The Devil's Web by Mary Balogh Page A

hands. She was twisting a ring on her right hand. Those hands had once touched him with desire. They had been warm on his face and in his hair.
    Her hands clenched suddenly in her lap, and when he glanced quickly into her face, it was to find that her jaw was set and she was staring down at her hands. He looked away from her.
    Duncan was describing how the
voyageurs,
or canoe-men, portaged all the contents of the canoes and the canoes themselves around rapids. He added some details of his own. It was inevitable, James supposed, that people here would be curious about their lives as fur traders. He did not resent the questions.
    His father, he noticed, had come for supper, but he had not approached their table. He was seated with the dowager countess and Sir Cedric Harvey.
    Madeline’s hands were alternately still and fidgeting. She had scarcely spoken. And for his part, he could not recall a time when he had felt quite so suffocatingly uncomfortable. He turned to her impulsively. Only a few people had risen and left the room. Most were still eating.
    â€œMay I escort you back to the ballroom?” he asked.
    She rose to her feet as the other occupants of the table looked at them in some surprise.
    â€œTo some private room,” he said to Madeline as they left the dining room. “We need to talk for a few minutes.”
    If she felt surprise, she did not show it. Or reluctance. He had half expected her to refuse to be alone with him. She led him to a small room at the front of the house. A morning room, he guessed.
    She crossed the room to the fireplace as he closed the door behind him, and she set both hands on the mantel, above the level of her head. A single candle burned there.
    He stood just inside the doorway, his hands clasped behind him, his feet set slightly apart.
    â€œIs there anything we can do about this awkwardness between us?” he asked.
    He thought she would not answer. She gripped the mantelpiece and stared downward. “I suppose,” she said at last, “we could contrive to stay away from each other. I would leave London if I could. But it is not easy being an unmarried lady in our society. My mother is in town, as are my two brothers. It seems that I have no option but to remain here too.”
    â€œI thought Lady Madeline Raine lived for London and the Season,” he said. “You must dislike me indeed if you would leave rather than have to meet me.”
    â€œOf course,” she said, and she lowered her hands and turned to face him, “the frivolity of London society is the only thing I am capable of enjoying. I had forgotten that you discovered my darkest secret years ago, the secret that I have a brain full of feathers. And as for my disliking you, you have never given me reason to do otherwise.”
    â€œAh,” he said, advancing one step farther into the room, “plain speaking. I found it difficult meeting you again this summer. And no easier after the first time. I have noticed that you share my embarrassment. I suppose the nature of our last encounter before this year has something to do with it.”
    â€œWhere was that?” she asked. “I have forgotten.” She raised her eyebrows coolly, but she flushed.
    â€œYou are a liar,” he said. “There is no reason why we should both remember that occasion quite so vividly. Even at the time we were both undoubtedly adult, and embraces happen between adults. But the fact is that we do remember it, and it has created this awkwardness. Is it because I left so abruptly and did not face you the following morning?”
    â€œIt was, as I remember, a rather hot embrace,” she said, lifting her chin. “It was doubtless due to the moonlight and the music and perhaps the wine. There was nothing particularly unusual about it, sir. I am sure you have done the like with many women, as I have done with many men.”
    â€œI suppose I owed you marriage after what happened,” he