Web of Love

Chapter 19

BEING AT HOME AGAIN AFTER SUCH A LONG absence was a pleasure too deep to put into words, the Earl of Amberley found. Fortunately for him, he was able to communicate with his wife at a level beyond words, and he knew that she shared his happiness. It seemed incredible to him that there could ever have been a time without Alex. Yet they had been married for only a little longer than three years.

His guests arrived only a scant day after his own family, and at the same time the Carringtons were coming home, bringing with them Walter’s friend Lord Agerton. And Susan and Mrs. Courtney had decided to travel down in their company.

There were visits to receive-from large, genial Mr. Courtney, who was beaming with delight at the prospect of having his beloved daughter and his wife home once more, and from the rector, who brought the local news, including the fact that Miss Letitia Stanhope was recovering from a severe chill and that his dear helpmate was in expectation of a happy event. The happy event had been an annual one for a number of years.

And there were visits to be made-to the Mortons and the Cartwrights, to the Misses Stanhope and the rector’s wife, to Mr. Watson. And to his dearest friend, Sir Perry Lampman, and his family. And of course to the laborers on his estate.

There were guests to entertain. He spent the whole of a morning showing off Amberley Court to Mrs. Simpson and her stepdaughter. And he spent more than an hour of the afternoon showing Lieutenant Penworth the music room and the long gallery, before the latter tired and sat at a window in the gallery to look out along the valley that led to the sea and the cliffs. Madeline stayed there with him.

The earl and countess organized a dinner party on the first full day their guests were in their home. There were to be twenty persons present.

“Twenty!” the countess said in some amazement. “Is it possible, Edmund? There seemed to be only a handful when we listed them off. But now when I write the names down, I find there are twenty.”

“It is just that we are familiar with almost all of them, Alex,” he said, “and do not feel there will be any great effort involved in entertaining them all. Now, twenty strangers would be a formidable prospect.”

“Yes,” she said, “I suppose you are right.”

The Carringtons were invited with Lord Agerton, Mr. and Mrs. Courtney with Susan and their eldest son, Howard, Mr. Watson, and Sir Peregrine and Lady Grace Lampman.

Ellen was enjoying herself in a somewhat tense sort of way. It was not comfortable to be in the same house as Lord Eden, of course, and she fully expected that he would find the opportunity soon to carry out some of the threats he had made at her father-in-law’s house. But so far he had stayed away from her. He had been out visiting friends much of the time. He had sat talking with his sister and the lieutenant for hours on end. He had accompanied Jennifer to the Carringtons’.

But if she could ignore what she knew must be coming, she could feel a certain contentment. The house and its surroundings were quite magnificent, though she had not yet seen the sea or been up onto the cliffs or been inland along the valley, all of which she had been told they would do during the next few days.

And the earl and countess were kindness itself, and treated her as a real friend rather than merely as a guest in their home. The countess had taken her to the nursery to see the children, and had marveled again that the baby was willing to come to her, though she did not smile. She rarely smiled for anyone except her father, Lady Amberley had explained.

The dowager countess was equally kind, as was Lady Madeline, though her time was taken up mainly with her betrothed.

And yet they must all know. They must know that she was with child. And they must suspect that it was not her husband’s. Yet nothing was said, and there was no detectable hostility in their manner.

She sat between Mr. Carrington and Sir Peregrine Lampman at dinner and was thoroughly entertained by the humor of both. She could not remember when she had laughed quite so much.

And after dinner, when some of the young people went downstairs to the music room and Susan Jennings held court to Mr. Watson, Lord Agerton, and Sir Peregrine, telling them of her dreadful experiences in Spain, Ellen sat with Lady Amberley and Lady Lampman, who talked of their children.

“We are being dreadfully rag-mannered,” the countess said after a few minutes. “I am afraid, Mrs. Simpson, that we mothers of young children become dreadful bores when we discover other ladies in like case. Grace has a daughter just a little older than Christopher, and a son a little older than Caroline. And I must make sure, you see, that my two cut their teeth and smiled and crawled and slept through the night, and so on and so on, at no later an age than hers. It would be shameful to find that mine had lagged behind.” Her eyes twinkled as she spoke.

“We have to make a desperate effort not to match Christopher with Rose and Paul with Caroline,” Lady Lampman said. “It would be the depths of degradation for us to become matchmaking mamas, Mrs. Simpson. But Paul’s fair coloring would be a wonderful complement to Caroline’s dark beauty, Alexandra.”

All three of them laughed.

Ellen liked Lady Lampman. At first she had thought the Lampmans quite mismatched. Sir Peregrine, with his laughing eyes and relaxed, amiable manner, must be several years younger than his wife, whose slim, upright figure and narrow face and dark coloring gave her a rather severe appearance. But there was a quiet charm about her that became obvious on closer acquaintance.

And Ellen had noticed an exchange of looks between husband and wife at the dinner table. There had been nothing very significant. She had not smiled, though there had suddenly been a great depth to her gray eyes. He had smiled, though more with his eyes than with his facial muscles. It had been an entirely private and very brief interchange that had made Ellen’s stomach quite turn over inside her with a longing and a nostalgia.

“You must tell me something about yourself, Mrs. Simpson,” Lady Lampman was saying now. “You lost your husband at Waterloo, I understand. I am so very sorry. Is it painful for you to talk about him?”

“No.” Ellen smiled. “For a few months I thought of him continuously and unwillingly-it hurt quite dreadfully. But I am beginning to remember with some pleasure. He was, I think, the kindest man I have known.” She proceeded to tell them about Charlie’s habit of buying her gifts for no reason at all except that he felt like doing so and knew they would give her pleasure.

And then the moment came. Just at a time when she was relaxed and enjoying the company of the two ladies who she felt could be real friends.

“Would you care to walk in the formal gardens, Ellen?” Lord Eden was standing in front of their chairs, his head inclined toward her. “Susan and Agerton, Anna and Howard have decided that they must take the air.”

Ellen looked at him and nodded, resisting her first impulse to make some excuse-any excuse. The moment must be faced. There was no point in putting it off. Somehow tonight she must find the words to tell him what he wanted to know, and what he had a right to know.

“You will need a cloak,” he said. “There is no wind, and it is rather a lovely evening. But of course it is autumn.”

“I will fetch one,” she said, getting to her feet and turning to the other two ladies to excuse herself.

JENNIFER HAD GONE downstairs to the music room with Anna and Madeline, Mrs. Carrington, and the dowager countess. She listened while her two friends played on the pianoforte, and stayed at the instrument after they had crossed the room to sit with their mothers.

She had never been an accomplished musician. The music mistress at school had despaired of her when it seemed that she always had an excuse for having neglected her practicing. She would be sorry one day, the teacher had warned, when other young ladies were playing their way into the admiration of handsome young men.

It had sounded a little silly to Jennifer. Was the playing of a pianoforte the only way to a man’s heart? And did only handsome men appreciate good music?

She sat down on the bench and played quietly to herself from the music that was propped against the stand. She was quite competent enough to play for her own amusement. She had no wish to play for an audience anyway.

“Are you going to play again?” a voice said from behind her when she was finished, and she jumped and turned in some embarrassment to find Lieutenant Penworth standing there, leaning on his crutches.

“Oh,” she said, “I did not know anyone was listening. I’m afraid I am not good.”

“Fairly competent,” he said. “There was something missing in the expression and feel for the music, I must confess.”

Jennifer was unreasonable enough to feel offended. “The piece is rather difficult,” she said. “Perhaps there is something easier in the pile.” But even as she reached out for it, she turned and looked at him again. “You are wearing just a small eye patch. I saw it as soon as we arrived, but have not had a chance to tell you that I had noticed.”

He propped one of his crutches against the pianoforte and seated himself at the end of the bench next to her. “Everyone has noticed,” he said. “How could they fail to do so? My face is a repellent sight. I wish now that I had not come.”

“Repellent?” she said in some surprise. “It is a great improvement on those bandages.”

He gave a bitter little laugh.

“Let me see.” She leaned forward over the keyboard so that she could see the right side of his face, which was turned away from her. “It is indeed a nasty scar. It curves all the way around from your eye to the corner of your mouth. And it is rather livid at present. That is because it is still quite new and because you have kept it covered for so long. In time it will fade, no doubt.”

He laughed again.

“I think,” she said, still peering around into his face, “that in time it will not be unsightly at all. In fact, I think it might make you look rather distinguished. And certainly very heroic.”

“Don’t mock me,” he said.

She clucked her tongue. “Your sense of humor is something else you left behind on the battlefield of Waterloo,” she said. “You really should learn to laugh at yourself a little, sir. And if you find people shunning you, you know, it is only because you have such a ferocious and morose manner. It is not because of your appearance. I feel sad for you.”

“Don’t pity me!” he hissed vehemently through his teeth. “For God’s sake, don’t pity me. I am mortally sick of being pitied.”

“I have no intention of pitying you,” she said tartly. “One has to like someone in order to pity him, does one not? You go out of your way to make yourself disagreeable, sir. I really do not know how Lady Madeline can tolerate you.”

“Perhaps because she is a lady,” he snapped back.

“And I am not,” she said, straightening her back. “Perhaps you had better move away, sir. I am about to murder your ears with my music again. Unless you want to turn the pages for me, of course. I suppose you can be a gentleman even if I am not a lady.”

“My right hand is occupied,” he said, indicating the crutch that he still held, “and my left hand is clumsy. But I will try.”

“Are you always going to have your crutches?” she asked. “You would have your hands free, would you not, if you had an artificial leg?”

“And I would doubtless fall flat on my face with every step I took,” he said. “I think not, Miss Simpson. Other people can find some other spectacle with which to amuse themselves.”

“Did it ever cross your mind,” she asked, “that other people might have better things to do with their time than stare at you?”

“Meaning that I have a false sense of my own importance,” he said. “Thank you, ma’am. You are always so very pleasant.”

“There is nothing forcing you to stay here,” she said, beginning to play, and finding that every finger was on the wrong note. But she played valiantly on. “I can turn my own pages, thank you very much. And you see? I am playing abominably and no one is noticing. It is a foolish and a conceited thing to imagine that everyone’s attention is focused on oneself.”

“Oh, my dear,” Mrs. Carrington called, smiling kindly and nodding from the other end of the room, “that is a difficult piece of music, is it not? Would you like Anna to help you find something simpler?”

“No, thank you, ma’am,” Jennifer called back, lifting her fingers from the keyboard immediately. “I have just finished.”

She looked at the lieutenant out of the corner of her eye, and the next moment they were both bent forward behind the music rest, tortured by smothered laughter.

“Let me try it,” he said, “and see if I can do a little better.”

All of Jennifer’s amusement fled. “Oh,” she said, “I suppose you are an accomplished musician, and I shall end up feeling doubly mortified?”

He did not say anything, but slid along the bench when she rose to stand behind him. He answered her question by playing the piece without a single error and-worse-by making sheer music of it.

She was very glad to see Madeline strolling across the room toward them. She was thereby released from the necessity of making some comment when he had finished.

“You play so well, Allan,” Madeline said when he had finished, one hand resting on his shoulder. “You are a real musician.”

“I have something to amuse myself with, you see,” he said, “even if I cannot indulge in more manly pursuits.”

“What a good thing it is,” she said, “that you have real talent.”

Jennifer admired Madeline’s endless cheerfulness and patience. She would have retorted that of course it was considerably more manly to play cricket, chasing a hard ball around a field for a number of hours, than to create beauty with one’s hands. And her own tone would have been quite as heavily sarcastic as his had been when he spoke to Madeline.

What a horrid man he was, she thought. And felt guilty at her own intolerance. He had suffered a great deal. And he had made a fast physical recovery from his injuries. It was all very well for her, with two arms, two legs, and two eyes, to criticize. She would do well to learn from Madeline, to become more ladylike and more compassionate.

“Are you tired, Allan?” Madeline was asking. “Shall I help you to your room? I will make your excuses to Alexandra. She will not mind at all.”

“Yes, I will withdraw,” he said. “But I can manage quite well on my own, thank you, Madeline. And I will stop in at the drawing room to bid Lady Amberley good night. Miss Simpson?” He nodded curtly to Jennifer.

“IT WAS NICELY DONE,” Ellen said when she was standing with Lord Eden out on the terrace. “I could scarcely say no in front of your sister-in-law and her friend, could I? And I suppose we are to take a different direction in the formal gardens from that being taken by the others?”

The other four were making their way along the gravel walks in the direction of a stone fountain at the north end of the gardens.

“Precisely,” he said. “Take my arm, Ellen, and let us relax and enjoy the coolness of the evening for a time. My anger has cooled too since the last time we spoke. I am not planning either to shake you or to beat you, if that is what you are afraid of.”

“I am not afraid,” she said. “I am not afraid of you, Dominic.”

They walked along the paths; the sound of their own footsteps and the faint sounds of the conversation of the other group were the only things to break the silence. They were making their way toward the companion fountain of the other, at the south end of the garden.

He broke the silence at last, when they had rounded the fountain and were out of sight of the others. He set his back to the stone basin and crossed his arms on his chest.

“Well, Ellen,” he said, “I have something to say to you.”

“Yes,” she said. She was facing away from him, looking along the valley.

“It is not, perhaps, what you expect,” he said. He laughed softly. “My brother has told me in no uncertain terms that I will not harass you while you are a guest in his home. Besides, I have had time to think. Time for both shock and anger to have receded.”

She said nothing. She continued to gaze along the darkened valley.

“Ellen,” he said, “I know that it is my child you are expecting. We both know that. And I want to have some say in the future course of my son’s or my daughter’s life. But there will be time for that. Time for arguments and quarrels. It is not an urgent matter. The child is safe with you for another six months. A mere father is very irrelevant in that time.”

She turned to look into the shadows where he was standing.

“I liked you, Ellen,” he said. “I don’t know of a woman whom I have more admired and respected. You are a very strong person. There was a peace and a comfort in your presence. I did not fully realize at the time that you were part of the reason why I liked to come home with Charlie. I think you liked me too. You always made me welcome. You never made me feel that I was intruding. You never made me feel foolish when I fell asleep in your rooms. You used to laugh at me, and at Charlie. What happened to our friendship?”

“You know very well what happened to it,” she said. “We destroyed it. Together. I don’t blame you any more than I blame myself.”

“By sleeping together,” he said. “By turning to each other for physical comfort when we should have contented ourselves with emotional comfort.”

“Yes,” she said.

“Three years,” he said, “balanced against six days. Should we let a bitterness, an estrangement, stand between us when we had three years of friendship and only six days of the other?”

“I can’t look at you without remembering,” she said. “I can’t just pretend it did not happen.”

“But there is a friendship even apart from that,” he said. “There was even during those days, Ellen. It would be wrong of us to remember it only as a physical passion. I want to know you again. I want to know what you have been through during the past few months. I want to become your friend again during your weeks here. Do you think it is possible? And before you answer, I want to tell you this. If you say no, I will leave here tomorrow. That is a firm promise.”

“Dominic!” She came toward him, and stopped a few feet away. “I don’t know if it is possible. I don’t know.”

“Are you willing to try?” he asked.

She bit her lip. “I don’t know.”

“Do you want me to go away?”

“No,” she whispered. She stared at him in the darkness. “But I cannot promise ever to be comfortable with you. I cannot promise that we will ever be friends again.”

“I can’t either,” he said, and he reached out to brush the backs of his knuckles along her jawline. “But I want us to be, Ellen. I want to be able to see my child after it is born, and it will be easier to do if I am on friendly terms with its mother.”

She said nothing.

“It is my child, Ellen, isn’t it?”

She was a long time answering. “Yes,” she said finally.

There was a further silence.

“Well,” he said at last. “I did not mean to force that out of you. I have not been setting a trap for you. We will talk about it much later. Just before the child is due to be born, perhaps, unless you broach the topic with me before that. For the time, let’s try to pretend that none of that happened between us, shall we? Let’s be friends.”

She drew a deep breath. “I’ll try,” she said. “Yes, I want to try, Dominic. I was very fond of you. Charlie loved you as a son, or as a younger brother.”

He set his hands on her shoulders suddenly, bent his head, and kissed her once, hard and briefly, on the lips. “Let the healing start tonight, then,” he said. “The Battle of Waterloo left so many wounds behind, Ellen. Those of us who survived are only beginning to realize how deep some of them went. Look at poor Penworth. And look at us.”

They were interrupted at that moment by the sound of a bright and laughing voice from the other side of the fountain.

“I am very jealous,” the voice of Anna said. “Dominic has disappeared from sight with a lady who is not me. If it were anyone but Mrs. Simpson, I should be sharpening my claws.”

She was laughing when she came around the fountain on the arm of a rather shamefaced Howard Courtney. Lord Eden was standing upright. Ellen was again several feet away, looking down the valley.

“Anna,” Lord Eden said, “I would tell you to watch your manners if I thought you had any to watch.”

She laughed again. “Howard thinks I am horribly wanting in conduct too, don’t you, Howard?” she said. “And you are quite right, both of you. I am suddenly glad of the darkness, which hides my blushes.”

“I am very glad of your arm, my lord,” Susan said timidly to Lord Agerton as they too appeared around the fountain. “I would be quite terrified to be out here unescorted. Is not that foolish when we are on Amberley land?”

“It is quite understandable for a lady to feel that way,” Lord Agerton said gallantly.

“It is time to go indoors for supper, I believe,” Lord Eden said. “The air is somewhat fresher than fresh.”

“I wish my cheeks did not feel so hot,” Anna said contritely.

“Serves you right,” her cousin said uncharitably.

“I am afraid I grew too accustomed to having my husband’s escort everywhere I needed to go,” Susan said.

Ellen took Lord Eden’s arm and succeeded in lifting her eyes all the way to his chin.

LORD EDEN WAS feeling restless later that night. He could not even think of lying down, let alone sleeping. He took a candle and went downstairs to the conservatory, always a favorite thinking place for him and his sister. And his candle jumped in his hand when it picked up her shadow. She was sitting silently behind a large fern.

“You almost gave me a heart seizure,” he said. “This seems quite like old times.”

She smiled. “Yes,” she said. “I can’t tell you how good it feels, Dom, to see you at home again, and to know that you are not off back to the wars in a few days’ time. Those were bleak times.”

“But all over now,” he said, seating himself beside her. “And by hook or by crook, I have come back in one piece. What’s troubling you?”

“Does something have to be troubling me?” she asked. “I couldn’t sleep, that’s all.”

“This is your twin,” he said, taking her hand in his. “You can tell me if you want. Or we will just sit quietly until we feel sleepy if you don’t.”

“Allan and I quarreled,” she said.

“And it’s serious?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know,” she said. “Maybe it wasn’t even a quarrel. I don’t know. We didn’t yell or throw things as you and I used to do when we fought. But then, you and I always used to forget our rage once we had thrown a few punches. I can’t shrug this off.”

He sat quietly waiting.

“He went to bed early,” she said. “He was tired and in some pain. I know. I recognize the signs. He wouldn’t let me help him to his room, though there were two flights of stairs to climb. And he insisted on going in to make his excuses to Alexandra. I went with him to the door of his room anyway.”

“It sounds as if your boy is getting some of his spirit back,” he said.

“He was thoroughly out of sorts when we got to his room,” Madeline said. “And when I mentioned tomorrow, he said I must go riding up the valley with everyone else, and I said that I would prefer to stay with him and read to him. And he was rude about the book we are reading. And…Oh, dear, this all sounds so very childish when put into words.”

“You said he was tired,” he reminded her gently. “He was probably irritable and did not mean half of what he said.”

“He did apologize,” she said, “when he saw that I was hurt. He said he had not meant it about the book. And he said that the reason he wants me to go riding is that I must enjoy myself and I must have a life separate from his. You see? I said it was not really a quarrel. But it is always happening, Dom. And he is always apologizing to me.”

“I think he is recovering, Mad,” he said. “I think he needs to feel his independence again. Especially, perhaps, from you, who have tended to his every need even during those weeks when he did not want to live.”

“You think he does not want to marry me?” she asked.

“I didn’t say that.” He squeezed her hand reassuringly. “But he needs to feel that he can do things for himself. And he needs to know that he is not spoiling your life.”

“But I have been so happy looking after him,” she said. “I have been so in love with him. I know what it is, Dom. I think I need him now more than he needs me. Oh, what a lowering thought. Is it true, do you think?”

“I’ve no idea,” he said. “I have used up my stock of wisdom for one night. But the relationship is changing, Mad. That is clear. Somehow you have to be prepared to change with it.”

She sighed. “I suppose you are right,” she said. “I wish for once life could be simple and predictable. And then I would probably be screeching with boredom. Should I go riding tomorrow, do you think?”

“Without a doubt, yes,” he said.

“Hm,” she said. “But I would far prefer to stay with Allan, you know. But enough of me. What is your problem?”

“I don’t have any,” he said.

“Don’t even try it, Dom,” she said. “Don’t even try it.”

He laughed softly. “It’s nothing I can discuss,” he said. “Not even with you.”

“Mrs. Simpson?”

“Ellen, yes.”

“I won’t pry, then,” she said. “Dom, we must be growing up at long last. We haven’t had a decent fight since we both came back to England. How dreary life gets!” She laughed and laid her cheek against his shoulder. “Are you ready for bed yet? I’m not. Shall we just sit?”

“Mhm,” he said.

It was his child. He had known it, of course. But she had finally admitted it. It was his child. And Ellen’s. There was going to be a child of his own in the world in just six months’ time. He closed his eyes and gave himself up to the wonder of it.

And she was not sending him away. He had taken a great gamble, telling her like that that he would go away the next day if she did not want him to stay. He had not planned to say that. The idea had come to his mind unbidden. But she did not want him to go away. She wanted to try to recapture the friendship they had once known.

He had three weeks. Three weeks in which to get to know her again, in which to persuade her to trust him and to like him. To feel comfortable with him.

Three weeks.

And could it be done? Could they be friends? Would they have ever been friends if Charlie had not been there between them? He knew that it was difficult for a man and a woman to be close friends without a physical awareness intruding. Could he and Ellen ever be just friends? Wouldn’t there always be something else?

And did it matter if there was something else? Would it be so disastrous if they loved too? If they wanted each other physically?

Didn’t he still love her anyway? Still want her?

But he must close his mind to such thoughts. First and foremost he needed to make a friend of Ellen. He had to do so. It was the only way he could be certain of remaining close to his child. And they could not be friends if she suspected that he still harbored any of those feelings that he had shown her quite freely in Brussels.

His only hope was to quell any love he might still feel for her.

“Sleepy?” he said to his sister. Her head jumped against his shoulder, and he laughed. “Come on, sleepyhead. Let’s get you upstairs to bed.”

ELLEN WAS SITTING on the window seat in her room, her knees drawn up against her, her cloak drawn about her for warmth. She was staring down at the moonlit formal gardens below, where she had walked just a few hours before.

She had finally admitted the truth to him. And it had, after all, been easy. She felt as if a great load had been lifted from her shoulders. He knew. She had told him.

She had also told him that she did not wish him to go away. She had had a chance to be rid of him. She did not think he would have gone back on his promise to leave the next day if she had said that she wanted him to go. But she had deliberately given up her chance to be rid of him.

She shivered and huddled further inside the cloak. She had said that she would try to allow a friendship to grow between them again. Was it possible? Could they ever be just friends when there had been that other between them? When their child was in her womb?

And did she really want his friendship? Could they be friends and be comfortable and contented again, and Charlie not there to share the friendship with them? Didn’t she need to punish herself for the rest of her life for the way in which she had betrayed Charlie with his friend?

Was that what she was doing? Was she punishing herself? But she had forgiven herself and Dominic long ago. Hadn’t she? Or had he been right a few hours ago when he had said that the wounds of Waterloo ran a great deal deeper than any of the survivors realized?

If it were not for the guilt, would she still love Dominic? Beneath the guilt, had she stopped loving him?

But no. She did not love him. She must not love him. He wanted to know their child. He wanted to see it as it grew. That was perfectly understandable, and she knew she would not be able to deny him that right. She must not complicate matters by falling in love with him again. That would be far too painful for her, and embarrassing too if he ever suspected.

He wanted them to be friends. And it was desirable that they be so. She wanted it to be so. She would try. For three weeks she would try to let friendship grow and other feelings remain dead.

She shivered again as she heard more than one set of quiet footsteps pass her room. She was not the only person mad enough to be still up, then. But she must get to bed and to sleep if she was to be fit to ride in the morning. Besides, she was half-frozen.

He had kissed her. And she had not been outraged. She had felt enormously comforted by the brief touch of his lips.

A mad thought. One very definitely not to be repeated.