The Devil's Web (25 page)

“My sister has four children now,” Carl said.

“Has she?” James was watching Madeline receive the praise of their neighbors on her performance and laughing and taking the offered hand of Mr. Palmer to rise from the bench.

He could feel the blood pounding at his temples. Dora was back. As simply as that. Years before, he had felt that he had moved heaven and earth and not found her. Yet now he had been back for two whole weeks and not known that she was there too.

She had four children. Dora with four children. Three of them John Drummond's.

He would see her again. He would see what had become of her, what he had done to her.

And he would see his child at last. His son. He had throttled that much information out of Carl, though never the boy's name. He would be almost nine years old now.

“I must go and make the acquaintance of Lady Beckworth,” Carl said with a smile.

James watched him cross the room to her. He soon had her smiling and talking with animation. Carl was a tall, athletic-looking gentleman, whose blond wavy hair always looked slightly tousled. James had not realized until that moment how attractive his former friend had grown.

M
ADELINE HAD ENJOYED THE EVENING vastly. She had remembered Alexandra's saying how wonderful and friendly a part of the country Amberley was and how different from the place where she had grown up. And she herself had been at Dunstable Hall for more than two weeks without any communication with their neighbors beyond a few tentative nods at church. But all was to be well after all.

“Miss Palmer is to call for tea tomorrow, James,” she said in the carriage on the way home. “She seems a very sensible lady. She taught at a girls' academy for four years, but came back to keep house for her brother.”

“I am glad you like her,” he said.

“Miss Trenton and her brother are to call one day so that I may go walking with them,” she said. “And Mr.
Beasley has offered to take me riding about the Duke of Peterleigh's estate. His grace does not come home very often, he says.”

“He used to come for a few weeks in the summer,” James said.

“Well, I am glad he is not here,” she said. “I have never liked the man since the time when he was supposed to be promised to Alexandra and gave her that famous snub
the evening she became betrothed to Edmund instead.
You were there too. I remember feeling amazed that you could look so fierce without actually doing violence.” She laughed.

“She was intended for him from childhood on,” he said, “but I can only feel thankful that he did see fit to snub her. She might still have married him else.”

“Mr. Beasley is his relative?” Madeline said. “And he has chosen to remain as the duke's steward. He is very amiable.”

“He was Peterleigh's ward,” James said.

“He has a sister too, doesn't he?” she said, turning her face to him in the darkness of the carriage and smiling. “It is a pity she and her husband were unable to attend tonight. Her husband is one of the duke's tenants. He has been unwell. Mr. Beasley said we will ride by their farm and call upon her.”

“If you wish to go walking or riding anywhere, Madeline,” James said, “You have only to tell me so and I shall take you. You have no need to impose on neighbors.”

“Impose?” she said. “But they all offered. I did not beg.
Besides, doing things together is part of friendship, is it not? And I am determined to make friends among our neighbors here.”

“I won't have you on Peterleigh's land,” he said.

“Why?” she asked, looking at him, amazed. “Because he snubbed your sister, James? But that was such a long time ago. Besides, he is not in residence and is not expected. Mr. Beasley says there is a splendid orchard and organgery beside the house.”

“I said you will stay away from there,” he said.

She was silent for a moment. “I take it that is an absolute command?” she said.

“Yes.” He was not looking at her. His profile was set and hard. “Stay away from there, Madeline. And from Beasley.”

“Oh, now I understand,” she said. “Mr. Beasley is a young and single gentleman. A handsome one too. You are suspicious and jealous. That is what this is all about, is it not?”

He looked across at her, his eyes very dark in the shadows. “It is not at all the thing for a married lady to be riding about with a single gentleman,” he said.

“Oh, nonsense, James!” She clucked her tongue and turned her head away to the window in annoyance. “You just do not wish me to make friends, that is all. You want me all to yourself, though why you want that is a mystery to me, because you clearly dislike me and disapprove of everything I say or do.”

“I do not dislike you,” he said.

“Then you must be a very good actor,” she said.

“Madeline,” he said, “I don't …”

“I wonder you do not lock all the doors in Dunstable Hall and bar all the windows,” she said. “You could carry the keys in a large bunch at your waist. And allow me outside only when I am chained to your wrist or with one of the Cockingses on either side of me, perhaps.”

“You are being foolish,” he said.

“But of course,” she said. “In your eyes I am capable of nothing else, am I? And if you think I am going to obey you in this matter, James, then you will be sorely disappointed. I will choose my own friends and occupy my time with them as I please. And if you don't like it, then you really must lock me up or beat me.”

“Beasley means mischief,” he said. “Stay away from him, Madeline.”

“Are you going to make me?” she asked, her eyes narrowing.

“If I possibly can.” he said.

And so she was annoyed again, furiously annoyed, her evening finally in ruins. She had thought to be friendly with him on the way home. She had thought he would be pleased that she liked their neighbors and was already making friends among them. And he had looked so very handsome all evening in his own austere way, dressed in his black mourning clothes. She had felt near to bursting with love for him.

But there was definitely no pleasing him at all. It was tempting, for very pride's sake, to give up the attempt. But giving up would mean a lifetime of very real misery.
Perhaps the misery was to be there anyway, but she was not going to hold the door open and invite it in.

“Would you care to organize a dinner for a few weeks in the future?” he asked. “It would make you happy to do that, would it not, Madeline?”

It was surely an olive branch. She turned to smile dazzlingly at him. “Yes,” she said, “that would be lovely.
Perhaps by then I will have met even more people, and we can invite them all.”

“I will leave the planning to you, then,” he said.

“James,” she said later when they were in their bedchamber, “I have seen very little more of this place than the house and the immediate grounds. Talking this evening about walking and riding with other people has whetted my appetite. I think I will go riding tomorrow.”

“But not alone,” he said. “Or if you do, you must keep
to the roads and pastures. Not out onto the moors. You will get lost.”

“Oh, nonsense,” she said, “I am not a child.”

He came across the room to where she was standing beside the bed. “And I am not a man to be defied at every turn,” he said quietly to her. “I know this area well. The moors are dangerous, Madeline. It is very easy to get lost out on them. I will have your promise not to ride out there alone. Not for years to come, at least. Now, if you please.”

“James,” she said, smiling and touching his chest with one light hand, “I will promise on condition that you promise to take me riding out there within the week.”

“You want me with you?” he asked.

“Yes, I want you with me,”
she said, letting her other hand join the first. “You are my husband, aren't you? My bridegroom of one month? Promise to take me riding.”

“So that we can quarrel every step of the way?” he said.

“I will not promise unless you do,” she said. “I shall go out onto the moors every day of my life just to defy you and then we will quarrel even more. Take me?”

“Yes,” he said, “I'll take you, of course. You don't need a promise for that. But don't think I have forgotten yours, Madeline. Your promise, if you please.”

“Oh, very well, then,” she said, “though I am sure you are being ridiculous. I promise not to ride out onto the moors unless you or someone of whom you approve is with me for—how long?”

“Five years.”

“For five years,” she said. “There, are you pleased now?
You have a nice docile, obedient wife.”

She tried to coax a smile from him with her own, but he gazed darkly back at her.

“Promise me not to get involved with Beasley,” he said.

She put up a hand and spread her fingers over his mouth. “Let's leave it at that,” she said. “Let's not quarrel any more tonight. I get so mortally tired of quarreling.”She grinned. “Especially when you are always in the wrong.”

He took her by the wrist and gazed into her eyes. She could see deeply into his, to what might have been pain.
But his face was expressionless.

She shook her head slightly. “Don't say any more,” she said. “Please, James, don't say any more.”

By day she could despise herself for the way she always abandoned herself to his lovemaking, for the way she had learned to participate in it and take full pleasure from it.
She could despise herself for catering so willingly to his only need for her.

But by night there was only James and his unhurried, expert lovemaking. And her need to touch and be touched, to love and be loved. She had learned to be naked and unembarrassed with him on the bed, even with the candles burning. And she had learned how and where to touch him, how to arouse him, how to heighten his pleasure when he was in her. She had learned how to move for her own pleasure, how to let tension build, when to let tension go and trust him to bring her to a climax.

And so instead of quarreling further, they made slow love and found in each other's body all the harmony, all the rightness, that was absent from the other aspects of their lives.

And Madeline, lying beneath her husband and moving with his rhythm during the minutes when their desire built to a crest, was as usual beyond all thought except that this man who was loving her was James and that she loved him with all her heart and soul as well as with her
body. And as usual she wanted to say his name as she buried her hands in his hair—to say it over and over again against his mouth, into his ear.

James, James.

But there was always just enough reason left, just enough pride, that she knew that to do so would be to degrade herself. For as things were, he would know only that she had a physical craving for him as he had for her. She could not hide that so made no attempt to do so. But if she once said his name while he loved her, then he would know. And then he would know too that he had it in his power to make her his slave.

She would rather die with her love undeclared than become his slave.

And so they finished their lovemaking with incoherent cries, but with no words at all. And after he had lifted himself away from her, he lay staring up at the canopy above their heads in the flickering light of the single candle that still burned, while she lay turned away from him, staring off into the shadows.

Both were physically satisfied and very close to sleep.
And both were very much alone again. And both were very unhappy.

J
AMES WAS RIDING ALONE
along the banks of a stream that divided part of his property from that of the Duke of Peterleigh. He was returning from a visit to one of his tenants, who had complained more and more loudly since he had realized that he was being listened to that his rents were too high. James agreed, though he had not told the man so yet. He wished to consult a little more closely with his bailiff.

It seemed that every tenant's rent was too high and every laborer's wages too low. His instinct was to recognize the injustice and put it right immediately. But of course, when one was the owner of large tracts of land and responsible for every soul who lived upon them, justice was not always an easy thing to detect. For if he should bankrupt himself in order to benefit those dependent upon him, then eventually they would see no benefit at all from his generosity or sense of right.

It was a tricky business, as he was becoming well aware.

There were some people ahead of him, on the bank of the stream. Children, probably, fishing. He had come to that particular spot himself as a lad, when he could get away from the house, to fish with Carl Beasley.

The grass was wet beneath his horse's hooves. It had rained steadily for four days after their visit to the Hoopers. There had been no chance to keep his promise to take Madeline riding out onto the moors. But she seemed not to have been actively unhappy. She was busy planning the dinner they were to host the following week.
Palmer and his sister had called on them one afternoon, the young Trentons on another.

And she had been busy writing letters. She made a point now of telling him from whom she received every letter, her chin lifted defiantly, but of telling him nothing about the contents of those letters. There had been no more from Penworth, and indeed he felt foolish for the objection he had made to that particular correspondence.
Her betrothal to Penworth had been ended the year before, and there had seemed to be no particular attachment on either side during the spring in London. She had had letters from her mother and both brothers, from Ellen,
from Anna, and from Jennifer Simpson. There had been letters addressed to both of them from Alex and Jean, whose wedding had been delayed until Christmastime on account of her future sister-in-law's wedding planned for that month.

Madeline spent much of each morning writing long letters in reply. She never offered to let him read them. He sometimes wondered what she wrote about. What did she say about her new home? About him? Did she tell the truth? Or did she pretend that all was well? He somehow could not imagine Madeline divulging the true state of their marriage to anyone, except perhaps to her twin.