Web of Love w-2

by Mary Balogh

  “Ellen,” he said, “come and sit down.”

  “You knew he was dead.” She looked up at him, the strange smile still on her face. “You knew he was dead, my lord. You were with him. You brought me the news. And yet this is what you have done to his memory?” She pointed to the bed behind him.

  He shook his head slowly. “Don’t,” he said. “It has been with me as with you, Ellen. He was my closest friend. I watched him die. I told you-I did, didn’t I?-and then I let go of the knowledge.”

  “So,” she said with a little laugh. “We are a pair of fools, my Lord Eden. And a pair of sinners.”

  “No,” he said, “not that. We would not have done what we have done if Charlie were still alive. Both you and I are incapable of that. You know it. This has not been wrong, Ellen. Only very poorly timed. We should have waited-for a year, perhaps. But love will not always wait. And we have needed the comfort of each other.”

  She held her hands palm-up before her and looked down at them. “Charlie is dead,” she said. “This time he is not coming back. I will never see him again. There will be no cottage in the country. No safe and secure times together. Only the past. Only memories. He’s gone.”

  “Come over here, Ellen,” he said softly, reaching out a hand to her again. “Let me comfort you. Let us comfort each other.”

  Her eyes were brimming with unshed tears when she looked up. “You cannot comfort me,” she said. “He was my husband. My life. I loved him.”

  “I know,” he said. “I know you did. And he was my friend, Ellen. You are my friend. Let me hold you.”

  “You are not my friend,” she said. “Not any longer. Not ever again. You are my guilt. For all during these months in Brussels I have wanted you. I have looked at you and touched you and wanted you. Even though I had the best man in the world as a husband. Even though I loved him more than I love life.”

  He put his head down and rubbed at his eyes with the heels of his hands. “We each need some time alone,” he said. “The atmosphere is too charged at the moment for either of us to talk sense. Let us not say anything that we will forever regret, Ellen. Let’s talk later.”

  When he looked up, she was staring down at her hands again, her expression stony. One tear had escaped and was trickling unchecked down her cheek.

  “There is nothing to say,” she said.

  “Only perhaps that I love you.”

  She shook her head. “Not even that,” she said. “You will see that it is not true when you have had time to think. There is nothing to say, my lord. Nothing at all.”

  She turned without looking at him and left the room.

  He was sitting on the bed, his head in his hands, when he heard the outer door of her rooms open and close and knew himself to be quite alone.

  Chapter 12

  SOMEWHAT LATER THE SAME EVENING Madeline was summoned downstairs in Colonel Potts’s home. She closed the book she had been reading aloud from, smiled cheerfully at Lieutenant Penworth, who was lying staring at the canopy over his bed with his one good eye, and promised that she would return in time to make him comfortable for the night. She ran lightly down the stairs.

  And positively hurtled down the last ten, shrieking in a manner quite unbecoming a house in which there was sickness. Her arms wound themselves around the Earl of Amberley’s neck, and he lifted her from two stairs up and twirled her around twice before setting her on her feet.

  “Edmund!” she cried. “I was never more happy to see you in my life. I thought you must have disappeared from the face of the earth. And Mama!” She shrieked again and threw herself into her mother’s arms, laughing and crying all at once.

  “My darling girl,” her mother said, hugging her very tightly. “Looking creased and uncombed and quite hagged. And behaving like a hoyden. And more dear than you have ever looked in your life.”

  “Have you just arrived?” Madeline asked eagerly. “Why did you not let me know you were coming? Why have you not answered any of my letters? Oh, do come into the salon.”

  “Your first letter reached us the day before we left,” the earl said, taking his mother’s elbow and following his sister across the hallway to the salon, from which the wounded had long ago been moved. “We thought we could get here faster than the mail. Dominic?” His voice was tense.

  “Oh!” Madeline said. “You have read only my first letter? How dreadful! Dom is well on the road to recovery, I do assure you, and has been for almost two weeks. He has totally defied the surgeon who was calling on him, and is eating like a horse and prowling around his room like a caged bear.”

  The Earl of Amberley took his mother by the arm again. Her hands had gone up to cover her face. “Thank God!” he said, drawing her into his arms. His voice was shaking and his own eyes suspiciously bright. “Thank God.”

  “What dreadful suspense you must have been living in!” Madeline said. “My first letter must have been dreadfully gloomy. And the second. He was gravely ill, you know. The surgeon told Mrs. Simpson that we must expect the worst.”

  The dowager Lady Amberley pushed herself away from her son, searched in her reticule for a handkerchief, and blew her nose. “But Dominic would not give in,” she said. “He is positively the strongest and most stubborn boy I have known. I was not glad of it three years ago, but now I am. We were afraid to go to Mrs. Simpson’s first, Madeline. We did not know what we might find.”

  Madeline smiled brightly. “I was there this afternoon,” she said, “and was taken quite by surprise. I am not at all sure that the scene would have been good for you, Mama. Dominic and Mrs. Simpson have fallen in love with each other and are to be married. Except that Dom has not asked her yet. But she is sure to say yes, he says. And I have never seen him so glowingly happy.”

  Her mother looked inquiringly at the earl, who was frowning. “This is rather sudden, is it not?” he said. “I have the greatest liking and respect for Mrs. Simpson, but she lost her husband just a month ago. Can she be thinking of remarrying already?”

  “It is just like Dominic to be so impulsive,” his mother said. “Will she suit, Edmund?”

  “Oh, assuredly,” he said. “She is not at all Dominic’s usual type.”

  “That sounds decidedly promising,” the dowager said with a smile.

  “I shall fetch a shawl and bonnet,” Madeline said, “and walk there with you.”

  Her brother held up a staying hand. “I think we must curb our impatience to see him,” he said, “especially since he is out of all danger. It is rather late in the day to be paying social calls. Besides, Mama and I have not even found a hotel yet. We shall take rooms at the Hotel d’Angleterre if there are any available and pay our call at the Rue de la Montagne in the morning.”

  “Yes, I think it would be best,” his mother agreed. “As it is, we have disturbed Lady Andrea’s household.”

  She kissed and hugged Madeline again, as did Lord Amberley, and they parted for the night. Madeline ran up the stairs again to share her good news with the lieutenant. She chattered brightly to him as she washed him with deft and gentle hands, straightened out his bedclothes, and turned and plumped his pillows.

  She resisted the urge to kiss his forehead as she was leaving the room. She had not yet done so, and he might think it forward of her. He did not yet know that she was going to marry him and look after him for the rest of his life.

  Neither did Mama and Edmund. She sobered somewhat as she reached her own room. It was going to be tricky. She hoped they would not voice some of the same silly notions that Dom had had. But she did not care anyway. She loved Lieutenant Penworth with a deep tenderness. And she would be able to pour out her love for him for the rest of their lives. He would always need her.

  THE EARL OF AMBERLEY and his mother were surprised the following morning when they arrived at the Rue de la Montagne to find that Mrs. Simpson looked far from being a woman newly in love and planning a marriage. She was dressed in deepest mourning, her hair pulled severely back from her pale,
drawn face. She looked as if she were close to collapse.

  “Mrs. Simpson.” The earl held out both hands to her and took one of hers within their clasp.

  “Good day, my lord,” she said. “You have come. Lord Eden will be glad.” Her voice was totally devoid of expression.

  “My very deepest sympathies, ma’am,” he said. “Your husband was one of the kindest gentlemen of my acquaintance, and I know you were devoted to him.”

  “Yes,” she said. “Thank you.”

  “May I present my mother, the dowager Countess of Amberley?” he said. “Mrs. Simpson, Mama.”

  Ellen curtsied.

  “You have been wonderfully kind to my boy,” Lady Amberley said, stretching out both hands to her new acquaintance. “And oh, my dear, how you have been suffering on your own account.” She gathered the other woman into her arms when Ellen’s face crumpled. “Oh, my poor dear. My poor dear child.”

  Lord Amberley walked quietly past them and on to the closed doors that must lead to the bedchambers. The second one he opened showed him his brother, standing at the window, his back to the room, looking somewhat thinner than he had looked five weeks before.

  Lord Eden’s shoulders tensed when the door opened, and he turned slowly. His brother looked at him in shock. He had expected to see him looking somewhat less than his usual fit, ebullient self. But he had not expected to see the pale, haggard face, the haunted eyes.

  “Edmund,” Lord Eden said. “God, Edmund!”

  He took two steps forward, but his brother was across the room before he could move any farther, and had him in a close embrace. Lord Amberley felt a nasty lurching of his stomach when his brother leaned his head on his shoulder and broke into racking sobs.

  “Dominic!” he said, aghast. “My God, is this what war does to a man? Well, you are with me now, and I am going to take you home with me no matter what ideas anyone else may have. I have never interfered with what you want of life, and have no right to do so now. But I will use all my influence on you, and set Alex to using hers, to persuade you to sell out of this infernal life.”

  Lord Eden straightened up. “I never thought to make such a prize idiot of myself,” he said. “If you only knew how I have longed and longed this morning to see just your very person. I am so helpless here on my own, Edmund. As weak as an infant. I doubt I could get down the stairs to the street without assistance.”

  “You are on your feet and standing straight,” his brother said, “when two weeks ago, by all accounts, it was just as likely you would not even live. Don’t rush things, Dominic. Let us be thankful for great mercies. Your strength and freedom of movement will return.”

  “Take me away from here,” Lord Eden said. “Will you? Today?”

  Lord Amberley frowned and looked closely at him. “You are that restless?” he asked.

  “I am imposing on her,” his brother said. “I have no right here. She has her own life, her own grief. She will be wanting to return to England.”

  “Mama is with her now,” the earl said quietly. “She is very broken up, Dominic. But it is hardly surprising. They were a devoted couple.” He watched his brother.

  “Mama?” Lord Eden frowned. “Mama is here? And I suppose I have eyes as red as a petulant schoolboy’s. I must get over to that washstand. Mama! Whatever possessed her to leave England?”

  “Merely a son who was at death’s door,” Lord Amberley said. “I want to see that wound, Dominic, and more to the point, I want a physician to see it. I hear that you sent the army surgeon packing.”

  “So would you have,” Lord Eden said, gasping as he dashed a handful of cold water onto his face. “Having blood pumped from you daily and toast and weak tea pumped back in again is not conducive to good health, I would have you know. I would still be flat on my back. Or else six feet under.”

  “I am sure we can manage better than that,” his brother said. “Do you think you can travel in a hired carriage? We have one outside. What about Mrs. Simpson, Dominic? Is she fit to be left alone? Will she need help in returning to England?”

  “You can ask her,” Lord Eden said. “Will you, Edmund? I can’t. I mean, I am in no shape to offer anyone help, am I?”

  There were a dozen questions racing through the earl’s mind. He asked none of them. He watched his brother sit heavily on the bed and stretch out on it, wincing slightly, and turned to leave.

  His mother was sitting on a sofa next to Mrs. Simpson, holding both her hands and talking to her.

  Ellen looked up. “You will want to see your son,” she said. “I am sorry. I have been keeping you from him.”

  “You must not apologize,” the dowager said, squeezing tightly the hands that she held. “Gracious heavens. When I think of how much I am in your debt, my dear, dear child!”

  She rose to her feet and hurried to the open doorway of Lord Eden’s room.

  Lord Amberley stood looking down at the fair head of Mrs. Simpson.

  “I cannot thank you enough for what you have done for my brother,” he said. “I shall always consider myself in your debt.”

  She looked up at him with reddened, miserable eyes. “You must not do so,” she said. “It is the role of army women to tend the wounded, my lord. There is nothing out of the ordinary in what I have done.”

  “Ah, but to me there is,” he said. “For you have tended my only and very dear brother, ma’am. And at a time when the burden of your own grief has been very heavy on you. Is there anything I can do for you, my dear?”

  “No,” she said. She rose to her feet. “I thank you, but no, there is nothing.”

  “I shall be taking Dominic away with me,” he said, “as soon as I can return to the Hotel d’Angleterre and bring back some clothes for him. Apparently you had to cut away his uniform? So one burden at least I can remove from you, ma’am. We have imposed upon your hospitality long enough.” He watched her closely.

  “It has been no imposition,” she said. Her eyes were directed at his waistcoat.

  “What will you do?” he asked. “Will you return to England?”

  “Yes,” she said. “I have my stepdaughter to look after. And I promised my husband that I would go to his sister in London if anything happened to him.” Her voice wavered slightly.

  “May I arrange for your passage?” he asked. “I wish I might offer you the protection of our company on the way home, but I believe it might be several weeks before my brother is fit enough to travel.”

  “Thank you,” she said, “but I will be able to manage quite well on my own.”

  “Yes, I am sure you will,” he said, wishing there were some way to discover her financial circumstances and to offer her money. “One thing you must allow me to do, though, if you please. I will hire a maid to accompany you. Please?” He added the final plea hastily, noting that she was about to open her mouth in protest.

  She looked up into his eyes and nodded briefly. “If you wish,” she said. “Thank you.”

  She stayed in the parlor, sitting quite still, when he left to fetch clothes for Lord Eden. And she stayed there when the dowager countess joined her as Lord Eden dressed with his brother’s assistance. She got to her feet and moved to a shadowed alcove by the fireplace when the door opened again.

  “Will you be able to descend the stairs, Dominic?” his mother asked anxiously.

  “Quite easily,” he said, “with Edmund’s help.”

  His face was very white and set. Mother and elder son exchanged glances.

  Lord Eden looked about him until he saw Ellen in the shadows. He crossed the room to stand in front of her. She was staring down at her clasped hands.

  “Good-bye, Ellen,” he said. He was almost whispering, though his mother had begun to talk in a quite loud voice to his brother. “I am sorry. I am truly sorry. For the timing. The timing was all wrong. We protected ourselves so carefully from the painful truth that we ignored it entirely. But what happened was not sordid, for all that. And I do not love you any the less for all the
guilt I feel and all the suffering I know I have caused you. May I see you in England? After several months perhaps, or even a year?”

  “No,” she said. “I do not want to see you ever again, my lord. It is not that I blame you or hate you. I blame myself, and I hate myself. But I will not see you again. Good-bye.”

  He stood silently before her for several moments before bowing as well as he could with the fresh bandages that Edmund had secured tightly about his ribs, and turning away.

  Lady Amberley took Ellen’s hands in hers again. “I will call on you tomorrow again, my dear,” she said. “Perhaps just seeing another person will help you somewhat. Though that is a foolish thing to say, I know. I lost my husband very suddenly, and I know that it is the world’s loneliest and most wretched feeling. The only consolation I can offer will seem like no consolation at all at the moment. It will pass, my dear child. The pain will go away eventually. I promise you it will.” She leaned forward and kissed Ellen’s pale cheek.

  Lord Eden and his brother had already left the room, Ellen was relieved to see. She sank to the sofa when their mother too had left, and sat there for a long time, too deeply miserable even to cry.

  LORD EDEN WAS stretched out on his bed at the hotel, one arm flung across his eyes.

  “I don’t want anything, Mama,” he said. “I am not hungry.”

  “You have not eaten all day,” she said. “Are you feeling unwell?”

  “Just tired,” he said. “The move here was more exhausting than I would have thought.”

  She touched his hair and looked down at him, troubled.

  “Nothing,” she said a few minutes later when she had rejoined her elder son in the sitting room. “He will not even look at a tray.”

  Lord Amberley got to his feet. “Teatime,” he said, “and my arms feel dreadfully empty. No tiger to undo my waistcoat buttons and remember too late that his bread and jam have not been wiped from his fingers. And no princess to stare me down and then smile like an angel when I am vanquished.”