The Gilded Web (42 page)

It would be very unfair if they did the latter. Indeed, they must not blame him. She must be very sure that she was the one who broke the engagement, she decided. It was enough that she knew he was willing to do it, to prove to her that he was willing to allow her to take some of the burden of life upon her own shoulders. But she did not wish to humiliate him publicly. And it would be a dreadful humiliation for him to be known as a gentleman who had ended a formal betrothal.

Her relationship with her father was not as bad as she had expected it to be. It was true that he had taken her to task on a few issues, but he had not tried to dominate her every move. He had not tried to impose any punishments on her.

He did not like the Earl of Amberley. The man was a weakling, in his judgment.

“What in thunder does he mean by saying he has to talk the matter of the wedding over with you, Alexandra?” he asked the day after the garden party. “What does it have to do with you anyway?”

“It is my wedding you were discussing, Papa,” she said. “Surely it is only natural that Lord Amberley and I should be the ones to make the decision.”

“Nonsense!” he said. “Nothing would ever be decided if women had always to be consulted. You should feel thankful enough that you are to be respectably married, my girl. Let your menfolk take care of the practical matters.”

“That is not the way it will be with me, Papa,” she dared to say. She looked him carefully in the eye.

“Alexandra!” her mother said in a shocked whisper. “Remember to whom you are speaking.”

But Papa did not explode as she had fully expected him to do. He looked at her long and hard, his eyes steely. “Who has been putting such nonsense into your head, Alexandra?” he said. “Amberley? He seems to have some strange notions. And that brother and sister of his seem a ramshackle pair. Well, you will be his problem soon. He will doubtless discover soon enough that you are a stubborn and a headstrong woman despite my training. He will have to learn how to handle you. You had better be careful, miss. Talk to him as you just did to me and he is likely to answer you with a heavy hand.”

Alexandra did not reply, and the matter was not alluded to again. Her father's words to her tended to be confined to unimportant grumblings.

“You are foolish to have allowed Amberley to call you by your given name,” he said once. “And ‘Alex,' too. You should have more pride, girl. Is that the only liberty you have allowed him?”

It was a rhetorical question. He did not wait for an answer.

“The Courtneys are Amberley's tenants?” he said on the day she was to visit Mrs. Courtney with Lady Amberley. “And you are going to take tea with them, Alexandra? That is a foolish precedent to set, my girl, take my word for it. They will be expecting you to socialize with them forever after. It would be quite enough to stop your carriage as you drive past to inquire after their health.”

Again he did not wait for an answer. Alexandra went on her way.

James stayed away from his father as much as possible, Alexandra was both relieved and disturbed to find. She so longed for a reconciliation between the two of them. She knew it was very improbable. Papa was not likely to admit that what he had done to James had been wrong, and James was unlikely to forgive him unless Papa did ask his pardon. But she always hoped. As things were, she was thankful that there was no open hostility between her father and her brother.

James spent much of his time alone or with one or more of the other men. He played endless games of billiards with Sir Cedric. If they were in company, he often allowed Anna Carrington to hang on his arm. Indeed, she seemed almost as taken with him as she was with Lord Eden. Surprisingly, James was willing to humor her. He seemed to understand the frustrations of being fifteen, so close to being grown-up and yet still a child.

It did Alexandra's heart good to see him listening gravely to the girl's prattle, adjusting his stride to her tripping walk, and very often talking to her himself. James so rarely relaxed with anyone but her. But there was hope. She would never lose faith in her belief that there was hope for him.

And so the day of the ball arrived, and suddenly Amberley Court was a hive of industry, the state apartments being cleaned and prepared, masses of flowers being gathered and arranged under the supervision of Lady Amberley, and those guests who were from some distance away and had been invited to stay overnight beginning to arrive.

L
ORD
E
DEN STOOD JUST INSIDE
the grand ballroom looking around him. The room was decked out this year all in pink and white carnations and roses and masses of ferns and other greenery, and smelled more like a garden than a room. The long mirrored wall doubled in number the flowers and the candle-laden chandeliers. The same mirrors multiplied the number of guests, so that the room looked crowded. As it was, it was surprising that an event in the country could draw so many guests. But the Amberley ball had always been a great attraction.

It had always been Lord Eden's favorite event of the year, even in those years when he had been too young to attend. He and Madeline had usually succeeded in stealing into the unused minstrel gallery to peer down at all the glittering gowns and waistcoats. He supposed now that his parents and, later, Edmund must have known very well that they were there. But it had added to the excitement to feel that what they were doing was strictly forbidden.

On this occasion he was not looking forward to the evening with quite as much exuberance as usual. He felt rather as if he had the world on his back. He had talked to both his mother and Madeline that morning about his decision to leave in two days' time in order to buy his commission in the army.

Mama had not been bad. She had listened quietly to him, merely drawing herself up to her full height and clasping her hands before her while he talked.

“Yes, Dominic,” she had said when he was finished, “I have known for a long time that this day was coming. But I have waited, dear, for you to come to me like this to tell me. Not ask me, but tell me. Now I know that your decision is definite, that you have finally grown up. And I see that I must let you go, though it breaks my heart to do so. You must do what you must, and I must suffer what I must. But I will always be proud of you, my son. And there is nothing you could ever do to forfeit my love for you. Remember that.”

“I have tried, Mama,” he had said, “to put it from my mind, knowing what you have suffered in the past. I have tried to be contented with my life as it is.”

“Ah, no,” she had said. “It is not in the nature of young people to be contented, Dominic, or to want what their parents want for them. I have had my chance, and now it is your turn. I married your papa. Your grandfather did not want me to do so. It was a brilliant match for me, of course, but I was only seventeen and he thought I should have a Season in London and meet some other young men before making a decision. But I have never been sorry that I defied him. I had twenty wonderful years with Papa. Twenty dreadfully short years. And I have you, dear, and Edmund, and Madeline. I have been well blessed. I can wish no better for you than that your decision will bring you as much happiness.”

He had not seen his mother cry since that dreadful year following his father's death. He had held her that morning until she had herself under control again, and then kissed her and left her. He had not been able to think of anything more to say.

Madeline had been more of a problem. She had thrown every cushion she could lay her hands on at him—he had been thankful that they were not in the library—and refused to accept his decision.

“And what am I supposed to do when you are killed?” she had asked. And then she had added rather illogically, “But you will not care, will you?”

He had been unwise enough to grin and admit that, no, he probably would not care under those particular circumstances. He had been witness to a foot-stamping, screaming tantrum after that. But it had all turned out the same way as with Mama—she had ended up sobbing in his arms.

“I don't want you to go, Dom,” she had said between hiccups and sobs. “I forbid you to go. I will never talk to you again if you go.”

“I am going, Mad,” he had said quietly, kissing the top of her head.

“I don't want you to go,” she had wailed, so that he had been reminded of the times when they were children and she had been forbidden to join him on some escapade. “I'll die if you die, Dom.”

“No you won't,” he had said. “You will live on, Mad, so that you can tell your children and grandchildren about their brave Uncle Dominic.”

“Their stupid, foolish, bullheaded, unfeeling Uncle Dominic, you mean,” she had said petulantly.

“If you like.” He had kissed the top of her head again.

“I hate you,” she had said, pulling away from him. “I hate you, Dominic. Get out of here. I never want to see you again.”

He had smiled ruefully and left her. And true to her word, she had not spoken to him all day. There had been a deal of sniffing and head-tossing when she was close to him, but not a word or a look. Sometimes it was not easy to be a twin, he thought.

He wished that was the sum of all his woes. If it were only a question of leaving Mama and Madeline, he would consider himself blessed indeed. But there was this stupid mess with Miss Purnell to be cleared up. And it was a mess indeed. He had asked her to marry him more than a week before, and he had had the feeling at the time that she might say yes. She must have expected him to bring the matter up again. He was honor-bound to ask her again, since she had not had a chance to give him an answer at that time.

And yet he had realized in the days since that it was not at all the thing to marry Miss Purnell. He would be hurting Edmund a great deal more if he did that than he had done originally by causing him to feel he must offer for Miss Purnell himself. But he had marched on with his scheme with great crusading zeal and his eyes firmly shut. Madeline had made an apt comparison by likening him to Don Quixote.

But he could not simply drop the matter quietly. He had already spoken to Miss Purnell and to Edmund. And what if she accepted him now after all? He would have to marry her, of course. What a coil! He must find time to talk to her tonight. He dared not postpone it until the next day, or he might lose his courage altogether. And how dreadful it would be to leave Amberley having begun something so important and not completed it.

And Susan! No, he would not think of Susan. He dared not. There were only so many burdens a man could bear without collapsing under the load. He must not think of Susan. He must not dance with her tonight. Or talk to her. Or look at her. She just looked so damned pretty in her pink gown that appeared as if it had been made especially to match the ballroom tonight. Pink should look dreadful with auburn hair. Well, on her it didn't. She looked deuced pretty.

The orchestra Edmund had hired at great expense were tuning up their instruments. Edmund was preparing to lead Miss Purnell into the opening set. Lord Eden looked about him for the eldest Miss Moffat, whom he had engaged for the first dance. He smiled as he caught her eye across the room. She was looking remarkably pretty too, and blushing most becomingly. He was going to concentrate on her prettiness for the next half-hour.

Susan was going to dance with Lieutenant Jennings, he could see.

L
ORD
A
MBERLEY LED
A
LEXANDRA
onto the floor to begin the opening set. It should be a wonderfully happy occasion, he thought, gazing down at her. She looked breathtakingly beautiful, dressed as she was in a gown of pale lemon silk with a netted overdress. Nanny Rey must have had a battle royal with her over her hair, he guessed. She wore it in a topknot, with curls trailing along her neck and over her ears and temples.

Had she been this lovely in London? he wondered. Was it just that he saw her differently now, knowing something of the stubborn, courageous, independent, adorable, and thoroughly muddle-headed character behind the well-disciplined exterior? Was it that now he could see the beauty that had been there all the time? Or had she blossomed within the course of a few weeks? Had she really been the almost lifeless shell of a woman she had appeared when he first met her and was not a woman in full and beautiful bloom?