The Gilded Web (32 page)

He stopped and turned back. “Mama,” he said, “Alex has had no luncheon. Will you see to it?”

“P
APA WILL BE MOST
vexed if he ever finds out how you have been behaving, Alexandra,” Lady Beckworth complained. “I wish he had not declined the invitation to accompany us here. I feel altogether unable to cope with you. You are so headstrong that only your father seems able to tame you. James is no good at all.”

Alexandra sat on a stool in her mother's dressing room, where she had been summoned after her late luncheon. She had not wanted to eat, but Lady Amberley had taken her arm and insisted.

“I know just what an appetite good sea air can arouse,” she had said. “And as for being late, my dear Alexandra, think nothing of it. I had three children who were invariably late for meals despite the existence of a nurse who had a ferocious bark but no bite at all. All three of them quickly had her wrapped around their little fingers, especially Dominic. I am only too glad to see Edmund take the time to show you around.”

“But that poor man,” Alexandra had said. “Who is he?”

Joel Peterson was one of Lord Amberley's field laborers, she discovered. He lived in the village with his wife and two half-grown boys.

“Edmund will be disturbed by this accident,” Lady Amberley had said. “He always takes anything to do with his workers very personally, almost as if he is solely responsible for every sickness or accident that happens. He has an overdeveloped sense of responsibility. But you will love him for it, dear, as I do. It is always better to be that way than to be careless and insensitive, is it not?”

Lady Amberley had sat at the table drinking tea while Alexandra ate. Alexandra had forced herself to swallow the food that was set in front of her, though she did so with difficulty. “And I had to be from home!” Lord Amberley had said. They would have been at home if she had not suggested descending the cliff path. Lord Eden, it seemed, had arrived back and left again to take Susan Courtney home before news of the accident had arrived. And Lord Amberley would have been at the village if she had only agreed the day before to accompany him there.

“It was unfortunate that his lordship was from home when Mr. Spiller came looking for him,” Alexandra said now to her mother without looking up.

“That is not the point,” Lady Beckworth said. “I daresay the bailiff could have taken care of the matter himself. That is what he is employed for, I take it. But for you to be so long alone with his lordship is disgraceful, Alexandra.”

Alexandra looked up in surprise. “Yesterday you said it was quite unexceptionable to go riding with him, Mama,” she said.

“And so it was,” her mother said, “for one occasion, Alexandra. But that was yesterday afternoon, and already this morning you have been alone with him again for upward of an hour. What will Lady Amberley think of your morals? I dread to think what your father would have to say to you and to me if he were here now.”

Alexandra looked down at her hands, which were spread in her lap. “We walked down close to the ocean,” she said.

“You scrambled down a steep path to the sand,” Lady Beckworth said. “A most unladylike activity, Alexandra. Your father has not raised you to behave in such a hoydenish manner. What is worse, James seems to think that you were the one to suggest such a mad scheme. Is this true?”

“Yes, Mama,” she said.

“I cannot understand it,” Lady Beckworth said. “And then to stay on the beach for a whole hour after James and Lady Madeline had come back home. How is anyone to know what you were doing there?”

“I have told you, Mama,” Alexandra said, “that we walked down to the water.”

“I am not sure I can trust you to tell the truth,” her mother said. “Your father was never convinced that you did not leave the Easton ballroom to meet a lover, Alexandra. And now your behavior appears quite inexcusably wanton.”

Alexandra's hands were clenched into fists in her lap. But she said nothing. What was the use? There had never been any point in arguing with Mama and Papa. Indeed, she had learned that doing so usually brought on its own punishment.

“Well, you are justly punished,” Lady Beckworth said. “While you were engaged in your immoral behavior on the beach, whatever it was, perhaps that cart driver was dying. And apparently he was asking for his lordship. If he dies, Alexandra, before his lordship can reach him, I believe you will know who has judged you. A far higher authority than I or even your papa, I fear. I expect more decorous and more godly behavior from my daughter.”

Alexandra was on her feet, panic in her eyes. “Mama,” she said, “the man was not that badly hurt, was he? Oh, please say he was not that badly hurt.”

“I have no idea how badly injured he was,” her mother said. “Such matters are none of my concern, Alexandra.

But I believe you know what your father would direct you to do now.”

Alexandra stared at her wildly for another few moments before turning and fleeing from the room.

L
ORD
E
DEN WAS WHISTLING
to himself as he turned the gig from the laneway leading to Courtney's farm onto the main roadway from the village to Amberley. Susan. He grinned. It was almost worth having missed the scramble down to the beach with the others just in order to have spent an extra hour with her.

He did not think he had ever encountered anyone quite so timid. She had always been the same. He could remember her as a child insisting on climbing trees with her brothers, but invariably getting stuck in a lower branch, terrified to move until someone went to her rescue. He could remember her once crossing the river in the valley on stepping-stones and having to be almost carried from the loose one in the middle.

Even as a child she had always been as wide-eyed in her gratitude for rescue as she was now. She had been very apologetic about keeping him from the cliff path earlier and had valiantly offered to return to Amberley alone if he really wished to go. Yet all the while she had clung with both hands to his arm as if she thought the wind would blow her over the edge if she released her hold. As if he would have left her alone there! And as if he would have allowed any harm to come to her!

Lord Eden turned his thoughts to Alexandra. He had certainly missed his chance to follow up his advantage of the evening before. Perhaps he would have a chance to talk to her that afternoon. It seemed likely that Edmund would spend his time about estate business, having lost a few hours during the morning.

Poor Edmund. He had never particularly enjoyed having guests. He had always preferred a quiet life, sometimes even a solitary one. He spent time with his family, of course, because he was familiar with them and comfortable with them. And he always dutifully both issued and accepted social invitations. But he would hate the obligation he now had to be sociable, to take Miss Purnell about, to entertain her. He must long to get off on his own as he so often did when they were all at home.

But of course courtesy and duty always came first with Edmund. Having spent time after breakfast showing Miss Purnell the gallery, he must have been looking forward to a quiet hour or two in his office or riding around the estate or doing whatever he had planned to do. But then he had discovered that Susan had been invited for the ride too and had felt obliged to join the group in order to even the numbers. Poor Edmund!

The object of his thoughts hailed him at that moment and came riding up alongside him.

“You have been into the village?” Lord Eden asked. “You wasted no time, Edmund.”

“Joel Peterson has just died,” Lord Amberley said. And indeed his face was unusually serious and pale, his brother saw now that he looked at him more closely.

“Joel?” he said, pulling back on the ribbons so that the horses were scarcely moving. “Whatever happened?”

“He had a cart loaded with hay,” the earl explained. “He pulled it over to let another vehicle past, it seems, and tipped it. It fell on him.”

Lord Eden grimaced. “It killed him instantly?” he asked.

“No.” Lord Amberley was very pale. “He was taken home and was conscious too. He died just a short while before Spiller and I got there. Apparently there was no way of saving him. But I wish I had been there. He was worried, apparently, about what would happen to his wife and sons. But I always look after the widows and orphans of my workers. He knew that. He must have known that, must he not, Dom?”

“You have never failed,” his brother said, “or Papa or Grandpapa before you. Yes, Edmund, he would have known that they would be cared for.”

“I wish that I had been there to reassure him all the same,” Lord Amberley said. “If I had arrived just fifteen minutes sooner, I could have done so. Fifteen minutes, Dom. Poor Joel. He was a conscientious worker.”

“Is anyone with his wife now?” Lord Eden asked.

“Half the village,” the earl assured him. “And Spiller, of course. He will make all the arrangements for the funeral. I stayed for a while. But my presence put a strain on them, you know. Mrs. Peterson seemed to feel obliged to treat me like an honored guest when obviously she was beside herself with grief. She needed to give way to it but could not do so as long as I was there.” He smiled rather sadly. “We are a race apart, are we not, Dom?”

They rode on side by side and turned through the gates onto the narrow tree-lined driveway leading to the valley road.

“You saw Susan safely home?” Lord Amberley asked. He did not wait for an answer. “Will you and Madeline entertain Alex this afternoon, Dom? And her brother and mother, of course. I need to be alone for a while.”

“You know you don't need even to ask,” Lord Eden said, and eased back on the ribbons as the road began to descend and his brother rode on ahead of him.

W
HEN
J
AMES
P
URNELL WENT
in search of his sister later in the afternoon, he found her in her bedchamber staring out through the east-facing window.

“You have been all alone here, Alex?” he said. “Why?”

“That man,” she said tonelessly, “the one who was hurt. He is dead.”

“Yes, I know,” he said. “The whole family seems to have taken it rather hard.”

“I went downstairs,” she said. “When I saw him coming home, I went down to ask him. He scarcely spoke to me. He brushed past me and went upstairs. It was Lord Eden who told me. And when I came back up here, I saw him ride away again.”

“Amberley?” he said. “Doubtless he had business to attend to, Alex.”

“He went up the valley,” she said.

Purnell frowned and came to stand beside her. “You are upset?” he asked. “You feel abandoned? I think you are becoming attached to him, aren't you?”

She looked at him bleakly. “It's my fault,” she said. “All my fault, James. I am like a blight on everything I touch.”

His frown deepened. “What is this?” he said. “What are you blaming yourself for, Alex? You were miles away from the accident. You did not even know the man.”