business with Bonaparte is finally finished with.”
“Yes,” she said. “But I have learned in the past ten years not to look too far ahead and not to dream too much. I have my husband today. We will spend this evening together. That I can look forward to with some certainty and some eagerness. But not the home in the country. I will not think about that yet.”
“Charlie is a fortunate man,” he said.
She looked up at him, startled. “Oh, no,” she said. “I am the fortunate one. If you only knew! Charlie is the kindest and the most wonderful man in the whole world. He gave me a reason for living when I had none, you know. He is everything to me. My world would collapse if I did not have him.”
He had learned in the previous few weeks that there was more to Ellen Simpson than just the quiet strength of character that he had been long familiar with. He had learned that she could be gay and humorous and vitally beautiful. And now he was seeing that there was passion in her. He looked down at her, intrigued.
“I know something of Charlie’s kindness,” he said. “I am not sure that I would not have bolted from the terror of my first experience with battle if your husband had not been there to encourage me. It must have been a comfort to have him for a friend when your father died. Were you very fond of him?”
“He was good to me,” she said. “But I never knew him well. I had terrible problems adjusting to army life when I first went to Spain.” She smiled. “Charlie found me crying outside my tent one day because I had just brushed my hair and found the brush to be gray with dust, and there was nowhere to wash my hair. Or my clothes. I had never really experienced dirt before. He put his arm around my shoulders and sat on the ground with me and told me stories, just as if I were a child.” She laughed. “He was wholly paternal, you must realize. I was fifteen, and he thirty. And he told me of his little girl, whom he missed. Jennifer. After that, he used to seek me out often to see that I was not unhappy. And he used to bring me presents whenever he had been into a town. A fan. A mantilla. A clean comb.”
It was hard to imagine Mrs. Simpson as a bewildered girl, crying in the dust. He knew her as a woman who endured the worst of hardships with quiet cheerfulness. The only time he had seen her react to discomfort was when she had fallen from her horse into the mud one day and had been cursing like one of the men when he and Charlie had come up to her.
“I made friends among the women quite fast,” she said. “And I got used to the life. But you cannot imagine how having just a glimpse of Charlie came to light up my days. Sometimes he would wink at me from a distance. I suppose he was like the father I…He was like a father to me. Or an older brother.”
Like the father she had never had? Lord Eden completed in his mind. There was something fascinating about discovering what two of his friends had been like before he had met them.
“I asked him to marry me,” she said, and she flushed when he looked down at her with a grin. “It is shocking, is it not? After my father died, he wanted to send me to his sister in London. Lady Habersham, with whom Jennifer always stayed when not at school. He was willing to do that for me. But I asked him to marry me. I even begged him. He did not think it fitting. He said he was too old for me and not right for me.”
Lord Eden laughed aloud. “I shall have to tease him,” he said, “about being led squealing to the altar.”
“Oh,” she said, and she was laughing too. “Please don’t do that. Please don’t. I was very selfish. I did not even consider that perhaps he did not want to marry me. But I loved him so dearly. I could not bear the thought of being parted from him. Life would have had no more meaning. But I don’t think he has been sorry. I think I have brought him happiness, too.”
“If you had had to spend your days with him as I did when you were gone to England, ma’am,” he said, “you would be in no doubt about that. He was like a bear in a cage.”
She smiled brightly at him. “I am sorry,” she said. “I must have been boring you terribly, telling you these things.”
“On the contrary,” he said. “I have been fascinated.” And that was certainly no lie. He was totally surprised. He had always assumed that Mrs. Simpson had been persuaded into a marriage of convenience after the death of her father, though he had never been in any doubt of her devotion to Charlie. But of course, when he thought about it, he had to admit that her story made sense. Charlie was not at all the type of man to take advantage of an unhappy and bewildered girl.
“It seems that Lieutenant Penworth would make a good reconnaissance officer,” he said. “I am afraid I would be hopelessly lost in this forest by now. But you see? He has brought us full circle, and there is the picnic party.”
She seemed to have run out of confidences and conversation. It was something of a relief to be back with the others again and to be able to arrange matters so that he sat down on the blanket beside Jennifer. She was glowing with high spirits, as usual, and looking particularly fetching in a blue muslin dress and straw bonnet trimmed with blue flowers.
Lord Eden did not know why he could not shake from his mind the memory of Mrs. Simpson pressed to his body the night before, her face turned up to his. Surely such a thing must have happened to him before. If she had been a stranger or a passing acquaintance, doubtless he would have forgotten all about the incident by now. It was just that he was unaccustomed to thinking of her as a woman. She was Charlie’s wife, someone he liked and respected a great deal. But still, just Charlie’s wife.
It was foolish to feel this embarrassment, this awareness, in her presence. And to know that she shared the feeling. He did not like it at all. He set himself to charm Miss Simpson.
CAPTAIN SIMPSON TURNED to Ellen and blew out his breath from puffed cheeks. He laughed.
“Have you ever seen such a little whirlwind?” he asked. “If her mouth could move any faster, Ellen, she would make it do so.”
Ellen too laughed. “But she is enjoying herself so much,” she said. “And she has made so many friends, and amassed so many admirers, Charlie. You must be very proud of her.”
“I am,” he said. He walked away from the door through which his daughter had just whisked herself on her way to the theater with the Slatterys. “Sometimes I have to pinch myself, Ellen, just to believe she is my daughter. Can you imagine me being father to such a pretty little creature?”
“I can,” she said.
He smiled and sat down beside her on the sofa. “So this afternoon it was all Lieutenant Penworth, was it?” he said. “Can’t say I know the puppy, except that he’s a Guardsman. From Devon, she says, with a parcel of younger brothers and sisters and a love of riding and sailing and playing cricket. Do you fancy visiting our grandchildren in Devon, lass?”
“Oh, Charlie,” she said, laughing at him. “Jennifer is not ready to fix her choice yet. She very much has eyes for Lord Eden, but I think she is shy of talking to you about him because he is your friend.”
“Well,” he said, “I don’t want her married yet. She should have time to enjoy herself, shouldn’t she? Did you have a good time, lass?”
“Yes, I did.” She reached up a hand and smoothed it over the thinning hair at the side of his head. “But I would have preferred to be at home with you. Did you miss me?”
“I went to the shops,” he said.
She laughed. “You, Charlie?” she said. “To the shops?”
“How else could I buy you a present?” he said, grinning at her.
“A present? You bought me a present?” He had not done that for a long time, not since they were in Spain. Oh, he had given her money when she went to England, with strict orders to spend it on herself. But it was the little, often absurd presents that she had always valued most. “Where is it?”
“In my pocket,” he said. But he clasped a hand over the pocket as her hand went toward it. “What do I get first?”
She knelt on the sofa beside him and wrapped her arms about his neck. “What do you want?” she asked, and kissed him lightly on both cheeks.
“The lips,” he said. “Nothing less than the lips.”
“Oh,” she said, “it must be a very valuable present, then. All right, the lips it is.”
They were both chuckling after she had finished kissing him lingeringly.
“Maybe we should forget the present,” he said.
“Not a chance!” She reached into his pocket. Her fingers closed around a package wrapped in soft paper that rustled.
“Perhaps you will not like it,” he said, sitting quite still.
