Web of Love (30 page)

“She said not,” Ellen said. “And he did not argue.”

“When your mother was expecting you,” he said, “I never did so much as think of questioning whose you were. I would have if there had been any chance of your not being mine, wouldn't I? I always knew when she had someone else. I knew she had lovers. But I wasn't suspicious at that time. Besides, your mother was a careful woman. She would have made sure that you were mine. You were our first—and our only, as it turned out. You might have been a boy, Ellie. You might have been my heir. I think you are mine.”

“But why would she have said such a thing?” Ellen asked.

“To hurt me,” he said. “She must have been feeling particularly vicious. She knew you were the only person I ever really loved. She wanted to turn me against you. You weren't supposed to know. But I came and told you, didn't I? I suppose I was foxed at the time. And then your mother went off with Fenchurch and I haven't seen her since. She was in Vienna for the Congress the last time I heard of her. With someone I have never heard of. We weren't a pretty pair, girl. It wasn't all her fault, what happened. But you are the one who suffered most.”

“Yes,” she said, “I did. But everything in life has a purpose, perhaps. I would not have met my husband if I had not gone to Spain. And I would hate to have gone through life without knowing him.”

He patted her hand. “Say it again,” he said, “what you let slip a little while ago. It sounded good, Ellie.”

She looked at him and swallowed. “Papa?” she said. “I didn't ever call him that, you know.”

He patted her hand again.

She looked at him. And looked beyond the bloodshot eyes and the flushed cheeks, and the double chin. He had been her papa. She had curled up on his large lap and played with the chain of his watch. And had felt as if nothing on this earth could ever harm her.

“I am with child,” she surprised herself by saying suddenly. “And it is not my husband's. I conceived it from a lover less than a month after his death. And now I have started to let people think it is Charlie's, and I don't know what to do.”

Take all your problems to Papa, Ellen. And climb into his lap and let him soothe them all away.

“Are you, Ellie?” he said, his free hand smoothing over the back of hers. “The important thing is, are you happy about it? Did you love him?”

“Yes, I did,” she said. “Totally and passionately, Papa. Nobody else existed in the world for a week. Just for a week. Less, even. He was a friend of Charlie's and of mine. And then, before either of us knew what was happening, we were lovers. But it was all wrong. I loved Charlie. Or thought I did. Now I am so consumed with guilt and confusion that I no longer know what love is.”

“Well,” he said, patting her hand, “you will have a child to love soon, Ellie. You will find out. Does he know?”

“No.” She gripped his hand. “I couldn't possibly tell him. I don't want him ever to know.”

“It is sad, Ellie,” he said, “to be deprived of your child. Does he love you?”

“No,” she said. “Oh, he did for that week, as much as I loved him. But love is the wrong word. It was not love. And he does not feel whatever it was for me any longer. He is leaving London soon.”

“And you will be staying,” he said, “with relatives of your husband's and a child of your lover's. Well, girl, you will sort out your own future. You always did. I have great faith in you. But you know, you can always come here, Ellie. This will always be your home. And I will always be your papa even if I didn't beget you. But I think I did.”

“Oh,” she said, lifting their joined hands so that her lips rested against his knuckles, “if you knew what a burden has been lifted from my shoulders just by telling you all this! I think there is still a little of St. George in you, after all.”

He laughed with some amusement and she smiled up into his eyes.

“You'll come back again?” he asked. “You won't disappear altogether again, Ellie? You'll come back to see me?”

She nodded and got to her feet. “I have been here much longer than I planned,” she said. “I'm glad I came, Papa. You are really the only person of my very own left.”

“Come and be hugged, girl,” he said, and waves of memory washed over her as his arms closed about her and rocked her against him. Memories of bedtime, when her mother had been too busy getting dressed for the evening's entertainment to come to the nursery to kiss her good night. Even the same smell, some curious mixture of brandy and snuff and cologne.

“Oh, Papa,” she said, giving in finally and totally to self-pity and really not caring for the moment, “how am I going to bear it when he goes away forever?”

“You'll have your child,” he said, “and your papa. You'll do, girl. You'll do.”

 

T
HE
E
ARL OF
A
MBERLEY
was sitting sprawled on a sofa in a room adjoining the nursery of his house, his arms stretched out along the back. He was half-smiling as he watched his wife nursing their daughter.

“She is sleeping,” he said.

“I know.” She sighed. “And I should put her down, shouldn't I? She is going to have to be weaned fairly soon. She is seven months old already. It is not fair, Edmund. Children should remain tiny babies for far longer than they do.”

“Well,” he said, “when Caroline has finished at your breast, Alex, we will just have to see about putting another child there, won't we?”

She flushed. “Will we?” she said. “Oh, Edmund, you have me tingling right down to my toes.”

He grinned. “It seems a shame to waste the moment, doesn't it?” he said. “And Caroline is asleep. However, I have just recalled that the minute I step back out into the nursery, I will have to give Christopher that promised piggyback ride. And I am talking about giving you more children?”

“We are really going back to Amberley next week?” she said, smiling. “I won't believe it until we are there. Home again. It will be bliss.”

“I was somewhat surprised that Lieutenant Penworth has agreed to come along with Madeline, weren't you?” he said.

“Yes,” she said. “But I am glad. I want to get to know him better. And having him to tea does not accomplish that. Madeline is so very careful to protect him from any awkwardness.”

“And only succeeds in making the whole situation impossibly awkward,” he said. “Amberley will be good for him. I think he has what it takes to cope with his handicaps if he is left to himself, Alex.”

“You mean if Madeline will stop coddling him,” she said.

“I don't want to be unkind to her,” he said. “She has done wonders for him, I believe, and she is wholly devoted to him. I have never seen Madeline so unfocused on herself.”

“Will they be happy?” she asked.

He shrugged. “If they want to be, I suppose,” he said. “Being at Amberley should help them to get to know each other better. I mean, in more than a nurse-patient sort of relationship. The Simpson ladies will be here later. You are sure you want to invite them to Amberley too, Alex? I did not talk you into it?”

“You know I would have argued if I had disagreed,” she said. “I don't. But I am not sure they will come, for all that, Edmund.”

“Dominic has made a definite decision to go into Wiltshire,” he said.

“But Mrs. Simpson is bound to feel awkward with us,” she said. “We are his family, after all. It would be lovely if they would come, though, Edmund. It was an inspired idea on your part. Madeline is friendly with both of them, and Anna has become very close with Miss Simpson. And Walter too, it seems. And it would be good for them to have the greater freedom of a country estate during the time of their mourning. And I like them. I would enjoy their company.”

“I feel under a great obligation to Mrs. Simpson,” the earl said. “I am still of the opinion that Dominic might well not be alive today if it were not for her. I would like to show my gratitude in some way.”

“Then we shall ask them when they come to tea,” the countess said. “I hope they say yes. You speak to them, Edmund. You are much more persuasive than I am.”

“Am I?” he said, getting to his feet and taking the sleeping baby from her arms. “I don't suppose I can persuade my son to forgo his piggyback ride and my wife to visit our bedchamber with me, can I?”

She laughed. “No, you certainly may not,” she said. “You will behave yourself until the decent hour of bedtime, my lord.”

“I didn't think I would succeed,” he said with a sigh.

 

J
ENNIFER WAS BUBBLING
with high spirits. She still had moods of guilty remorse and would shed tears when she remembered that she was in mourning for her father. But Ellen did not resent the fact that the girl was returning to her youthful enthusiasm for life. Those two intense months they had spent grieving were quite enough for one so young.

Everything seemed to be going well for Jennifer. She had made friends and was having numerous outings. She had a few admirers, though Ellen did not think she was attached to any one of them. Including Lord Eden, she was relieved to find. Jennifer did not talk of him any more than she talked of Walter Carrington or Anna's friend Mr. Phelps. And she did not appear to be nursing a private
tendre
.

They had visited Sir Jasper Simpson more than once, and Mr. Phillip Simpson on one occasion. And Sir Jasper appeared to have accepted Jennifer as his granddaughter. Indeed, the girl confided to Ellen after one visit, he had told her that she had the look of her grandmother when she smiled.

And he was as good as his word. He was holding a dinner and quiet evening party in honor of his newfound relatives. He had asked both of them if there was anyone in particular that they wished him to invite. Ellen had said no, but Jennifer had had her grandfather smiling indulgently as she had eagerly listed almost all of her acquaintances: Lord Eden, Anna and Walter Carrington, Mrs. Jennings, Lady Madeline, the Emery sisters.

“Lady Madeline is betrothed to Lieutenant Penworth,” she had said. “I knew him in Brussels, Grandpapa, but he was badly wounded and he does not like to be seen in public now. I don't believe he would come.”

“But I will send him an invitation anyway,” the old man had said with a chuckle.

Ellen would have been alarmed at the mention of Lord Eden had she not known that he was as eager to avoid meeting her again as she was to avoid him. And he was planning to go into the country soon. She need not fear. He would refuse his invitation.

She could not bear it if he came. It was not that she was afraid to meet him. She had recovered from that sort of dread after her humiliating fit of the vapors. But she had accustomed her mind to the idea that she would never see him again. The wound was beginning to film over. Very thinly, it was true. But she did not want it rubbed raw again.

She did not fear the visit to the Earl and Countess of Amberley's. She liked them very much and remembered the kindness and the tact the earl had shown her during those dreadful days in Brussels. She did not think that they would embarrass her by inviting the earl's brother to tea as well. And Jennifer was excited at the prospect of the visit. She was hoping to see the children again.

She was not to be disappointed. Christopher was tugging at her skirt, waiting for her attention, when she was still exchanging greetings with her host and hostess. She stooped down as soon as she was able and hugged him. And then he was off again, in pursuit of his game.

The countess looked at her husband a few minutes later and raised her eyebrows when Caroline hauled herself up on her knees beside Ellen, clung to her skirt, and gazed up solemnly into her face. Ellen did not withdraw her attention from the conversation, but lifted the child onto her lap and opened her reticule so that the baby could rummage through its contents.

Ellen was taken totally by surprise when the invitation to stay at Amberley Court was issued. She had already expressed envy when the countess had mentioned the fact that they were removing to the country. And she had told them that it was the dearest wish of her heart to live in the country herself.

“Oh,” she said when the earl asked her and Jennifer to join them for a few weeks at Amberley. And could think of nothing else to say.

Jennifer was not so tongue-tied. “Oh, may we go, Ellen?” she asked, sitting on the edge of her chair, her cheeks flushed. “Oh, please, may we? Amberley is by the sea, is it not? You told me about it, ma'am, on our journey back to England, and Anna has told me about it. It sounds so perfectly splendid.”

“You are very kind,” Ellen said, looking from the earl to the countess. “But you really do not owe me anything at all. I did no more than hundreds of other women in Brussels.”

“Indeed you did,” the earl said. “The hundreds of others did not nurse my brother back to health, ma'am. But our obligation aside, we would enjoy entertaining you. And so, apparently, would our daughter. You would not realize how very rare it is for her to associate with anyone except her parents and her nurse. I suppose she would befriend her brother too if she could only catch him occasionally.”

“Oh, do say yes, Ellen,” Jennifer begged.

Ellen looked at the earl and the countess, both of whom were smiling at her.

“Madeline will be there,” the countess said, “and her betrothed. Dominic will not, of course, as he is going to his own estate within the next few days.”

“The prospect of a few weeks in the country is an appealing one,” Ellen said with the utmost sincerity.

Jennifer beamed with pleasure and sat back in her chair again. The countess smiled more broadly. It seemed that her answer had been made, Ellen thought.

“Splendid!” the earl said. “Alex and I always enjoy showing off our home to guests. That is settled, then. And from the noise on the stairs it is my guess that we are about to be invaded.”