Web of Love

by Mary Balogh

  She had also told him that she did not wish him to go away. She had had a chance to be rid of him. She did not think he would have gone back on his promise to leave the next day if she had said that she wanted him to go. But she had deliberately given up her chance to be rid of him.

  She shivered and huddled further inside the cloak. She had said that she would try to allow a friendship to grow between them again. Was it possible? Could they ever be just friends when there had been that other between them? When their child was in her womb?

  And did she really want his friendship? Could they be friends and be comfortable and contented again, and Charlie not there to share the friendship with them? Didn’t she need to punish herself for the rest of her life for the way in which she had betrayed Charlie with his friend?

  Was that what she was doing? Was she punishing herself? But she had forgiven herself and Dominic long ago. Hadn’t she? Or had he been right a few hours ago when he had said that the wounds of Waterloo ran a great deal deeper than any of the survivors realized?

  If it were not for the guilt, would she still love Dominic? Beneath the guilt, had she stopped loving him?

  But no. She did not love him. She must not love him. He wanted to know their child. He wanted to see it as it grew. That was perfectly understandable, and she knew she would not be able to deny him that right. She must not complicate matters by falling in love with him again. That would be far too painful for her, and embarrassing too if he ever suspected.

  He wanted them to be friends. And it was desirable that they be so. She wanted it to be so. She would try. For three weeks she would try to let friendship grow and other feelings remain dead.

  She shivered again as she heard more than one set of quiet footsteps pass her room. She was not the only person mad enough to be still up, then. But she must get to bed and to sleep if she was to be fit to ride in the morning. Besides, she was half-frozen.

  He had kissed her. And she had not been outraged. She had felt enormously comforted by the brief touch of his lips.

  A mad thought. One very definitely not to be repeated.

  ALL THE ADULTS OF THE HOUSE, EXCEPT THE dowager countess and Allan Penworth, joined the ride the following morning. Anna and Walter and Lord Agerton rode over to join them, as did Susan and two of her brothers. They were to ride inland up the valley in which Amberley Court was set.

  It was a very good thing that they were to ride in a place where it would be impossible for the horses to move faster than a walk, Susan said timidly to anyone who was willing to listen. She was so very afraid to gallop, and she knew that she spoiled the enjoyment of her companions when she held them to a walk.

  Lord Agerton declared that he would stay at the back of the group with her, and she could move at whatever pace she found comfortable.

  “You are very obliging, my lord, I am sure,” she said, favoring him with a look of melting gratitude from wide hazel eyes.

  They rode out, two abreast, past the formal gardens, across the stone bridge that spanned the stream, and turned up the valley, the sounds of the horses’ hooves muted by the masses of fallen and rotting leaves underfoot.

  “There is always a very special smell about autumn,” the earl said to Ellen, with whom he rode. “I suppose it should be unpleasant, since it is largely the smell of decay, but it is not.”

  “It is a very English smell,” she said. “I had forgotten it. It is strange how smells can bring back vivid memories. My father used to take me walking in the parks when I was a child. We would always walk on the grass during the autumn so that we could crunch leaves underfoot. They were happy times.”

  “Are you glad to be back in England?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she said. “I do not regret my ten years as a wanderer, because I learned a great deal about life that I might not otherwise know. And I had my husband for five years. I was happy. He was all the home I needed during those years. Besides, it is foolish to regret anything from one’s past. Everything that happens helps to shape us into the people we are. But I am glad to be home again. I would not wish to settle permanently in any other country.”

  “But you are quite right,” he said. “People are really home, are they not? I have always been greatly attached to Amberley Court. If anyone were to take it away from me, I think I would die a little inside. But if ever I had to make the choice between this place and my wife and babies—well, there would be no choice at all.”

  Lord Eden had Anna prattling at his side, telling him all about the triumphs of her Season during the spring, reminding him of her disappointment that he had not been there to see her or escort her at all, confiding her hope that her father would take her again the following spring.

  “Then you can come too, Dominic,” she said, “and lead me into the first set of the first ball of my second Season.”

  “I probably would not be able to fight my way past all the young bucks clustered about you, Anna,” he said.

  “Oh, but I would send them all away,” she said, “so that you could sign my card first. For two sets. I wonder who it was who made the foolish rule that one can dance only twice with the same gentleman in the same evening. Don’t you think it silly, Dominic?”

  “It depends on how badly I want to dance with one particular lady,” he said.

  He was watching Ellen riding ahead of them with his brother. They were doing a great deal of talking and smiling. There was a certain satisfaction in knowing that she and Edmund and Alexandra got along well together. She looked happy this morning, and very lovely in her black velvet riding habit. It brought back vivid memories to see her on horseback.

  They rode along a valley that was beautiful despite the bareness of the trees. The stream flowed past them on its way to the sea. The tree-covered slopes grew steeper as they proceeded, and the valley floor narrower.

  Lord Amberley stopped when they had ridden for more than a mile. “There is a magnificent view back along the valley to Amberley and the sea from the top of this slope,” he said to Ellen and the riders behind them. “It is rather a steep climb, I’m afraid, and has to be done on foot, but it is well worth the effort. Is anyone feeling energetic?”

  It seemed that everyone was. They all dismounted, the gentlemen tethering the horses to the trees. Lord Eden turned to find Ellen. He wanted to be with her when she saw the view.

  “Oh, dear,” Susan said at his elbow, while Lord Agerton was still busy with her horse, “I think I had better stay here, my lord. Climbing up might be possible, but I know I would be terrified to come down again. I have no head for heights. I shall be quite all right down here. I shall take a turn along the bank of the stream and back.”

  “What, Susan?” Lord Eden said with a grin. “You can never be so chickenhearted. You, who used to climb trees in pursuit of trapped kittens?”

  “But I always used to get stuck,” she said. “And someone had to come to my rescue.”

  “I have a sturdy arm,” he said. “Will you trust it to keep you from falling? I will not let you slip, I promise.”

  “Oh, thank you,” she said. “You are very kind.”

  Anna and Jennifer, Walter and Miles Courtney were having a race to the top of the slope, with a great deal of crashing through the trees and shouting and shrieking. The others ascended somewhat more sedately. Susan hung heavily on Lord Eden’s arm and forced him to frequent stops, with the result that they were soon far behind the rest.

  “I am spoiling your enjoyment,” she said.

  “Not at all.” He smiled down at her. “You were always such a timid little thing, Susan. How is it that you could survive a life of following the drum for three whole years?”

  “It was not easy,” she said. “I found it very difficult, my lord. But I felt that I must stay close to my husband, you see.”

  He covered her hand with his. “Of course,” he said. “Do you miss him, Susan?”

  “Life must go on,” she said, accepting the large linen handkerchief that he held out to her
. “I would not burden you with my grief, my lord. It is good to be home with my family and friends. That is, if I may take the liberty of calling you my friend, my lord.”

  “Well,” he said in some amusement, “if I am not your friend, Susan, I don’t know who is.”

  By the time they reached the clearing almost at the top of the slope, it seemed that everyone else had already looked his fill. Except for Ellen, who was still gazing downward, back along the valley the way they had ridden to the house and its gardens and outbuildings, and to the distant line of the sea.

  “Well, here comes Susan at last,” one of her brothers announced.

  “You are not to think naughty thoughts,” she scolded loudly. “Lord Eden was merely helping me ascend the slope. I am so foolish that I had to rest several times. Nothing else was happening at all.”

  Howard Courtney flushed, and Lord Amberley exchanged a look with his wife. Madeline paused in her conversation with Lord Agerton and looked closely at Susan. Lord Eden, too, looked down at her, startled, and across to Ellen, who still had her back to him. Susan released his arm and strolled across to join her.

  “It is a lovely view, is it not?” she said. “It was very bad of Howard to suggest what he did just now. I am all of a blush, Mrs. Simpson. All because Lord Eden was my beau before I chose my husband instead of him. I am afraid that I hurt him badly at the time, but that was a long time ago. And you and I know that being a widow ousts all thoughts of beaux and romance quite out of one’s head. The very idea!”

  Ellen smiled. “I don’t believe anyone thought any such thing,” she said.

  “Oh, I am not so sure of that,” Susan said. “Just consider what Anna said about you last evening. She was merely being silly, of course, you being in mourning for your husband and in a delicate situation besides. But I felt for you even so. It is painful to be accused of flirting, is it not?”

  The younger people were beginning the descent with as much noise and enthusiasm as they had shown on the way up.

  “Come, Susan,” Lord Eden said from behind the two ladies. “I have enlisted Agerton’s support for the descent. With one of us on each side of you, I don’t think you could fall even if you tried.”

  “Oh,” she said, “how kind you are. I am such a silly goose, Mrs. Simpson.”

  Ellen, looking at Lord Eden for the first time that morning, found herself smiling back when he grinned and even winked at her.

  When they were all at the bottom of the hill and mounted again, Lord Amberley gave them the choice of continuing on up the valley or returning to the house.

  “Oh, do let us continue,” Jennifer said eagerly, and immediately clapped a hand to her mouth. “That is, if everyone else wishes to do so, of course, my lord.”

  But it seemed that everyone did—the most vocal elements of the group, anyway.

  “It seems we are not to see anything of our children this morning after all,” Lord Amberley said apologetically to his wife.

  “Doubtless they will survive,” she said. “Mama had promised to paint with Christopher, apparently. What sort of disaster that may lead to, I shudder to think.”

  They both laughed.

  “We will take them for a ride down onto the beach this afternoon, shall we?” he suggested.

  “That sounds like heaven, Edmund,” she said with a smile.

  A mile or so farther upstream, they came to faster-flowing water and a trail of old stepping-stones spanning its width.

  “Aha, they are still here,” Lord Eden said. “Walter, Howard, are those stones in the center not the very ones we placed there three years or so ago? The old ones had disappeared, I recall.”

  “Yes, they are,” Madeline said, riding up alongside her brother. “I recognize the very flat one in the middle. The very solid and safe one. It does not look near as much fun as the one that used to wobble there when we were children.”

  “Do you remember the dunking I got once when I fell in?” Lord Eden said with a grin. “What were we doing at that particular time? Crossing backward, or on one leg, or blindfold?”

  “We did them all at one time or another,” Howard said. “I think it was blindfold and backward when I got wet—and had a thrashing for it when I got home.”

  “Do let us go across,” Anna said. “There are the ruins of an old abbey at the top of the slope opposite, Jennifer. I want to show it to you.”

  Lord Eden groaned. “Oh, the energy of the young!” he said, dismounting and lifting first his cousin and then Jennifer to the ground. “Away you go, then, children. We older folk will follow at a more sedate pace.”

  Anna pulled a face and turned toward the stream.

  He lifted Madeline to the ground. She stood staring ahead along the bank of the stream.

  “It was just along there,” she said, “that he kissed me for the first time. The last time I was here, Dom. It seems like forever ago.”

  “Purnell?” he said. “So it was. I believe I was walking Susan along the opposite bank—because she was afraid to cross over—and nobly resisting the urge to kiss her. Oh, Lord! Another lifetime, Mad.”

  Susan, who had been lifted to the ground by the earl, was protesting quite clearly and timidly that she could not possibly set foot on one of the stepping-stones, not if her life depended on it. She looked appealingly at Lord Eden.

  “And I have no intention of going across either, Susan,” Lord Amberley said. “I have had quite enough violent exercise for one day, I thank you. You and I will stroll along the bank together and tell each other how foolishly all these children are behaving. Shall we?”

  “Oh,” Susan said, glancing at Lord Agerton, who was helping the countess across the stones, and at Lord Eden, who was tethering Ellen’s horse to a tree. “You are very kind, my lord.”

  “Not at all, Susan,” he said. “I will be glad of the company.”

  “I am sure you do not need my hand,” Lord Eden said with a smile at Ellen. “I have watched you cross much worse without assistance. But I must play the gentleman, you see, in case anyone is looking.” He stretched out a hand to her.

  She placed hers in it and followed his lead across the stones, which were indeed sturdy and safe.

  “Do you want to go up?” he asked when they reached the other side. “Or shall we stroll along the bank here? Is it wise for you to have so much exercise?”

  “Perhaps not overmuch,” she said. “The stroll sounds good. But perhaps you want to stay with the others?”

  “I think I will be safe with you,” he said with a grin.

  She took his arm and they strolled slowly along the bank and among the trees, which grew right to the water’s edge on that side of the stream. It was good to have the bitterness behind them, she thought, to be able to think of him, however cautiously, as a friend again. His arm felt strong and reassuring beneath hers. She did feel rather tired from the ride.

  “You grew up in a very beautiful place,” she said.

  “Yes.” He looked down at her. It was only just beginning to register on his mind that this was Ellen Simpson and that she was at his childhood home with him and that they were walking together, their arms linked, in quiet harmony with each other. “We had something of an idyllic childhood. Madeline and I were as wild as could be, and always into the most hair-raising scrapes. And Edmund was no better, from what I have heard. Perry Lampman used to be his particular partner in crime. Until Edmund was forced to grow up very fast at the age of nineteen, when our father died.”

  “That must have been a hard time for you,” she said.

  “Yes,” he agreed, “but our father had always lavished a great deal of affection on us, and that held us together after he was gone.” He grinned. “Unfortunately, affection did not lighten his hand when I was into some trouble. My only hope was that Madeline was in it with me. He would never beat her, you see, and could not in all conscience beat me for a shared offense.”

  She smiled up at him. “I find now,” she said, “that I am able to picture th
e places where several of those stories you told me took place.” She remembered suddenly where she had heard those stories and waited for the pain of embarrassment. But he had been right in what he had said the night before. There had been more between them during those days in her rooms than just the physical. She had sat on a chair and he had lain on the bed, hand in hand, getting to know each other.

  “Yes,” he said. “This in particular was a favorite playground.”

  “I have reconciled with my father. Did you know?” she asked.

  “You did go to visit him, then?” he said. “I am glad, Ellen. I remember stories you told me of your childhood, and I understood that you had been fond of him.”

  “He still drinks,” she said. “Worse than ever, I believe.”

  “Does that upset you?”

  She considered. “Only for his sake,” she said. “He is not a happy man. He believes he really is my father, Dominic.”

  “Does he?” He smiled at her. “Perhaps I should be calling you ‘Lady Ellen,’ then.”

  “He wants me to go and live with him when I leave here,” she said.

  “And are you going to?” he asked. “You are not going to move into your father-in-law’s house?”

  “No,” she said. She stared straight ahead of her along the path. “I told him the truth before I left town. And Dorothy too. I will not be going back to them.”

  He resisted the urge to draw her more closely against his side. He concentrated every effort of will on being a comfortable, friendly presence for her.

  “Well,” he said, “I am happy you have found your father again, Ellen. Everyone should have someone he can call his own.”

  “I always felt safe with him,” she said, looking up at him and smiling. “When he held my hand, nothing in the world could harm me.”

  “That is what fathers are for,” he said.

  “I always felt that way with Charlie too,” she said, looking deliberately into his eyes to dispel instantly any awkwardness that that name would arouse between them. “All the dirt and the discomfort, the tedium, the danger, mattered not one bit when Charlie was there. The whole of the French army could not have harmed me if his arms were about me. It was only when he was in battle that I was afraid. And then I was always mortally afraid.”