one was a civilian and ran no danger of ever seeing an Eagle waving menacingly in one’s face from the clasp of a French hand. She smiled at a flushing Lieutenant Penworth.
The colonel handed her from the barouche when a suitable picnic site had been chosen, and asked her to take a walk with him, since it was too early to eat. Lady Anne and Frances were already settling themselves on blankets that Captain Norton had spread on the ground. Sir Harding joined them there. Lieutenant Penworth was bowing over Jennifer Simpson’s hand.
It was perhaps not quite proper to agree to walk alone in the forest with a gentleman, Madeline thought as she took the colonel’s arm and allowed him to lead her away. But she was past the age of chaperones and all that faradiddle. It felt good sometimes to be five-and-twenty and as free as a bird.
“Now I know why you wore a dress of such a bright yellow,” the colonel said. “It was so that we would have sunshine even in the middle of the forest.”
“Ah, my secret is exposed,” she said gaily, twirling the parasol even as she realized that its use was quite redundant with the trees acting as an effective shade.
They settled into their usual conversation of light banter. It was the way she talked with almost all men these days. Never anything deeper. Was she afraid to get to know any man too closely? Was she afraid to allow any man to know her? But she shook her head and smiled. This was not a day for introspection.
“You know…” the colonel said, and Madeline was instantly alert. The tone of his voice had changed. “Despite your very sensible ban on a certain topic for today, I will say that it is highly probable that I will have to leave Brussels at a moment’s notice.”
“You did so today,” she said, smiling up at him, “to attend a picnic.”
But she could not control this part of the conversation. His eyes were grave as he smiled back.
“I may not be able to return immediately,” he said. “Perhaps you will be gone back to England before I do so.”
“I shall stay,” she said. “Until Dominic is ready to go back, that is.”
“If you have returned to England before I see you again,” he said, “may I find you out there?”
“But of course,” she said gaily. “I always enjoy finding absent friends again, sir.”
“Do you comprehend my meaning?” he asked, looking searchingly into her eyes.
She gave up her pretense of gaiety. “Yes,” she said hesitantly. “Yes, I do, sir. And I wish you would not. Let us not spoil a day of pleasure.”
He smiled ruefully. “You do not care for me?” he asked.
“Oh, yes, I do,” she said hastily. “I do.”
“But you are afraid of what might happen?”
She drew in a deep breath. “I do not think of it,” she said. “It is not that at all.”
“Ah,” he said. “There is someone else, then?”
She looked sadly into his eyes. “Yes,” she said. “I’m sorry.”
He smiled slowly. “And so am I,” he said. They walked on in silence for a while. “I do hope you are unrolling a ball of string behind our backs. Do you have any idea how to get back to the carriages? We might be doomed to wander here forever and ever, you know.”
“What a dreadful fate!” she said. “But I am sure that after a few days, sir, when I am about to die of starvation, you will be gentleman enough to climb a tree to see if you can see the spires of Brussels or some other sign of civilization.”
He laughed. “But these are not exactly a schoolboy’s dream of trees for climbing, are they?” he said.
She had said yes, Madeline was thinking. She had said that yes, there was someone else. Why had she said that? Had she lied because it was an easy way to put an end to an uncomfortable conversation? And yet she had not felt as if she were lying. Was there someone else? Was that her problem?
But she did not either like him or love him. She had not seen him for three years and was unlikely ever to see him again. He had settled in Canada. He had gone beyond Canada into the vast inland wilderness, working in the fur trade. She very rarely thought of him consciously except when Alexandra had a letter from him. But she had said yes. She had agreed that there was someone else.
It was a long time since she had loved and hated James Purnell. A long time since that strange night at Amberley when he had danced with her in Edmund’s formal gardens to the faint sounds of music coming from the ballroom. When he had kissed her with a tenderness she had not known him capable of and with a passion that had had her expecting that she would be taken there in the garden, and wanting to be taken. When he had told her that she should leave him if she knew what was good for her, that he did not love her, that he felt only lust for her. When he had left in the middle of the night, even before the ball was over, and taken ship for Canada.
It was all a long, long time ago. Like something from another lifetime. Yet she had just told Colonel Huxtable that there was someone else. James with his severe, handsome face and lean, restless body. James with his very dark hair and the lock that fell constantly over his forehead, no matter how often he pushed it back.
Yes, she had loved him. Against all reason. A long, long time ago.
LIEUTENANT PENWORTH BOWED to Jennifer. “Would you care to walk a little way, Miss Simpson?” he asked. “Perhaps you feel like some exercise after sitting for such a long time.”
Well, the devil! Lord Eden thought. He was losing her to a scarlet cavalryman’s coat, to a young and eager boy. If he was not careful, he was going to find himself paired with Miss Frances Summers, who had been signaling her availability to him for all of the past month. But Miss Simpson would need a chaperone if she intended to walk out of sight, a strong possibility when they were in the middle of a forest.
“Shall we stroll along too, Mrs. Simpson?” he asked. “I confess to a need to work up more of an appetite for tea.”
“Thank you,” she said, taking his offered arm.
And they settled into a silence that he found difficult to break. It was strange-he had never felt awkward in her presence before. But he had noticed during the ride from Brussels that she had not once looked into his eyes. Damn him for a careless dancer. Their collision of the previous evening had been a small matter, but it had embarrassed her dreadfully.
And he had woken in a sweat during the night with the fragrance of her hair in his nostrils.
She was Ellen Simpson. Charlie’s wife. The quiet woman whose presence had always made Charlie’s tent a haven of peace and comfort. The woman in whose presence he had always been able to relax fully. The woman whose presence he had often been unaware of, though he had always noticed when she was not there for some reason.
She was just Ellen Simpson.
“Do you ever miss England?” he asked. “This is a very lovely spot, I must confess, but it is not home, is it?”
“Home!” she said softly. “Home is not a place to me, my lord. Home is my husband. And he has a habit of moving about with the army.” She smiled.
He looked down at her in some curiosity. He had never asked her about herself. He knew very little about her, in fact.
“Were you with your father from infancy?” he asked. “When did your mother die?”
“I went to Spain with my father when I was fifteen,” she said, “and lived with him until he was killed. And then I married Charlie. Ten years altogether. Ten years of wandering.”
She had not answered the second of his questions. Had her mother died when she was fifteen? Was there no other family to whom she could have gone?
“Which part of England are you from?” he asked.
“London mostly,” she said. “My father…That is, we had a home in Leicestershire, but we rarely went there. I grew up in London.”
“Do you not dream of going back?” he asked. “Of finally having a home of your own again? A place where you belong?”
“Yes, sometimes,” she said. “In the countryside. With no troubles and no dangers. So that I would not always have to live in terror that something was going to happen to Charlie. It must be heaven to live with one’s husband in peace. And in one place. A place that is one’s own. Oh, yes, I do wish for that.”
“The time will come soon enough,” he said, touching the hand that rested on his arm and withdrawing his fingers hastily. He did not want to make her uncomfortable again. “Charlie is talking of selling out once this
