Web of Love (6 page)

“Thank you,” she said crossly. “We all know that without your generosity my reputation would have been in shreds forevermore. And do take that grin off your face.”

“I love you when you are prickly,” he said. “And you know very well that you married me eventually quite of your own free will. Though Christopher might have found himself in a nasty situation if you had not.”

“Edmund,” she said, catching at his wrists, “don't do that until we are lying down, please. You know it always makes me weak at the knees.”

“Easily remedied, my love,” he said, stooping down and swinging her up into his arms.

E
LLEN WAS LYING
beside her husband, his arm beneath her head, as usual.

“You would not like to come?” she asked. “Tomorrow is a free day for you, Charlie, and the forest is said to be a beautiful place.”

“I would as soon stay at home, lass,” he said, “unless you really want me to come. Is it asking too much to expect you to go about everywhere with Jennifer? I am very selfish, aren't I? I'll come, then. I'll come with you, Ellen.”

“No.” She sighed and kissed his cheek. “You would hate every minute of it, and I would not enjoy myself at all. But it would have been pleasant, would it not, to have been at home together tomorrow? We could have taken a stroll in the park in the afternoon. But never mind. We will have the evening. The Slatterys have invited Jennifer to the theater, remember?”

“Mm,” he said. “That will be nice, sweetheart. Would you prefer that I took you out somewhere?”

“No,” she said. “I want one of our quiet evenings at home together, Charlie. Just you and me. Just like old times.”

They lapsed into silence, and she was back in the ballroom, the music swirling in her head, the room spinning wildly about her. Noise and laughter, color and movement. The smell of a man's cologne. She turned restlessly onto her side.

“I'm cold,” she said when her husband opened his eyes and turned his head.

“On a warm night like this, lass?” he said. “Hey, you are shivering.” He rubbed his large hands over her back and pulled the blankets close about her. “Cuddle close, sweetheart. I'll warm you up.”

“I love you, Charlie,” she said, burrowing her head beneath his chin and closing her eyes tightly. She spread her hands on his broad and warm chest. “I love you so very much. You do believe that, don't you?”

“Of course I believe it, lass,” he said, smoothing one hand over her hair. “And you know you are my treasure and always will be. Are you feeling warmer? Lift your face to me and let me kiss you.”

She tipped back her head with an almost desperate eagerness and slid one arm up about his neck.

T
HE SUN SHONE FROM A CLOUDLESS BLUE sky as two open barouches made their way along the Rue de la Pépinière, 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 Chaussée 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.

 

L
IEUTENANT
P
ENWORTH 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.”