The Gilded Web by Mary Balogh Page A

story, Eden. May we use it if we change the names?”
    â€œJust try it, my friend,” Lord Eden said, his customary good humor deserting him for the moment, “and you will be the one eating the barrel of a pistol. With my finger on the trigger! Your word, now.”
    â€œYou have mine, Eden,” Mr. Jones said. “Not that I think it necessary, mind. You should know us well enough to know that neither one of us would say anything to dishonor a lady. What is she like, anyway? Pretty?”
    â€œAmberley says so,” Lord Eden said gloomily. “Lord, what a coil! Forced to offer for a girl I haven’t even met.”
    â€œPoor Miss Carstairs,” Jones said, and winked at Faber.
    Lord Eden groaned. “Don’t even mention her,” he said. “I have to blank my mind. But I say, fellows, we might show a bit more sensibility. What about Miss Purnell? The poor girl must have suffered agonies. You know what females are like. And perhaps it doesn’t suit her inclination to be thinking of taking on Amberley or me, any more than it suits ours to be taking on her. She is supposed to be half-betrothed to Peterleigh.”
    â€œOh, Lord,” Faber said, “she would be a fool not to fly into your arms, Eden. Or Amberley’s. Peterleigh! He would probably whip the poor girl twice a week whether she deserved it or not.”
    â€œI have to go and call on my mother,” Lord Eden said, “and half-throttle Madeline. All this is her fault. I just wanted to hear you give your word first. The lady’s reputation has to be our main concern here.”
    Miss Carstairs, Lord Eden thought from the depths of his gloom as he turned away from his companions and headed his horse toward the Grosvenor Gate and his mother’s house beyond. Trust one of those loose screws to mention her. He had been in love with her for all of three weeks, and it was real love this time. All those other times in the past several years when he had fancied himself in love, he had been merely infatuated.
    But Miss Carstairs! She personified all that he found most desirable in a woman. She was small and fragile, with blond ringlets and blue, trusting eyes. She had a pouting rosebud of a mouth that his own lips ached to taste, and a tiny waist that he longed to span with his two hands. She spoke with the most adorable lisp.
    And she was beginning to notice him. Three evenings before, he had had the unspeakable joy of seeing her carry the nosegay that he had sent her that morning, and she had smiled shyly at him over it as she lifted it to her nose. Her mother had even nodded graciously to him during the same evening.
    And now he must renounce all thoughts of her. He must pay his addresses to a lady he had caught only the merest glimpse of that morning, a lady who had looked tall and thin and dark—not at all his type. That was if Edmund had not engaged himself to her already, of course. But surely, he would have had second thoughts on that matter. No, he would not. No one was more the soul of honor than Edmund or more eager to shoulder the burdens of his family. But surely the girl and her father would realize that his brother had no responsibility whatsoever for what had happened. Surely Edmund had been turned away.
    He was going to have to make his own call on Lord Beckworth after his visit to Mama and Madeline. He certainly did not relish the prospect. He would not be wild with enthusiasm about confronting any father under the particular circumstances. But Beckworth! The man had not been in town long, but already he had gained a reputation as a harsh, moralistic killjoy.
    Lord Eden had overheard him in White’s one afternoon expounding his social theories. Every unemployed man and boy should be transported to a land where plenty of work could be found for them, and every prostitute should be stripped and whipped in the open streets before suffering a like fate. England should be preserved for