more. And what was the point, pray? I will wager that you cannot now recall a single word I said to you on that occasion.”

  “Well, there you are wrong,” she said, her nostrils flared and her eyes still flashing at him. “You told me about your years at school and at university, and I mistakenly thought that after all perhaps you were human.”

  “Both our voices are rising,” he said. “I suppose it was inevitable that we quarrel. We always seem to have done so. I should not have brought you here. I merely thought that perhaps we could behave like civilized beings at last. It seems I was mistaken.”

  “And if you are,” she said, making no attempt to lower her own voice or accept his veiled suggestion that they hold on to their tempers, “it is entirely your own fault. You need not talk of ‘we’ and ‘us.’ I am perfectly willing to behave in a civilized manner at any time. It is you who have decided that boorishness is an acceptable form of behavior.”

  “I might have known,” he said, “that you would not have changed at all, that you would be just as childish now as you ever were.”

  “Oh!” she said, and her lips clamped together while her bosom heaved. “I don’t believe there can be a more despicable man alive than you, James Purnell. I was prepared to be civil to you, for Alexandra’s sake and Edmund’s. But I find that my dislike of four years ago has turned into a full-blown hatred. I hate you, sir, and I believe it would be in both our interests if we make every effort to avoid each other during what remains of your stay in England. The time cannot go fast enough for me.”

  “Or fo
r me, either,” he said, making her a half bow, and standing aside as she swept by him and out through the door. She did not stop to close it behind her.

  James stood where he was and shut his eyes tightly.

  God! Oh, God.

  What had he said to her? What unspeakable atrocities had he said to her to make her so furiously angry? The dreadful thing was that at the moment he could not for the life of him remember.

  He could only recall that in the supper room he had had the impulsive idea to take her aside, to talk to her, to try somehow to clear the air between them, to have done with the ridiculous and paralyzing awkwardness between them.

  It had seemed like a good idea.

  Who had started hurling insults at whom?

  Had he started it? He could not remember. All he did know was that within minutes they had been glaring and yelling at each other and that he had felt a blind instinct to hurt her, to set her down, to humiliate her.

  But why?

  God!

  He set a hand up over his eyes and closed them again. Why did he want to hurt her? And why did it hurt him so badly when he succeeded? Was that it? Was that what he was trying to do? Hurt himself?

  But why would he wish to hurt himself? Why punish himself? Punish himself for what?

  For loving her? Did he love her?

  Did he have the right to love her? To love any woman? Did he have the right to seek happiness with any woman?

  With any woman who was not Dora? He had loved Dora. He had told her so. And he had shown her so. And then he had left her to the unthinkable nightmare of the consequences of that love. He had not done so knowingly, of course. He had not known what she had had to endure until it was too late to help her. By the time word reached him at university, Dora had been married off to John Drummond and sent off with him to an unknown destination.

  He had been unable to save her. Incapable of saving her. He could not be blamed. He had told himself that over and over down the years. He could not be blamed.

  But her life had been ruined forever. And was he to seek happiness for himself? He, who had not had to take any of the consequences of his irresponsible love for Dora?

  He threw back his head and gazed sightlessly up at the ceiling. Madeline. He had just hurt her again, as he knew he had hurt her four years before. Was she to be punished because he had been weak enough to fall in love with her when he was not free to love?

  And did he love her? Did he not dislike and despise her? Did he love her?

  JENNIFER AND LORD NORTH, Duncan and Miss Marshall had also returned to the ballroom.

  “Oh, dear,” Alexandra said, turning to her husband, “it was a thoroughly good idea of Ellen’s, but I don’t think there can be any truth in it. James and Madeline did not look as if they were enjoying each other’s company, did they? I have never seen her so quiet. And James could not wait to return her to the ballroom. What a great shame!”

  The earl smiled at her in some amusement and covered her hand on the table with his own. “Why all the world cannot be persuaded to be as happy as you and I, my love,” he said, “I could not say. But that is the way of the world. It is full of foolish people.”

  “I have never seen Madeline so out of spirits,” Ellen said, looking up at her husband. “It is true then, what you told me, Dominic?”

  “It would seem so,” he said, touching her cheek briefly with one knuckle. “Poor Madeline has fallen hard, and only she can pick herself up. A mere twin is quite helpless. How many times have I danced with you, love? Can we risk one more without becoming social pariahs?”

  “Fallen?” Alexandra said, frowning. “Madeline? Have I been missing something, Dominic? Do you mean for James? But they used to dislike each other quite intensely, if you will forgive me for saying so of your sister. I can remember that.”

  “Yes, they did,” Lord Eden said, taking his wife’s hand in his and getting to his feet. “And still do, apparently, Alexandra. Altogether too much for casual acquaintances, would you not agree?”

  Alexandra was left to frown down at her plate. “Did he mean that there is hope after all?” she asked the earl when they were alone. “James and Madeline. I cannot imagine how I had never thought of it. It would be so wonderful that I can scarce think of it without bursting with excitement, Edmund. But he used to dislike her so. Was it because he really liked her, then?”

  “Alex,” the Earl of Amberley said, getting to his feet and drawing back her chair, “I had better return you to the ballroom and search out my next partner without further ado. It would not be at all the thing to obey instinct and kiss you in the middle of the supper room. You are quite adorable, and quite disastrous as a matchmaker, my love. You might be better advised to locate the nose on your face.”

  “Oh,” she said flushing, “what an odious man you are, Edmund. It is true, then? James and Madeline. How perfectly splendid.”

  • • •

  JAMES WAS DISCOVERING that there really was not a great deal of work to be done. There were trading goods to be received and sorted and listed ready for taking back to Montreal late in the summer—those goods that would be traded to the people of the native tribes in exchange for the furs they hunted. But Douglas Cameron was doing all the negotiations related to that task, and only one clerk seemed to be necessary for the more monotonous parts of the task. He and Duncan shared the work.

  The situation was somewhat similar to that faced by the wintering partners and clerks—those who worked inland where the furs were gathered. There were busy days, yes, but there were also long, slack weeks between. One’s presence was necessary but not constantly required. One had a great deal of spare time.

  The difference was that in the vast North American wilderness one was thrown very much on one’s own resources. There was hunting to be enjoyed when one was not working, and playing cards and reading and conversing, if one was fortunate enough to share the post with another partner or clerk. There was some dancing. And, if one had been wise enough to take one of the daughters of the country to wife, there was making love.

  Here there were all the amusements of London to enjoy. And perhaps more. Three days after the ball he received two separate invitations. The first he would perhaps have refused if he had not met Jean even before going home to find it there. But she had received hers already, and she was ecstatic.

  “James,” she said, coming into her father’s house all rosy-cheeked from an outing, “has Duncan told you? I can scarce believe my good fortune. I keep thinking that it surely must now have come to an end, and then yet another wonderful thing happens.”

  “No, I have not told,” her brother said with a grin, “it having escaped my mind, Jean, until this precise moment. You may have all the joy of impressing James with the news.”

  “We have been invited to the picnic,” she said, her hands clasped to her bosom, her eyes shining at him.

  “The picnic?” he said, amused, raising his eyebrows.

  “At Richmond,” she said. “The one Sir Cedric Harvey is organizing. I was never more surprised in my life as to find that Duncan and I have been included in his guest list. And all on account of you, James. You will be going, of course?”

  “This is the first I have heard of it,” he said. “But no, Jean, I don’t think I will go. There is too much to do.”

  Douglas Cameron chuckled. “Then it must be that you are chasing the ladies around, lad,” he said. “I am not exactly wearing your fingers to the bone, now, am I? Go and enjoy yourself. I have told Duncan the same. I shall manage without the two of you for one afternoon, I do not doubt.”

  “This consorting with the rich is head-swelling business, man,” Duncan said. “Sir Cedric Harvey is the Dowager Countess of Amberley’s particular friend, is he not?”

  “But you must come, James,” Jean said, her eyes pleading. “It would appear most strange if Duncan and I put in an appearance and you did not. Please?”

  “Of course he will go, lass,” her father said. “I will
go one further, James, my lad. If you wish to take yourself off to Yorkshire for a few weeks or down to your sister’s place, well, I daresay Duncan and I will hold the fort while you are gone. Eh, Duncan?”

  James smiled. “It seems I am set about with people determined that I will enjoy myself,” he said. “How am I to resist? I will give in gracefully.”

  Jean clapped her hands in delight, and Duncan slapped his friend on the shoulder.

  “You’ll owe me one,” he said with a grin, “for doing all your hard labor for a few weeks.”

  So he was doomed to attend the picnic, James found even before he had seen his own invitation. And there was worse to come.

  He was sitting in the nursery of the house on Grosvenor Square that same afternoon, his niece sitting solemnly on his knee playing with his watch on its chain, Alexandra sitting on her heels on the floor in front of them. Christopher was painting quietly at the other side of the room.

  “You probably don’t know how honored you are,” Alexandra said. “Caroline does not take to many people. Apart from Edmund and me and Nanny Rey, Ellen is about the only other person who is allowed to pick her up. And now you. I am very glad. She must know how much her mother worshiped you as a child.”

  “Past tense?” he said, touching the child’s soft dark curls. “You no longer worship me, Alex?”

  She smiled. “You know I do,” she said. “You cannot imagine how I have waited and waited for your coming, James. And how now I am willing time to a standstill. Must you go back?”

  He looked at her with the smile that would have been imperceptible to anyone but her. “I must,” he said quietly. “I thought just perhaps you would decide to stay,” she said. “You seem different. I thought perhaps you would have put the past behind you. You have not?”

  “I have learned to live again,” he said. “But it is easier in another country, Alex. You are the only person here I really regret having to leave.”

  “Not Mama and Papa?” she asked wistfully. “Have you not been able to mend the quarrel with Papa, James? I hoped you would.”