Mary Balogh - Web of Love

The hands in her lap looked relaxed until one observed closely and saw the whiteness of her knuckles. She had sat beside him many times with one of those hands in his, smiling at him while he kissed each finger separately.

“I felt that I must call on you and Miss Simpson,” he said, “to see that you have settled comfortably in this country.”

He had dreamed once of settling her on his own estate in Wiltshire. He had told her about it once when she lay in his arms, her hand smoothing gently over the bandages on his chest. He had told her how it had been his since the death of his father but how he had never really thought of it as home. But he had dreamed of doing so then with a wife of his own to take there. Though he had not said that to her.

“That is very kind of you, my lord,” she said. “We have settled well. My sister-in-law has been very good to us, and tomorrow we are to take tea with Sir Jasper Simpson.”

“With Charlie’s father?” he asked in some surprise.

The name brought spots of color to her cheeks and increased his own discomfort. The name of her husband, his friend.

“Yes,” she said, “we are to meet him tomorrow.”

He had dreamed of presenting her to his own family. As his future wife. He had dreamed of how his mother would love her, of how Edmund would approve his choice, of how Alexandra and Madeline would become her close friends.

He had dreamed a whole lot of dreams that he had never experienced with his other mistresses. But then, she had not been his mistress. It was an unsatisfactory word applied to her, suggesting a kept woman.

Ellen had been his lover. For a brief time. In the past.

“Miss Simpson will come with us, Dom,” Madeline’s bright voice said, reminding Lord Eden that he was in a room with other people as well as her. “And will you, ma’am?” She smiled at Lady Habersham. “And you, Mrs. Simpson? But you were talking with Dom then and did not hear. We are going to drive to Kensington Gardens and walk there awhile.”

“I am afraid I have another engagement later this afternoon,” Lady Habersham said.

“Then Mrs. Simpson must come,” Madeline said. She smiled engagingly. “You really must. I have just come home and I have recently become betrothed to Lieutenant Penworth and I simply must have someone to boast to.”

“You are betrothed to Lieutenant Penworth?” Jennifer said with a smile. “How splendid! He must be considerably better, then? I cried when Ellen told me about his injuries. I could not help remembering how he loved to talk about riding and sailing and playing sports at home in Devon.”

“You will come?” Lord Eden asked Ellen.

He watched her draw in a slow breath. She looked across at Madeline, her expression quite calm.

“Thank you,” she said, “that would be pleasant. I shall come as chaperone for Jennifer again.”

Madeline laughed. “You must come as our friend,” she said. “I would be quite chaperone enough for Miss Simpson, you see. Shall we leave? And then we will not keep you from your other appointment, ma’am.” She smiled at Lady Habersham.

Lord Eden got up as Ellen rose to her feet and left the room for a bonnet and shawl. Jennifer smiled brightly at him and followed her stepmother.

Lord Eden’s eyes met his sister’s smiling ones across the room.

MADELINE SAT BESIDE ELLEN IN THE CARRIAGE, Lord Eden and Jennifer opposite them. Madeline talked brightly to all three for a few minutes before the conversation divided itself into two pairs. Then she talked to Ellen about her betrothal.

Ellen did not know quite how it had come about that she was sitting in the carriage at all. She had been prepared for Lord Eden’s calling at Dorothy’s. She had been prepared for his asking Jennifer to go walking with him. And she had even considered the possibility that he would extend the invitation to include her too. She had had her answer all ready. A maid could accompany Jennifer.

In the event, a refusal would have been even easier than anticipated. Her stepdaughter would not have even needed a maid as chaperone, since Lady Madeline was to be with her.

Yet here she sat, Ellen thought ruefully. And how did one avoid altogether looking at a tall and fashionable gentleman who sat opposite, his knees almost touching one’s own? And more to the point, why would she wish to avoid looking at him? She should look across, meet his eyes, smile coolly, and dispel this terrible embarrassment and awareness that were making her extremely uncomfortable.

She kept her head turned and her attention focused on Madeline beside her.

“He is beginning to realize,” Madeline said in response to Ellen’s question, a twinkle in her eye, “that short of suicide, he is doomed to live on for a time at least. He realizes that he must somehow make that life worth living. He can never do any of the things he enjoyed doing before, of course. He has to begin life anew. I have been reading to him. I have been encouraging him to paint and concentrate on music. He is apparently accomplished in both, though of course the painting may be more difficult now that he has only one eye. But the foolish man, of course, does not see those as manly accomplishments.”

“It has been only three months,” Ellen said. “I believe that if the lieutenant is already beginning to think that there is a future to plan for, then he is doing remarkably well. I am sure that having you has helped him enormously, of course.”

Madeline laughed. “You would not think so if you had ever heard him arguing with me,” she said, “and trying to send me away. The very worst thing for him, you see, and the one he will perhaps never adjust his mind to, is his appearance. He will not receive company or go outside his cousin’s door. He will not inflict the sight of himself on other people. The foolish man.”

“He was a good-looking young man just a few months ago,” Ellen said gently. “It must be hard for him.”

“Yes, it is,” Madeline said. “But he need not fear. I am going to spend the rest of my life looking after him and making life easy for him.” She smiled at her companion. “I am very happy, Mrs. Simpson.”

“I am glad.” Ellen smiled back. “Everyone deserves to know some of that kind of happiness in life.”

Madeline opened her mouth and closed it again. Her eyes saddened. “It will happen for you again,” she said very quietly.

Lord Eden helped all three ladies from the carriage when they reached Kensington Gardens, Ellen last. By the time she stepped down onto the pavement, she was dismayed to find that Madeline had already linked her arm through Jennifer’s and was walking off with her. She drew a steadying breath.

“This is what you did not wish for, is it not?” Lord Eden said, offering her his arm. “I must confess that I had hoped to avoid it too. It is difficult to meet again.”

Well, Ellen supposed, if they must speak to each other, it was probably better to speak openly like this rather than in the stilted manner in which they had conversed at Dorothy’s. “Yes,” she said.

“Do you blame me for coming?” he asked. “Do you wish I had not?”

“Why did you?” she asked. “Nothing can be accomplished by our meeting again. Only embarrassment for both of us.”

“I had to come,” he said. “I promised Charlie that I would see you and Miss Simpson safe.”

She felt her stomach lurch and was afraid that she was going to be overcome by dizziness again.

“We must not avoid his name,” he said. “He was my friend. The two of you were my friends, Ellen. I would hate to think that a few days of thoughtless madness have wiped out three years of friendship.”

She said nothing for a while. “But they did,” she said at last.

“Yes, I suppose so.” He looked about him at the grass dotted with fallen leaves. “I had hoped that perhaps we could still be friends. But I suppose we can’t. We can make all sorts of excuses for what happened between us, but the fact is that it happened and will always be there, a shared embarrassment.”

“Yes,” she said.

He drew an audible breath. “So what are your plans now?” he asked. “You are going to call on Charlie’s father, you said?”

“Yes,” she said. “I promised Charlie that I would. But as it happens, Sir Jasper has been the one to make the first move. I am hoping that he will take Jennifer in and take charge of her future.”

“And you?” he asked.

“Charlie left me an independence,” she said. “I will buy a cottage in the country and move there. I don’t know exactly where yet.”

“Alone, Ellen?” he said. “It will be a lonely life.”

“I think not,” she said. “It is what I want.”

“You will not stay with your father-in-law?” he asked. “You are very young still.”

“I would rather be independent,” she said. “And what about you, my lord? You have sold out of the army?”

“As you see,” he said. “I think I will be moving to my property in Wiltshire soon. It is time I stopped wandering and settled down. I would think that Edmund will be removing his family back to Amberley soon, now that we are all safely home from Belgium. I don’t know about Mama and Madeline. I suppose a great deal depends upon Penworth. I will be going soon, I think.”

And there seemed to be no more to say. Ellen held to his arm and was reminded of the walk they had taken in the Forest of Soignes the day after she had become physically aware of him for the first time. Oh, no, they could never become merely friends. Because she could never again be without this almost sick awareness of him when he was close, this urge to flatten her palm and her fingers more firmly on his arm, to close her eyes and lay the side of her head against the broad shoulder so close to it.