The Gilded Web (10 page)

“But I was coping last evening,” she said, looking up at him with flashing eyes. “I would have carried it off alone, James, with some help from you. I would have stayed and finished my drink and left without giving anyone the satisfaction of knowing that I had even noticed anything amiss. I did not need help. If the earl had just not come along at that precise moment! I was bewildered at what his grace had done. And what can he have meant by walking past me as if he did not see me, James? No, don't answer that question. I am not so stupid or so naive that I do not know what he meant. He meant to snub me. He meant to show me publicly that I am now a soiled creature and quite beneath his notice. He meant me to know that there will be no betrothal and no marriage.”

“And how do you feel about that, Alex?” Purnell asked, coming to stand in front of her chair. “Is your world shattered?”

“Yes, I think it is,” she said, continuing to stare at the floor. “I am not sure I was excited by the idea of marrying his grace. In fact, I had no feelings either for or against the match, except that I looked forward to a greater measure of freedom. It is just that I have been brought up to the knowledge that I would be his wife someday. There is suddenly a void in my future. The thought is a little frightening.”

“I know,” he said. He reached out a hand and squeezed her shoulder. “I have lived with the void for a long time, and I still do not know how I will fill it. Or if I ever will. But you need a secure and happy life, Alex. You must have it. You have had little enough of happiness in your life so far, God knows.”

She looked up at him. “You refer to Papa?” she said. “He lives his life as he thinks it should be lived, James. He means well. It is all anyone can do. I wish you did not hate him so.”

“He thinks he is God,” he said vehemently, squeezing her shoulder once more. “And I will be eternally thankful that he is not.”

“He will be sending for me soon,” Alexandra said. “Lord Amberley said he would call this morning. And I still do not know what I am to do. Oh, James, I have never known a nightmare like last night. First, that snubbing. It was dreadful, even though both Lord Eden and you had warned me what to expect. And then the duke. And finally Lord Amberley. I felt like a thing. A thing with leprosy. I have never felt much in control of my life, but last night I was totally at the mercy of others. I hated the feeling. I wanted to yell and scream and hit out at people. Is not that dreadful?”

Purnell stooped down on his haunches and looked into his sister's face. “I wish I could protect you from life, Alex,” he said, his intense dark eyes glowing. “God, how I wish it! I have known some of the cruelty it can inflict. But I wish it would leave you alone. You are the only person in this world I have left to care about.”

“James!” she said. She leaned forward in her chair and framed his face with her hands. “I wish you were not so bitter, dear, and so full of hatred. I do wish that. Can you not forget about what is in the past and cannot be helped? Can you not look to the future and make something bright of it? Besides, we are forgetting that there was one ray of light last night. There was the earl's sister. I have seen her before, you know, and always admired her beauty and gaiety, her ability to simply enjoy herself. Was it not kind of her to come and talk to us last night?”

“Kind!” he said, drawing back his head and getting to his feet again. “The girl likes to make grand gestures, Alex. She saw a chance for heroism. It was a chance not to be missed. For the space of a few minutes she was the focus of everyone's attention in that drawing room.”

“I think you do her some injustice,” Alexandra said gently. “She risked a great deal to put us at our ease. Perhaps other people will not like what she did and will shun her too.”

Purnell laughed. “Her?” he said. “Taking a risk? Nothing is uncalculated with shallow, artificial little creatures of society such as she, Alex. She knew her brother was about to maneuver you into marriage. She ended up being the heroine of the hour.”

“I liked her,” Alexandra said.

“Then you must continue to do so,” he said. “It seems likely that she will be your sister-in-law. Just don't expect too much in the way of love or loyalty, Alex.”

The expected knock sounded at the door. Alexandra smiled briefly at her brother as he strode across the small room to open the door. She did not wait to hear the words of the footman who stood outside. She rose to her feet and smoothed out the cotton of her morning dress.

She was surprised when she reached her father's office to find him alone. She had expected the earl to be there. Her father was standing by the window, looking out into the street.

“Come in, Alexandra,” he said, not turning at her entry, “and stand in front of my desk.” One was very rarely invited to sit in Papa's presence, Alexandra reflected.

“Good morning, Papa,” she said, clasping her hands loosely in front of her.

“I do not know what is particularly good about it,” he said. He turned from the window to look at her. “Though I suppose we must make the best of the situation. I have had two visits concerning you this morning.”

She looked inquiringly at him, but found her eyes dropping before the severity in his, as they had been doing for as far back into her infancy as she could remember.

“It seems we are no longer good enough for the Duke of Peterleigh,” he said. “He sent a message to that effect with his secretary.”

Alexandra said nothing.

“He did not even come himself!” Lord Beckworth's fist slammed down onto the desk before him with such force that Alexandra visibly jumped. “Lord Beckworth is to be communicated with now only through a secretary. Do you realize fully what disgrace you have brought on your family, girl?”

Alexandra raised eyes that long training had taught her to keep expressionless. “I think perhaps the Duke of Peterleigh is not worthy of us, Papa,” she said. “I think little of a suitor who is not willing to stand by me even when I am the innocent victim of a silly prank.”

“Silence, girl!” the baron roared, so that Alexandra squared her shoulders and lowered her eyes to the floor again. “Innocent, do you call yourself? When you tricked your mama and your brother in order to wander alone outside a ballroom? That is where bawds and strumpets display their wares. Have you not seen them outside the theaters and opera houses? You were issuing an open invitation. And you try to put all the blame for what ensued on Lord Eden? You are little better than a whore.”

“Papa!” Alexandra's eyes blazed incautiously into his. “How can you say that to me? You know it is untrue. I was foolish, perhaps. But nothing worse. I have not been guilty of any great sin.”

Lord Beckworth stabbed a finger in her direction. “You are committing the greatest sin of all,” he said. “You are denying guilt, convincing yourself that sin is not sin. You are in grave danger of hellfire, my girl. My prayers will be devoted entirely to you today, that your heart will be softened and that you will beg for mercy. You will spend the coming hours on your knees. And when the Earl of Amberley calls on you this afternoon, you will receive him with humility and gratitude, and you will accept his offer of marriage. Do you understand me?”

“Papa,” she said, “may I not just return home? Please?”

“Home?” he said. “Your home henceforth is with the man who is willing to lift you above your disgrace, Alexandra. It seems I have failed you. A fatherly softness and love have come between me and my Christian duty to train you properly for a life of virtue. I have failed with my son, and now I have failed with my daughter. I hope for the sake of your immortal soul that your husband will not likewise fail you. I advised him when he called on me this morning to be strict with you from the start. I advised him not to hesitate to beat you until you have learned obedience.”

Alexandra clasped her hands more tightly in front of her. “I have tried to be obedient to you, Papa,” she said. “I have tried all my life to make you and Mama proud of me. If I have failed, it has not been intentional, and my failure has not been your fault.”

Lord Beckworth looked weary suddenly. He sank into the chair behind his desk and passed one hand over his bald head. “One tries and tries,” he said. “One has a family and wants what is best for them. One wants them to grow in a knowledge of Holy Scripture and the principles of Christian virtue. And one does one's best to do one's duty, not sparing the rod, not allowing weak sentiment to stand in the way of what is right. And how does it all end? First James, and now you. You must marry Amberley, Alexandra. I can do no more for you.”

Alexandra stood mute across the desk from him. She scarcely dared breathe. These moods of weariness and self-recrimination were more terrible than his moods of righteous anger. Her father's frequent sense of failure almost invariably led to a redoubling of his harsh attempts to pound virtue and morality into his family. She had always thought that once she grew up—reached the age of eighteen, twenty, one-and-twenty—she would finally be free of the tyranny of his terrible sense of obligation for her spiritual welfare. But it was not so easy to shake off the pattern of a lifetime when one was a woman, she had discovered as she reached each of those milestones of age. Always one must be dependent upon a man for the very means of survival. And wholly subject to his will.

“Go your room now,” Lord Beckworth said, “and remain on your knees until Mrs. Rey is sent to prepare you for the earl's visit. You will ignore the bell for luncheon.”

“Yes, Papa,” she said, and turned to leave.

“And, Alexandra.” His voice held her still again, though she did not turn to face him. “If you refuse the earl's offer, I will consider it a sign from God that I must take on direct responsibility for your soul again. It will grieve me and hurt me probably more than it will you, but I will have to resume punishing your lapses in the only way your stubborn spirit seems to understand.”

Alexandra drew a deep and silent breath, lifted her head, and proceeded on her way to her room, where she knelt obediently and unsupervised for almost three hours until Nanny Rey came bustling and clucking to her rescue. She prayed that feeling would never become so deadened in her that she would become bitter and cynical and hate-filled as James was. She prayed for James, that her deep affection for him would prove sufficient to keep alive in him the spark of love that had been all but quenched five years before.

L
ORD
E
DEN SPENT THE MORNING
at Tattersall's. He did not go there with any intention of buying horses. He was quite satisfied with the ones he had. But his friend Faber was on the lookout for a new team of chestnuts and had asked him to go along to give a second opinion. And he had nothing else to do.

Indeed, he was feeling decidedly restless. The pleasures of the Season were beginning to pall, as they always did after a month or so. But this one had just become even more dreary than all the previous ones. Other years he had kept the same flirt throughout, convinced on each occasion that what he felt was true love. And yet he had found each time a few weeks after the Season was over and he was away from London that he had forgotten the girl.

It was really too bad that the one year when he was really in love, the flirtation was over even before the end of the Season. Miss Carstairs had refused to drive with him the previous afternoon, and had turned her back on him when he had called at her box at the opera the evening before. Her mother too had stared stonily down into the pit while he had been forced to make stilted conversation with the three remaining members of their party. He understood that he was in disgrace and was no longer considered a desirable suitor.

The prospect of balls and other entertainments for the weeks to come without the chance of coaxing a smile or a blush from Miss Carstairs was a dreary one indeed. It would be even more painful when she began to turn her attentions elsewhere, as she was bound to do soon. Everyone knew that old Carstairs had brought her to London with the express purpose of finding a wealthy husband for her before the end of the Season.

Lord Eden wished he had something to do beyond the usual daily round of amusements. He spent part of each summer on his own estate in Wiltshire, but it was a part of the country he had never allowed himself to become familiar with, and the estate was run by an aging but amazingly efficient bailiff who had been in charge of it since before his birth. His presence there always seemed redundant. He preferred to spend his time on Edmund's estate in Hampshire, where he had been brought up and where people and surroundings were familiar. But there was nothing very constructive for him to do there.

He wanted to be in the army and had done so since he was sixteen and had been befriended by the captain of the local regiment. He ached to be in Spain fighting old Boney, his days filled with physical activity, mental challenge, and danger. But Mama always became upset when he broached the subject. She had lost two brothers in the wars years before and understandably dreaded that her son might share their fate. Madeline too became genuinely distressed whenever he tried to confide in her. It was the only topic on which he could not talk quite freely with her. Edmund had never given his opinion either way. He would give his support if asked for it, Lord Eden was convinced. But he shied away from putting his brother in the dilemma of having to choose between his mother and sister on the one hand and his only brother on the other. And so he ached with empty strength and unchanneled energy.