The Gilded Web (50 page)

“Yes.”

“You will be happy, Alex?” he said. “You do not regret your decision?”

There was a pause. “No,” she said.

He nodded and lifted his eyes to the distant horizon.

“What about you?” she asked suddenly, turning to look at him. “Tell me about you, Edmund. How do you feel about all this? How do you feel about last night? Will you be happy? Do you have any regrets?”

He turned his head to look back at her. His eyes were smiling. “I have grown fond of you, Alex,” he said, “and I do not need to tell you how I felt about last night. I want you to be happy. If you are happy in what we have decided, then I am content. No regrets, dear.”

She stared at him for a moment, her head shaking slowly from side to side. “No,” she said. “That is not good enough, Edmund. I do not want to know how you think you should feel, or what you think you should do. You have given me so much, Edmund. You have always been so selfless. But you have never given me yourself. Your body, yes. But not you. I don't know you at all.”

His smile spread downward to his mouth. “You are the important one here,” he said. “I have had a happy life, Alex, and have been abundantly blessed. You have not. And if I can do one small thing to make you happy, then I will do it willingly. I have done it. I have set you free. It is what you wish, is it not?”

“Show me you are vulnerable,” she said. “Show me one sign, Edmund. Are you hurt in any way? Even in the smallest way? Have I hurt you at all? Show me one chink in the armor. Show me that you are not all saint. Show me that you are a man who can feel and suffer. Please, Edmund. Tell me what I have done to you, what I am doing. If anything. Or tell me that you are happy to see me go.”

For once his smile seemed frozen in place. And then it faded as she waited, her eyes holding his. “I love you,” he said. “And I am raw with the pain of losing you. I have given all I can, Alex, because you are more important than anything else in my life. I will hurt and hurt when you leave, and I cannot see any end to the pain. Although my mind knows that I will live on and continue to function, and that I will laugh again and that a day will pass eventually in which I will not think of you, my heart cannot believe it today. There. Now, are you satisfied?”

There were tears in his eyes and he smiled at her again.

“Yes,” she said. “Oh, yes.”

She watched him swallow and bring himself under control, as the smile took firm control of his blue eyes again. “I thought it was freedom I wanted,” she said, “until I had it and realized that that was not it at all. What I wanted, Edmund, what I have always wanted, is to be needed. I have always been cared for and trained and disciplined by Mama and Papa. I have been loved and protected by James. And I have been sheltered and treated with incredible kindness and courtesy by you and by your family. But I have never been needed. Feelings have always come to me from others. No one has ever seemed to need my feelings to flow back again. No one has ever really needed to be loved by me.”

“I need you,” he said. “My God, Alex, I need you.”

“I know,” she said. And suddenly she smiled dazzlingly at him. “Will you marry me, Edmund?”

He searched her eyes. “You know I will marry you anytime you say the word,” he said.

“No.” She shook her head. “Not good enough. I don't want you to marry me because I want you to. Not at all. I would rather be companion to a ninety-year-old crosspatch in the farthest corner of the Scottish Highlands. I really would. I want you to marry me because you want to. Or not marry me, as the case may be. But because of your feelings and your needs, Edmund.”

“I don't want to continue living without you,” he said. “I suppose I will if I must. I am not the suicidal type. But I don't want to, Alex. I want to take you up to my stone hut and keep you there all to myself for the rest of our lives. I want to love you and love you and forget that there is anyone else on this planet who might need me at some time in the future. I need you as I need this air we are breathing. Have I reassured you?”

“Yes,” she said.

“Very well, then,” he said. “Will you allow me to be the man here? I know that you do not think our society is very fair to women, but this is the society we live in, my dear. It is the only one we have, and if there is any marriage proposal to be made here, I am the one who is going to make it. Understood?”

“Yes, Edmund,” she said.

“And you need not look so meek,” he said. “You may fight me and fight me on this theme for the rest of our lives, but on this one occasion I insist on being the man. Will you marry me?”

“Yes, Edmund,” she said.

His hands were cupping her face, his fingers threaded into the soft waves over her ears, his thumbs rubbing against her cheeks. He gazed into her eyes for several moments, his own serious and searching.

“Will you really?” he said. “It is not just because of the sad story I just told you?”

“Oh, yes,” she said, “it is entirely because of that, Edmund. I would not marry you if my own need was the only inducement. I was never sure that that was not all until you said that you really wanted and needed me. I never knew that your wish to marry me was not just your excessive kindness and desire to protect what was weaker than yourself.”

“Alex,” he said. He was shaking his head. “Even after last night?”

“I asked you to do it,” she said. “It could have just been that you wanted to make me happy.”

“If you had had any experience in such matters,” he said, “you could not possibly have just said that. I could not have done what I did to you, dear, and in just that way, if I was just intent on giving you a pleasant sensual experience. I was loving you, Alex, loving you with all of me. Yes, and asking and begging for all of you. You would have known that had it not been your first time. You would not have had to ask me this morning.”

“Well,” she said, placing a hand against his coat. “Well.” She closed her eyes. “Oh, Edmund, I don't have to go away after all. I don't have to leave you. And I won't have to keep taking and taking from you. I will be able to give. You need me. You really need me! I think I need to shout or scream. I cannot grasp the truth of this yet. I don't have to go, Edmund?”

He was grinning at her when she opened her eyes. “I might ask you to move a hundred yards away if you really are going to scream,” he said.

She giggled suddenly and threw her arms up around his neck. “Oh, Edmund,” she said, “how I do love you. And you are quite right. Love is what is most important. But love that goes two ways. Love that gives and love that receives.”

“You will have to teach me the latter,” he said. “I am not used to being vulnerable, Alex. I will doubtless close up against you the very next time I feel hurt or suffering approaching and try to cope with it alone. You will have to teach me to let you in. It will not be easy, dear. I am afraid of disappointing you.”

“No,” she said. “Now that I know you need me, I am never going to forget it, and I am not going to let you forget it.”

He bent his head and kissed her.

She clasped her arms more tightly about his neck when he lifted his head again. “Edmund,” she said, “I have to get something off my conscience. It is wrong to keep a secret from one's betrothed, is it not? Especially a guilty one?”

He looked inquiringly and a little warily into her eyes. “What is it, love?” he asked.

“I lied,” she said. “Last night I lied because I wanted you so badly. I really do not know when is the most likely time or the most unlikely to be got with child.” She flushed quite hotly after the words were out of her mouth.

He laid his forehead against hers. “It seems I have no choice then, love,” he said. “I will have to make an honest woman of you, won't I?”

“Yes, Edmund,” she said.

“Soon,” he said. “Very soon, Alex. And we will have to hope that you can lie as convincingly as you did last night if our first child is born a little less than nine months after the nuptials.”

“Oh, Edmund,” she said with perfect seriousness, gazing into his eyes, “I hope he is. Oh, I do hope he is. What a beautiful way for a child to begin.”

He kissed her again. “All our children will begin as beautifully, Alex,” he said. “I promise you.” He grinned suddenly. “All one hundred and two of them. No, don't flinch, love. Remember there are twins on my side of the family.”

“I want to go and tell Mama and Papa,” she said. “Can we go and tell them, Edmund? Please?”

“About the one hundred and two children?” he asked with raised eyebrows, “or about the first of those, who may already be on the way?”

“Oh, do be serious now,” she said. “About our marrying, Edmund. I want to tell them and your mother and Madeline and Lord Eden and Sir Cedric and Uncle William and Aunt Viola and every other person in the whole world. And James.”

He drew her to him and rested a cheek against the top of her head. “He will be all right, Alex,” he said. “I cannot pretend to know your brother or to understand him. There is much about him, I believe, that has not been told. But there is a strength in him, an instinct for survival, something. I don't know quite how to explain it, but I feel it. He will come back, dear, when he has found himself, and you will have a chance to give him your love as he has given you his.”

She relaxed against him and allowed him to seek out her mouth with his. “Thank you,” she said. “You know how very important he is to me, don't you?”

“Of course,” he said. “Quite as dear as Dominic and Madeline are to me. And this is Dominic's last day at home, Alex. We must make the most of it.”

“Yes,” she said, smiling up into his eyes and moving back from him. She reached out a hand for his. “Take me home, Edmund.”

He set his hand in hers and closed his fingers around it in a warm clasp. “There,” he said. “You
are
home already, love. And so am I. Let's go back to Amberley.”

M
ARY BALOGH is the
New York Times
bestselling author of
Simply Unforgettable
and the acclaimed Slightly novels:
Slightly Married, Slightly Wicked, Slightly Scandalous, Slightly Tempted, Slightly Sinful
, and
Slightly Dangerous
, as well as the romances
No Man's Mistress, More Than a Mistress, A Summer to Remember
, and
One Night for Love
. A former teacher, she grew up in Wales and now lives in Canada.

A
LSO BY
M
ARY
B
ALOGH

S
IMPLY
L
OVE

S
IMPLY
U
NFORGETTABLE

T
HE
S
ECRET
P
EARL

S
LIGHTLY
D
ANGEROUS

S
LIGHTLY
S
INFUL

S
LIGHTLY
T
EMPTED

S
LIGHTLY
S
CANDALOUS

S
LIGHTLY
W
ICKED

S
LIGHTLY
M
ARRIED

A S
UMMER TO
R
EMEMBER

N
O
M
AN'S
M
ISTRESS

M
ORE
T
HAN A
M
ISTRESS

O
NE
N
IGHT FOR
L
OVE

Read on for a sneak peek at the next breathtaking novel in Mary Balogh's series featuring the teachers at Miss Martin's School for Girls

Simply Magic

Coming in spring 2007 from Delacorte Press

Simply Magic

On sale spring 2007

S
USANNA OSBOURNE HAD THOUGHT SHE WAS not going to be able to come to Barclay Court and had been disappointed even though she had tried to tell herself that it did not really matter.

She had remained at the school in Bath all summer with Claudia Martin to care for the charity pupils, who had nowhere else to go during the holiday. Anne Jewell, the other resident teacher, had gone to Wales for a month with her son, David, at the invitation of the Marquess of Hallmere, an old acquaintance of hers.

But while Anne was still away, Frances Marshall, Countess of Edgecombe, a former teacher at the school herself, had stopped off in Bath with the earl, her husband, on the way back to their home, Barclay Court in Somerset. They had been away for a few months in Austria and other European countries, where Frances had been engaged to sing. They had come to invite Claudia or Anne or Susanna to go home with them for two weeks. The three of them were still Frances's dearest female friends even though she had been married for two years.

Claudia had urged Susanna to go. She could manage the girls perfectly well alone, she had said, and there were always the non-resident teachers to appeal to if necessary. Besides, Anne would surely be back any day. But Susanna had a loyal heart. Claudia Martin had given her employment five years before when she had still been a charity pupil at the school herself, and she would not easily forget her gratitude or the obligation she felt to set duty before personal inclination.

She had told Frances without any hesitation at all that no, she would not go this time. And of course, Frances had not argued. She had understood. But then, just the day before Frances and the earl were to leave, Anne had come home and there had been no further necessity for Susanna to stay too.

And so here she was in Somerset during a particularly sunny and warm spell in late August. It was not the first time she had been here, but the wonder of such visits would never pall, she had been sure. Barclay Court was stately and spacious and lovely. Frances was as dear as ever, and the earl was exceedingly kind. The neighbors, she remembered, were amiable. She knew that Frances would go out of her way to entertain her royally. Not that any effort was necessary. Just the rare enjoyment of being on holiday was entertainment enough especially when the setting was so luxurious.

She and Frances were out for a visit to the Raycrofts, whom Susanna had particularly liked when she first met them. They had decided to walk rather than take a carriage since the weather was lovely and they had been traveling all of yesterday. When they were scarcely half a mile on their way, they had heard cheerful, laughing, youthful voices and had seen that the younger Raycrofts and Calverts were out walking too.

Susanna had felt her heart lift with gladness. Life had seemed very good indeed.

Until it no longer did.

Frances and Mr. Raycroft were talking about Vienna. Frances had been there very recently, and Mr. Raycroft's betrothed, Miss Hickmore, had just gone there with her parents to spend the autumn and winter months.

Mr. Raycroft, tall, loose-limbed, sandy-haired, his face good-humored more than it was handsome, had always been particularly amiable. Frances had once suggested, only half in jest, that Susanna set her cap at him. But he had shown no romantic partiality for her—and she had felt none for him. She felt no pang of regret to learn now of his betrothal, only a hope that Miss Hickmore was worthy of him.

He was gentleman enough to draw Susanna into the conversation, explaining that he was as ignorant as she of what such places as Vienna were really like, having never set foot outside the British Isles himself.

“It is undoubtedly a most lovely city,” he said, smiling kindly at her, “though I am sure it cannot surpass London in beauty. Are you familiar with London, Miss Osbourne?”

She determinedly tried to concentrate upon the conversation rather than upon the other thoughts that whirled in jumbled disorder through her mind.

“Only very slightly,” she said. “I spent a short time there as a girl but have not been since. I envy Frances's having seen Vienna and Paris and Rome.”

“Lady Edgecombe,” one of the young ladies called from behind them, “do you suppose there will be any waltzes at the assembly the week after next? I shall simply
die
if there is one and Mama forbids us to dance it as she surely will. Is it really quite shockingly
fast
?”

“I have no idea, Mary,” Frances said while Susanna turned her head to see who had spoken. “I did not even know of the assembly, remember, until you mentioned it a few minutes ago. But I hope there will be a waltz. It is a lovely, romantic dance and really not shocking at all. At least, it has never seemed so to me.”

And there he was in the middle of them, Susanna saw with a sinking heart, one lady on each arm as he had been when she first set eyes on him, the other two hovering about him as if he were the only man in the world of any significance—an opinion with which he undoubtedly concurred.

She was not inclined to think kindly of him though she would concede that he could not be blamed for his name.

Viscount Whitleaf.

She turned suddenly cold at the remembered name—as she had done a few minutes ago when Frances introduced her to him.

He was without any doubt the most handsome gentleman she had ever set eyes upon—and she had thought so even before she was close enough to see that he had eyes of an extraordinary shade of violet. He looked as if his valet might well have poured him into his coat of dark blue superfine and his buff pantaloons. His Hessian boots looked supple and expensive, even with their shine marred by a light coating of dust from the lane, and his shirt was white and of the finest linen. His tall hat sat upon his dark hair at just the right angle to look slightly rakish but not askew. And he had the physique to display such clothes to full advantage. He was tall and slender, though his shoulders and chest were broad and his calves were shapely.

If there were any physical imperfection in his person, she certainly had not detected it.

The very sight of him amongst the Raycrofts and the Calverts had filled her with awed wonder.

Then Frances had mentioned his name.

And he had bowed with studied elegance—so out of place on a country lane—and smiled with practiced charm and paid her that lavish, ridiculous compliment while looking so deeply into her eyes that she would not have been surprised to discover that the hair on the back of her head was singed. He had white, straight, and even teeth to add to all his other perfections.

There had been delighted laughter from the other young ladies, but Susanna would not have known what to do or how to reply even if she had not still been stunned from hearing his name. Her mind had been paralyzed and it was only by sheer chance that her body had not followed suit.

Even if he could
not
help his name, Susanna thought now, remembering that it was not any
Viscount
Whitleaf against whom she held a grudge, nevertheless she already disliked him quite heartily. A gentleman ought to set about making a strange lady feel comfortable, not throw her into confusion. She did not know much about men, but she could recognize a vain and shallow one when she met him, one so wrapped up in the splendor of his own person that he expected every woman he encountered to fall prostrate at his feet.

Viscount Whitleaf was such a man. He lived up to his name.

She had accepted Mr. Raycroft's offered arm with gratitude. But with every step she had taken along the lane since, she had felt the presence of Viscount Whitleaf behind her like a hand all along her spine. She resented the feeling and despised herself for allowing it.

Of course the name
Osbourne
would probably mean nothing whatsoever to him. And he could not really be blamed for that either. He had been only a boy…But he
ought
to remember. It ought to be a name burned on his brain as his was on hers.

She wished fervently now that Anne had not returned to Bath when she had and that
she
had not come to Barclay Court with Frances and the earl. She wished herself back in the safety of the school—in the dreary, endless safety.

Though why
should
she? And why
should
she allow her holiday to be ruined by a shallow, conceited, careless man who clearly thought he only had to look at a woman with those fine violet eyes for her to fall head over ears in love with him?

Susanna turned to face the lane ahead again, unconsciously squaring her shoulders and lifting her chin as she did so, and asked Mr. Raycroft where he would go if he could choose anywhere in the world. Would he choose Greece, as she would?

“Greece would be well worth a visit, I believe, Miss Osbourne,” he replied, “though I have been told that travel there is very uncomfortable indeed. I am a man who enjoys his creature comforts, you see.”

“I do not blame you at all,” Frances said. “And I can assure you that I have not yet seen a country to rival England in beauty. It feels very good to be home again.”

They reached the village soon after that and stopped to speak with Mrs. Calvert, who came outside the house to greet them, though they declined her invitation to step inside. When they continued on their way without the Calvert sisters, Viscount Whitleaf walked ahead with Miss Raycroft on his arm, and the two of them chattered merrily all the way to Hareford House, obviously very pleased with each other's company.

The two visitors drank tea with the Raycrofts and exchanged civilities for half an hour before Frances got to her feet and Susanna followed suit.

“I do not suppose,” Frances said, “you would care to go walking again, Mr. Raycroft, after having been out once. Perhaps we may hope for you to call at Barclay Court tomorrow?”

“I seem to recall,” Viscount Whitleaf said, “that your original invitation included me too, ma'am. And indeed I
would
care to go walking again today. I look forward to paying my respects to Edgecombe. Raycroft, are you coming too? Or am I to enjoy the pleasure of having two ladies to myself for the walk to Barclay Court?”

Susanna's eyes flew to Mr. Raycroft's face. She was vastly relieved when he expressed himself ready for further exercise.

Her relief was short-lived, however. She desperately hoped to maneuver matters so that she would walk with Frances or Mr. Raycroft, but as fate would have it, he was saying something to Frances as they descended the garden path and it was natural that he should offer her his arm after they had passed out through the gate. That left Susanna to walk behind with Viscount Whitleaf.

She could hardly have imagined a worse fate. She glanced up at him in a sort of sick dismay and clasped her hands firmly behind her back before he should feel obliged to offer his arm.

Whatever were they to talk about?

She was horrified to discover that she could
feel
him down her right side like a fever, even though there was a foot of air between their shoulders. Her stomach muscles were tied in knots—not to mention her tongue.

She despised the fact that she could feel none of the ease that Miss Raycroft and the Calvert sisters had felt with him earlier. He was only a man, after all—and a shallow man at that. He was not anyone she would wish to impress. All she need do was be polite.

Not a single polite topic presented itself to her searching brain.

She was twenty-three years old and as gauche as a girl just stepping out of the schoolroom for the first time. But then she never had stepped outside the schoolroom, had she?

She was twenty-three years old and had never had a beau.

She had never been kissed.