The Gilded Web Read Free

darker or blonder or redder or some more definite color,” Madeline said with a shrug, placing her hand on her twin’s shoulder and waiting for the music to begin. “But to what do I owe the honor, Dom? You look rather as if you had seen a ghost.”
    â€œNot a ghost exactly,” he said, looking at her rather sheepishly. “Just Sir Hedley Fairhaven.”
    She looked back at him expectantly. “Yes?” she said.
    â€œAt the bottom of the garden,” he said. “Standing outside a traveling chaise.”
    Madeline frowned and fit her step to her brother’s as the orchestra began to play a waltz. “Is this a riddle?” she asked. “I am supposed to guess what it is all about, yes? It was a new traveling chaise? It was missing one wheel? It was pulled by four grays you would cheerfully kill for? They had pink ribbons threaded through their manes? Sir Hedley had a ring in his nose?”
    â€œHe was waiting for a lady to elope with,” Lord Eden said, twirling her as they reached a corner of the ballroom.
    â€œReally?” Madeline’s eyes sparkled up at him. “Are you sure, Dom? How deliciously scandalous! Who? Do tell me. You did not challenge him to a duel in order to protect the lady’s honor, did you? She wasn’t one of your flirts, was she?”
    She did not hear his mumbled reply.
    â€œWhat?” she said, leaning toward him.
    â€œI thought she was you,” he said.
    â€œWhat?” Madeline stopped in the middle of a spin. “You thought I was going to elope with Sir Hedley Fairhaven? Have your wits gone totally begging? If we were not exactly where we are at this moment, Dominic Raine, I would take you on for this. And black both your eyes too.”
    â€œHush, Mad!” he said, flushing and glancing uneasily about him. “People will be looking. It was half your fault that I made such an embarrassing mistake, you know. You have been hanging around with Fairhaven all over London for the past month, and you distinctly told me just last week that you would marry him too if you chose to do so, and I was to keep my nose out of your affairs, thank you very much.”
    â€œAnd you know me so little,” she said, dancing valiantly on, an empty smile on her face as she waltzed past friends and acquaintances, “that you think I would do anything so very tasteless and so very…stupid? How could you, Dom! To marry Sir Hedley, of all people. And to elope with him!”
    â€œYou must admit that you tried it once before, Mad,” Lord Eden said. “How was I to know that you would not do it again?”
    â€œOh! I was eighteen,” she said indignantly, “and fell in love with a uniform. And it is horrid of you to remind me of that youthful indiscretion, Dom. As if I have learned no wisdom and acquired no maturity in four years. Why did you think I was going to elope with Sir Hedley tonight, anyway?”
    â€œI overheard him,” he said. “I was sitting in one of the alcoves with Miss Pope and he was sitting just the other side of the curtain. I suppose he didn’t know there was anyone there, because we…well, we weren’t talking, anyway.”
    â€œI cannot imagine what you were doing with Miss Pope if you were not talking with her,” Madeline said caustically. “But whom was he talking to and what did he say?”
    â€œI don’t know who the other man was,” Lord Eden said. “But Fairhaven was planning to leave with some lady at midnight, and he was giving directions to the other about what to do tomorrow when the cat was out of the bag.”
    â€œAnd you assumed I was the one running away with him,” Madeline said.
    â€œI’m afraid so,” he admitted, giving her a disarming smile.
    â€œWhy have you told me this, Dom?” she asked suspiciously. “It was surely not in order that I might have a good laugh at your