The Gilded Web (9 page)

“Is it very improper of me to approach you when we have not been formally presented?” she asked with a bright smile. “But Dominic has told me about his atrocious misbehavior of two nights ago, and I feel partly responsible since you were mistaken for me. I am Madeline Raine, you know. Lord Eden is my brother. My twin, in fact. I think there is a special bond between twins. I do not fight nearly so much with Edmund—Lord Amberley, that is—as I do with Dominic. But we are not quite so close, either. Though I love Edmund dearly, of course.”

She paused for breath and turned the full force of her not inconsiderable charm on brother and sister. She was horribly aware of the space that still circled them and of the stares and muted voices of the other occupants of the room. She opened her fan and fluttered it energetically.

“How do you do, Lady Madeline?” Miss Purnell said. Her voice was rather low-pitched and quite musical. She seemed perfectly calm and unaware of the zone of discomfort that encircled her. “I am pleased to make your acquaintance. I wish you would not feel badly about what happened two evenings ago. It was all nonsense and best forgotten about.” She did not smile at all.

Madeline's smile was becoming painful. She fluttered her fan and looked up at the silent brother. And she felt again what a dreadful mistake she was making. He did not at all appreciate her coming to talk to them. Hostility burned from his eyes. His mouth was set into a straight line. She felt a twinge of fright until she remembered where she was—in the middle of Lady Sharp's drawing room, surrounded by a significant number of members of the
ton
.

“Are you enjoying the Season?” she asked. “I do not remember to have seen you here during the past several years. It is pleasant, is it not, to give oneself up to pleasure and to have nothing else to worry about for weeks on end? I suppose one would not wish to have a lifelong diet of such entertainment, but a moderate portion can be quite refreshing.”

“Perhaps if one has nothing else to make life meaningful,” Mr. Purnell said, “this is as good a way to pass one's life away as any.”

His voice was quiet and far more refined than Madeline had expected. Her interest in hearing his voice for the moment obscured the words he had spoken. When she did comprehend his meaning, she flushed.

“Any new experience of life is worth having,” Miss Purnell said, looking with reproachful eyes at her brother, “whether it be serious or frivolous, enjoyable or painful. We grow only by the variety of our experiences.”

The anger disappeared from her brother's face, Madeline noticed. It was replaced by a brooding look. He watched his sister.

And then Madeline saw Edmund in the doorway, his hands behind his back, surveying the occupants of the room. She felt a surge of relief, though she did not know quite why. He represented no escape from the awkwardness of her situation. Mr. and Miss Purnell seemed quite ungrateful for the notice she had taken of them. And how was she to extricate herself?

She met her brother's eyes across the room and he smiled.

T
HE EARL OF AMBERLEY STOOD IN THE DOORway of Lady Sharp's drawing room, looking about him. He had been very reluctant to come even though his mind had been made up all day and even though he had not really expected to see Miss Purnell. With the gossip still fresh on everyone's lips, it was more than likely that she would remain at home for at least a few days.

But there was the chance that he would see her either here or at the Higgins rout. And so he had braced himself for the encounter. He would not, of course, be able to speak privately with her in such a public setting, but he must speak with her, prepare the ground somehow for the visit he must make to Lord Beckworth the following day.

He was definitely reluctant, however. He had always planned to marry by the time he was thirty, or soon after. But he had not expected ever to be pressured into a marriage not of his own free choosing. He had his title and his lands, and he was a wealthy man. He believed that he was reasonably attractive. He had planned for years the type of woman he would choose to marry when the time came. He would not be overly concerned with beauty or youth, and certainly money would not have anything to do with the matter. He would look for companionship more than anything else. He frequently felt lonely despite the presence of an affectionate family. And his wife must be intelligent, sensible, and reasonably well-informed.

But he had also planned to marry someone for whom he could feel affection. Someone with whom he could share the innermost depths of his life. Love! He wanted to love his wife deeply, with every fiber of his being. It was not necessarily a passionate physical love that he craved—he thought that Eunice had probably been wrong about that. He had no longing to be
in
love, to go about with his head in the clouds and stars in his eyes. But he wanted a wife who would be as dear to him as the very air he breathed. He had been a dreamer.

He had been contented with Eunice. She did not ignite him with passion, though he always found their beddings quite satisfactory, but she was the sort of person with whom he felt thoroughly at home. Being with Eunice was almost like being with any of his male friends at his clubs, except that there was the added attraction that she was a woman and willing to satisfy his physical need for a woman's body.

And now he must marry a stranger, a young lady whom he did not find physically appealing, and whose character and intelligence were quite unknown to him. And he must offer her the whole of himself, not just his name. He would do so with any wife, of course. He would never be able to contemplate a marriage of pure convenience. But under these particular circumstances he must work even harder at the marriage than he would normally do. Marrying him would go quite against the grain for Miss Purnell—she had already refused him once. He must find a way of making bearable for her a fate that she had done nothing to deserve.

Lord Amberley sized up the situation in Lady Sharp's drawing room almost immediately. Miss Purnell and her brother were easily distinguishable, stranded as they appeared to be almost in the middle of the room. People stood in groups all around them; there was the noise of talking and even laughter. Very few people were looking directly at them. But despite all these details, it was clear that everyone was self-consciously aware of the presence there of brother and sister, and wished they were somewhere else.

Miss Purnell was looking quite as proud and self-possessed as she had the day before when he had made his offer, though she must be perfectly well aware of the tense and hostile atmosphere around her. He felt a twinge of admiration.

And he felt more than admiration for Madeline. His sister did her fair share of irresponsible deeds, despite her two-and-twenty years. Her exploits frequently irritated him, as did her bewildering tendency to be passionately in love with a gentleman one week and oblivious of his very existence the next. He sometimes despaired of her ever growing up or of ever marrying. Occasionally he even felt he had made a mistake in allowing her almost a free hand in choosing her own future.

But there was a sense of rightness and justice in Madeline, and a courage that he had always been proud of. And never more so than on this occasion. She was standing with the Purnells, talking, glowing, and smiling as if she were in the most ordinary of social situations. He must go to her rescue. He met her glance across the room and smiled.

But before he could move forward, someone passed him in the doorway, and Lord Amberley stood where he was. The newcomer was the Duke of Peterleigh.

Peterleigh was a thin, balding man in his forties, with an air of haughty consequence. He had a reputation for strong and vehement opposition in the House to any bill that smacked of reform. To him wealth and position were virtues, poverty and social obscurity vices. The poor suffered deservedly, he was always loud to proclaim. His intolerance extended particularly to women. He was a firm advocate of the theory that good sense and docility entered the female frame through the back and posterior by way of a heavy male hand or whip. Lord Amberley disliked him intensely. And he could clearly understand why Lord Beckworth had chosen him for his daughter.

The duke looked about him now, quizzing glass to eye, and set out across the room. Miss Purnell looked noticeably relieved, Lord Amberley saw. Her shoulders relaxed. She half-smiled at the approach of her suitor, and looked at him with bright dark eyes. When he walked right on past her without pausing, and joined a group on the far side of the room, Lord Amberley's eyes were fixed on Miss Purnell. There was a moment of visible bewilderment, but a moment only. Her shoulders straightened and her chin lifted almost immediately. Her face was expressionless.

He strode across the room toward her, his smile firmly in place. He held out a hand to her as he approached.

“Ah, Miss Purnell, I was hoping to see you here this evening,” he said. “How lovely you look tonight.” He smiled warmly into her eyes, took her hand, and raised it to his lips. He did not release her hand, but laid it on his sleeve.

“Good evening, my lord,” she said, her voice quite calm.

He smiled at her again and turned to her brother. James Purnell was looking thunderous, Edmund was not surprised to find. “Purnell?” he said, nodding amiably. “Pleased to meet you again. Madeline? Are you enjoying yourself? I suppose Mama is playing cards?”

“Yes, Edmund,” she said, smiling brightly at him. “With Sir Cedric. I have been making the acquaintance of Miss Purnell and her brother. There is really a quite excessive squeeze here tonight, is there not?”

Lord Amberley turned back to Miss Purnell, who had not withdrawn her hand from his sleeve, though he thought that perhaps she did not even know it was there. She was almost visibly holding on to her control.

“I must pay my respects to our hostess,” he said. “Have you already done so, Miss Purnell? Perhaps you would be so good as to accompany me.”

He really gave her no time to make a decision. He laid his free hand lightly over hers, smiled into her eyes, and led her to the far side of the drawing room, where Lady Sharp was conversing with the Marquess of Blaise and a small group of lesser personages.

“Ah, good evening, ma'am,” he said to his hostess, making her his most elegant bow, and then returning his hand to cover Miss Purnell's, which still rested on his arm. “Mrs. Pringle? Blaise? Merridew? How do you do? I do apologize for my lateness, ma'am. But I see that your drawing room has not suffered from my absence at all. You must have gathered around you quite the most distinguished company of the Season so far.”

As he smiled his most charming smile at his hostess, Lord Amberley wondered for one moment if people really did burst with indignation. If so, Lady Sharp looked as though she might be in imminent danger of doing so. Her smile, he was sure, bore some resemblance to the grimace of a jungle cat just deprived of its prey. He did not wait to find out what her reply would have been.

“You must have greeted Miss Purnell already,” he said, “since she arrived earlier than I. But I cannot resist taking her about the room with me, you see. I am living in daily hope that she will consent to being my countess, but so far she has proved hard-hearted and kept me in suspense. I am afraid that I am very dishonorably trying to force her hand by making such a public statement.” He smiled down at his companion. He had been gripping her hand quite bruisingly for the past minute.

She flushed and lifted her chin an inch in a gesture he was beginning to recognize as characteristic of her. She raised her eyes to his. They were quite empty of any readable message.

Lady Sharp gushed. Mrs. Pringle clasped her hands to her bosom and declared that she had never been so gratified by any news. The Marquess of Blaise exerted himself to bend a whole inch from the waist and give it as his opinion that Lord Amberley was a fortunate man. Mr. Merridew bowed to Miss Purnell and removed a jeweled snuffbox from his pocket. The Earl of Amberley smiled and waited. He felt the hand within his own stiffen just a little.

“Do come and meet Lady Fender,” Lady Sharp said, her smile encompassing both Lord Amberley and his companion. “She will be quite delighted by the news. And, of course, you must not feel a moment's anxiety, my dear Lord Amberley. Any young lady worth her salt will play hard to get, you know, but no one in her right mind would think seriously of rejecting you.” She tittered. “Is that not right, Miss Purnell? How delightful you look in green, my dear. I was saying so but five minutes ago to the marquess.”

“W
HATEVER AM
I
GOING
to do, James? I am so mortally tired of this whole ridiculous situation, and so very, very angry.” Alexandra sat on a straight-backed chair in her brother's dressing room the following morning, one arm hooked over the back, her chin on her fist. She watched as he pulled on his top boots.

“I still hate the thought of your marrying Amberley or any other member of his family,” James Purnell said. “You will not be happy, Alex. How could you be, with a man whose brother can so carelessly involve you in scandal and so glibly offer to get you out of it again? What does marriage mean to such men? Or honor either? It is all a game. Compromise a girl through some foolish and careless trick and then marry her if something goes wrong. It is all as simple as that. I hate this age in which we live. I hate this society and its morals.”

“Perhaps you are overreacting a little,” his sister suggested, as if she were not the one most in need of comfort. “After all, we cannot blame Lord Amberley for what his brother did. His offer was generous under the circumstances. But I do consider his behavior of last evening unforgivable. I had refused him and released him from any obligation he might have felt. Now he has put me in a worse situation than I was in already. He has made my position impossible.”

“He behaved in a quite disgusting manner,” Purnell agreed vehemently. The front lock of dark hair, so carefully combed back from his brow fifteen minutes before, fell forward almost into his eyes again. “It was kidnapping just as much as what Eden did. How dare he take your hand like that for all to see, and kiss it! As if you are some sort of trollop, Alex. And then take you away on his arm and tell Lady Sharp and whoever cared to listen that you are to be his betrothed. I cannot like it. I cannot like the man.”

“And yet to be fair,” Alexandra said, her eyes straying to the floor and staring right through it, “at the time, I felt some gratitude. Is not that shameful to admit, James? When he came across the room to me and kissed my hand, I wanted to look around on everyone there and sneer. How dreadful! I do not remember ever feeling that way before. And I felt like laughing in the face of Lady Sharp and Lady Fender and a half-dozen others when they thought that I might be made respectable after all. I hate to admit these feelings even to myself, but I did have them.”

“Marry him, then,” Purnell said, his expression softening for a moment as he looked up at his sister, his second boot in place over his pantaloons. “If you feel good about it, Alex, enter into this marriage.”