by Mary Balogh
“I left off thrashing you when you were sixteen,” Lord Beckworth said. “God is my witness that I did my Christian duty in trying to instill the principles of virtue in you. Perhaps I should have continued with the thrashings even after you left the schoolroom. Perhaps I have failed in my duty after all. But you had beatings often enough, Alexandra, and they seem to have done little good. You are clearly of a stubborn and wayward disposition.”
Alexandra had lowered her eyes to the floor from force of long habit. There was no point whatsoever in arguing with her father. She stood straight before him, her face impassive. “I am sorry, Papa,” she said.
“We will be fortunate indeed if you have not brought permanent disgrace on your family,” he said. “We will have to rely on the courtesy of the Earl of Amberley and Lord Eden to keep quiet about your scandalous indiscretion.”
Alexandra raised her eyes to his for a moment, a look of incredulity on her face. But she resumed her former stance when she saw his reddened face and coldly angry eyes.
“You will spend the remainder of the day in your own room,” he said. “You will occupy your time in reading your Bible. You will speak to no one until tomorrow. I shall have water and bread sent to your room at dinnertime. You will not communicate with the servant who brings it to you. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Papa,” she said. Her voice was quite steady.
“Be thankful that your punishment is to last a day and not a week,” Lord Beckworth said. “I would suggest that you spend at least a part of the day in prayer, Alexandra. God may not be as lenient in his judgment as I have been.”
“Yes, Papa,” she said.
She lifted her chin and straightened her shoulders as she walked past him and out of the salon. A slut? A lover? Wayward? Oh, no, this was becoming insufferable. She met James on the first landing. He was clearly waiting for her. She looked meaningfully into his eyes and shook her head slightly as she turned to the staircase leading to the upper floor.
“I understand, Alex,” he said quietly. “Is it to be for just the one day?”
She nodded briefly without turning back to him or slackening her pace.
“Did you refuse Amberley?” he asked.
She nodded again.
“Good girl,” he said. “Good girl, Alex. It will not be too long until tomorrow. I have heard that the play is a bore anyway.”
Alexandra, halfway up the staircase, looked back at him over her shoulder. She did not disobey her father’s command—she had never dared disobey him—but a smile that would have been imperceptible to someone who did not know them passed between brother and sister.
“NO, REALLY, YOU FELLOWS,” Lord Eden said indignantly, “it is no laughing matter, you know. We could all swing for kidnapping or something else if her family should decide to cut up rough. I could still end up peering down the wrong end of a dueling pistol. I didn’t much like the look of that brother. A decidedly nasty fellow when aroused, I wouldn’t be surprised. And all this is not to mention the fact that either Amberley or I will probably end up in parson’s mousetrap over your atrocious bungling.”
“She should make an active armful anyway,” Mr. Clement Jones said with a grin. “She fought like the very devil. You had better tie her in the sheets before boarding her on your wedding night, Eden. She might do you some irreparable damage.”
“I say, you fellows,” Lord Eden protested as his two unsympathetic friends roared with laughter. The three of them were taking an early-afternoon ride in Hyde Park. Lord Eden had other pressing matters to attend to, but this meeting was of great importance too. “Between us we have done the girl enough harm as it is. There is no need to be vulgar or disrespectful. The point is, I need your word that not a breath about last night’s doings will escape you. Not even when you are drunk. Faber? Jones? Your word of honor?”
“I call it a mortal shame,” Mr. Faber said, having controlled his laughter finally. “It would make a priceless story, Eden. May we use it if we change the names?”
“Just try it, my friend,” Lord Eden said, his customary good humor deserting him for the moment, “and you will be the one eating the barrel of a pistol. With my finger on the trigger! Your word, now.”
“You have mine, Eden,” Mr. Jones said. “Not that I think it necessary, mind. You should know us well enough to know that neither one of us would say anything to dishonor a lady. What is she like, anyway? Pretty?”
“Amberley says so,” Lord Eden said gloomily. “Lord, what a coil! Forced to offer for a girl I haven’t even met.”
“Poor Miss Carstairs,” Jones said, and winked at Faber.
Lord Eden groaned. “Don’t even mention her,” he said. “I have to blank my mind. But I say, fellows, we might show a bit more sensibility. What about Miss Purnell? The poor girl must have suffered agonies. You know what females are like. And perhaps it doesn’t suit her inclination to be thinking of taking on Amberley or me, any more than it suits ours to be taking on her. She is supposed to be half-betrothed to Peterleigh.”
“Oh, Lord,” Faber said, “she would be a fool not to fly into your arms, Eden. Or Amberley’s. Peterleigh! He would probably whip the poor girl twice a week whether she deserved it or not.”
“I have to go and call on my mother,” Lord Eden said, “and half-throttle Madeline. All this is her fault. I just wanted to hear you give your word first. The lady’s reputation has to be our main concern here.”
Miss Carstairs, Lord Eden thought from the depths of his gloom as he turned away from his companions and headed his horse toward the Grosvenor Gate and his mother’s house beyond. Trust one of those loose screws to mention her. He had been in love with her for all of three weeks, and it was real love this time. All those other times in the past several years when he had fancied himself in love, he had been merely infatuated.
But Miss Carstairs! She personified all that he found most desirable in a woman. She was small and fragile, with blond ringlets and blue, trusting eyes. She had a pouting rosebud of a mouth that his own lips ached to taste, and a tiny waist that he longed to span with his two hands. She spoke with the most adorable lisp.
And she was beginning to notice him. Three evenings before, he had had the unspeakable joy of seeing her carry the nosegay that he had sent her that morning, and she had smiled shyly at him over it as she lifted it to her nose. Her mother had even nodded graciously to him during the same evening.
And now he must renounce all thoughts of her. He must pay his addresses to a lady he had caught only the merest glimpse of that morning, a lady who had looked tall and thin and dark—not at all his type. That was if Edmund had not engaged himself to her already, of course. But surely, he would have had second thoughts on that matter. No, he would not. No one was more the soul of honor than Edmund or more eager to shoulder the burdens of his family. But surely the girl and her father would realize that his brother had no responsibility whatsoever for what had happened. Surely Edmund had been turned away.
He was going to have to make his own call on Lord Beckworth after his visit to Mama and Madeline. He certainly did not relish the prospect. He would not be wild with enthusiasm about confronting any father under the particular circumstances. But Beckworth! The man had not been in town long, but already he had gained a reputation as a harsh, moralistic killjoy.
Lord Eden had overheard him in White’s one afternoon expounding his social theories. Every unemployed man and boy should be transported to a land where plenty of work could be found for them, and every prostitute should be stripped and whipped in the open streets before suffering a like fate. England should be preserved for God-fearing men and women who were ready to do their Christian duty at honest employment. Except for the rich, presumably. Lord Eden had felt taut with anger. Lord Beckworth, he had suspected, perhaps quite unfairly, was just the type who would relish watching corporal punishments, especially the stripping of the prostitutes.
And this was the man he must face after having had his daughter abducted
the night before and tied to a bedpost in the bedchamber of a bachelor establishment for the remainder of the night!
Lord Eden was thankful to arrive at his mother’s house and have his thoughts distracted.
“Dom!” Madeline jumped to her feet when her brother was announced. “I was quite determined not to speak to you at all today and perhaps even for the rest of my life. But, you poor dear. We have just heard! I could have devised quite devilish punishment for you last night, but I would not have wished this particular one on you.” She had crossed the room and taken his arm.
“Good afternoon, Mama,” Lord Eden said, crossing the room to Lady Amberley’s chair and bending to kiss her cheek. He patted his sister’s hand amiably as he did so. “Edmund has been here before me, has he? Yes, it is something of an embarrassment, is it not? But it is the poor girl we must feel most sorry for. Do you know her, Mad?”
“I don’t believe so,” she said, “though I have been searching my mind. She is tall and dark, Hatty Temple said. But that description fits any number of girls, does it not? You have not been challenged to a duel, have you, Dom? Mama and I have been living in mortal fear that you might. Miss Purnell’s brother was looking like thunder when he came for her, we heard.”
Lord Eden disengaged his sister’s hand from his arm. He had turned rather pale. “Edmund has been here, Mama, has he not?” he said. “It is from him you have heard all this?”
“No,” she said. “Madeline went walking in the park with Miss Wickhill and her maid before luncheon. They met Miss Temple and she told them. It is a shocking thing, Dominic. I had hoped that there was no truth in it, but I see that there is after all. How can you possibly have done such a thing? The poor girl. I feel for her from the bottom of my heart.”
Lord Eden sat down. He swallowed convulsively. “How did Miss Temple know?” he asked.
“She had heard it from her mother’s dresser, who had heard it from the cook, who had heard it from the milkman, who had heard it…Do I need to say more, Dom?” Madeline asked. “Poor dear. Did you imagine that you could hush it all up? I suppose you have been busy silencing everyone abovestairs that could possibly have known, forgetting that scandal spreads faster than fire belowstairs. I am afraid the whole affair is probably the talk of the town by now.”
Lord Eden rested his elbows on his knees and covered his face with his hands. “Oh, God,” he said. “It couldn’t possibly be worse, could it? Poor Miss Purnell. The innocent Christian in the lion’s den. I shall have to get over to Curzon Street even faster than I had planned.”
“You are going to offer for her, Dominic?” his mother asked. “I knew my son would do the right thing. I do feel for you, dear, though I must confess one is inclined to think you have brought it all on yourself. I suppose Miss Purnell was the innocent victim of what you had planned for Madeline? She told me about that. I really cannot approve of such high-handed treatment of your sister, even if your motive was a noble one. Sometimes, Dominic, I wonder if you will ever grow up.”
“He is grown up,” Madeline said, rushing to the defense of her twin as soon as someone else became critical of him. She came and sat on the arm of the chair beside him and took one of his hands in hers.
“He is willing to marry Miss Purnell. And you are willing to renounce Miss Carstairs, Dom. And you have such a tendre for her. I am sorry. What is Miss Purnell like? Will I like her as a sister-in-law?”
“I don’t know,” Lord Eden said. “I have had only the merest glimpse of her. Edmund says she is lovely. He is the one who found her, you know. And he has already rushed over there to make his offer. I don’t think Lord Beckworth will pay much attention to his visit, though. Edmund is in no way responsible.”
“But it is just like him to bear the burden,” Lady Amberley said. “I do hope the father says no to him. Edmund will not like a forced marriage. I have hoped he will marry someone quite special.”
“But she is all right for me, Mama?” Lord Eden asked.
“I consider the question quite irrelevant, Dominic,” she said, fixing him with a steady eye. “You have very badly compromised the girl. You must marry her. Anyone with an ounce of sense in his head must see that. We will just have to hope that Miss Purnell is someone special too.”
“Dom.” Madeline raised his hand to her cheek and looked into his pale face. “I am so very sorry, dear. I feel dreadfully guilty, you know, because I am largely responsible for what has happened. If I had not teased you with Sir Hedley Fairhaven, you would not have made the mistake you made, and Miss Purnell would not have been abducted. I wish there were something I could do.”
“You could go and marry Miss Purnell,” he said sourly and ungraciously.
She bit her lip. “I wish I could, Dom,” she said.
He squeezed her hand and jumped to his feet. “I know you do, Mad,” he said. “But this is not your fault. You are not to think that. Cheer up now and smile at me. I don’t want to leave here with the added burden of knowing I have made you miserable. Come on, you goose. It is not the end of the world. I am going to arrange for a marriage if I can, not an execution.”
Madeline smiled bleakly at him. “I wish it had been me,” she said, “tied to that bed, I mean. I could have had a good fight with you, Dom, with both feet and both fists and perhaps even my teeth. I would have left you with bruises and cuts to wince over for a month. And I would have thoroughly enjoyed myself. I cannot enjoy seeing you in such disgrace.”
“Hm,” Lord Eden said, turning to leave. “Good day to you, Mama. I am sorry to be such a constant source of disappointment to you. Perhaps one day I will be able to do something you can be proud of. Take it easy, Mad, and take off that tragic expression this minute. This is not the end of the world. It only seems to be.”
“What a self-pitying little speech,” Lady Amberley said as he reached the door. “You are my son, Dominic, and as such a source of enormous pride to me. You do not have to earn my love, you know. There is nothing you could possibly do to forfeit it. That is not to say that you do not do the most unbelievably stupid things on occasion. Go now and see what you can do to put this one right.”
She smiled at his retreating back as Madeline withdrew a handkerchief from a pocket and blew her nose loudly.
ALEXANDRA SAT VERY STILL, HER HANDS HELD in her lap, as Nanny Rey finished pinning her hair into its smooth chignon. She had thought her punishment would be over this morning. But it seemed not. Papa had summoned her to the salon again. He must have more to say to her. Perhaps he had decided that, after all, one afternoon and evening of solitary confinement with her Bible were just not enough. Indeed, she had rarely before known fewer than three days of such punishment. She had assumed that his awareness of her social commitments had influenced his leniency.
“There,” Nanny Rey said, patting her on both shoulders from behind, “you had better not keep his lordship waiting, lovey. Not after yesterday. And why did you not drink the chocolate I had smuggled up to you last night?”
Alexandra met her old nurse’s eyes in the mirror and smiled. “You knew I would not, Nanny,” she said. “Indeed, you would have been shocked had I done so. You sent it only as a token of love, and for that I thank you. But you know that I will not knowingly disobey Papa.”
“On your way, then,” the nurse said, clapping her hands. “You don’t want another day on bread and water, lovey.”
Alexandra had a confused feeling of going back in time as a footman opened the doors into the salon and she stepped inside. Her father stood before the fireplace as he had the day before, the visitor before the windows, his hands behind his back. Only it was not the same visitor. This man was younger, taller, more slender in build, fairer of hair. But he was quite as fashionable as his brother. And his face looked as good-humored. He must be the Earl of Amberley’s brother. There was a very definite family resemblance.
Alexandra folded her hands in front of her and lifted her chin. She looked at her father.
“May I prese
nt Lord Eden to you, Alexandra?” Lord Beckworth said.
She turned her eyes on the baron and inclined her head. He bowed.
“Miss Purnell,” he said.
“Lord Eden has requested a private word with you, Alexandra,” her father continued. “I have granted him ten minutes. I trust you will listen carefully and do what is right. You will retire to your mother’s sitting room at the end of the ten minutes.”
“Yes, Papa,” she said.
But this was not to be an exact repetition of the day before, Alexandra found after her father had closed the doors behind him. Lord Eden did not stay by the windows, his hands behind his back, as his brother had done. He came hurrying across the room to her, his handsome face alive with concern.
“Miss Purnell,” he said, “how you must hate me. How you must wish you could put a bullet between my eyes. I am most dreadfully sorry, you know. But I do not know even how to begin to beg your pardon. To say I am sorry is quite insufficient, but I can think of no words that are adequate.”
She looked at him, at his eager, boyish face. He could not be any older than she, this ogre of sin and vice she had pictured to herself through one night of terror and another of tedious punishment. “You need not trouble yourself any further, my lord,” she said. “I have already forgiven you. Did Lord Amberley not tell you that?”
“He did say that you were remarkably decent about the whole matter,” he said. “But I find it hard to believe that you can have forgiven me, Miss Purnell. I can scarce think of anything more unpardonable that I might have done.”
“We are all in need of forgiveness,” she said. “How can we expect to receive it if we are not also prepared to give it?”