“We have to make a desperate effort not to match Christopher with Rose and Paul with Caroline,” Lady Lampman said. “It would be the depths of degradation for us to become matchmaking mamas, Mrs. Simpson. But Paul’s fair coloring would be a wonderful complement to Caroline’s dark beauty, Alexandra.”

All three of them laughed.

Ellen liked Lady Lampman. At first she had thought the Lampmans quite mismatched. Sir Peregrine, with his laughing eyes and relaxed, amiable manner, must be several years younger than his wife, whose slim, upright figure and narrow face and dark coloring gave her a rather severe appearance. But there was a quiet charm about her that became obvious on closer acquaintance.

And Ellen had noticed an exchange of looks between husband and wife at the dinner table. There had been nothing very significant. She had not smiled, though there had suddenly been a great depth to her gray eyes. He had smiled, though more with his eyes than with his facial muscles. It had been an entirely private and very brief interchange that had made Ellen’s stomach quite turn over inside her with a longing and a nostalgia.

“You must tell me something about yourself, Mrs. Simpson,” Lady Lampman was saying now. “You lost your husband at Waterloo, I understand. I am so very sorry. Is it painful for you to talk about him?”

“No.” Ellen smiled. “For a few months I thought of him continuously and unwillingly-it hurt quite dreadfully. But I am beginning to remember with some pleasure. He was, I think, the kindest man I have known.” She proceeded to tell them about Charlie’s habit of buying her gifts for no reason at all except that he felt like doing so and knew they would give her pleasure.

And then the moment came. Just at a time when she was relaxed and enjoying the company of the two ladies who she felt could be real friends.

“Would you care to walk in the formal gardens, Ellen?” Lord Eden was standing in front of their chairs, his head inclined toward her. “Susan and Agerton, Anna and Howard have decided that they must take the air.”

Ellen looked at him and nodded, resisting her first impulse to make some excuse-any excuse. The moment must be faced. There was no point in putting it off. Somehow tonight she must find the words to tell him what he wanted to know, and what he had a right to know.

“You will need a cloak,” he said. “There is no wind, and it is rather a lovely evening. But of course it is autumn.”

“I will fetch one,” she said, getting to her feet and turning to the other two ladies to excuse herself.

JENNIFER HAD GONE downstairs to the music room with Anna and Madeline, Mrs. Carrington, and the dowager countess. She listened while her two friends played on the pianoforte, and stayed at the instrument after they had crossed the room to sit with their mothers.

She had never been an accomplished musician. The music mistress at school had despaired of her when it seemed that she always had an excuse for having neglected her practicing. She would be sorry one day, the teacher had warned, when other young ladies were playing their way into the admiration of handsome young men.

It had sounded a little silly to Jennifer. Was the playing of a pianoforte the only way to a man’s heart? And did only handsome men appreciate good music?

She sat down on the bench and played quietly to herself from the music that was propped against the stand. She was quite competent enough to play for her own amusement. She had no wish to play for an audience anyway.

“Are you going to play again?” a voice said from behind her when she was finished, and she jumped and turned in some embarrassment to find Lieutenant Penworth standing there, leaning on his crutches.

“Oh,” she said, “I did not know anyone was listening. I’m afraid I am not good.”

“Fairly competent,” he said. “There was something missing in the expression and feel for the music, I must confess.”

Jennifer was unreasonable enough to feel offended. “The piece is rather difficult,” she said. “Perhaps there is something easier in the pile.” But even as she reached out for it, she turned and looked at him again. “You are wearing just a small eye patch. I saw it as soon as we arrived, but have not had a chance to tell you that I had noticed.”

He propped one of his crutches against the pianoforte and seated himself at the end of the bench next to her. “Everyone has noticed,” he said. “How could they fail to do so? My face is a repellent sight. I wish now that I had not come.”

“Repellent?” she said in some surprise. “It is a great improvement on those bandages.”

He gave a bitter little laugh.

“Let me see.” She leaned forward over the keyboard so that she could see the right side of his face, which was turned away from her. “It is indeed a nasty scar. It curves all the way around from your eye to the corner of your mouth. And it is rather livid at present. That is because it is still quite new and because you have kept it covered for so long. In time it will fade, no doubt.”

He laughed again.

“I think,” she said, still peering around into his face, “that in time it will not be unsightly at all. In fact, I think it might make you look rather distinguished. And certainly very heroic.”

“Don’t mock me,” he said.

She clucked her tongue. “Your sense of humor is something else you left behind on the battlefield of Waterloo,” she said. “You really should learn to laugh at yourself a little, sir. And if you find people shunning you, you know, it is only because you have such a ferocious and morose manner. It is not because of your appearance. I feel sad for you.”

“Don’t pity me!” he hissed vehemently through his teeth. “For God’s sake, don’t pity me. I am mortally sick of being pitied.”

“I have no intention of pitying you,” she said tartly. “One has to like someone in order to pity him, does one not? You go out of your way to make yourself disagreeable, sir. I really do not know how Lady Madeline can tolerate you.”

“Perhaps because she is a lady,” he snapped back.

“And I am not,” she said, straightening her back. “Perhaps you had better move away, sir. I am about to murder your ears with my music again. Unless you want to turn the pages for me, of course. I suppose you can be a gentleman even if I am not a lady.”

“My right hand is occupied,” he said, indicating the crutch that he still held, “and my left hand is clumsy. But I will try.”

“Are you always going to have your crutches?” she asked. “You would have your hands free, would you not, if you had an artificial leg?”

“And I would doubtless fall flat on my face with every step I took,” he said. “I think not, Miss Simpson. Other people can find some other spectacle with which to amuse themselves.”

“Did it ever cross your mind,” she asked, “that other people might have better things to do with their time than stare at you?”

“Meaning that I have a false sense of my own importance,” he said. “Thank you, ma’am. You are always so very pleasant.”

“There is nothing forcing you to stay here,” she said, beginning to play, and finding that every finger was on the wrong note. But she played valiantly on. “I can turn my own pages, thank you very much. And you see? I am playing abominably and no one is noticing. It is a foolish and a conceited thing to imagine that everyone’s attention is focused on oneself.”

“Oh, my dear,” Mrs. Carrington called, smiling kindly and nodding from the other end of the room, “that is a difficult piece of music, is it not? Would you like Anna to help you find something simpler?”

“No, thank you, ma’am,” Jennifer called back, lifting her fingers from the keyboard immediately. “I have just finished.”

She looked at the lieutenant out of the corner of her eye, and the next moment they were both bent forward behind the music rest, tortured by smothered laughter.

“Let me try it,” he said, “and see if I can do a little better.”

All of Jennifer’s amusement fled. “Oh,” she said, “I suppose you are an accomplished musician, and I shall end up feeling doubly mortified?”

He did not say anything, but slid along the bench when she rose to stand behind him. He answered her question by playing the piece without a single error and-worse-by making sheer music of it.

She was very glad to see Madeline strolling across the room toward them. She was thereby released from the necessity of making some comment when he had finished.

“You play so well, Allan,” Madeline said when he had finished, one hand resting on his shoulder. “You are a real musician.”

“I have something to amuse myself with, you see,” he said, “even if I cannot indulge in more manly pursuits.”

“What a good thing it is,” she said, “that you have real talent.”

Jennifer admired Madeline’s endless cheerfulness and patience. She would have retorted that of course it was considerably more manly to play cricket, chasing a hard ball around a field for a number of hours, than to create beauty with one’s hands. And her own tone would have been quite as heavily sarcastic as his had been when he spoke to Madeline.

What a horrid man he was, she thought. And felt guilty at her own intolerance. He had suffered a great deal. And he had made a fast physical recovery from his injuries. It was all very well for her, with two arms, two legs, and two eyes, to criticize. She would do well to learn from Madeline, to become more ladylike and more compassionate.

“Are you tired, Allan?” Madeline was asking. “Shall I help you to your room? I will make your excuses to Alexandra. She will not mind at all.”

“Yes, I will withdraw,” he said. “But I can manage quite well on my own, thank you, Madeline. And I will stop in at the drawing room to bid Lady Amberley good night. Miss Simpson?” He nodded curtly to Jennifer.