Web of Love

Chapter 23

ELLEN WAS ROLLING HER HAIR INTO ITS USUAL knot at the nape of her neck. She had not brought Prudence into the country with her. She had been accustomed for years to managing without the services of a maid.

She was dawdling, she realized. It was well past her usual time of going downstairs to breakfast. And the outdoors certainly looked inviting. Despite fallen leaves and bare branches, there was a look of summer about the clear blue sky and brightly shining sun.

But she was dawdling anyway. And her heart made an uncomfortable lurch when there was a sudden knock on the door of her bedchamber.

“Come in,” she called, and looked in the mirror to see that it was indeed Jennifer who came inside and closed the door quietly behind her. Ellen put down her comb and turned on her stool.

The girl was looking pale, rather as she had looked when Ellen first came home from Belgium.

“Good morning,” she said rather lamely.

“Good morning, Jennifer.” Ellen clasped her hands in her lap.

“You were right,” the girl said in a rush. “When I thought about it, I knew that you were telling me the truth. And Lady Amberley told me that she knows Lord Eden could not behave so dishonorably, and that she did not think you could either. And Lieutenant Penworth says that such things often happen when a woman nurses an injured man. And besides, I think I would have known. Papa might not have, but I think I would.”

She stopped as abruptly as she had begun.

Ellen closed her eyes briefly. “Thank you,” she said. “I don’t think I could have borne to live with your hatred.”

Jennifer crossed the room to the window and stood looking out. “I’m sorry,” she said, “but even though I believe you, I cannot forgive you. I will try not to hate you, but I don’t believe I can ever love you again.”

“I’m sorry too,” Ellen said very quietly. “I did love your father, Jennifer. My whole life was focused on making him happy. And I think I succeeded. I still do love him. I always will.”

“No,” Jennifer said. “You could never have loved him. You are going to marry Lord Eden. And you love him too, don’t you?”

“Yes,” Ellen said.

“Well, then, all is said.” Jennifer turned back toward the room, her eyes bleak. “You cannot love twice in a lifetime. Either you loved Papa or you love Lord Eden. Or you have never loved anyone.”

“Oh, Jennifer.” Ellen looked at her pleadingly. “You are very young, dear. I suppose every young girl believes that true love can happen only once to each person. Everyone dreams of finding that one person with whom she can live in bliss for the rest of her life. It does not always happen that way. Love is a far greater gift than any of us realize. I don’t love your father any the less because I love Dominic. And I don’t love Dominic the less because I will always love your father. I can’t choose between the two loves and say that one is greater than the other. I can only tell you that I would have remained faithful to your papa and I would have loved him too for the rest of my life if he had not been snatched from me.”

“I’m sorry, Ellen.” The girl’s eyes looked at her in misery. “I want to forgive you. I love you so much more than I love Aunt Dorothy or Uncle Phillip, or even Grandpapa. You have seemed like my very own even though you are not my real mother, because Papa was happy with you. I want things to be as they were until yesterday, but they can’t ever be the same again, can they?”

Ellen shook her head. “No,” she said. “We can never go back, Jennifer. Only forward. But I am not a different person from the one you loved yesterday morning. And you are not different. Only hurt and bewildered. I think you set me on something of a pedestal, didn’t you, and I have come toppling down. I am just human, alas. But I need you. You may think that because I have Dominic and will have my baby, I will have no further need of you. But you are my only link with my first husband, Jennifer. My loss will be doubled if I lose you too.”

Jennifer stared at her uncertainly, one hand twisting the fabric of her dress. “You will be living at his home in Wiltshire,” she said.

“Probably,” Ellen said. “It will be your home too, whenever you want it to be. Dominic knows that I think of you as my daughter.”

“You won’t want me,” the girl said. “You will have your real son or daughter. You won’t want me.”

“Jennifer!” Ellen rose to her feet for the first time. “Have you not listened to what I have been saying? You are my family. At the moment, you are almost my only family. I am not married yet, and my baby has not been born yet. I have my father, whom I rediscovered in London a few weeks ago, and you. Wherever Dominic chooses to make our home will be yours too. Not because I will consider it a duty to take you in. I will not-your grandfather is quite capable of giving you a home and all the comforts and love to go with it. It will be because I love you and want you as part of my family.”

Jennifer continued to twist the fabric of her dress. “I will have to go away and think,” she said. “I was so determined not to forgive you. But I can’t remember all of the reasons any longer. I’m going now.”

“All right,” Ellen said.

But when the girl reached the door, she paused with her hand on the knob, turned, whisked herself across the room to hug Ellen very hard, and then rushed from the room without another word.

MADELINE WAS ALONE in the breakfast room with her twin, everyone else having already left the table or not yet arrived. They were laughing.

“Did you see her face, Dom?” Madeline said. “She looked as if she would have dearly liked to stuff a cushion down poor Mr. Courtney’s throat.”

“She was embarrassed,” he said. “Susan is very easily embarrassed.”

“Fiddle!” she said. “I do wonder why she objected to the announcement’s being made, though. Because it was the end of the evening, perhaps, and she was not at the very center of an admiring crowd?”

“You are cruel, Mad,” he said. “You never have had any patience with Susan.”

“I can have all the patience in the world with her,” she said, “now that I know she is not going to marry you. I have been a little worried. You have been her first choice, you know.”

“A mere baron?” he said. “When Agerton is a viscount? But perhaps you are right. I hate to do her an injustice, but I do believe she was trying to compromise me last night so that I would feel obliged to offer for her.”

“To compromise you?” she said, and laughed anew. “Oh, Dom, Susan is a priceless character, is she not? Will she make poor Lord Agerton’s life a misery, do you suppose?”

“I think not,” he said. “She was reasonably loyal to Jennings while he lived, as far as I know. And this time she will have her title as soon as she leaves the altar. She will be thoroughly happy.”

“I am not going to marry Allan,” she said. “Have you suspected?”

He looked steadily at her. “I wondered,” he said, “when he announced yesterday that he will be leaving tomorrow. Who broke the engagement?”

“I did,” she said. “But I think it was a great relief to him. We would not have suited. You were right all along, Dom.”

“Are you upset?” he asked, reaching across the table for her hand.

She shrugged. “Not really,” she said. “A little sorry, perhaps, for the awkwardness, for I am dearly fond of him. And restless. But no matter. I will contrive somehow to live on and to enjoy life. I always do.”

He squeezed her hand.

“And what about you?” she asked. “Dare I ask if the apparent amity between you and Mrs. Simpson in the last few days means anything?”

He grinned. “Yes,” he said. “It means that there is an amity between us, Mad.”

She pulled a face at him.

He winked at her. “And perhaps a little more. I’m not at liberty to say anything more just yet.”

She dropped her napkin on the table and ran around the table to wrap her arms about his neck from behind. “Then I will not by any means tell you how happy I am for you,” she said. “I won’t say a word.” She kissed his cheek. “Did Alexandra tell you that her brother is coming home next summer?”

He rested one hand on her arm. “Is that important to you?” he asked.

“Not at all, silly,” she said, straightening up and ruffling his hair. “But it is very important to Alexandra. She is excited.”

“Nice of you, then,” he said, “to bring it to my attention purely for her sake, Mad.”

She laughed. “It was more than three years ago,” she said. “I am not foolish enough to think that an old infatuation can be rekindled, Dom. I have grown up a little since that time. And don’t look at me like that. I know that I am just deceiving myself, and not you at all. Well, then, I do want to see him again. Just out of curiosity. So there! Are you satisfied, you horrid man?”

“You are probably crossing off days in your diary already,” he said, and covered his head with his hands as she tried to beat a tattoo on it with the back of a spoon.

LIEUTENANT PENWORTH TOLD the dowager countess when she inquired at the luncheon table that no one need concern themselves about him. He intended to spend his final afternoon in the country outdoors painting.

Jennifer was sitting next to him. “Are you good?” she asked while the other occupants of the table began to talk about something else.

“If I say yes,” he said, “I will doubtless be accused of conceit. If I say no, you will accuse me of feeling sorry for myself again. I choose to say nothing.”

“I see you are in your usual sunny mood,” she said. “How are you going to carry everything?”

“I thought of using the easel as one of my crutches,” he said, “and grasping everything else in my teeth.”

Jennifer laughed. “It was a foolish question,” she said. “Doubtless you mean that you do not wish me to offer my help. I was not about to, sir.”

“Stupid of me to think such a thing,” he said. “Actually I have servants lined up to load the gig for me, and a groom to drive me partway down the valley, from where there is, according to the earl’s mother, a particularly lovely view of the house, and to return for me two hours later. You see how I am beginning to be able to organize my life again?”

“I am all admiration,” she said. “May I come too?”

“I am not good company when I am painting,” he said. “I like to lose myself in what I am doing and am easily distracted by someone trying to chatter to me.”

“I will be very quiet,” she said, “and not even whisper to you. I declined an invitation to go riding with Anna and Walter and some other people this afternoon. I said I was tired.”

“Did you?” He looked more closely at her. “Come if you must, then. But I do not want to hear any complaints that you are bored. If you are, you may just pick yourself up and walk back to the house. Understood?”

“And to think,” she said, “that there was a time when I thought you a gallant and dashing officer. You are not very gracious, are you?”

“If I had two legs,” he said, “I would go down on one of them and beg you to accompany me. Under the circumstances, I would look rather foolish, would I not?”

“Decidedly,” she agreed.

An hour later the gig bounced its way for perhaps half a mile down the valley before the lieutenant was satisfied that he had the view of the house that the dowager had told him about. Jennifer spread a blanket on the ground and sat on it, her arms wrapped about her knees while he set up his easel and stool a short distance away in such a manner that she would not be able to see his work.

“Did you sort out your problem yesterday?” he asked before seating himself.

“I think so,” she said with a sigh. “I was very naive, it seems, expecting that some people in this world are perfect. Ellen is not perfect, after all, but she is not a villain either.”

“So all is well between you again?” he asked.

“I think so,” she said. “A little strained, but not quite broken.”

“I am glad,” he said. “Now, you must stop talking to me so that I can concentrate.”

“But I did not say the first word,” she said indignantly. “You did.”

She could have painted too, since painting had always been one of her favorite activities. But she had decided merely to watch and be lazy. She felt lethargic after an emotional twenty-four hours.

She was sitting in the same position an hour later, lost in daydreams, when she was recalled to reality with a start by the voice of her companion.

“All right,” he said vengefully. He cleaned his brush with furious energy and pushed himself upright with his crutches. “You win.”

“I am delighted to hear it,” she said. “But what is the prize? And what was the game?”

“You have made quite sure that you have ruined my afternoon,” he said.

“I?” She looked at him, all amazement. “I have not made a sound.”

“I might have been able to concentrate better if you had been shouting and singing,” he said.

“Well.” Jennifer glared up at him indignantly. “There is no pleasing you, is there?”

He spent some time sitting down awkwardly on the blanket beside her. Jennifer clasped her knees even more tightly and did not offer her help.

“I wish I had died!” he said unexpectedly.

“But you did not,” she said.

“I think I could accept the loss of my leg,” he said, rubbing his hip and grimacing. “I think in time I can learn to adjust my way of life to that. It is my face I cannot reconcile myself to.”

“You think yourself very ugly?” she asked.

“I know myself very ugly.” He spoke through his teeth and continued to rub his hip. “How can I ever…? How can I live anything like a normal life?”

“By becoming unaware of your scars,” she said. “If you keep hiding from people, turning your face away so that only the unscarred profile shows, they will continue to notice you. And if you keep on scowling, they will think you ugly.”

He laughed. “And will doubtless think me handsome if I smile?”

“No,” she said. “You will never be handsome. Intriguing, perhaps. Attractive, perhaps.”

“Attractive!” he said scornfully. “I am going home, you will be pleased to know. Before Christmas. I must face my family, even though it will be an ordeal.”

“Doubtless,” she said. “Are you going to scowl at them too?”

“You are not a very sympathetic person, are you?” he said.

“You once yelled at me not to pity you,” she said. “Have you changed your mind?”

“No,” he said. “I would a thousand times prefer your taunts to everyone else’s pity.”

“A compliment!” she said. “We are making progress.”

He stared ahead of him. “How one moment of time can change the course of a whole lifetime,” he said. “I used to dream of a perfectly normal life. I didn’t ask for much. Just my home and family. A wife by the time I was thirty, perhaps. Some children. A quiet life.”

“And now you must live the life of a hermit because you are ugly and crippled?” she asked.

He glared at her from his one eye. “It pleases you to make fun of me,” he said. “What woman would not recoil in disgust at an advance from me? Do you know why I have not been able to paint this afternoon? Because I have been sitting there wanting to kiss you, that’s why. Now, tell me that the idea does not repel you.”

She thought for a moment. “The idea does not repel me,” she said.

“Ah,” he said, “you are brave. Are you relying on the fact that I am a gentleman and will not put the matter to the test?”

She lifted a hand to trace lightly the line of his scar with one finger. “Does it hurt?” she asked.

“Not a light touch like that,” he said.

“Does this hurt?” She leaned forward and laid her lips against the scar. She was blushing hotly when she pulled back again.

“No.”

“Kiss me, then.” Her eyes were on his chin. “Put it to the test.”

“You do not have to be kind,” he said, his voice quiet with controlled fury. “You of all people.”

“Oh!” Jennifer scrambled to her feet and took a few steps away from the blanket. “Oh, how could you! Could you not see how much courage it took to ask to be kissed? I could die of mortification. I hate you, sir, and I hope no woman will ever have you. You deserve to live a solitary life. I have never in my life been so humiliated.”

“Jennifer!” His voice finally penetrated her embarrassment. There was a suggestion of laughter in it. “Come back here, please. Look, I cannot come and fetch you. I’m truly sorry. I was too busy feeling my own confusion to recognize your courage. Please sit down again.”

“I ought not,” she said warily, sitting back down nevertheless on one corner of the blanket and keeping her spine very straight. “I should walk back to the house.”

“Will you let me kiss you?” he asked. “I have been wanting to do so all afternoon. And long before this afternoon, if the truth were known.”

She could feel herself flush even more deeply as she wriggled closer to him on the blanket again and he put one arm up about her shoulders. The other hand came against her cheek, his thumb pushing up beneath her chin. She felt as if her cheeks were about to burst into flame.

“You are so pretty,” he said, “and so spirited. I wish I were quite whole for you, Jennifer.”

She was not given a chance to reply. His mouth was on hers, lightly exploring. And lifting away so that she could end the experiment right there if she wanted. But her arm was up about his neck by that time, and her mouth reaching for his again.

Somehow, during the next few minutes or hours they shifted position so that they were lying rather than sitting on the blanket. And somehow, during the same time span Jennifer lost her wits. The only thing she could think of to say when she was finally released was a rather meaningless “Oh!”

He lay down beside her, one arm beneath his head. “Thank you,” he said, finding her hand with his. “You are a very kind lady despite the frequently barbed tongue. You will be looking forward to the end of your mourning period and to finding a handsome husband.”

“One with two legs and two arms and two eyes,” she said. “Oh, yes, sir, my head is filled with nothing else.”

“Why is your tone sarcastic?” he asked.

“Strangely,” she said, “at the moment you spoke, I was thinking of a one-legged, one-eyed man who is not particularly handsome.”

There was a pause.

“I have nothing to offer you, Jennifer,” he said.

“No, of course not,” she said. “One has only to look at you to see that you are no more than half a man.”

“You cannot want me.”

Jennifer said nothing. She sat up on the blanket and wrapped her arms about her knees again.

“When my leg-or what is left of it-has healed properly,” he said, “I am going to see about having an artificial limb. Perhaps I will never get used to it. And then again, perhaps I will. But I think I am going to try.”

She still said nothing.

“Jennifer.” He sat up beside her with some difficulty and rubbed his hip again. “Perhaps by next summer I will be in better health. My scars will have faded a little. I will have sorted things out with my family. Your mourning will be over. I could come up to London then.”

She did not answer him.

“Would you want me to?” he asked hesitantly.

She shrugged. “Would you?”

“I asked first,” he said. “But no matter. Yes, I would.” He rested a hand against the back of her neck. “I have liked you since Brussels. Except that there you were dazzled by Eden and I was infatuated with Madeline. And we have not had much chance for anything since then except getting on each other’s nerves. But I find that I can say good-bye to everyone in this house tomorrow except you. I like all the others and will miss them. I will ache for you.”

“I wish you weren’t going,” she said.

“So do I.” He squeezed the sides of her neck. “But I think it is best. We are not quite ready for each other yet, Jennifer. I have to learn what kind of life it is that I will be living. I have to regain some of my strength-and I am talking not just about physical strength. And you too have to adjust to the changes in your life. It will be best to wait until next summer.”

“I suppose so,” she said. “I just wish it were not tomorrow. I wish there were a little more time.”

“There is a little more,” he said. “I don’t see the gig coming yet, do you?”

She shaded her eyes and looked toward the house. “No,” she said.

“Well, then,” he said, collapsing heavily back on the blanket and lifting his arms to her. “Come and kiss me again. And I will tell you that I love you, you little termagant. Shall I?”

“Yes, please,” she said, coming down across the upper part of his body and kissing his scarred cheek. “And I will tell you the same thing, Allan. You go first.”

“All right,” he said. “But the kiss before anything. I can tell you I love you in the gig going home if necessary. But I can’t kiss you there. Not without shocking the groom.”

He spread his hand over the back of her head and guided her mouth down onto his.

ELLEN WAS KNEELING on the grass of the lawn beside the house, holding on to Caroline’s hands as the child bounced on wobbly legs. The Countess of Amberley was standing beside them, watching her husband roll a ball to her shrieking son.

“I hope I have a little girl like you,” Ellen said to the child. “But then, perhaps I would be equally delighted with a son.”

“You think it matters,” the countess said, “until the baby is born and gives its first cry. I wanted Christopher to be a boy, of course, so that Edmund would have his heir. But I wanted Caroline to be a boy too as a companion for her brother. Yet I had to take only one look at her as the doctor told me I had a daughter, and I thought what a fool I had been to have thought I wanted a son. Now the next one can be what it pleases. I just hope it decides to arrive within the next year or so.”

“Perhaps it will be twins,” Ellen said, “and you will have one of each. There are some in the family, after all.”

“Then perhaps yours will be twins too,” the countess said with a laugh, and then grimaced and bit her lip and shook her head.

“Don’t be embarrassed.” Ellen stood up, the baby in her arms. “The thought had crossed my mind too.”

“I don’t think I am usually quite so gauche,” Lady Amberley said. “I will have nightmares about that one.”

“Well, you need not,” Ellen said, laughing at her. “I am not at all ashamed of the fact that I am expecting Dominic’s child-or children. Let’s change the subject. Tell me more about your brother.”

“James?” The countess smiled. “He was by far the most important person in my life until I met Edmund. I had a very secluded and rather unhappy childhood and girlhood, I’m afraid. I am not complaining, by the way. The years of happiness I have known here have made up a thousandfold for every lonely moment. James was my idol. He could do absolutely nothing wrong in my eyes.” She laughed. “He still can’t, for that matter. Are you sure you wish me to pursue this line of conversation? You might become dreadfully bored after an hour or so.”

“I don’t think so.” Ellen knelt on the grass again and set down the wriggling child. The countess sat down beside her.

Lord Eden found them there half an hour later. He stooped down on his haunches and smiled at the two ladies. “Hello, little beauty,” he said to his niece. “I don’t suppose you have a smile for Uncle Dom today, do you?”

Two dark and solemn eyes regarded him unblinkingly.

“I didn’t think so,” he said, touching her soft dark curls with a gentle hand. “You are going to slay men by the thousands when you grow up. Eyes like that should not be allowed. Whoosh!”

This last exclamation was provoked by the fact that his nephew had just launched himself onto his back.

“Is that my old pal?” he asked. “You just about bowled me right over with that one.”

“Old pal,” the child said, leaning over his uncle’s shoulder and giggling into his face.

“Ellen,” Lord Eden said, tousling the boy’s hair, “come for a walk?”

She smiled and got to her feet.

“Just don’t make her climb any cliffs today, Dominic, please,” the countess said, only to look up to find both her husband and her brother-in-law grinning down at her. “Odious pair!”

Caroline had the grace to wait until her uncle was strolling away toward the bridge with Ellen before looking up at her father, smiling that special smile that lit up her whole face, and raising her arms to be picked up.

“Bad little princess,” he said, stooping down for her.

“Oh, Edmund-” his wife began, but he held up a staying hand.

“No, Alex,” he said. “Absolutely and irrevocably no. I will not interfere. And unless my intuition is quite wide of the mark, I really don’t think any interference will be necessary. They are two reasonably sensible adults who have almost worked their way through a problem. If you want a prediction, I would say that we will be hearing an interesting announcement before another week has passed. So forget it. I am not going to do anything.”

“How rude you are to interrupt me,” she said. “I was merely going to remark that she told me quite openly that the child is Dominic’s. And I was about to predict that he is bearing her away to make her an offer. The very idea that I would ask you to interfere in adult affairs!”

Caroline had spotted the ball and wanted to get down again. The earl set her on the grass and turned to smile at his wife.

“It makes one almost envious, does it not?” he said. “Look, Alex, they are turning up the valley. Our valley. We haven’t visited our hut since coming home, have we?”

“We have had guests to entertain,” she reminded him.

“Soon,” he promised her, leaning down, his hands clasped behind his back, to kiss her lingeringly on the lips. “We’ll find the time to go up there soon, Alex. Who knows? Perhaps we will start our third child there, as we did our first. Now what are you indignant about?”

“You should not kiss me in public like that,” she said, turning pink. “Someone will see.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Christopher and Caroline?” he said. “It would be dreadful indeed for them to discover that their papa still fancies their mama at the advanced age of four-and-twenty, would it not? Or is it the servants you are worried about? I imagine they all have the intelligence to have drawn their own conclusions long ago from the fact that we have but one bedchamber between the two of us. Alex, you are poppy red. I really can’t resist the urge to discover if there is any brighter color.”

He set his hands at her waist and kissed her even more lingeringly.

She made no attempt to fight her way free.