The Gilded Web

by Mary Balogh

  She did not have that soft, helpless femininity that he was always drawn to, of course. She was dignified and self-possessed. Yet he did not find her unattractive. He did not feel the need to protect her, but he did find his masculinity challenged by her. He had never thought of the army and marriage simultaneously as he had the evening before. If he had married any of the other girls he had loved, then of course he would have had to stay at home to take care of his wife. He could not have endangered her peace of mind by putting his own life in danger on a battlefield.

  But the night before, it had suddenly seemed a splendid idea to marry Miss Purnell, buy a commission in the army, and sail off to Spain to win glory for his country and his wife. She was the sort of woman he would want to impress. She would spur him on to brave deeds. And she had seemed to understand the night before. She had wavered in her answer to his proposal. He would be able to win her, he was sure.

  And so he must put his youth behind him. He must not allow himself to be too much impressed by Susan’s prettiness or give in to the pleasant possibility of a summer’s flirtation.

  He smiled at her. “Do you like riding on the cliffs, Susan?” he asked.

  “I do not like to be close to the edge,” she said. “I become quite dizzy in high places. Whenever we walk close, I always cling to Papa’s arm or Howard’s, and then I feel safe.”

  “Don’t worry,” he said. “I see the others are all dismounting here. The horses will graze quite happily while we walk forward. Let me help you down. Then you shall take my arm and feel quite perfectly safe, I promise.”

  “I hope I will not spoil your pleasure, my lord,” she said anxiously. “I really do not want to go too close.”

  She set her hands on his shoulders as he took her by the waist to lift her to the ground. But somehow she lost her grip, with the result that she swayed against him and slid along the length of him before her slippered feet finally touched the ground. She blushed hotly, and her long lashes fanned her cheeks, hiding her eyes completely from his view.

  “I do beg your pardon,” he said, releasing his hold of her as she brushed down the skirt of her dress. “How clumsy of me!”

  “It was my fault, my lord,” she said breathlessly, peeping up at him. “I was not quite ready.”

  Lord Eden offered her his arm and regretted anew that she was as untouchable to him as a vestal virgin. He was having to make a concerted effort to control his breathing.

  ALEXANDRA DID NOT HOLD to anyone’s arm as they approached the edge of the cliff. She was enjoying the almost bleak emptiness of their surroundings, the coarse grass underfoot, the fresh breeze, from which they had been sheltered just a couple of minutes before. She was reminded of the moors except that there was a salt tang to the air here. She felt exhilarated. She wanted to throw off her hat, spread out her arms to the wind, and run.

  And then she came to the crest of a slight rise of land, and her heart somersaulted inside her. The world fell away almost at her feet, and the sea sparkled far below and stretched to the dark blue horizon. The wind whipped her skirt against her legs. She drew in deep lungfuls of air and closed her eyes for a moment. She looked around for James so that she might share the moment with him.

  But it was Lord Amberley who stood at her shoulder.

  “It takes your breath away when you are not used to it, does it not?” he said. “Indeed, it does so even when one knows what to expect.”

  “It is magnificent,” she said, and turned back to gaze out over the sea and downward to the white line of the waves breaking against the beach far below. She could see the rock to which she and Lord Eden had raced two days before. She was grateful that Lord Amberley did not say anything. It was not the time for small talk. And to put into words what she felt was quite as impossible now as it had been the day before when she had seen an equally magnificent, though quite different, view from above the valley.

  “I think there is nothing as awe-inspiring as wild nature,” she said, breaking the silence at last. “Tamed nature, gardens, can be appreciated with the senses. But this”—she drew in a deep breath again—“this one feels here.” She placed a hand against her ribs. “It is too deep for words. It is almost an ache. Do you know what I mean?”

  “Yes,” he said quietly. “Perfectly.”

  She turned her head toward him after a minute more of silence. She smiled fleetingly. “I might also say that it is lovely,” she said.

  He smiled back in some amusement. “You were quite right yesterday about the inadequacy of words,” he said. “It was foolish and quite unreasonable of me to hope that you would respond to the places I love with the words I have never been able to find for myself. But then, I have never been called upon to do so. I am a very private person, as you may have realized, Alex. I have a close relationship with my family, but my deepest feelings I have never shared.”

  She had been looking into his eyes. But they were so very blue in the sunlight, so very kindly, that awareness of his physical presence returned and broke the rare ease of their conversation. She turned sharply away.

  “Is the cliff quite sheer?” she asked. “Is it possible for it to be scaled?”

  “Oh, yes,” he said, “though it is very dangerous to do so, especially in this particular place. I did it for the first time when I was thirteen years old, with Peregrine Lampman. He is two years younger than I. It was strictly forbidden, of course. We would not have been caught except that Perry got stuck close to the top. He had made the mistake, I believe, of looking down, and then would not move up or down or sideways for all my cajoling. I had to run home for help. I felt like something of a hero until all the excitement was over and Perry had been borne home by his father. I did not feel quite so heroic after a sound thrashing. I believe poor Perry suffered a like fate.”

  He was grinning when she looked back at him. “Your parents must have been frantic with images of what might have happened,” she said.

  “Oh, yes,” he agreed. “I realized that even at the time. I have always vowed that I will bring my sons here myself when they are of suitable age, and perhaps even my daughters too if they are anything like Madeline, and supervise them on a climb. Perhaps that will destroy the lure of it as a forbidden activity.”

  Papa would never handle a situation in that way, Alexandra thought. A forbidden activity was wrong, an offense against God as well as the moral laws. Supervising such an activity merely because one knew it would be attempted anyway was moral weakness. It merely taught children that wrongdoing is sometimes excusable. That was what Papa would say. He would approve of the thrashing. He would doubtless have added a week or more of confinement to the schoolroom or a bedchamber.

  She was not at all sure that Papa was right. She could almost picture the intense pleasure and sense of adventure and achievement Lord Amberley’s children would derive from climbing the cliff with him. And such a shared activity would bring him closer to his children. There would be the bond of love between them, not of fear.

  They would be her children too! The thought caused a nasty lurching of her stomach and made her realize that she was still looking at her betrothed. She turned away to gaze down at the beach and the breakers again.

  “There is another way down,” he said. “A little farther along.” He pointed to their left. “There is a fault in the rock that forms a quite effective and reasonably safe path. It makes for exciting exercise, though it is quite unappealing to children, of course.”

  “May we go down?” she asked, turning to look at him with bright eyes.

  He looked surprised. “Now?” he said. “When I said the path is safe, I perhaps exaggerated somewhat. It is not wide and it is steep. It has to be descended with great care.”

  “I will be careful,” she said. “May we go down?” She felt an almost urgent need to do so. She felt as she did on those occasions at home when she begged James to gallop across the moors with her. Almost as if she would burst if she could not somehow give vent to pent-up energy. Jam
es had never needed much persuasion.

  Lord Amberley looked back searchingly into her eyes. “We would have to leave the horses up here,” he said. “It is a walk of three miles at least back to the house from the bottom of the cliff.”

  “I will enjoy the walk,” she said.

  He still seemed undecided. Then he smiled suddenly. “I will take you down there on one condition,” he said. “You must hold firmly to my hand every step of the way.”

  “Yes,” she said, and she smiled openly at him in her eagerness.

  “We had better see if Dominic and your brother will take our horses back for us,” he said, turning to look for the others. Lord Eden was standing a short distance away, farther back from the edge of the cliff, with Susan Courtney clinging with both hands to his arm. James Purnell and Madeline were strolling back toward them along the clifftop, side by side, not touching.

  MADELINE HAD BEEN HAVING a difficult morning. Inevitably she was paired with James Purnell. She was becoming almost resigned to the fact. She had been able to see, when Susan arrived and agreed to join them on the ride, that that young lady would have been just as pleased to ride with Mr. Purnell as with Dominic, but Madeline had not allowed her hopes to soar. It was unlikely that anyone would think it polite to leave her to her twin’s company. Besides, it was clear that Dominic fancied Susan. He would probably be head over ears in love with her within a few days at the most.

  And so she had ridden with Mr. Purnell and walked with him for a few minutes along the cliff top and exhausted every topic of conversation known to man. It was not that he was silent. He was not quite that ill-bred. But he never initiated a topic, and his comments and responses to those she introduced were terse and entirely to the point. He never left her any room to expand on a theme. He said only what needed to be said. Did he not know that in polite conversation one forced oneself to say a great deal more?

  By the time they were strolling back toward her brothers, Madeline was fuming with suppressed rage. Her elder brother’s idea of climbing down the cliff path, then, something she had not done for years, was entirely irresistible.

  “Oh, I will come with you, Edmund,” she said, her face glowing into life. “I can think of nothing more exhilarating. Dom, do come with us. Mr. Purnell can take Susan back to the house.”

  Lord Eden glanced down at his companion—clinging to his arm with both hands, Madeline noticed, and looking decidedly pale—then regretfully back at his sister. “No,” he said, “you go, Mad. I will stay with Susan. She is afraid of heights, you know.”

  Perhaps it would not take him a few days to be in love, Madeline thought, noting the protective way his free hand came across to pat one of Susan’s reassuringly. Dom looked as if he had fallen already. Perhaps it was not a bad thing, either, although Susan was just the helpless, clinging type of female that always attracted Dom and was quite wrong for him. At least she would keep him away from Alexandra. And the infatuation would not last long. Dom’s infatuations never did. And neither did hers, for that matter, she thought philosophically.

  “Is there a way down?” James Purnell was asking. “And are you really prepared to tackle it, Alex? I will come too, of course.”

  Madeline turned away from her twin with an inward sigh as he assured everyone that he would take Susan back to the house and send stable-hands for the horses.

  Madeline and Purnell led the way down. She declined the assistance of his hand. She knew from experience that the path was quite safe, though it would seem dangerous if one did not know it. If one walked close against the cliff face, even spreading one’s hands on the rock, one could stay decently far from the edge. Time had made the surface underfoot grassy and quite firm. It was only the height and the sheerness of the drop at the edge of the path that gave the illusion of danger.

  A little more than halfway down, the path opened out onto a much broader ledge. From there on the path was narrower and steeper, but the danger seemed to be past because the beach was so much closer. Madeline enjoyed every step of the descent. Although Mr. Purnell turned back frequently to see if she needed assistance, the obligation of making conversation had been taken away from her temporarily. She felt great regret when he finally jumped down the few feet from the end of the path to the beach and turned to lift her down. And it was only then that she realized that now she would be with him for all of the three-mile walk home.

  She set her hands on his shoulders and jumped. Edmund and Alexandra, she could see when they both looked up, were still no farther down than the broad ledge.

  “Will Alexandra be all right, do you think?” she asked. “I must confess I was surprised that she allowed herself to be persuaded to make the descent.”

  “It was probably Alex who suggested it,” he said. “She has a great deal of energy and courage when she forgets herself and breaks free.”

  He looked as if he were talking to himself, Madeline thought, his eyes narrowed and looking upward. That lock of dark hair was down over his forehead again. He was not wearing a hat.

  “Edmund will see that she is safe anyway,” she said. “I have been told that Papa was the first to bring me down here, but I can remember doing it only with Edmund. I always felt as safe as I could possibly be. It seemed impossible then that he could ever slip. We have gone up too on occasion. That seems very much safer, though it takes considerably more exertion.”

  “You seem to have been given a great deal of freedom as a child,” he said, turning to begin the walk along the beach.

  “Yes,” she agreed. “I did not even realize that it was so until I began to meet other people and found that their upbringing was often a great deal more restricting. Do you disapprove?”

  He walked with his hands clasped behind him, she noticed. She was glad that he did not offer her his arm. “No,” he said. “If I had children…”

  Madeline looked inquiringly at him when he did not immediately continue. He was grimacing. His eyes were on the sand at his feet.

  “If I had children,” he began again, “I would see to it that they had a happy childhood. If I planned to have any, that is.”

  “You do not wish to have children?” she asked. “Or to marry?”

  “No to both questions,” he said curtly. “Why bring children into this world knowing what is ahead of them? Better to leave them in unknowing oblivion.”

  “But you cannot know what is ahead for them,” she said. “Life has a great deal of happiness and pleasure to offer. I have even known happy people among those who seem to have nothing at all to celebrate.”

  “Death is ahead for every child that is born,” he said harshly.

  “But one cannot dismiss the value of the whole of life just because death is its inevitable end,” she said. “Sometimes when I think that I must die, that there is no avoiding the moment, I am consumed with terror. But Edmund once told me how to cope with such moments. Look back on your life, he said, and ask yourself quite honestly if you would have missed it, given the choice. I think I would hate not to have lived at all.”

  “You have lived a privileged life,” he said. “Some people have nothing pleasant at all to look back upon.”

  “I cannot believe that,” she said. “Oh, yes, I know I am privileged. I find nothing more horrifying than the journey into London, when one has to drive past all the dreadful signs of poverty. But there are very poor people who are happy. I have met some. I don’t believe that any life need be filled with unrelieved despair.”

  “You are a romantic,” he said. “Your attitude is typical of those who have never been called upon to suffer.”

  “That is unfair,” she said. “I have been fortunate, yes. More fortunate than anyone has a right to expect to be, perhaps. But I have suffered too. My father died when I was twelve years old. I was still at an age when life seemed safe and secure and incredibly happy. And then Papa died quite suddenly. And Mama was gone for a long time too. She was here with us the whole time, but she suffered what must have been a living
death. Suddenly the world was a wide and dark and frightening place. And yet life is still worth living. The experience has taught me that happiness is to be enjoyed to the fullest right now. It is a gift that should not be wasted. And it can give us the strength to live through the troubled times.”

  “And how does one get one’s strength if one has never been allowed to be happy?” he asked. “And one’s faith that life is worth living?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “Are you referring to your sister? She is a strong person, I believe. And I don’t think she shares your cynicism with life. Happiness is possible for her. Edmund can make her happy.”

  He stopped walking and looked back along the beach. They had walked almost to the head of the valley. Madeline looked back too. Alexandra and her brother were on the beach, but they were standing still below the cliff path. They were a long way back.

  “Perhaps,” he said. “I hope you are right. Perhaps there is that much justice in this world. I would see some glimmering of meaning if only Alex could be happy.”

  Madeline shook her skirt as they stepped onto grass at last. But her hem had not picked up a great deal of sand. The beach was firm and damp.

  “You are very self-pitying,” she said. “You and Alexandra had a hard upbringing, I think. You have not known a great deal of happiness. But you are alive now. You are still young. There is still a great deal of happiness you can make for yourself if you will. I think you are so much in the habit of feeling sorry for yourself that you have doomed yourself to a life of misery and martyrdom. You cannot have suffered that much in fewer than thirty years of living.”

  It was a very unmannerly speech. She might have spoken to Dominic thus with no fear of offending beyond an angry moment. It was not at all the way to talk to a stranger. She would not have done so had she not still been feeling cross at having to spend a whole glorious morning with a difficult companion.

  She looked across at him when he did not immediately reply. She was already framing an apology in her mind. But she swallowed the words when she saw the expression on his face. He was looking straight ahead, to her everlasting gratitude. His face was tense, his dark eyes burning with fury.