The Gilded Web by Mary Balogh Page B

grew up—reached the age of eighteen, twenty, one-and-twenty—she would finally be free of the tyranny of his terrible sense of obligation for her spiritual welfare. But it was not so easy to shake off the pattern of a lifetime when one was a woman, she had discovered as she reached each of those milestones of age. Always one must be dependent upon a man for the very means of survival. And wholly subject to his will.
    â€œGo your room now,” Lord Beckworth said, “and remain on your knees until Mrs. Rey is sent to prepare you for the earl’s visit. You will ignore the bell for luncheon.”
    â€œYes, Papa,” she said, and turned to leave.
    â€œAnd, Alexandra.” His voice held her still again, though she did not turn to face him. “If you refuse the earl’s offer, I will consider it a sign from God that I must take on direct responsibility for your soul again. It will grieve me and hurt me probably more than it will you, but I will have to resume punishing your lapses in the only way your stubborn spirit seems to understand.”
    Alexandra drew a deep and silent breath, lifted her head, and proceeded on her way to her room, where she knelt obediently and unsupervised for almost three hours until Nanny Rey came bustling and clucking to her rescue. She prayed that feeling would never become so deadened in her that she would become bitter and cynical and hate-filled as James was. She prayed for James, that her deep affection for him would prove sufficient to keep alive in him the spark of love that had been all but quenched five years before.

    L ORD E DEN SPENT THE MORNING at Tattersall’s. He did not go there with any intention of buying horses. He was quite satisfied with the ones he had. But his friend Faber was on the lookout for a new team of chestnuts and had asked him to go along to give a second opinion. And he had nothing else to do.
    Indeed, he was feeling decidedly restless. The pleasures of the Season were beginning to pall, as they always did after a month or so. But this one had just become even more dreary than all the previous ones. Other years he had kept the same flirt throughout, convinced on each occasion that what he felt was true love. And yet he had found each time a few weeks after the Season was over and he was away from London that he had forgotten the girl.
    It was really too bad that the one year when he was really in love, the flirtation was over even before the end of the Season. Miss Carstairs had refused to drive with him the previous afternoon, and had turned her back on him when he had called at her box at the opera the evening before. Her mother too had stared stonily down into the pit while he had been forced to make stilted conversation with the three remaining members of their party. He understood that he was in disgrace and was no longer considered a desirable suitor.
    The prospect of balls and other entertainments for the weeks to come without the chance of coaxing a smile or a blush from Miss Carstairs was a dreary one indeed. It would be even more painful when she began to turn her attentions elsewhere, as she was bound to do soon. Everyone knew that old Carstairs had brought her to London with the express purpose of finding a wealthy husband for her before the end of the Season.
    Lord Eden wished he had something to do beyond the usual daily round of amusements. He spent part of each summer on his own estate in Wiltshire, but it was a part of the country he had never allowed himself to become familiar with, and the estate was run by an aging but amazingly efficient bailiff who had been in charge of it since before his birth. His presence there always seemed redundant. He preferred to spend his time on Edmund’s estate in Hampshire, where he had been brought up and where people and surroundings were familiar. But there was nothing very constructive for him to do there.
    He wanted to be in the army and had done so since he was sixteen