The Devil's Web (24 page)

“You always were an incurable flirt,” he said. “I don't know why I should expect you to change now.”

“And you always were a humorless tyrant,” she said. “I don't know why one incident with your servants deceived me into thinking that perhaps you had changed. In future, James, I will not even try to share my correspondence or any other part of my life with you. I shall keep it all to myself and you may think or imagine what you will.”

“I am devastated,” he said. “We have had such a close relationship until now.”

“Perhaps in time I
will
take a lover,” she said. “I imagine that the day may come when I will want a little brightness and excitement in my life. And I certainly will get neither from you.”

He was across the room in a few strides and gripped her arms in a grasp that had her visibly wincing. “If I cannot put excitement into your life,” he said, “perhaps it is because your palette is jaded from too much empty frivolity. And you will try taking a lover at your peril, Madeline.” His eyes narrowed on her; his breath quickened.

She looked up at him and laughed. “Go on,” she said. “I believe your next move is to turn me beneath your arm and beat me until I have to lie facedown on my bed for the rest of the day. Or else to kiss me so fiercely that my lips will be swollen and bruised for a week. Don't disappoint me, James. Play the part of the heavy-handed lord and master. You do it so well.”

He dropped his hands and stood staring at her, his shoulders drooped. And the fight went out of her eyes. She dropped them to his chin.

“I think perhaps your father talked to your mother and to you in that way,” she said. “But you will not talk to me like that and get away with it. And if you ever strike me, I shall hit back. If you ever use me in anger or out of a wish to punish, I shall leave you.” She looked back up into his eyes.

“I will never strike you,” he said, “no matter how much you provoke me. As for the rest, if you ever leave me, I shall come and bring you back again. Even if you take yourself to the far corner of the world. You are my wife, and you will remain so for as long as we both live.”

Because I need you. Because I love you. Because I want and want and want to make you happy. Because the thought of your turning to another man drives me insane. He looked deeply into her eyes, his expression a mask, and turned and left the room without another word.

He sent an acceptance of the Hoopers' invitation.

I
T WAS A GREAT RELIEF
to Madeline to discover that they were after all to attend at least one entertainment. For the first week after their arrival at Dunstable Hall, she had not really noticed the lack of visitors. She had been too engrossed in adjusting her life to a totally new environment—a large and gloomy house, which had no need to be gloomy at all, a severe and humorless housekeeper, who for years had run the household as if it were an army post, and a moody, surly husband.

It was not an easy adjustment to make. There was a great dragging at her spirits, and the temptation to just give up the struggle was enormous. The house had always been run very well, it seemed. Why not allow it to continue to do so rather than have a daily battle of wills with Mrs. Cockings? And there was no pleasing her husband. She had tried. Several times she had tried to pretend that he was just like any other man of her acquaintance. She had tried to smile and talk to him as if she expected answering smiles and words.

But he had that way of looking through her with those dark eyes, which were themselves inscrutable. And a way of speaking that was abrupt and to the point. And no way at all of smiling.

The temptation was to ignore him, to withdraw into her own world. But it was not in her nature to be aloof, and she had to live with this man for the rest of her life. Besides, she wanted to share her life with him. For a reason that totally escaped her comprehension, she loved him.

But how could one share with a man who was so totally unresponsive?

Except in bed. She could please him there as he pleased her. She could have basked in the glory of their nights together. She could have lived on the love she received and gave there.

But she could not. If anything, the very satisfactory nature of their sexual life made her more dissatisfied. He had always admitted to an attraction to her. And it was becoming increasingly obvious that the attraction was only physical and that that was the reason he had married her. He wanted her for his bed. He would put up with the irritation of her presence in his home during the days so that he might use her at night.

It was not a flattering realization. She felt very much less of a person than she had done before her marriage. And so she had to fight on. If she did not, she would have to sink her mind in the degradation of knowing herself her husband's plaything and nothing else.

Sometimes she hated him.

And at the end of the first week she became aware of the loneliness of their existence and wondered with some unease if they would ever visit or be visited. How could she invite visitors if she had never been presented to any of their neighbors?

The dissatisfaction began at about the same time as she discovered that she was not with child. She was severely disappointed and depressed for a few days, though she told herself how ridiculous she was being. There had been only the two weeks of their marriage and the one encounter the week before that. Perhaps by the end of the next month she would be more fortunate. Or at the end of the next. Perhaps she would have to be patient for several months.

But she was six and twenty, the same age as Ellen, who had two children already, and a year older than Alex. Perhaps she would never have children of her own. Perhaps in addition to everything else, their marriage would be childless.

It was a ridiculous fear after two weeks of marriage.

She was very relieved at the invitation from Mr. and Mrs. Hooper, and James's acceptance of it.

“How old are they, James?” she asked when they were in the carriage on their way to Moorton Grange. “Do they have a family? Will we be the only guests, do you suppose, or will there be others?” She felt as excited as if she were a girl again on her way to her first party. And in a way there was something quite new in all this. She was going to her first entertainment as Madeline Purnell, Lady Beckworth. She would be meeting her neighbors for the first time.

He was sitting against one corner of the carriage, looking at her with eyes that might possibly hold some amusement. It was so hard to tell with James. “In their fifties, probably,” he said. “They have five children. The three oldest are married and away from home. I am not sure about the other two. I have no idea if there will be other guests or not.”

“But the invitation said evening party as well as dinner, did it not?” she said, looking at him in some triumph. “That must mean there will be other guests.”

“I suppose so,” he said.

He seemed more approachable than usual. Madeline glanced down at her pale green dress beneath her pelisse. “Will any of them mind that I am not in mourning?” she asked. “I look very noticeably not so next to your black, James.”

“Why the devil should I care if they mind or not?” he said.

“Your father was their neighbor,” she said.

He laughed and turned to look out the window. “Well,” he said, “I should care if you were in mourning, Madeline. I have already told you what I would do with anything black you chose to wear in defiance of me.”

She sat back in her seat, her mood deflated for the moment. “There was no need for that,” she said. “You know there has been no question of defiance. You have no cause to speak as if you are cross with me.”

“Then why do you worry about what our neighbors will think?” he said. “Your business is to please me, is it not? Do you care what your neighbors think of you?”

“Yes, of course I do,” she said. “I am to live here for the rest of my days as your wife. I must live close to them for the rest of my life also. I hope to make friends and friendly acquaintances. Of course I care about pleasing them. And as for pleasing you, if I were to make that the sole aim of my life, I would be doomed to terrible failure, wouldn't I? You are impossible to please.”

“It pleases me when you are not constantly crossing my will,” he said.

“If you want a docile little mouse,” she said, “you married the wrong woman.”

And she felt thoroughly cross, her mood of a few minutes before in ruins. Her evening was spoiled. Except that she was not going to allow him to do any such thing to her. She was not going to allow him to dash her spirits whenever they had the misfortune to be in company together. She had set out to enjoy the visit, and enjoy it she would.

She turned a sunny face to her husband again a couple of minutes after their last words.

“Will we be able to entertain, James?” she asked. “Dunstable Hall is such a splendid place for guests.”

“You are the mistress of the place,” he said. “If it pleases you to entertain, then we will entertain.”

She laughed lightly and looked at him with twinkling eyes. “If it pleases me?” she said. “Can it be that you think it part of your business to please me, James? As it is mine to please you? And will I please you if I turn out to be an accomplished hostess? Will you be proud of me?”

“You are in a strange mood,” he said. “Like a child being given a treat.”

“But I am being given a treat,” she said. “I am being taken to the Hoopers' party and my husband has just said that we may entertain if it pleases me. James—” she stretched a hand across the distance between them and laid it lightly on his, “you are in grave danger of becoming human.” She laughed gaily.

But of course, she thought a few moments later, having retrieved her hand and turned to look out the window and try to revive her spirits yet again, he took it all wrongly. His jaw set even as she laughed at him, and his eyes blazed at her.

“It pleases you to mock me,” he said. “That is all I get for trying to treat you with some kindness, Madeline?”

“But I was not mocking you,” she said, her eyes widening in dismay. “I was teasing.”

“Pardon me,” he said, “but people who are scarcely human do not always recognize teasing.”

“Oh, you are being ridiculous!” she said.

“Of course,” he said, turning his head away from her.

M
OORTON
G
RANGE
was a sizable gray stone house, though it was not nearly on the scale of Dunstable Hall. There were several guests. James realized by the effusive, yet rather anxious greetings of Mr. and Mrs. Hooper that he and Madeline were the guests of honor. They and their neighbors were doubtless curious to discover if he would be like his father, or if they might look to him as more of a social leader in the community. Although he had grown up at Dunstable Hall and lived there until four years before, he was in all essential ways a stranger to them.

He presented his wife to Mr. and Mrs. Hooper and Miss Christine Hooper—Timothy Hooper, it seemed, had moved away from home just the year before; to Reverend and Mrs. Hurd; to Mr. and Mrs. Trenton, Mark Trenton, and Miss Henrietta Trenton; to Mr. Palmer and his sister; and to Carl Beasley, whom he was surprised to see if indeed the party was in his honor. And there were more guests still to come.

Madeline fairly sparkled, of course, as she always did in company. He could see that within ten minutes of their arrival she had enslaved most, if not all, of the company. And during dinner there was a great deal of animated conversation and laughter from the other end of the table, where she sat at Mr. Hooper's right.

“We have arranged for music and cards, my lord,” Mrs. Hooper explained to him. “My Christine wanted dancing, and I am sure the young people would have enjoyed it, but we said no for this occasion on account of the recent passing of your father.”Miss Palmer played the pianoforte after dinner, and Mark Trenton sang. Miss Hooper played the harp, and Madeline was prevailed upon to play the pianoforte too, though she protested laughingly that her neighbors might never again press her to do so.

“Well, Beckworth,” Carl Beasley said at James's elbow, “so you have come home.”

“As you see,” James said. “And you are still Peterleigh's steward?”

Beasley inclined his head. “I believe we were all somewhat surprised to learn that you were bringing home a bride,” he said. “Did you discover that after all the great love of one's life can fade? Or did you consider it expedient to add a wife to your new title?”

“Perhaps you would prefer to discover the answer for yourself over the next few years,” James said.

They had been friends of sorts at one time—as far as he had been able to form any friendship during his growing years. They had ridden together, fished together, dreamed of their future together. Carl had been the ward of the Duke of Peterleigh, the son of a cousin of the duke's. He had come to live on Peterleigh's estate at quite a young age. As had his sister, Dora.

“Ben and Adam Drummond would not come tonight,” Carl said with a half-smile. “I am afraid I am a more curious fellow.”

“I am obliged to you,” James said.

The Drummond brothers were prosperous tenants of Peterleigh's. They were a little older than he and Carl, and never close friends of his. They were never anything to him, in fact, until their younger brother, John, married Dora.

“Had you heard that John Drummond is back?” Carl asked, looking casually about him, and watching his former friend at the same time.

“No,” James said just as casually. “I have not had a chance to hear much local news.”

“Some people have wondered if that fact precipitated your decision to return so soon after the death of your father,” Carl said.

Yes, Benjamin and Adam would doubtless wonder. And perhaps John. And Carl himself.

“No,” James said, “I had not heard.”