The Devil's Web (14 page)

“You kissed him,” he said. “Almost in public. Have you no shame?”

She laughed suddenly, still looking up at him. “Pardon the rudeness,” she said, “but you sounded remarkably like your father at that moment, James. ‘Have you no shame?' ”

The small vestiges of his control snapped. He whirled on her, grabbed her by the upper arms, and shook her roughly. “You will leave my father out of this,” he said through his teeth. “I will not permit you to insult him.”

She spread her hands defensively on his chest. She was breathless. But she tipped her head back and continued to laugh up at him. “No,” she said, “I am not ashamed. I like to be kissed. I like to be appreciated. And I don't care the snap of my fingers for your contempt or disapproval,
James Purnell. I will kiss and flirt with whom I like, and you may go to the devil with my blessing.”

Some of his rage had receded. The hopelessness, the frustration, remained. He looked down into her laughing, scornful face.

“I think I am the devil where you are concerned, aren't I?” he said, and took her mouth with his.

He would have let her go when she struggled. He would have released her completely and turned from her so that she could find her way back to the house and safety. But her struggles were not to free herself but merely to release her arms from imprisonment against his chest. She wrapped them about his neck and pressed herself against him and opened her mouth so that his tongue plunged unimpeded into the soft heat beyond her teeth.

And her temperature soared with his. She moved against him, at first with taut desperation, and then with slower, more knowing movements, feeling him with her breasts and her hips and thighs, rubbing intimately against him, moving her shoulders back from him so that he could fondle her breasts, so that his hand could slide down between them.

And he wanted her with every pounding beat of the blood coursing through him. He wanted her with a physical agony that only their standing position and the barrier of their clothing held in check. But he lifted his head away from her eventually and stepped back with her to lean against the narrow trunk of a fruit tree. He held her head firmly against his chest and waited for sanity to return.

She was drawing audible and deep breaths and letting them out with shuddering difficulty.

“Madeline,” he said finally, “what are we going to do?”

It took her a while to answer. Her voice was breathless
and shaking when she did so, though the words were light. “Straighten our hair and our clothing and go back to the house, naturally,” she said, pushing away from him and concentrating her attention on brushing at the skirt of her gown.

He stayed back against the tree. “There is no way it could work, is there?” he said, gazing at her bent head, willing her for the first time in all his acquaintance with her to contradict him.

She did not look up. She must be finding many creases in her gown. “No,” she said, “absolutely none. I hate you, James. I think I really do. But you see how incorrigible I am? I cannot resist kissing and flirting even with you.”

“You were not flirting,” he said.

She lifted her head and smiled dazzlingly at him. “Ah,” she said, “but the essence of really expert flirting is that one's victim thinks one to be in true earnest. Did you think I was serious? Poor James. I am sorry, you know, if I raised hopes where there cannot be any. I am quite heartless, you see. A worthy adversary for the devil, wouldn't you agree?”

He stayed where he was when she began to walk in the direction of the house. But she turned back to him and smiled. “It might be the occasion of dreadful gossip,” she said, “if we arrive back separately when everyone saw us leave the dining room together. Let us walk back sedately together, my arm in yours. What shall we converse about?
Canada again? I fear the topic must be becoming tedious to you. The weather, perhaps?”

“The weather seems a safe enough topic,” he said through his teeth. “We have been having an unusually long spell of heat, even for July. When do you think it is likely to break?”

“Oh, not until you have sailed in August,” she said airily. “It would not be cruel enough to break before then, surely. Edmund's ball would be quite spoiled.”

“There are more people on the lawn again,” he said.
“How fortunate, since that topic was in danger of playing itself out. Shall we join your aunt and uncle?”

“You may do so,” she said, withdrawing her arm from his. “I am rather chilly. I am going indoors.”

He watched her wave a hand at the Carringtons and walk in leisurely fashion in the direction of the house. She stopped along the way to talk with the captain and the lieutenant and Anna.

T
HE
E
ARL OF
A
MBERLEY
sat in his dressing gown on the side of the bed he shared with his wife. He had just straightened up after kissing her.

“Witch!” he said, smiling ruefully at her. “It is the wrong time, is it not? The dangerous time?”

“Yes,” she said, folding the blankets neatly beneath her arms. “I just wish my need for you would move in cycles as my body does, Edmund. Though that would not help you at all, would it?”

“Is this house party working?” he asked, deliberately changing the subject. “Is James happy, do you think? And is he associating with your father at all?”

“No and no,” she said with a sigh. “But there are a few weeks left, Edmund. I have great faith in the atmosphere of Amberley. It brought you and me together when we were all ready to go our separate ways. And it brought Dominic and Ellen together when things had gone dreadfully wrong between them. Maybe James will straighten himself out here too.”

The earl got restlessly to his feet and paced to the window, where he stood staring sightlessly out.

Alexandra broke a lengthy silence. “If you are not going to lie down properly,” she said, “you might as well put your mind at rest, Edmund, and go to her.”

“She is probably sleeping by now,” he said.

“I doubt it.” She sat up and reached for his hand as he came toward her. “She was crying quite hard when we passed her room. Go to her, love. I would go myself, but you are her brother. And more to the point, I am James's sister.”

“Madeline never did cry often,” he said. “But when she does, she sobs and hiccups for all to hear.”

“You were right all along,” she said. “It never has been James and Jean Cameron, even though he has told me that he may marry her. It has always been James and Madeline.
I was so happy when they left the dining room at the Mortons' together after supper. But their faces afterward, Edmund! Smiling and talking, both of them—with empty, empty eyes. I could shake the two of them. And cry oceans of tears over them. Go to her.”

“Dominic should be here,” he said. “He would know what to do. I was always something of an outsider with those two, you know.”

“Oh, nonsense,” she said. “Of course they are close.
They are twins. But you are her elder brother. She adores you.”

“I will go and see what I can do, then,” he said. “If she is still awake, she will probably throw pillows at my head or worse. But what are brothers for?”

But Madeline was not in her room as he saw after he had knocked quietly and turned the knob of the door to look inside. He went downstairs to the conservatory,
which had always been her private hideout and Dominic's, though neither of them knew that he knew.

She was huddled up into one corner of the window seat that ran around three sides of the room, clasping her knees, with her chin resting on them. The only light was that coming through the windows from the outside. He sat down close to her without saying a word.

“I couldn't sleep,” she said. “The night is too lovely.”

“I heard you crying,” he said.

She was silent for a while. “I want to go to Dominic's,” she said. “Will you let me go, Edmund? He said I might spend the summer with him and Ellen if I wished. May I go? Tomorrow?”

“Of course,” he said. “If it is what you really wish, Madeline. Is it?”

She rested her forehead on her knees. “I feel so lost without him,” she said. “That is absurd to say, isn't it, when I was without him for three years during the wars.
But it was different then. He was in constant danger and I was constantly worried about him. He was still at the center of my life. Now he is married and happy and settled elsewhere. And they have their babies. Am I being very self-pitying? I know I am, so you need not answer me.”

“Do you resent Ellen?” he asked gently.

“No!” She jerked her head up and looked directly at him. “No, I love her, Edmund. I really do, both in her own right and because she is just perfect for Dom. No, I'm not jealous of her. Just …” She sighed. “Just a little empty without him, that's all.”

He reached out and touched one of her hands. “I'm not Dominic,” he said. “I can't compete and wouldn't want to.
But I have always loved you as much as he has, Madeline.
Will I do as a substitute tonight? I knew where to find you, you see. I have always known.”

“Poor Edmund,” she said. “It must be dreadful to have a twin brother and sister and no others at all. But we always worshipped you, you know, Dom and I. You could never do any wrong in our eyes. And if we were far less full of mischief after Papa died, it was because we could never bear to see the look of reproach in your eyes when you confronted us. Papa was fair game because he was a father. But you were our brother. Our idol.”

He chuckled and squeezed her hand. “Nighttime is sometimes a dangerous time to talk,” he said. “One says things one may regret forever after. I shall hold this idol business over your head, you know.”

She leaned the side of her head against the window and smiled. “I was so proud of myself tonight,” she said. “I had decided, you see, that it was time I looked sensibly to my future. I have promised myself that I will marry within the year, and I have set about finding myself a kindly and sensible husband. Someone as like to you as possible. I will not say that I chose Captain Hands as soon as I saw him, for that would be utterly absurd. But I began something, Edmund. I talked with him. I mean really talked. And I did not flirt, which is what I have a dreadful habit of doing just so that I will not have a close relationship with any man.”

“He seems worthy enough,” he said.

“Yes, he is.” They were both silent for a while. “I have to continue what I started tonight, Edmund. Not necessarily with the captain. I am not saying I am going to maneuver him into marriage whether he likes it or not and whether he is suitable or not. But I must continue. I will not go to Dominic's. I will not run away. I am six and twenty years old and no child. And I have always prided myself on
being independent. It has been a self-delusion, I think, but I am going to make it true.”

“Do you want to tell me what happened with James?”he asked. “But only if you wish. I will not pry.”

“I wish I could,” she said. “I wish I knew myself what is happening with James. He has blighted my life for four years, you know.”

“Has he?” he said. “There was something even when he was here last, then? I'm sorry, Madeline. I did not notice. I had thoughts for no one but Alex during that summer, I'm afraid. But blighted? That is a strong word, is it not?”

“We bring each other nothing but the most dreadful misery,” she said, “and we can do nothing but quarrel and hurl insults at each other when we are together. Yet we cannot seem to stay apart. He kissed me tonight, Edmund. Oh, I kissed him too. We kissed each other. But it was after we had said dreadful things to each other and before we said more dreadful things.”

“You love him?” he asked.

She laughed without humor. “It is hardly love,” she said. “But I am terrified, Edmund. I'm terrified that I will never be able to put him from my mind. I don't love him, but I'm afraid that he will make it impossible for me ever to love anyone else. And it is no idle terror. It has already proved true for four years. I couldn't love Jason. I wanted to so very much. I think I may always regret losing him.
But I couldn't love him.”

There was silence for a while. “I wish I could think of a wise answer,” he said. “I wish I could live up to your image of me, Madeline, and solve all your problems with a few words. Alas, it cannot be done. All I can say is that love is a strange thing. Never the same from one couple to another and never the easy, euphoric thing that one expects. It was
not easy for Alex and me, though I don't think you know the full story. And it was not easy for Dominic and Ellen—and we doubtless don't know the full story there either.

“But somehow the four of us fought it through. And I can tell you from personal experience that for Alex and me it has been worthwhile. And that is the most foolish understatement I have ever made. I think Dominic would say the same, though doubtless he would phrase it better than I have done. Perhaps it will be worthwhile for you too, Madeline. Fight for what you want, dear.”

She smiled. “If I just knew what I want,” she said. “Oh, but I do know. I want contentment and peace, Edmund. I want an end to all the uncertainties. I want to be respectably married. I want some children before it is too late. I don't want James. For life could never be tranquil with him. We would forever fight.” She swallowed and closed her eyes. “And love.”

“Come here,” he said, and he held her while she cried for the second time that night.

“There,” she said when she was finished. “Now I have soaked your nightshirt and given myself two swollen eyes and a headache. And we have not solved any of the world's problems. Tears never were worth the effort of crying them.”

“I remember once,” he said, “asking a woman to marry me. She refused me and told me that she could give me only friendship and comfort. She told me that I needed passion. I really did not agree with her. Until I began to love Alex very soon afterward, that is. I think you need passion as badly as I, you know. If I were you, I would not settle for anything less.”