Web of Love (31 page)

The doors to the drawing room opened to admit the butler, only one step ahead of Anna and Walter Carrington, Susan Jennings, and Lord Eden. Anna's voice, as usual, preceded her into the room.

“It is beginning to rain, Alexandra,” she was saying, “and we were riding in an open barouche. The question was where to go. And your house was the closest of anyone we knew. So we decided to invite ourselves to tea. You do not mind, do you? And how could you possibly say so now, even if you do mind? Oh!” She clapped a hand over her mouth. “You have visitors already.”

But when she saw who they were, the twinkle was back in her eyes, and she was across the room to sit beside Jennifer.

“Walter and I had an invitation this morning,” she said. “From your grandfather. Did you know? We answered it right away and said we would come.”

“That is a relief,” Jennifer said. “The Misses Emery, my friends, have another engagement for that evening.”

Everyone else exchanged greetings. Lord Eden took a seat across the room from Ellen. And the film had been rubbed away from the wound. She wished she had not said that to her father about not knowing what she would do if she never saw him again. She had not admitted anything to herself before that moment. And it was better so.

She must count the days patiently until his departure for the country.

Anna was squealing. “Walter,” she said, “Jennifer and Mrs. Simpson are coming to Amberley for a few weeks. Is that your doing, Edmund? You are my very, very favorite cousin, I do assure you. I shall not mind half as much having to go home now, and I shall tell Papa so. He threatened this morning to stuff his ears with cotton if I complain about it one more time.”

Ellen and Lord Eden were regarding each other across the room.

“Why don't you come too, Dominic?” Anna said. “Then I would be totally happy. It is very unsporting of you to take yourself off to Wiltshire when you can quite easily postpone going there for a few months.”

“No,” he said, still looking at Ellen. “I will not be at Amberley before Christmas, Anna.”

“I have had an invitation to Sir Jasper Simpson's for dinner and cards,” Susan Jennings said to Ellen. “It is very obliging of him, I am sure. And all because of my friendship with your dear stepdaughter, ma'am. It will be difficult to attend, of course, as I have no one to escort me, with my dear husband gone.”

“Are you coming, my lord?” Jennifer asked Lord Eden eagerly.

“I have not answered my invitation yet,” he said guardedly.

“It is the day before you plan to leave town,” Anna said. “I worked it out in my mind when I read my invitation. You must come, Dominic.”

“You will understand if I refuse my invitation,” Susan said gently to Ellen, “that it is not that I wish to appear ill-mannered to your dear father-in-law, ma'am. But you will know just how very alone one is when one's husband is gone. You at least are fortunate enough to have a stepdaughter to give you some company.” She lifted a delicate handkerchief to her eyes.

“I will take you up in my carriage, Susan,” Lord Eden said. “We will go together.”

“How very kind you are,” she said. “But I would not wish to impose upon you, my lord.”

“It is no imposition at all,” he said.

His eyes, when they looked back to Ellen, were inscrutable.

The wound had been rubbed quite raw again.

The conversation had moved on to another topic.

S
IXTEEN PERSONS SAT DOWN TO DINNER AT Sir Jasper Simpson's town house several evenings later. It would not, unfortunately, be a merry gathering, he told his guests in the drawing room before they moved into the dining room. There would be no dancing. A number of them were in mourning. But he had given in to the desire to honor the daughter-in-law and the granddaughter whom he had met for the first time only recently, and to meet some of their closest friends.

He knew almost everyone, Lord Eden discovered. He did not know Sir Jasper himself or Mrs. Edith Simpson, but he had seen Phillip Simpson at White's a few times in the past. And he was acquainted with Mr. and Mrs. Everett, cousins of Charlie's. Young Mr. Lawrence Winslow he had not seen before, but he did know Viscount Agerton. And there was a great deal of loud talk and laughter and back-slapping when that last gentleman and Walter recognized in each other old school fellows.

Anna and Susan and Madeline were present too, of course, and Penworth, much to Lord Eden's surprise. Madeline had announced at home the day before that he had decided to attend the dinner. She had been sparkling with exuberance, and yet she had expressed some uneasiness to him when they were alone together. Was he up to mingling with such a gathering for a whole evening?

There was only one way to find out, he had told her, his arm about her shoulders. Was she up to it? That was more to the point. She had thrown him an indignant look, and he had guessed that he had hit on a raw nerve.

Lord Eden should have felt quite comfortable at the gathering. In fact, he felt quite the opposite. He was mingling with Charlie's family. And he was intruding yet again on Ellen's presence, when he had told her the week before that he would probably not see her again. He had said good-bye to her.

He was still not quite sure why he had accepted the invitation. Had it been Susan's plight? Or Anna's persuasions? Or Miss Simpson's eager expression? Or was it his own weak and selfish need to torture himself? And perhaps Ellen too?

However it was, he felt uncomfortable and wished himself anywhere but in that particular place. He was thankful that his trunks were packed and arrangements all made for his departure the next day. Temptation would be taken out of his grasp then. He could begin the process of forgetting her and starting a new life.

In the meantime, he decided as Sir Jasper took Ellen on his arm to lead her into the dining room, and he offered his own arm to Susan, he would stay far away from Ellen for that evening. He would show her feelings that much respect, anyway.

He seated Susan as far from the head of the table as possible and set himself to charming both her and Lady Habersham on his other side. He concentrated the whole of his mind on his conversation with those two ladies and on Winslow and Mrs. Everett opposite. And soon, he thought after an interminable hour, the ladies would withdraw, and if he was fortunate, Sir Jasper would be the type of man who liked to sit over the port and the male conversation for at least an hour more.

But Sir Jasper rose to his feet before Edith Simpson could give the signal to the ladies. He wished his guests to join him in a few toasts, he said. They all dutifully raised their glasses to his granddaughter, whom circumstances had kept from him all her life, and to his dear daughter-in-law, who had comforted the last years of his son.

The old man paused, his smile directed at Ellen. Lord Eden allowed himself to look fully at her for the first time that evening. She was sitting very upright in her chair, her face pale and tense, her eyes wide and pleading on her father-in-law. One hand began to reach up to him but joined the other in her lap again.

Lord Eden frowned.

“And a very special toast,” Sir Jasper said, “to a third person, one who is with us tonight and makes our numbers a very awkward seventeen.” He smiled kindly down at his daughter-in-law.

She closed her eyes.

“To my future grandchild,” Sir Jasper said. “To my grandson, it is my fondest hope. My heir.”

There was a buzz of voices about the table and a scraping of chairs being pushed back. And a clinking of glasses. Lord Eden found himself on his feet and doing what everyone else did. He even heard Susan say that she was never more surprised in her life. And one part of him noticed Jennifer with both hands to her mouth, crying.

He stayed on his feet, bowing and smiling as the ladies left. And he even found himself participating in a conversation about the races and the quality of the cattle that were up for auction these days at Tattersall's. He had no idea if the gentlemen sat over the port for ten minutes or thirty, or for a whole hour.

But Sir Jasper did eventually suggest that they join the ladies in the drawing room.

 

J
ENNIFER SAT BESIDE
E
LLEN
until the gentlemen joined them. Most of the other ladies were gathered about the pianoforte. Several of them played.

Jennifer was feeling happier than she had felt for months, she told Ellen more than once. Why had Ellen not told her before? She was so very happy.

“I have been feeling so sad for you in the last few weeks, Ellen,” she said. “I have new friends and have been going about a great deal more than you have. And I have realized that losing a husband is very much worse than losing a father. I have wished and wished that there were something or somebody for you. But though you are young and very lovely and will undoubtedly remarry eventually, you could not think of doing so yet, could you? But now you do have someone. Your very own child. Oh, Ellen, I know why you did not tell me when we were alone at home. I would have screamed and danced you about the room. I don't blame you for preventing that.”

“Jennifer.” Ellen looked acutely distressed. “I did not want you to find out like this. I wanted to tell you myself. I wanted to tell you the whole of it. There is a great deal to be said.”

Jennifer smiled brightly at her. “And I want to hear it all,” she said. “You shall tell me all about it sometime when we have the leisure. There will be lots of time, Ellen. Three weeks at Amberley Court. Oh, life suddenly seems very good again. But you are not looking happy. I am being very insensitive. There is a sadness for you too, as well as happiness. Papa isn't here. He would never have known, would he?”

Ellen shook her head. “No,” she said, “he did not know.”

Ellen rose as soon as the men came into the drawing room, and stood behind the bench at the pianoforte, watching Madeline play. Jennifer stayed where she was, feeling her own happiness. Just a few months before, her world had seemed to end when her papa died. And yet she was now surrounded by family and friends at a party that was being given partly in her honor. And Grandpapa had said that she and Ellen must come to live with him when they returned from the country.

And Ellen was to have a child. She would have something of Papa left.

But Lieutenant Penworth was sitting alone in the darkest corner of the room. And he was shifting about as if he could not find a comfortable position, as if he were in some pain. Jennifer crossed to the tea tray, took two cups from her Aunt Dorothy's hand, and carried them over to the corner. She took a seat close to his and smiled.

“Would you care for some tea, sir?” she asked.

“Thank you,” he said. “But you do not need to bother yourself waiting upon me, you know. You should be enjoying yourself with the other young people.”

“I can enjoy myself here,” she said, “with another young person.”

“There is no enjoyment to be gained here,” he said. “You should be at the pianoforte, singing or playing, and being admired.”

Jennifer laughed. “I am afraid that if I sang or played,” she said, “I would not be admired, sir. Would you not like to be closer to the pianoforte yourself?”

“It is better if I sit here,” he said. “If I went over there, everyone would be falling over themselves to find me a chair and to speak kindly, as if I were an infant.”

“You don't like kindness?” she said.

“Not particularly,” he said.

“You would prefer that people ignored you or kicked your leg from under you?”

He stared at her rather coldly from his one eye. “You cannot possibly understand,” he said. “When you have been in the best of health, when other people have treated you as an equal, then it is hard to find that everything—and everyone—has changed.”

“But everything has changed,” she said. “Nothing can be quite the same for you again. But people have not been unkind to you, have they? Perhaps you should be thankful for that at least.”

“The very worst way in the world to be treated,” he said, “is with pity.”

Jennifer stirred her tea and lifted the cup to her lips. “You are right,” she said. “I don't understand. I don't know what it would be like to be in your place. But I would think that the very worst thing in the world is to feel self-pity.”

He was very angry. She could see that from the set of his jaw. “Self-pity!” he said. “To know that any stranger looking into my face for the rest of my life will either grimace with distaste or smile with embarrassed pity. To know that I will never again walk properly, never again ride, or sail a boat, or play cricket, or run. Or a hundred and one other things. I would be better off dead.”

“My father is dead,” she said, setting cup and saucer down carefully beside her. “He will never see the sun again. Or feel its warmth. He will never see Ellen again, or me. He will never know love again or laughter or tears. And we will never have him with us again. Only a great heavy emptiness where he used to be. And you dare to envy him?”

“Yes, I do,” he said curtly.

“Then you are greatly to be pitied,” she said. “Not because you have lost a leg, and not because your face has been disfigured. Not because your life must change beyond recognition. But because you do not have the character to cope with those changes. Because you have allowed yourself to crumble beneath adversity.”

“A very eloquent speech,” he said with heavy sarcasm. “I thank you.”

“I try to recognize the man I knew in Brussels,” she said. “I liked him. He was sunny-natured, and he had a love of life, and a passionate desire to serve his country. I think I even felt a little jealous at one time that he seemed to prefer Lady Madeline to me. I can see him sitting before me, even though one side of his face is covered with bandages, and a pair of crutches rests against his chair. But I have mistaken. He is not the same man. I am sorry. I would have mourned that man with my father if I had known that he died at Waterloo.”

His jaw was set very hard. He was choosing his words with care, she could see. But they were interrupted.

“Jennifer has brought you a cup of tea, Allan?” Madeline said, smiling warmly down at him. “That was kind of her. Did you hear me singing? I did so just for you. You are in some discomfort, aren't you? Shall I take you home? I am sure everyone would understand.”

“We will stay here,” he said. “I want you to enjoy the evening, Madeline.”

“But I don't mind leaving,” she said. “I don't want you to be in pain.”

“We will stay,” he said, his eye straying to Jennifer. “I will play a hand of cards as soon as the tables are set up. I am sure I can see well enough to do that.”

“But of course you can,” Madeline said, laughing in some amusement.

Jennifer excused herself and moved away. How unforgivably rude she had been. She had said herself just a few days before that Lieutenant Penworth would need more time to adjust to the harsh circumstances of his future. And yet she had just ripped up at him as if he were a sullen schoolboy.

Perhaps she should go back to him and apologize, she thought. But no, that would doubtless make matters worse. He would think she was pitying him. She went to the pianoforte and seated herself on the bench beside Anna.

 

E
LLEN TOOK A SEAT
between Edith and Mrs. Everett, and talked with them while they drank their tea. It seemed a safe place to be. But when their cups were empty, Edith took hers and Ellen's and crossed the room to return them to the tray. And she stayed there to talk with Dorothy. And Mrs. Everett was called away to play the pianoforte while Anna and Jennifer attempted a vocal duet.

The rest of the company were beginning to take their places at the tables for cards.

Ellen did not react fast enough. One of the empty chairs beside her was taken. And they were somewhat removed from both the pianoforte at one end of the room and the card tables at the other. Ellen clasped her hands in her lap and focused her attention on one of the tables. Lieutenant Penworth was to have Susan Jennings for a partner, and Lord Agerton had Madeline.

“Well, Ellen,” Lord Eden said quietly from beside her.

There was no reply to such a greeting, was there? Or if there was, she could not think of it. She said nothing.

“It appears you forgot to tell me something,” he said.