Web of Love (8 page)

“I am going to take Dominic home,” she said. “But thank you, sir, for your invitation. Some other time we will be glad to accept.”

“I suppose you really are going to march me home too and tuck me up in bed,” Lord Eden said with some amusement after they had taken leave of the Simpsons.

“Yes,” she said. “Mrs. Simpson was right. You are tired, Dom. You have been working too hard.”

“I am not used to having a female to fuss over me,” he said. “In the old days I would have gone back to tea with Charlie and droned on talking to him until we were both asleep. And Mrs. Simpson would have removed the tea tray quietly so that we would not kick it over in our sleep.”

“Poor lady,” Madeline said with a laugh. “She must be very long-suffering. I would kick you both awake and demand to be entertained.”

He chuckled. “You would, too, Mad,” he said. “She loves him, though, you know. I would have married years ago if I could have found someone to love me like that.”

“What is it?” she said with a sigh. “What is it between those two, Dom? If you think about it, they seem so very unsuited in every imaginable way. But they light up in each other's presence. It should not be allowed, should it?”

“No,” he said with a grin. “There should be a law. And I say, before I lose my nerve, I have to tell you this. You are going to have to go home, you know.”

She stiffened immediately. “You mean to England, don't you?” she said. “I'm not going.”

“Yes, you are,” he said, his voice unusually grim. “Things are going to get pretty hot here soon, Mad, and I won't have you caught up in it. Edmund will be taking Alexandra and the children home within the next week or so—I mentioned the matter to him yesterday. And I have promised Charlie that I will try to arrange for Miss Simpson to travel with them—and you.”

“I'm not going.” Madeline's voice was shaking.

“I knew you would be difficult,” he said. “But you will have to go, Mad. You can't stay here without Edmund. And it wouldn't be right anyway. Do you know what happens to women when a city is sacked?”

“Brussels is not going to be sacked,” she said. “I have faith in our army if you do not.”

“Of course I have faith in it,” he said. “I am part of it. But I am not playing any games with my sister's life. Or her virtue. You are going, I'm afraid, even if I have to carry you kicking and screaming all the way to Antwerp.”

“I would come right back again,” she said. “And I am not being difficult or childish or anything else you are about to accuse me of. You are here and you are going into battle. And you are the half of my life, Dom. I won't leave you. I can't. You will kill me if you send me away. I don't care that Edmund is going. It is right that he should, for his life is centered on Alexandra and the children. But mine is centered on you, Dom. There will be any number of people staying. I will stay with one of them. Lady Andrea Potts, perhaps. She is my friend, and she will be staying, since her husband is a colonel. I won't go. Don't try to make me.” Her voice was shaking almost beyond her control.

“What a goose you are, Mad,” he said. “As if you can do me any good by staying here. And I will have you to worry about.”

“Then maybe it is time you did a little worrying,” she said. “I have lived with far worse than worries for three years, Dom.”

“Hey,” he said. “You aren't crying, are you, Mad? And we have three people to pass before we reach Edmund's door. Deuce take it, you never cry.”

“Well, I am crying now,” she said crossly, sobbing and hiccuping all at the same time and lowering her head until her chin rested against her chest so that the couple they were passing would not see her shame. “You can't send me away, Dom. You might need me. You might be hurt. You might…Oh, Dom, you might
need
me!”

“Silly goose!” he said. “We will have to see what Edmund has to say. He won't like it by half if you insist on being difficult, you know.”

“Edmund won't be any problem,” she said. “Edmund never treats women as weak females who must be protected at all costs. At least he has not since he married Alexandra. He will understand and allow me to make my own decision.”

“Silly goose!” he said.

 

I
T WAS
C
APTAIN
S
IMPSON'S
day off duty again. He was strolling with Ellen along the Allée Verte, a long stately avenue lined with two rows of lime trees, with a canal flowing along one side of it. It was a peaceful place, deceptively peaceful when one considered the fact that most of the gentlemen walking there wore military uniform, and when one remembered that the troops quartered in Brussels had been reviewed there a few days before, including the men of the Ninety-fifth Rifles and indeed the whole of the Fifth Division to which they belonged.

Ellen was feeling happy. It was a beautiful day, she had the whole of it to spend with her husband, and what was in the future was in the future. She could control it no more than she could control the past. The very best course was not to think about it.

She smiled up at the captain.

“Happy, lass?” he asked, laying one hand over hers on his arm.

She nodded. “Happy.”

He had come everywhere with her in the past few days. When he was off duty, that was. She had still gone shopping with Mrs. Byng and to take tea with Lady Amberley and some of her more personal friends with only Jennifer for company. But he had accompanied them to the theater, to a soirée at Mrs. Hendon's, and to a ball at Lady Trent's.

Poor Charlie. He had insisted each time that he really wanted to go. And it had been very wonderful to have him there, always within her sight. He had even danced once with her at Lady Trent's and been subjected to quite merciless teasing for the rest of the evening from Captain Norton and Lord Eden and Lieutenant Byng.

She had recovered from the vague and terrifying fears that had succeeded her return from England with Jennifer, the fear that something had changed, that something indefinable was missing, that something dreadful was going to happen. It had been the going away that had done it. When one lived with an army from day to day, one became accustomed to the dangers and the uncertainties. One learned to live with them. Being away for a while had brought to the surface all the latent anxieties that she was normally unaware of.

“I enjoyed last evening,” she said.

“Did you, lass?” The captain smiled at her. “Just being at home with me? It wasn't very exciting for you, was it?”

“It was,” she said, moving her head a little closer to his and batting her eyelids, “very exciting.”

He laughed. “Even after five years, sweetheart?” he said. “Do you think Jennifer really had the headache?”

“I think not,” she said. “She knew that you would have gone to that moonlight picnic only because you love the two of us, Charlie, and she knew that I would go only because I love her. And she has grown up a little in these weeks. She did something for us. She developed a headache and took herself off to her room. You have a kind daughter, sir, and I would say that she comes by it quite honestly.”

“You must come with me afterward,” he said, “and I will buy her that tortoiseshell brush she admired. Do you know the shop?”

Lord Eden was strolling along behind them with Jennifer. She had lost a good deal of her shyness with him, though she still blushed if he let his eyes rest on her for too long. And though she talked freely with him, she did not prattle as she tended to do with that group of young ensigns who liked to crowd around her, or with some of the younger lieutenants, like Penworth.

He had grown fond of her. She was a sweet girl, and a very pretty one. But he had not allowed himself to fall headlong in love with her as he would have done a few years before. He wanted to be more cautious. He wanted to make sure that he really wished to be in love with her. And he wanted to wait to see if he was in any fit state to court her after this confrontation with the French was over. If he were dead, of course, there would be no decision to make. But there were some things worse than death for a soldier. He might not wish to inflict himself upon any wife.

“I missed you at the picnic last evening,” he said. “I thought you were to be there.”

“Yes,” she said. “I looked forward to it because I have never been to a moonlight picnic before. But Ellen would have had to come, and Papa would have come to keep her company. And they are such strange people. If you would believe it, they would far prefer to stay at home together. And they have been so very good to me. I have been allowed to go everywhere. So I had the headache last night and retired early to my room.”

“Did you?” he said, looking at her with some amusement. “And did you sleep?”

“No, I did not,” she said. “I wrote a long letter to Helen West, my particular friend at school, but I had to shade the candle so that Ellen and Papa would not see it shining under the door, and then I could scarce see the paper to write. I was feeling thoroughly cross and sorry for myself by the time I went to bed.” She looked up at him and giggled merrily.

“Well,” he said, speaking more incautiously to her than he had ever done before, “I was feeling cross and sorry for myself too by the end of the evening. You were not there.”

She blushed and looked away.

But it was true. Not, perhaps, that he had been out of sorts just because of her absence. But he had definitely been out of sorts. He had found himself almost literally bumping into Susan Jennings wherever he turned, and somehow turning aside her veiled suggestions that they stroll and enjoy the moonlight together. Lieutenant Jennings was apparently about official business and had been unable to accompany his wife to the picnic.

Moonlight picnics could get one into more trouble than just about any other entertainment.

He looked down at Jennifer Simpson again, some light remark on his lips. But it froze there when he found her tight-lipped, tears glistening on her lashes.

“What is it?” he asked in some concern.

“Those horrid women,” she said. “I hate them.”

He looked his amazement.

“Did you not see?” she asked. “They walked quite pointedly past Ellen and Papa and made a great to-do about acknowledging you.”

“Those two ladies we just passed?” he asked in some astonishment. “Because I have a title, perhaps, and they think me vastly superior to the ordinary run of mortal.” He grinned down at her.

“Because Ellen is the Countess of Harrowby's daughter,” she said, “and they think her a little worse than the dirt beneath their feet. The two of them together do not possess as much worth as Ellen in her little finger.” Her tone was quite vehement.

He frowned in incomprehension and glanced ahead to Mrs. Simpson, who was saying something to Charlie and smiling.

“And Ellen persists in not noticing,” Jennifer continued. “And Papa says that those people are not worthy even of our contempt. I would like to spit in their eye, and I would do so too if it would not create a huge scandal and hurt Ellen worse than their snubs.”

“I am sure your father is quite right,” Lord Eden said, “though your anger on your stepmother's behalf does you credit. But the Countess of Harrowby is still alive.”

“Do you know her?” she said. “Papa told me when I asked—though he said he should not be telling me such things—that Ellen grew up thinking herself the daughter of the earl. But then the countess had a terrible quarrel with him and told him before she ran away with someone else that Ellen was not his daughter. And when Ellen found out, she insisted on going to her real father, who had always been a friend of the family, although the earl wanted her to stay and still be his daughter. She went to Spain, and she met Papa there. And I am glad she did, because they are happy together. And I love her.”

Her voice was shaking. Lord Eden held her arm more firmly to his side. “Mrs. Simpson is a lady, no matter what the story of her past,” he said. “You must disregard those who would snub her. They are beneath notice.”

“Yes, I know,” she said. “But I hurt for Ellen's sake.”

Lord Eden looked ahead to Mrs. Simpson, who was now laughing at something Charlie was saying. Yes, the girl was right. They were happy together, those two. And it was right that they be so. Charlie was the kindest of men, even to the soldiers of his company. He deserved happiness in his personal life. And Mrs. Simpson, from what she had said about herself, and from what he had just heard, had not had an easy life. Yet she had not let herself become embittered. She was a kind and dignified lady. She deserved happiness too. She deserved Charlie.

He felt a twinge of the old envy. Perhaps he had never done anything himself to deserve such love from a woman.

He was glad that she had recovered from that embarrassment that had made them awkward in each other's presence for a few days. He did not like to feel uncomfortable with Mrs. Simpson. He did not like to be aware of her as a woman, lovely as she undoubtedly was. Such awareness seemed disrespectful to her and disloyal to Charlie.

She was Charlie's wife, and it was perfectly right that she be so.

“There is going to be fighting soon, isn't there?” Jennifer said.

“It is possible,” he said. “But not just yet. You need not worry.”

“That is what everyone tells me,” she said. “But I do worry. And it all seems so senseless. I wish people did not have to fight.”

“Most of us agree,” he said. “But I am afraid we live in an imperfect world.”

“I think Papa is going to send me home,” she said. “I don't think it fair. Ellen will be staying, and she has been with the army since she was younger than I am now.”

“Your papa will doubtless worry less if you are safe in England,” he said. “And women who stay close to the fighting do not have an enviable lot, you know.”