Web of Love (26 page)

The girl nodded happily. “Isn't Lady Madeline just lovely, Ellen? I wish I could have her beauty and her charm and poise.”

“You will.” Ellen smiled as she removed her bonnet. “All she has that you don't, Jennifer, is extra years and experience.”

“Lord Eden is excessively handsome even now that he is not wearing a uniform, is he not?” Jennifer said. “I just wish I did not feel like such a child when I am with him. I always have done. I don't feel that way with other gentlemen. I don't feel blushing and tongue-tied with Mr. Carrington, for example. Of course, he is not near as handsome as Lord Eden.”

Ellen had never been sure how her stepdaughter felt about Lord Eden. She hoped now that the girl would not develop a
tendre
for him. Oh, she hoped not. She did not think she would be able to bear that. But most of all, she hoped that Jennifer would not have a chance to develop a
tendre
for him. Would they see much more of him? She hoped not. If it had not been for Lady Madeline issuing that invitation to tea, she did not think that he would have suggested any further meeting. He had realized, as she had, that there could never be anything between the two of them but awkwardness and embarrassment.

She did not think that the visit had been his idea.

“Are you playing devil's advocate, Mad?” Lord Eden was asking his twin in the carriage.

“Whatever are you talking about?” She looked at him with wide innocent eyes.

“That look won't work,” he said. “This is me, remember?”

She grinned at him. “I wish you could have seen yourselves,” she said, “seated side by side in Lady Habersham's salon. It was a sight for sore eyes, Dom. You were behaving like the stiffest of strangers.”

“It is called embarrassment,” he said, his voice testy. “But I notice that you did not do much to rescue me, Mad. You made very sure that we walked together in Kensington Gardens.”

“Look me in the eye,” she said, “and tell me that you did not want to talk privately with her, Dom. And while you are about it, tell me that you have no spark of feeling left for her. Do it. Come on. And I shall call you liar.”

“She was my friend for three years,” he said in exasperation. “She nursed me when I was close to death, and I fancied myself in love with her for a week. Of course I have feelings for her.”

“You were lovers too, weren't you?” she asked more gently.

“No, of course we weren't,” he said.

“She was lying on the bed with you, Dom,” she said. “You were kissing her. I am not a green girl.”

“If you know so much, then,” he said irritably, “why did you ask?”

She shrugged. “I like her,” she said. “She is so different from your usual type of flirt, Dom. I think she is perfect for you. And though she undoubtedly was very devoted to Captain Simpson and has suffered a great deal since his death, I think perhaps she could come to love you too. She would not have become your lover lightly. So, yes.” She smiled rather impishly. “I was playing devil's advocate. Or heaven's angel, perhaps.”

“I think you had better concentrate all your angel-of-mercy tendencies on Penworth in future,” Lord Eden said. “And leave me to look after my own affairs.”

“And talking of affairs,” she said, “you are not about to pick up with Susan again, are you, Dom?”

“To what?” he said, frowning.

“She had you wrapped about her little finger before you bought your commission,” she said. “She started it again this afternoon, and you came running like a little puppy dog.”

“Because I said I would take her to the library?” he said. “What nonsense are you talking, Mad?”

“You have always had a dreadful weakness for helpless females,” she said. “You used to fall in love with them routinely, Dom. You know you did. I was very much afraid a few years ago that Susan was about to net you. You would have been miserable for the rest of your life. Now she is going to be after you again.”

“What nonsense you talk,” he said. “I am taking the woman to the library, not the altar!”

“I hope so,” Madeline said before transferring her gaze beyond the window.

 

E
LLEN'S FLUTTERING HEART
was calmed the following afternoon by the necessity of dealing with Jennifer's extreme nervousness.

“Will he like me?” she asked her stepmother over and over again, her dark eyes huge with anxiety.

“If he does not,” Ellen said eventually, “then he does not deserve to be liked either, Jennifer. Just be yourself and don't worry.”

“Papa never told me why he quarreled with Grandpapa,” the girl said. “But I think it was because of Mama. It was, wasn't it, Ellen?”

The girl was no child to be comforted with some soothing story. “I think she was part of it,” she said. “But listen to me, Jennifer. Your papa married your mother even in defiance of his own father, and he loved you dearly until the day of his death. You know that. You have nothing to feel anxious about. If your grandpapa does not like you, then that is his problem, not yours. But let us not judge him ahead of time.”

Jennifer sighed. “I will be so glad to have this over with,” she said. “Thank goodness I was busy this morning and unable to brood on this afternoon. Mr. Carrington and Anna are such good company, Ellen. And Mr. Phelps, Anna's friend, is an amiable gentleman too. I enjoyed myself so much. Was it not a happy coincidence that we also met Lord Eden and Mrs. Jennings? Though we knew yesterday, of course, that he was going to escort her to the library.”

“I am glad you had a happy morning,” Ellen said.

“Do you think Aunt Dorothy was offended that I could not eat much luncheon?” Jennifer asked. “I did not have any appetite, I'm afraid, after the six of us went to a confectioner's for cakes. Mrs. Jennings was very friendly, Ellen. Her father is a tenant of Lord Amberley's, you know. She has known Lord Eden and Lady Madeline all her life.”

Ellen was content to let her stepdaughter prattle on happily about the morning's events until they were in the carriage with a rather tense Dorothy on their way to Sir Jasper Simpson's residence on Clifford Street. And her own heart began to thump again.

She would have known he was Charlie's father, she thought later as they were ushered into the drawing room, even if the room had been full of people. The same height and build. The same open, jovial face. His head was somewhat balder.

She curtsied and felt her stepdaughter doing the same beside her.

“My dear!” The elderly gentleman crossed the room and took Ellen's hands in both of his. He stood shaking them up and down and looking into her face. “So you are Charlie's wife. So young and so pretty. You are looking at a foolish old man, my dear. A foolish old man.”

Ellen smiled uncertainly at him. He was dressed in deep mourning, she noticed. “I am pleased to make your acquaintance, sir,” she said. “I promised Charlie that I would, if it was possible.”

“If it was possible!” he said, wringing her hands. “I am a foolish old man, my dear.”

Dorothy had already presented both of them to her father. But Ellen turned her head toward Jennifer and smiled. “Will you not meet your granddaughter?” she asked.

Sir Jasper released her hands and turned to Jennifer. “Let me look at you, my dear,” he said. He nodded. “Very pretty. Very pretty indeed. So you are Charlie's girl, are you? Well, do you have a kiss for your grandpapa, child?”

“Yes, Grandpapa,” Jennifer said, leaning forward to place a kiss on Sir Jasper's cheek. “You look very like Papa.”

“Do I?” he said. “Even to the bald head? Did your father lose his hair?”

Jennifer nodded.

Sir Jasper turned to the couple standing silently behind him with Lady Habersham. “Meet your aunt and uncle, my dear,” he said. He took Ellen's hand in his as Jennifer curtsied and smiled uncertainly at the strange couple. “Meet your brother-in-law, Phillip, and his wife, Edith, my dear. It is high time, is it not?”

Mr. Phillip Simpson took Ellen's free hand in his and laid his other on top of it. He looked closely into her eyes. “You are Ellen?” he said. He did not smile. He was not wearing mourning, though there was a black band on the sleeve of his coat. “I am glad you have come. Old quarrels should not go on for twenty years and more.”

Edith Simpson pecked her on the cheek and expressed pleasure at meeting her.

Ellen was directed to a seat, and found herself in conversation with her brother-in-law and his wife while tea was served. Phillip did not look anything like Charlie, she thought. He was thin and narrow-faced and sandy-haired. His wife looked remarkably like him.

They were a perfectly civil couple even if there was no great warmth in their manner. They told her about their two sons, both away at school. Charlie's nephews. Ellen wondered how much Phillip regretted not having seen his brother again before his death. They had been close as boys. Most of Charlie's stories had included his younger brother.

Jennifer, she was pleased to hear, was chattering with some animation to her grandfather. From the few snippets of their conversation that she heard, Ellen gathered that the girl was telling him about her schooldays and about her stay in Brussels.

“Well,” Sir Jasper said eventually, his raised voice drawing the two groups together, “we must repeat this pleasure. We must have tea again. And perhaps I will organize some sort of dinner and evening party that will be suited to our state of mourning. Something to celebrate my reunion with my daughter-in-law and my granddaughter.”

Lady Habersham took his words as a signal to rise and take their leave.

“I must not lose you again now that I have found you,” he said to Ellen as he was squeezing her hand at the doorway of the drawing room when she was leaving. Dorothy and Jennifer had already started on their way down the stairs. “I have been a foolish old man. I have been all these years without my own son. But I will not be without his children. I swear it.”

Ellen smiled and swallowed. “I am glad we have met,” she said. “Charlie would be glad.”

“Is this one to be a son?” he asked, patting her hand.

Ellen shook her head. “I don't know,” she said.

“Well,” he said, “we will hope so, my dear.” And he leaned forward to kiss her cheek.

Ellen scurried down the stairs in pursuit of the other two.

 

M
ADELINE HAD FINALLY PERSUADED
her betrothed to venture beyond the doors of his cousin's house. He was to take tea with her at the Earl of Amberley's town house. Her mother was to be there too.

But if he was feeling nervous, then she was feeling no better, she thought, seating herself beside him on a love seat, almost but not quite touching him, resisting the urge to take his hand in hers. She was chattering brightly to Alexandra and Edmund and to her mother.

Edmund had chosen a downstairs salon in which to entertain his guests, Madeline had been relieved to discover. And he had not offered to help Allan into the room. Neither had she, but she had hovered at his side as he had moved awkwardly on his crutches, ready to help him if he had needed her assistance.

“I can manage,” he had said to her, looking somewhat tight-lipped. He had thought she was about to reach out to him. “You need not concern yourself, Madeline.”

So she had smiled brightly and seated herself beside him and begun to chatter. Thank goodness Dom was not there. She had forbidden him to come, but whether for Allan's sake or for her own, she did not know.

She was not doing very well, she knew. She was taut with worry that someone would ask her betrothed some personal question that would embarrass him. She found herself jumping in with answers to every question directed his way. She knew she was doing it, but she could not stop herself. She could feel him growing tenser beside her.

“I hope you do not mind our children being in the room, Lieutenant,” Alexandra said with a smile. “We always have them with us at teatime. I am afraid we are unfashionably attached to our offspring.”

“Oh, no,” Madeline said cheerfully, “Allan does not mind, do you, Allan? They are such well-behaved children. One would hardly know they were in the room.”

“It seems that the Battle of Waterloo is going to be seen as something of a landmark in history,” the earl said to the lieutenant. “One does wonder what Europe will do without Bonaparte to worry about any longer. How long will it be, I wonder, before someone else comes along to take his place?”

“One would like to believe in universal and everlasting peace,” Lieutenant Penworth said. “Unfortunately, human nature inevitably gets in the way. It is my feeling—”

“Goodness,” Madeline said, smiling about her, “must we be so gloomy? I think we should all take a drive out one afternoon to see the trees before they have dropped all their leaves. Has anyone noticed how lovely they are?”

“Your home is in Devon?” the dowager asked a few minutes later. “Your family must be quite anxious to see you again.”

“But Mr. Foster quite insists that Allan stay in London a little longer, doesn't he, Allan?” Madeline said.

She noticed the look Edmund and Alexandra exchanged across the room and bit her lip. This was not working at all. If Allan was ready for such a visit, she certainly was not.

The earl got to his feet and went to stoop down in front of his daughter, who was sitting on the floor playing with some toys. “Why do you not fetch that letter from your brother, Alex?” he said. “I am sure Mama and Madeline and the lieutenant will be interested in hearing of his adventures. My brother-in-law has been in Canada for more than three years, Lieutenant, or rather, far inland beyond Canada.”

“Will you be interested?” the countess asked with an apologetic smile. “I naturally find the letter quite exciting and fascinating. But then, I am partial. James is my brother. And this is the first letter I have had from him this year.”