Web of Love

Chapter 4

THE SUN SHONE FROM A CLOUDLESS BLUE sky as two open barouches made their way along the Rue de la Pepiniere, out through the Namur Gate at the south end of Brussels, and on their way to the Forest of Soignes. It was a perfect day for a picnic.

Lady Madeline Raine rode in the first carriage with her friends Miss Frances Summers and Lady Anne Drummond. Ellen and Jennifer Simpson rode in the other, the picnic hamper on the seat opposite them. Colonel Huxtable, Lieutenant Penworth, Lord Eden, Captain Norton, and Sir Harding Whitworth rode beside the carriages.

Madeline twirled a yellow parasol about her head and felt determinedly happy. It was possible to feel so if one concentrated only on the warm sunshine and the beauty of the forest that was approaching, and if one looked only at the splendor of the uniforms of four of their escorts and forgot about the significance of those uniforms.

“I have never been out to the forest before,” Lady Anne said, “though I have heard that it is lovely. I did not expect the trees to be quite so large.”

The three ladies gazed about them at the beechwood trees, their trunks tall and massive, smooth and silvery.

“I always feel as if I should whisper when I am here,” Madeline said. “It is almost like being in a cathedral.”

“I believe this is where we should turn off the main road,” Colonel Huxtable said, turning back to see Lord Eden’s affirming nod, “before we reach the village of Waterloo.”

“Is this the way the French will try to come?” Lady Anne asked of no one in particular as horses and carriages turned from the wide Charleroi Chaussee and into the forest with its widely spaced trees.

“Oh, no,” Miss Summers said quite firmly. “Ferdie says that they will come from the west to try to cut off our supply lines with Ostend. That will be the best tactical move, he says.”

“I think that for the rest of today we should declare military talk strictly forbidden,” Madeline said gaily.

“I could not agree more,” Colonel Huxtable said, “for everyone knows that the French are not going to come from any direction at all. Trust his grace and the allied armies to ensure that, ladies.”

“I would regret not having had one chance to take a good poke at old Boney’s men, though,” Lieutenant Penworth added.

“Yes, a captured Eagle would be a splendid souvenir to keep in one’s ancestral castle for the rest of one’s life, would it not?” Sir Harding said in his somewhat bored voice. “Your youthful eagerness is quite exhausting, Penworth, and is boring the ladies.” He bowed from the saddle to Madeline with exaggerated courtesy.

Madeline twirled her parasol and bit back the retort that it was all very well to affect world-weariness when one was a civilian and ran no danger of ever seeing an Eagle waving menacingly in one’s face from the clasp of a French hand. She smiled at a flushing Lieutenant Penworth.

The colonel handed her from the barouche when a suitable picnic site had been chosen, and asked her to take a walk with him, since it was too early to eat. Lady Anne and Frances were already settling themselves on blankets that Captain Norton had spread on the ground. Sir Harding joined them there. Lieutenant Penworth was bowing over Jennifer Simpson’s hand.

It was perhaps not quite proper to agree to walk alone in the forest with a gentleman, Madeline thought as she took the colonel’s arm and allowed him to lead her away. But she was past the age of chaperones and all that faradiddle. It felt good sometimes to be five-and-twenty and as free as a bird.

“Now I know why you wore a dress of such a bright yellow,” the colonel said. “It was so that we would have sunshine even in the middle of the forest.”

“Ah, my secret is exposed,” she said gaily, twirling the parasol even as she realized that its use was quite redundant with the trees acting as an effective shade.

They settled into their usual conversation of light banter. It was the way she talked with almost all men these days. Never anything deeper. Was she afraid to get to know any man too closely? Was she afraid to allow any man to know her? But she shook her head and smiled. This was not a day for introspection.

“You know…” the colonel said, and Madeline was instantly alert. The tone of his voice had changed. “Despite your very sensible ban on a certain topic for today, I will say that it is highly probable that I will have to leave Brussels at a moment’s notice.”

“You did so today,” she said, smiling up at him, “to attend a picnic.”

But she could not control this part of the conversation. His eyes were grave as he smiled back.

“I may not be able to return immediately,” he said. “Perhaps you will be gone back to England before I do so.”

“I shall stay,” she said. “Until Dominic is ready to go back, that is.”

“If you have returned to England before I see you again,” he said, “may I find you out there?”

“But of course,” she said gaily. “I always enjoy finding absent friends again, sir.”

“Do you comprehend my meaning?” he asked, looking searchingly into her eyes.

She gave up her pretense of gaiety. “Yes,” she said hesitantly. “Yes, I do, sir. And I wish you would not. Let us not spoil a day of pleasure.”

He smiled ruefully. “You do not care for me?” he asked.

“Oh, yes, I do,” she said hastily. “I do.”

“But you are afraid of what might happen?”

She drew in a deep breath. “I do not think of it,” she said. “It is not that at all.”

“Ah,” he said. “There is someone else, then?”

She looked sadly into his eyes. “Yes,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

He smiled slowly. “And so am I,” he said. They walked on in silence for a while. “I do hope you are unrolling a ball of string behind our backs. Do you have any idea how to get back to the carriages? We might be doomed to wander here forever and ever, you know.”

“What a dreadful fate!” she said. “But I am sure that after a few days, sir, when I am about to die of starvation, you will be gentleman enough to climb a tree to see if you can see the spires of Brussels or some other sign of civilization.”

He laughed. “But these are not exactly a schoolboy’s dream of trees for climbing, are they?” he said.

She had said yes, Madeline was thinking. She had said that yes, there was someone else. Why had she said that? Had she lied because it was an easy way to put an end to an uncomfortable conversation? And yet she had not felt as if she were lying. Was there someone else? Was that her problem?

But she did not either like him or love him. She had not seen him for three years and was unlikely ever to see him again. He had settled in Canada. He had gone beyond Canada into the vast inland wilderness, working in the fur trade. She very rarely thought of him consciously except when Alexandra had a letter from him. But she had said yes. She had agreed that there was someone else.

It was a long time since she had loved and hated James Purnell. A long time since that strange night at Amberley when he had danced with her in Edmund’s formal gardens to the faint sounds of music coming from the ballroom. When he had kissed her with a tenderness she had not known him capable of and with a passion that had had her expecting that she would be taken there in the garden, and wanting to be taken. When he had told her that she should leave him if she knew what was good for her, that he did not love her, that he felt only lust for her. When he had left in the middle of the night, even before the ball was over, and taken ship for Canada.

It was all a long, long time ago. Like something from another lifetime. Yet she had just told Colonel Huxtable that there was someone else. James with his severe, handsome face and lean, restless body. James with his very dark hair and the lock that fell constantly over his forehead, no matter how often he pushed it back.

Yes, she had loved him. Against all reason. A long, long time ago.

LIEUTENANT PENWORTH BOWED to Jennifer. “Would you care to walk a little way, Miss Simpson?” he asked. “Perhaps you feel like some exercise after sitting for such a long time.”

Well, the devil! Lord Eden thought. He was losing her to a scarlet cavalryman’s coat, to a young and eager boy. If he was not careful, he was going to find himself paired with Miss Frances Summers, who had been signaling her availability to him for all of the past month. But Miss Simpson would need a chaperone if she intended to walk out of sight, a strong possibility when they were in the middle of a forest.

“Shall we stroll along too, Mrs. Simpson?” he asked. “I confess to a need to work up more of an appetite for tea.”

“Thank you,” she said, taking his offered arm.

And they settled into a silence that he found difficult to break. It was strange-he had never felt awkward in her presence before. But he had noticed during the ride from Brussels that she had not once looked into his eyes. Damn him for a careless dancer. Their collision of the previous evening had been a small matter, but it had embarrassed her dreadfully.

And he had woken in a sweat during the night with the fragrance of her hair in his nostrils.

She was Ellen Simpson. Charlie’s wife. The quiet woman whose presence had always made Charlie’s tent a haven of peace and comfort. The woman in whose presence he had always been able to relax fully. The woman whose presence he had often been unaware of, though he had always noticed when she was not there for some reason.

She was just Ellen Simpson.

“Do you ever miss England?” he asked. “This is a very lovely spot, I must confess, but it is not home, is it?”

“Home!” she said softly. “Home is not a place to me, my lord. Home is my husband. And he has a habit of moving about with the army.” She smiled.

He looked down at her in some curiosity. He had never asked her about herself. He knew very little about her, in fact.

“Were you with your father from infancy?” he asked. “When did your mother die?”

“I went to Spain with my father when I was fifteen,” she said, “and lived with him until he was killed. And then I married Charlie. Ten years altogether. Ten years of wandering.”

She had not answered the second of his questions. Had her mother died when she was fifteen? Was there no other family to whom she could have gone?

“Which part of England are you from?” he asked.

“London mostly,” she said. “My father…That is, we had a home in Leicestershire, but we rarely went there. I grew up in London.”

“Do you not dream of going back?” he asked. “Of finally having a home of your own again? A place where you belong?”

“Yes, sometimes,” she said. “In the countryside. With no troubles and no dangers. So that I would not always have to live in terror that something was going to happen to Charlie. It must be heaven to live with one’s husband in peace. And in one place. A place that is one’s own. Oh, yes, I do wish for that.”

“The time will come soon enough,” he said, touching the hand that rested on his arm and withdrawing his fingers hastily. He did not want to make her uncomfortable again. “Charlie is talking of selling out once this business with Bonaparte is finally finished with.”

“Yes,” she said. “But I have learned in the past ten years not to look too far ahead and not to dream too much. I have my husband today. We will spend this evening together. That I can look forward to with some certainty and some eagerness. But not the home in the country. I will not think about that yet.”

“Charlie is a fortunate man,” he said.

She looked up at him, startled. “Oh, no,” she said. “I am the fortunate one. If you only knew! Charlie is the kindest and the most wonderful man in the whole world. He gave me a reason for living when I had none, you know. He is everything to me. My world would collapse if I did not have him.”

He had learned in the previous few weeks that there was more to Ellen Simpson than just the quiet strength of character that he had been long familiar with. He had learned that she could be gay and humorous and vitally beautiful. And now he was seeing that there was passion in her. He looked down at her, intrigued.

“I know something of Charlie’s kindness,” he said. “I am not sure that I would not have bolted from the terror of my first experience with battle if your husband had not been there to encourage me. It must have been a comfort to have him for a friend when your father died. Were you very fond of him?”

“He was good to me,” she said. “But I never knew him well. I had terrible problems adjusting to army life when I first went to Spain.” She smiled. “Charlie found me crying outside my tent one day because I had just brushed my hair and found the brush to be gray with dust, and there was nowhere to wash my hair. Or my clothes. I had never really experienced dirt before. He put his arm around my shoulders and sat on the ground with me and told me stories, just as if I were a child.” She laughed. “He was wholly paternal, you must realize. I was fifteen, and he thirty. And he told me of his little girl, whom he missed. Jennifer. After that, he used to seek me out often to see that I was not unhappy. And he used to bring me presents whenever he had been into a town. A fan. A mantilla. A clean comb.”

It was hard to imagine Mrs. Simpson as a bewildered girl, crying in the dust. He knew her as a woman who endured the worst of hardships with quiet cheerfulness. The only time he had seen her react to discomfort was when she had fallen from her horse into the mud one day and had been cursing like one of the men when he and Charlie had come up to her.

“I made friends among the women quite fast,” she said. “And I got used to the life. But you cannot imagine how having just a glimpse of Charlie came to light up my days. Sometimes he would wink at me from a distance. I suppose he was like the father I…He was like a father to me. Or an older brother.”

Like the father she had never had? Lord Eden completed in his mind. There was something fascinating about discovering what two of his friends had been like before he had met them.

“I asked him to marry me,” she said, and she flushed when he looked down at her with a grin. “It is shocking, is it not? After my father died, he wanted to send me to his sister in London. Lady Habersham, with whom Jennifer always stayed when not at school. He was willing to do that for me. But I asked him to marry me. I even begged him. He did not think it fitting. He said he was too old for me and not right for me.”

Lord Eden laughed aloud. “I shall have to tease him,” he said, “about being led squealing to the altar.”

“Oh,” she said, and she was laughing too. “Please don’t do that. Please don’t. I was very selfish. I did not even consider that perhaps he did not want to marry me. But I loved him so dearly. I could not bear the thought of being parted from him. Life would have had no more meaning. But I don’t think he has been sorry. I think I have brought him happiness, too.”

“If you had had to spend your days with him as I did when you were gone to England, ma’am,” he said, “you would be in no doubt about that. He was like a bear in a cage.”

She smiled brightly at him. “I am sorry,” she said. “I must have been boring you terribly, telling you these things.”

“On the contrary,” he said. “I have been fascinated.” And that was certainly no lie. He was totally surprised. He had always assumed that Mrs. Simpson had been persuaded into a marriage of convenience after the death of her father, though he had never been in any doubt of her devotion to Charlie. But of course, when he thought about it, he had to admit that her story made sense. Charlie was not at all the type of man to take advantage of an unhappy and bewildered girl.

“It seems that Lieutenant Penworth would make a good reconnaissance officer,” he said. “I am afraid I would be hopelessly lost in this forest by now. But you see? He has brought us full circle, and there is the picnic party.”

She seemed to have run out of confidences and conversation. It was something of a relief to be back with the others again and to be able to arrange matters so that he sat down on the blanket beside Jennifer. She was glowing with high spirits, as usual, and looking particularly fetching in a blue muslin dress and straw bonnet trimmed with blue flowers.

Lord Eden did not know why he could not shake from his mind the memory of Mrs. Simpson pressed to his body the night before, her face turned up to his. Surely such a thing must have happened to him before. If she had been a stranger or a passing acquaintance, doubtless he would have forgotten all about the incident by now. It was just that he was unaccustomed to thinking of her as a woman. She was Charlie’s wife, someone he liked and respected a great deal. But still, just Charlie’s wife.

It was foolish to feel this embarrassment, this awareness, in her presence. And to know that she shared the feeling. He did not like it at all. He set himself to charm Miss Simpson.

CAPTAIN SIMPSON TURNED to Ellen and blew out his breath from puffed cheeks. He laughed.

“Have you ever seen such a little whirlwind?” he asked. “If her mouth could move any faster, Ellen, she would make it do so.”

Ellen too laughed. “But she is enjoying herself so much,” she said. “And she has made so many friends, and amassed so many admirers, Charlie. You must be very proud of her.”

“I am,” he said. He walked away from the door through which his daughter had just whisked herself on her way to the theater with the Slatterys. “Sometimes I have to pinch myself, Ellen, just to believe she is my daughter. Can you imagine me being father to such a pretty little creature?”

“I can,” she said.

He smiled and sat down beside her on the sofa. “So this afternoon it was all Lieutenant Penworth, was it?” he said. “Can’t say I know the puppy, except that he’s a Guardsman. From Devon, she says, with a parcel of younger brothers and sisters and a love of riding and sailing and playing cricket. Do you fancy visiting our grandchildren in Devon, lass?”

“Oh, Charlie,” she said, laughing at him. “Jennifer is not ready to fix her choice yet. She very much has eyes for Lord Eden, but I think she is shy of talking to you about him because he is your friend.”

“Well,” he said, “I don’t want her married yet. She should have time to enjoy herself, shouldn’t she? Did you have a good time, lass?”

“Yes, I did.” She reached up a hand and smoothed it over the thinning hair at the side of his head. “But I would have preferred to be at home with you. Did you miss me?”

“I went to the shops,” he said.

She laughed. “You, Charlie?” she said. “To the shops?”

“How else could I buy you a present?” he said, grinning at her.

“A present? You bought me a present?” He had not done that for a long time, not since they were in Spain. Oh, he had given her money when she went to England, with strict orders to spend it on herself. But it was the little, often absurd presents that she had always valued most. “Where is it?”

“In my pocket,” he said. But he clasped a hand over the pocket as her hand went toward it. “What do I get first?”

She knelt on the sofa beside him and wrapped her arms about his neck. “What do you want?” she asked, and kissed him lightly on both cheeks.

“The lips,” he said. “Nothing less than the lips.”

“Oh,” she said, “it must be a very valuable present, then. All right, the lips it is.”

They were both chuckling after she had finished kissing him lingeringly.

“Maybe we should forget the present,” he said.

“Not a chance!” She reached into his pocket. Her fingers closed around a package wrapped in soft paper that rustled.

“Perhaps you will not like it,” he said, sitting quite still.

“I will,” she said, drawing it out. “I don’t care what it is. What is it?”

He laughed. “Open it and see, lass,” he said.

It was a pair of earbobs, tiny, delicately made, each set with an emerald.

“To wear with your new evening gown,” he said. “The one you wore last night.”

“Oh, Charlie,” she said, “they are lovely. And must have cost you the earth. You shouldn’t have. You don’t need to buy me expensive gifts.”

“Yes, I do,” he said. “Oh, yes I do, sweetheart. And they were the very smallest jewels in the shop.”

They both laughed as she wrapped her arms about his neck again. “Thank you,” she said. “But I don’t have a present for you.”

“Yes, you do,” he said, closing his arms about her. “You are a whole treasure, remember? My treasure.”

She rested her cheek against the bald top of his head as he hugged her. Then she sat back on her heels and looked at him, the earbobs in her hand.

“Tears?” he said softly, reaching out and wiping away one tear from her cheek with his thumb. “What is it, sweetheart?”

She shook her head. “Nothing,” she said. “Oh, Charlie, nothing. And everything.” The muscles of her face worked against her will, and more tears followed the first as his arms came firmly about her. She slid her legs from under her and hid her face against his shoulder.

“What is it, sweetheart?” He was kissing the side of her face.

“Everything is changing,” she said when she could. “It is all different this time. I’m frightened, Charlie. Time is running out for us, isn’t it?”

He forced her chin up and dried her eyes with a large handkerchief. “Nothing has changed,” he said firmly. “We are still here together, lass, and we still love each other. And it is unlike you to talk this way. You never did before. I have always come back to you, haven’t I?”

“Yes,” she whispered.

“Well, then,” he said. “I’ll come back this time too. And this will be the last time. I promise. We’ll go back to England and buy that cottage at last, and you shall have your own garden and dogs and cats and chickens and anything else you like. We’ll be there by this time next year.”

“I don’t care about the dogs and the cats,” she said, “or about the cottage or the garden. I only want you, Charlie. Tell me you will be there. Promise me you will. I can’t live without you. I wouldn’t want to live without you.”

“Sweetheart!” His voice held surprise as he caught her to him again. “Sweetheart, what has brought on this mood? It is most unlike you. Have I been neglecting you? Is that it? I have been, haven’t I? I’m so selfish. I thought you were enjoying yourself with Jennifer and with Lady Madeline and Eden and Mrs. Byng and Mrs. Slattery and all the rest. I’m sorry, lass. I’ve been neglecting you. But I love you, Ellen. You know I love you.”

She pushed away from him suddenly, grabbed the handkerchief from his hand, and dried her eyes with it. She smiled a red-faced and watery-eyed smile. “How foolish I am!” she said. “What a goose! And all over a pair of earrings. They are more precious to me than the costliest of diamonds, Charlie. Shall I put them on? Though they will look quite dreadful with this pink dress. But you must kiss me anyway and tell me how beautiful I look. And then I want you to tell me all those old stories about your childhood. The fishing stories, and the Christmas stories. Will you?”

“What a silly lass you are,” he said, taking her free hand as she rose to her feet to find a mirror, and lifting it to his lips. “You have heard those stories a hundred times. Go and put the earrings on, then, sweetheart, and come for your kiss.”

She sat curled in to his body for the rest of the evening, his arm about her shoulders. And she played absently with the buttons on his waistcoat, and laughed at his stories, and kissed his chin while determinedly shutting from her mind unwilling memories of a strongly muscled arm and a broad shoulder well above the level of her own, and of laughing green eyes and fair wavy hair. And of that cologne that he had worn also the night before.