The Devil's Web (7 page)

And did he love her? Did he not dislike and despise her? Did he love her?

J
ENNIFER AND
L
ORD
N
ORTH
, Duncan and Miss Marshall had also returned to the ballroom.

“Oh, dear,” Alexandra said, turning to her husband, “it was a thoroughly good idea of Ellen's, but I don't think there can be any truth in it. James and Madeline did not look as if they were enjoying each other's company, did they? I have never seen her so quiet. And James could not wait to return her to the ballroom. What a great shame!”

The earl smiled at her in some amusement and covered her hand on the table with his own. “Why all the world cannot be persuaded to be as happy as you and I, my love,” he said, “I could not say. But that is the way of the world. It is full of foolish people.”

“I have never seen Madeline so out of spirits,” Ellen said, looking up at her husband. “It is true then, what you told me, Dominic?”

“It would seem so,” he said, touching her cheek briefly with one knuckle. “Poor Madeline has fallen hard, and only she can pick herself up. A mere twin is quite helpless. How many times have I danced with you, love? Can we risk one more without becoming social pariahs?”

“Fallen?” Alexandra said, frowning. “Madeline? Have I been missing something, Dominic? Do you mean for James? But they used to dislike each other quite intensely, if you will forgive me for saying so of your sister. I can remember that.”

“Yes, they did,” Lord Eden said, taking his wife's hand in his and getting to his feet. “And still do, apparently, Alexandra. Altogether too much for casual acquaintances, would you not agree?”

Alexandra was left to frown down at her plate. “Did he mean that there is hope after all?” she asked the earl when they were alone. “James and Madeline. I cannot imagine how I had never thought of it. It would be so wonderful that I can scarce think of it without bursting with excitement, Edmund. But he used to dislike her so. Was it because he really liked her, then?”

“Alex,” the Earl of Amberley said, getting to his feet and drawing back her chair, “I had better return you to the ballroom and search out my next partner without further ado. It would not be at all the thing to obey instinct and kiss you in the middle of the supper room. You are quite adorable, and quite disastrous as a matchmaker, my love. You might be better advised to locate the nose on your face.”

“Oh,” she said flushing, “what an odious man you are, Edmund. It is true, then? James and Madeline. How perfectly splendid.”

• • •

J
AMES WAS
D
ISCOVERING
that there really was not a great deal of work to be done. There were trading goods to be received and sorted and listed ready for taking back to Montreal late in the summer—those goods that would be traded to the people of the native tribes in exchange for the furs they hunted. But Douglas Cameron was doing all the negotiations related to that task, and only one clerk seemed to be necessary for the more monotonous parts of the task. He and Duncan shared the work.

The situation was somewhat similar to that faced by the wintering partners and clerks—those who worked inland where the furs were gathered. There were busy days, yes, but there were also long, slack weeks between. One's presence was necessary but not constantly required. One had a great deal of spare time.

The difference was that in the vast North American wilderness one was thrown very much on one's own resources. There was hunting to be enjoyed when one was not working, and playing cards and reading and conversing, if one was fortunate enough to share the post with another partner or clerk. There was some dancing. And, if one had been wise enough to take one of the daughters of the country to wife, there was making love.

Here there were all the amusements of London to enjoy. And perhaps more. Three days after the ball he received two separate invitations. The first he would perhaps have refused if he had not met Jean even before going home to find it there. But she had received hers already, and she was ecstatic.

“James,” she said, coming into her father's house all rosy-cheeked from an outing, “has Duncan told you? I can scarce believe my good fortune. I keep thinking that it surely must now have come to an end, and then yet another wonderful thing happens.”

“No, I have not told,” her brother said with a grin, “it having escaped my mind, Jean, until this precise moment. You may have all the joy of impressing James with the news.”

“We have been invited to the picnic,” she said, her hands clasped to her bosom, her eyes shining at him.

“The picnic?” he said, amused, raising his eyebrows.

“At Richmond,” she said. “The one Sir Cedric Harvey is organizing. I was never more surprised in my life as to find that Duncan and I have been included in his guest list. And all on account of you, James. You will be going, of course?”

“This is the first I have heard of it,” he said. “But no, Jean, I don't think I will go. There is too much to do.”

Douglas Cameron chuckled. “Then it must be that you are chasing the ladies around, lad,” he said. “I am not exactly wearing your fingers to the bone, now, am I? Go and enjoy yourself. I have told Duncan the same. I shall manage without the two of you for one afternoon, I do not doubt.”

“This consorting with the rich is head-swelling business, man,” Duncan said. “Sir Cedric Harvey is the Dowager Countess of Amberley's particular friend, is he not?”

“But you must come, James,” Jean said, her eyes pleading. “It would appear most strange if Duncan and I put in an appearance and you did not. Please?”

“Of course he will go, lass,” her father said. “I will go one further, James, my lad. If you wish to take yourself off to Yorkshire for a few weeks or down to your sister's place, well, I daresay Duncan and I will hold the fort while you are gone. Eh, Duncan?”

James smiled. “It seems I am set about with people determined that I will enjoy myself,” he said. “How am I to resist? I will give in gracefully.”

Jean clapped her hands in delight, and Duncan slapped his friend on the shoulder.

“You'll owe me one,” he said with a grin, “for doing all your hard labor for a few weeks.”

So he was doomed to attend the picnic, James found even before he had seen his own invitation. And there was worse to come.

He was sitting in the nursery of the house on Grosvenor Square that same afternoon, his niece sitting solemnly on his knee playing with his watch on its chain, Alexandra sitting on her heels on the floor in front of them. Christopher was painting quietly at the other side of the room.

“You probably don't know how honored you are,” Alexandra said. “Caroline does not take to many people. Apart from Edmund and me and Nanny Rey, Ellen is about the only other person who is allowed to pick her up. And now you. I am very glad. She must know how much her mother worshiped you as a child.”

“Past tense?” he said, touching the child's soft dark curls. “You no longer worship me, Alex?”

She smiled. “You know I do,” she said. “You cannot imagine how I have waited and waited for your coming, James. And how now I am willing time to a standstill. Must you go back?”

He looked at her with the smile that would have been imperceptible to anyone but her. “I must,” he said quietly. “I thought just perhaps you would decide to stay,” she said. “You seem different. I thought perhaps you would have put the past behind you. You have not?”

“I have learned to live again,” he said. “But it is easier in another country, Alex. You are the only person here I really regret having to leave.”

“Not Mama and Papa?” she asked wistfully. “Have you not been able to mend the quarrel with Papa, James? I hoped you would.”

“No,” he said. “It is unmendable.”

She sighed. “And all over Dora,” she said. “Oh, James, she really was not worth all the agony you have lived through and the rift with Papa. I did not know her well, but she seemed very shallow. I am sorry. Forgiveme.”

“I have had to forget Dora,” he said, lifting his quizzing glass for his niece, who was looking for a new toy.

“It is as well,” she said. “Is there anyone else, James? Miss Cameron, perhaps? You hinted a while ago that she may be someone special. Or Madeline, perhaps?” Her tone was casual.

“Madeline?” he said. “Spare me, Alex. I have never met anyone with whom I was less compatible. You are joking of course. And Jean?” His expression softened. “I am very fond of Jean. But I am not quite sure yet how fond.”

“I wish you could come to Amberley,” she said. “How lovely it would be to get away from town and have you all to myself for a few weeks. I don't suppose it would be possible, would it?”

“It would,” he said, smiling at her just to see her expression suddenly light up. “Douglas told me for the second time just this morning that I may take a holiday if I wish.”

She scrambled to her feet. “You will come to Amberley?” she said. “Oh, James, you will see the house again and the portrait Edmund has had done of me and placed in the gallery, and we will go riding on the beach and up on the cliffs, and …”

“Mama!” Christopher's voice was impatient, it being the third time he had called for his mother's attention. “Come and see.”

“You are finished?” she asked, turning a glowing face to her son. “Let me see, then, sweetheart.”

Caroline wriggled off James's lap so that she too might see the completed painting.

The fates must be against him, James thought. After the disaster of the ball, he had resolved to have nothing more to do with Lady Madeline Raine. He would not even see her again unless pure chance caused their paths to cross. He would put her out of his mind and out of his life, even before he sailed with the
Adeona
again.

And now? It was too much to hope that she would not attend the picnic that was to be hosted by her mother's particular friend. And she always went to Amberley for the summer, did she not?

Good God, he would be living in the same house as she for a few weeks. And in the secluded atmosphere of a country home.

Perhaps she would go elsewhere. When she knew he was going to Amberley, perhaps she would stay in London. Or perhaps she would go into Wiltshire with Lord and Lady Eden. Lord Eden was her twin, after all, and there had always been a close bond between them.

Perhaps she would stay away from Amberley.

And perhaps hell would freeze over, too.

• • •

S
IR
C
EDRIC
H
ARVEY
rode out to Richmond Park in a closed carriage with the Dowager Countess of Amberley and Lord and Lady Beckworth.

“You must be warned,” the dowager had said to him a few days earlier when he had been making plans for the carriages, “in case you have forgotten, that Lady Beckworth must not be exposed to moving air no matter what the weather, Cedric. And now that her husband is no longer in the best of health, she will be doubly cautious.”

And so he rode with his friend and his guests in a carriage with the windows tightly closed on a sweltering hot day in late June when everyone else traveled in open carriages or on horseback.

“But it does not matter, Louisa,” he had said, “provided only they come. Strange people, the Beckworths. I could never understand people not simply enjoying life when it is so short and the future so full of uncertainties. They do not seem overjoyed to have their son at home, do they?”

“The foolish people are ashamed that he works for a living,” she had said. “They cannot simply rejoice that he is alive and well. My anxieties when Dominic was in the army for three years taught me to treasure every moment with my children.”

“But then you always did, Louisa,” he had said, touching her hand.

“I am so very pleased,” the dowager said now to the Beckworths as they were riding to Richmond Park, “that you will be coming to Amberley for a month. It is so much more relaxing to be in the country, is it not? And you will enjoy being close to the children for a while longer, ma'am.”

“If only Alexandra would not allow them to be taken outside so frequently,” Lady Beckworth said fretfully. “The sea air is most injurious to their health, you know. I have warned her that Caroline is like to grow up in delicate health.”

Lady Amberley smiled. “And you must be looking forward to spending more time with your son, sir,” she said, “before he returns to Montreal.”

Lord Beckworth inclined his head. “I have learned to live without him, ma'am,” he said. “All is as God wills.”

Altogether, Lady Amberley found, it was a great relief to descend from the carriage when they reached their destination and to find everyone there before them and in noisy high spirits.

Jennifer, Anna, and Miss Cameron were with Dominic's twins and young Caroline, although two nurses had been brought along to care for them. Christopher was perched on his father's shoulders, holding tight by a fistful of hair. Madeline was laughing over something with Colonel Huxtable, Walter and Mr. Chambers. Dominic and Ellen were talking with Allan Penworth. Alexandra, her arm linked through James's, was blushing over some doubtless teasing remark that William was making. Viola Carrington was looking flustered and indignant, as she so often did at her husband's quips. The Earl of Harrowby appeared to be deep in conversation with Duncan Cameron.

It was, the senior Lady Amberley thought, a very pleasant scene for a picnic. And she was particularly glad to see Madeline looking happy. Though one could never be sure with Madeline. Often the happier she looked, the more restless and unsure she was. The dowager saw a great deal more than she ever disclosed. She was worried about her daughter.

But this afternoon was no time for worry. She turned to smile at Sir Cedric.