The Gilded Web (12 page)

Lord Eden had leapt to his feet, but he sat again at his mother's quiet bidding. “And I can't, I suppose?” he said. “It should have been me, should it not? I should have been the one to see that I must go back and persuade her to reconsider. I should not have felt the relief I did when she refused. I had no right to feel relief. It is not right that it is Edmund doing this, Mama. It should be me. It must be me.”

“I think not, Dominic,” his mother said placidly, stitching on. “It is true that you were the one who unwittingly caused the girl's character to be destroyed. And I am proud that you acknowledged the fact and went to make your apologies and your offer to Miss Purnell. But it is true too, dear, that you are very young. Two-and-twenty is too young for a man to marry. Men, alas, do not grow up as quickly as women. That is not to say that they do not grow up at all. You have only to consider your brother to know that extraordinary steadiness of character can develop before a man's thirtieth birthday. But you are too young for marriage, Dominic. You would not do either yourself or Miss Purnell any good if you married her. Edmund would have realized that.”

Lord Eden leapt to his feet again. “What nonsense, Mama!” he said, before flushing as she raised her head and her eyebrows. “Pardon me. I did not mean to sound so ill-mannered. But I
am
a man. It is just that I am your younger son and you see me as a boy still. And you have insisted on protecting me from any experience that will make me more of a man.”

“The army,” she said wearily.

“I was made to be a soldier, Mama,” he said. “Can you not see that? I can find nothing else in my life to make it a joy to live. I need action and responsibility. I would find the latter at least if I were to acquire a wife. Miss Purnell is my responsibility, and I shall tell Edmund so.”

“She is not a commodity to be wrangled over,” his mother said with gentle firmness, folding her needlepoint and putting it to one side. “She is a person, dear, and undoubtedly a bewildered and unhappy person too. All her plans for her life have been totally overset in the past few days.”

“And so have Edmund's,” Lord Eden said. “I had not heard that he was even considering marriage yet, Mama, and he seemed quite happy with Mrs. B—. Well, anyway, he seemed quite happy. It is not right that he should be forced into this marriage. Miss Purnell is not remarkably pretty and she seems an overly serious female.”

“Mrs. Borden is not right for Edmund either,” Lady Amberley said. “I am quite relieved that he will be forced to give her up. And Edmund will—he is not the type to keep a wife and a mistress. I was very much afraid that he would drift into a permanent relationship with her, even marriage perhaps. I am not sure that Miss Purnell is the right wife for him either. Unfortunately, I have not even met the girl. But you can be sure that Edmund will make the best of the marriage. If the girl is at all likable or lovable, Edmund will both like and love her and bring her to like and love him.”

Lord Eden sat silent, his hands dangling between his knees.

“We all owe it to Edmund to accept Miss Purnell as if she had become betrothed to him in the most regular manner,” Lady Amberley continued. “I was extremely proud of Madeline last evening. Everyone else in that Sharp woman's drawing room was behaving with perfect snobbishness, avoiding the girl as if she had the plague. Madeline went and talked to her and risked being looked upon askance herself. I wish I had not been playing cards. I would have taken the girl on my arm and strolled from group to group with her. I would have dared anyone to snub her. Ridiculous people!”

Lord Eden had no chance to reply. The door to the sitting room swung open and his sister burst in, still wearing a lavender pelisse and chip straw bonnet. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes sparkling.

“I heard you were here, Dom,” she said, “and came right up. Mama, I thought I would be late for tea. What a love you are to have waited for me. Sir Derek's phaeton was the most splendid in the whole park, I do declare.”

Lord Eden stood up and grinned at his twin. “Would it have looked so splendid with another gentleman in it?” he asked.

She put her head to one side and a finger to her chin, considering. “Well, perhaps with you, Dom,” she said. “And now you have got the compliment you were looking for. Are you satisfied?”

“Do I hear wedding bells—again?” her brother asked.

“With Sir Derek?” she asked, removing her bonnet and twirling it by the ribbons before tossing it toward an empty chair. “How would I know, Dom? He has not asked me yet. But he is most excessively handsome. Even Mama admits that.”

“So were Prescott and Mitchell and Roberts and What's-his-name from Dorset, and one or two others,” Lord Eden said.

“You are not to tease me,” Madeline said, tossing her pelisse in the same general direction as her bonnet. “You know you fall in love quite as often as I do, Dom, and I am always interested and sympathetic when it turns out that the girl is not quite the right one after all. Have you heard about Edmund?”

“Of course I have heard about Edmund,” he said, scowling. “I have never heard such depressing news. Will she have him, do you suppose?”

“I don't believe she will have much choice,” Madeline said. “You cannot imagine what it was like for her last evening, Dom. I felt dreadfully distressed to think that you and I were the cause of it all. But Edmund was perfectly splendid. You should have seen the way he turned on his famous charm for Miss Purnell. Even I was impressed. And the way he pokered up for Lady Sharp and all the tabbies! He had everyone in the room fawning over him and practically eating out of his hand.”

“Edmund ought not to do it,” Lord Eden said, sitting down again as his sister seated herself on an ottoman beside her mother. “She isn't the wife for him, Mad.”

“I'm not so sure,” she said. “You would have admired her last evening, Dom. She was really quite magnificent. When everyone was loudly ignoring her, she looked just like a queen. I would have been howling with misery and mortification if it had been me. She did not break even when that horrid man, the Duke of Peterleigh, cut her very deliberately. And when Edmund took her about, she looked along her nose at the lot of them as if she were a dowager duchess. I think I am going to like her.”

“We must all try to, dear,” Lady Amberley said, turning to receive the tea tray that a footman had carried into the room. “She is to be part of our family. Edmund's wife. I shall try to love her.”

“I just hope we do not have to see too much of her brother,” Madeline said. “He gives me the shudders. He has such a dark and hostile look. And those eyes of his gaze quite through one as though one were a moth caught on a pin and spread out for his inspection. I have not once seen him smile.”

“Some people do not,” her mother said. “That does not mean that they are not perfectly civil people.”

“He does not like me,” Madeline said decisively. “He thinks me silly and frivolous and empty-headed. And the horrid thing is that I become all three when I am close to him. I don't like him. He rode past the phaeton this afternoon, and I smiled my best smile and waved to him. I thought his neck must be broken, such an effort it cost him to incline his head ever so slightly. And not a smile or a word.”

“He will probably avoid the lot of us,” Lord Eden said. “I don't imagine I am his favorite person at the moment either, Mad. And he probably resents even Edmund for forcing his sister into this marriage. He probably had his heart set on being brother-in-law to a duke. A mere earl must seem quite a come-down.”

“You are being spiteful, Dominic,” the countess said, handing a cup of tea to Madeline to take to her brother. “It is unfair to judge another on a very slight acquaintance or no acquaintance at all. I expect better of my children.”

“I beg your pardon, Mama,” Lord Eden said, pulling a face at Madeline as she bent to set the cup and saucer down on the small table at his elbow.

A
LEXANDRA WAS NOT TO ESCAPE
lightly after the Earl of Amberley had left her. She had promised that she would call on her mama to tell how the interview had gone. But she had hoped to escape to her room soon afterward to ponder the new direction her life had taken. However, when she left the salon, she found the butler bowing before her and informing her that she was to wait on Lady Beckworth in the drawing room. Her heart sank. Mama must have visitors.

She could not have been less pleased to see who the visitors were. Aunt Deirdre, Caroline, and Albert were all in attendance. They had not been near since the scandal of the ball. She had seen Albert, of course, the evening before, when he had snubbed her. Alexandra's eyes met her brother's across the room.

“Alexandra, my dear girl,” her aunt said, rising from her seat on a sofa and coming toward her with outstretched hands. “What very splendid news, to be sure. I was dreadfully distressed to hear of your ill fortune, as Caroline will tell you. I was so miserable with the migraines that I could not even come out to comfort you. I was never more pleased than when I heard this morning from Albert that you were to be betrothed to the Earl of Amberley. Such a very eligible gentleman, to be sure. I had to hurry over here to satisfy myself that it was indeed true. Imagine my feelings, my dear, to find that you were even then closeted with the earl. Is it true? Have you accepted his offer?”

“Yes, I have, Aunt,” Alexandra said calmly. “I thank you for your good wishes.”

Caroline shrieked and jumped to her feet. “I knew you would be respectable again, Cousin,” she said. “Did I not say so, Mama? I was never more happy in my life.”

“Thank you,” Alexandra said, removing her hands from her aunt's and taking a seat close to her mother's.

“Of course,” Mrs. Harding-Smythe said, “being a countess when you had expected to be a duchess is a little lowering, but you must not look at the matter that way, Alexandra. You must remember that under the circumstances you are fortunate to have found a husband at all.”

Alexandra favored her aunt with a steady look that soon had the older lady busy smoothing the silk of her dress over her knees.

“It is a great relief to know that you have accepted the earl,” Lady Beckworth said, leaning forward and patting her daughter on the arm. “You have done what is right, Alexandra, and doing what is right is its own reward. Papa will be pleased.”

Alexandra looked across the room to where her brother was standing, one elbow propped on the high marble mantelpiece, one booted leg crossed over the other. He was looking broodingly back at her. She half-smiled, feeling her customary urge to push back the lock of dark hair that had fallen across his forehead.

“You are indeed fortunate, Cousin,” Albert said. “It pained me to see you go into company last evening when you did not realize that it was not quite proper to do so. I am afraid I was absolutely powerless to help you. Had you waited for Amberley to bring you in, of course, everything would have been different. Everyone would have divined the truth and welcomed you. However, one can hardly blame you. You have not been in town long enough to understand such niceties of polite behavior.”

“You are quite right, Albert,” Purnell said quietly, causing his cousin, whom he usually ignored, to turn toward him in some surprise. “We are bumpkins indeed. We should apply to you more often for advice. In our backward part of the country, ‘polite' means treating other people with courtesy and consideration for their feelings. I for one had no idea that Londoners speak a different language.”

“I am sure everyone present in Lady Sharp's drawing room appreciated your predicament, James,” Albert said, “and honored you for the way you stood by Alexandra. You will find, I believe, that no one will hold your loyalty against you.”

Purnell inclined his head. “I will be forever grateful to the members of polite society,” he said.

Albert seemed to suspect that he was being mocked. He turned back to the ladies. “You will be happy to know that you will be received by the
ton
again, Alexandra,” he said. “That will perhaps make up somewhat for the unfortunate marriage you are forced to contract.”

“Unfortunate?” said Lady Beckworth as her daughter's chin came up.

“They have the rank and the wealth, of course,” Albert said, “if that is all that concerns you, Aunt. But I know that Uncle puts great emphasis on moral and religious virtue, and I must say I honor him for doing so. He could not have been pleased at having to accept the offer of such a man as Amberley.”

“I do not know that any of the Raines are very bad, Albert, dear,” his mother said, frowning, “except that Lady Madeline likes to flirt quite outrageously at a time when she should be thinking of donning a spinster's cap. She has not been able to trap a husband in four years for all her wealth and loose ways.”