Web of Love (42 page)

“So all is well between you again?” he asked.

“I think so,” she said. “A little strained, but not quite broken.”

“I am glad,” he said. “Now, you must stop talking to me so that I can concentrate.”

“But I did not say the first word,” she said indignantly. “You did.”

She could have painted too, since painting had always been one of her favorite activities. But she had decided merely to watch and be lazy. She felt lethargic after an emotional twenty-four hours.

She was sitting in the same position an hour later, lost in daydreams, when she was recalled to reality with a start by the voice of her companion.

“All right,” he said vengefully. He cleaned his brush with furious energy and pushed himself upright with his crutches. “You win.”

“I am delighted to hear it,” she said. “But what is the prize? And what was the game?”

“You have made quite sure that you have ruined my afternoon,” he said.

“I?” She looked at him, all amazement. “I have not made a sound.”

“I might have been able to concentrate better if you had been shouting and singing,” he said.

“Well.” Jennifer glared up at him indignantly. “There is no pleasing you, is there?”

He spent some time sitting down awkwardly on the blanket beside her. Jennifer clasped her knees even more tightly and did not offer her help.

“I wish I had died!” he said unexpectedly.

“But you did not,” she said.

“I think I could accept the loss of my leg,” he said, rubbing his hip and grimacing. “I think in time I can learn to adjust my way of life to that. It is my face I cannot reconcile myself to.”

“You think yourself very ugly?” she asked.

“I know myself very ugly.” He spoke through his teeth and continued to rub his hip. “How can I ever…? How can I live anything like a normal life?”

“By becoming unaware of your scars,” she said. “If you keep hiding from people, turning your face away so that only the unscarred profile shows, they will continue to notice you. And if you keep on scowling, they will think you ugly.”

He laughed. “And will doubtless think me handsome if I smile?”

“No,” she said. “You will never be handsome. Intriguing, perhaps. Attractive, perhaps.”

“Attractive!” he said scornfully. “I am going home, you will be pleased to know. Before Christmas. I must face my family, even though it will be an ordeal.”

“Doubtless,” she said. “Are you going to scowl at them too?”

“You are not a very sympathetic person, are you?” he said.

“You once yelled at me not to pity you,” she said. “Have you changed your mind?”

“No,” he said. “I would a thousand times prefer your taunts to everyone else's pity.”

“A compliment!” she said. “We are making progress.”

He stared ahead of him. “How one moment of time can change the course of a whole lifetime,” he said. “I used to dream of a perfectly normal life. I didn't ask for much. Just my home and family. A wife by the time I was thirty, perhaps. Some children. A quiet life.”

“And now you must live the life of a hermit because you are ugly and crippled?” she asked.

He glared at her from his one eye. “It pleases you to make fun of me,” he said. “What woman would not recoil in disgust at an advance from me? Do you know why I have not been able to paint this afternoon? Because I have been sitting there wanting to kiss you, that's why. Now, tell me that the idea does not repel you.”

She thought for a moment. “The idea does not repel me,” she said.

“Ah,” he said, “you are brave. Are you relying on the fact that I am a gentleman and will not put the matter to the test?”

She lifted a hand to trace lightly the line of his scar with one finger. “Does it hurt?” she asked.

“Not a light touch like that,” he said.

“Does this hurt?” She leaned forward and laid her lips against the scar. She was blushing hotly when she pulled back again.

“No.”

“Kiss me, then.” Her eyes were on his chin. “Put it to the test.”

“You do not have to be kind,” he said, his voice quiet with controlled fury. “You of all people.”

“Oh!” Jennifer scrambled to her feet and took a few steps away from the blanket. “Oh, how could you! Could you not see how much courage it took to ask to be kissed? I could die of mortification. I hate you, sir, and I hope no woman will ever have you. You deserve to live a solitary life. I have never in my life been so humiliated.”

“Jennifer!” His voice finally penetrated her embarrassment. There was a suggestion of laughter in it. “Come back here, please. Look, I cannot come and fetch you. I'm truly sorry. I was too busy feeling my own confusion to recognize your courage. Please sit down again.”

“I ought not,” she said warily, sitting back down nevertheless on one corner of the blanket and keeping her spine very straight. “I should walk back to the house.”

“Will you let me kiss you?” he asked. “I have been wanting to do so all afternoon. And long before this afternoon, if the truth were known.”

She could feel herself flush even more deeply as she wriggled closer to him on the blanket again and he put one arm up about her shoulders. The other hand came against her cheek, his thumb pushing up beneath her chin. She felt as if her cheeks were about to burst into flame.

“You are so pretty,” he said, “and so spirited. I wish I were quite whole for you, Jennifer.”

She was not given a chance to reply. His mouth was on hers, lightly exploring. And lifting away so that she could end the experiment right there if she wanted. But her arm was up about his neck by that time, and her mouth reaching for his again.

Somehow, during the next few minutes or hours they shifted position so that they were lying rather than sitting on the blanket. And somehow, during the same time span Jennifer lost her wits. The only thing she could think of to say when she was finally released was a rather meaningless “Oh!”

He lay down beside her, one arm beneath his head. “Thank you,” he said, finding her hand with his. “You are a very kind lady despite the frequently barbed tongue. You will be looking forward to the end of your mourning period and to finding a handsome husband.”

“One with two legs and two arms and two eyes,” she said. “Oh, yes, sir, my head is filled with nothing else.”

“Why is your tone sarcastic?” he asked.

“Strangely,” she said, “at the moment you spoke, I was thinking of a one-legged, one-eyed man who is not particularly handsome.”

There was a pause.

“I have nothing to offer you, Jennifer,” he said.

“No, of course not,” she said. “One has only to look at you to see that you are no more than half a man.”

“You cannot want me.”

Jennifer said nothing. She sat up on the blanket and wrapped her arms about her knees again.

“When my leg—or what is left of it—has healed properly,” he said, “I am going to see about having an artificial limb. Perhaps I will never get used to it. And then again, perhaps I will. But I think I am going to try.”

She still said nothing.

“Jennifer.” He sat up beside her with some difficulty and rubbed his hip again. “Perhaps by next summer I will be in better health. My scars will have faded a little. I will have sorted things out with my family. Your mourning will be over. I could come up to London then.”

She did not answer him.

“Would you want me to?” he asked hesitantly.

She shrugged. “Would you?”

“I asked first,” he said. “But no matter. Yes, I would.” He rested a hand against the back of her neck. “I have liked you since Brussels. Except that there you were dazzled by Eden and I was infatuated with Madeline. And we have not had much chance for anything since then except getting on each other's nerves. But I find that I can say good-bye to everyone in this house tomorrow except you. I like all the others and will miss them. I will ache for you.”

“I wish you weren't going,” she said.

“So do I.” He squeezed the sides of her neck. “But I think it is best. We are not quite ready for each other yet, Jennifer. I have to learn what kind of life it is that I will be living. I have to regain some of my strength—and I am talking not just about physical strength. And you too have to adjust to the changes in your life. It will be best to wait until next summer.”

“I suppose so,” she said. “I just wish it were not tomorrow. I wish there were a little more time.”

“There is a little more,” he said. “I don't see the gig coming yet, do you?”

She shaded her eyes and looked toward the house. “No,” she said.

“Well, then,” he said, collapsing heavily back on the blanket and lifting his arms to her. “Come and kiss me again. And I will tell you that I love you, you little termagant. Shall I?”

“Yes, please,” she said, coming down across the upper part of his body and kissing his scarred cheek. “And I will tell you the same thing, Allan. You go first.”

“All right,” he said. “But the kiss before anything. I can tell you I love you in the gig going home if necessary. But I can't kiss you there. Not without shocking the groom.”

He spread his hand over the back of her head and guided her mouth down onto his.

 

E
LLEN WAS KNEELING
on the grass of the lawn beside the house, holding on to Caroline's hands as the child bounced on wobbly legs. The Countess of Amberley was standing beside them, watching her husband roll a ball to her shrieking son.

“I hope I have a little girl like you,” Ellen said to the child. “But then, perhaps I would be equally delighted with a son.”

“You think it matters,” the countess said, “until the baby is born and gives its first cry. I wanted Christopher to be a boy, of course, so that Edmund would have his heir. But I wanted Caroline to be a boy too as a companion for her brother. Yet I had to take only one look at her as the doctor told me I had a daughter, and I thought what a fool I had been to have thought I wanted a son. Now the next one can be what it pleases. I just hope it decides to arrive within the next year or so.”

“Perhaps it will be twins,” Ellen said, “and you will have one of each. There are some in the family, after all.”

“Then perhaps yours will be twins too,” the countess said with a laugh, and then grimaced and bit her lip and shook her head.

“Don't be embarrassed.” Ellen stood up, the baby in her arms. “The thought had crossed my mind too.”

“I don't think I am usually quite so gauche,” Lady Amberley said. “I will have nightmares about that one.”

“Well, you need not,” Ellen said, laughing at her. “I am not at all ashamed of the fact that I am expecting Dominic's child—or children. Let's change the subject. Tell me more about your brother.”

“James?” The countess smiled. “He was by far the most important person in my life until I met Edmund. I had a very secluded and rather unhappy childhood and girlhood, I'm afraid. I am not complaining, by the way. The years of happiness I have known here have made up a thousandfold for every lonely moment. James was my idol. He could do absolutely nothing wrong in my eyes.” She laughed. “He still can't, for that matter. Are you sure you wish me to pursue this line of conversation? You might become dreadfully bored after an hour or so.”

“I don't think so.” Ellen knelt on the grass again and set down the wriggling child. The countess sat down beside her.

Lord Eden found them there half an hour later. He stooped down on his haunches and smiled at the two ladies. “Hello, little beauty,” he said to his niece. “I don't suppose you have a smile for Uncle Dom today, do you?”

Two dark and solemn eyes regarded him unblinkingly.

“I didn't think so,” he said, touching her soft dark curls with a gentle hand. “You are going to slay men by the thousands when you grow up. Eyes like that should not be allowed. Whoosh!”

This last exclamation was provoked by the fact that his nephew had just launched himself onto his back.

“Is that my old pal?” he asked. “You just about bowled me right over with that one.”

“Old pal,” the child said, leaning over his uncle's shoulder and giggling into his face.

“Ellen,” Lord Eden said, tousling the boy's hair, “come for a walk?”

She smiled and got to her feet.

“Just don't make her climb any cliffs today, Dominic, please,” the countess said, only to look up to find both her husband and her brother-in-law grinning down at her. “Odious pair!”

Caroline had the grace to wait until her uncle was strolling away toward the bridge with Ellen before looking up at her father, smiling that special smile that lit up her whole face, and raising her arms to be picked up.

“Bad little princess,” he said, stooping down for her.

“Oh, Edmund—” his wife began, but he held up a staying hand.

“No, Alex,” he said. “Absolutely and irrevocably no. I will not interfere. And unless my intuition is quite wide of the mark, I really don't think any interference will be necessary. They are two reasonably sensible adults who have almost worked their way through a problem. If you want a prediction, I would say that we will be hearing an interesting announcement before another week has passed. So forget it. I am not going to do anything.”

“How rude you are to interrupt me,” she said. “I was merely going to remark that she told me quite openly that the child is Dominic's. And I was about to predict that he is bearing her away to make her an offer. The very idea that I would ask you to interfere in adult affairs!”

Caroline had spotted the ball and wanted to get down again. The earl set her on the grass and turned to smile at his wife.

“It makes one almost envious, does it not?” he said. “Look, Alex, they are turning up the valley. Our valley. We haven't visited our hut since coming home, have we?”