“Will we be there soon?” Jennifer asked, turning from the window, a frown of impatience between her brows.
“Not long now,” Ellen said with a smile. “Oh, Jennifer, I can scarce sit still here. I am so longing to see your papa again.”
CAPTAIN CHARLES SIMPSON was on his way home through the park in Brussels with his friend Lieutenant Lord Eden after a tiring day of work.
“They do have a distinct advantage over us poor riflemen, don’t they?” Captain Simpson said, nodding in the direction of a cluster of scarlet-coated officers gathered around two young ladies who were feeding the swans on the lake. “Why did you choose the green, Eden? You have the rank and wealth. Why did you not choose one of the more glamorous cavalry regiments?”
Lord Eden smiled. “I did not join the army for the glamour of it,” he said. “I joined because I had to, Charlie. I would sooner not have done so, you know. I fair broke my mother’s heart, and my twin sister threw every cushion in the house at me when I broke the news to her, and refused to speak to me for a whole day afterward. But I had to join. And finally, at the advanced age of two-and-twenty, I did. I wanted to fight where the main action always is. With the infantry.”
“Well,” the captain said with a hearty laugh as one of the young ladies caught sight of Lord Eden and looked a second time, blushing, “it is doubtless just as well you are in green rather than scarlet, lad, or you would be so busy fighting duels with all the other young officers that you would have no time for old Boney. You’re a handsome devil, and no denying the fact. You will stop in for tea?”
“I am quite sure it would not be at all the thing,” Lord Eden said. “If Mrs. Simpson has arrived with your daughter, none of you will want the added presence of a stranger. Some other time, Charlie.”
“A stranger!” Captain Simpson looked quite offended for a moment. “You? Ellen will scold me all evening if I fail to bring you with me. Besides, I want to show off my Jennifer. A fetching little thing, Eden, even if I do say so myself. You would not think to look at me, would you, that I have a pretty little thing for a daughter?” He roared with laughter, turning not a few heads in their direction. “She favors her mother, fortunately for her.”
“I will look in for a few minutes, then,” his friend said. “But only for a few minutes if they have arrived, mind. They will be tired from the journey. If they haven’t come yet, I’ll share some brandy with you, Charlie, and put my feet up for a while. You have been like a coiled spring all day.”
“One thing is for sure,” the captain said. “I’m not letting Ellen go away from me again. We haven’t been apart in five years, you know, since our marriage. You get used to having a woman around. You should try it sometime, Eden.”
His friend grinned. “I would have to be awfully fond of her,” he said. “I have a habit of falling out of love as fast as I fall in. You are fortunate in Mrs. Simpson, Charlie. A nice quiet, loyal wife.”
The captain laughed again. “Your tone of voice says that you would be bored silly with such a wife in a fortnight, Eden,” he said. “You wait, my boy. You will fall in love to stay one of these days. And you couldn’t do better than someone like Ellen. She’s a treasure. Here we are.”
He had stopped outside the house on the Rue de la Montagne where he was billeted. And his beaming face grew even brighter after he had climbed the stairs to his rooms to discover that his wife and daughter were indeed home before him. Though only just. Both still wore traveling dress, and one trunk with a hat box perched precariously on top still stood in the middle of the living room. His wife’s maid whisked the latter into a bedchamber as his daughter came rushing across the room shrieking and hurled herself into his arms.
“Papa!” she cried. “Oh, Papa. I thought the journey would take forever. And I was dreadfully sick on the boat. And Ellen says that there is bound to be a great battle soon, but it is not so, is it? Not now that the duke is here. Oh, Papa, I am so happy to be free of school at last. You cannot imagine!”
Her father held her at arm’s length and chuckled. “Hello, puss,” he said. “You are looking as fine as fivepence. Can this really be my little girl all grown up so soon? Welcome home, sweetheart.” He hugged her to him.
Ellen curtsied to Lord Eden and held out a hand to him. He took it in both of his and raised it to his lips.
“I am pleased to see you safe at home, ma’am,” he said, smiling warmly down at her. “Charlie has been like a fish out of water, and it has not been the same here in your rooms without you. Have you had a tedious journey? You look tired.”
“I am a little,” she said. “But only because I could not wait to be home. It is so good to be back again.” She withdrew her hand after he had squeezed it between both his own.
And he watched as she turned from him, and as Charlie turned from his daughter. And he felt as he felt frequently in the presence of these two friends-an amused sort of affection as it became obvious that if he fell through a hole in the ground and disappeared forever, they would not even notice.
“Ellen,” Charlie said, opening up his arms to her, “you are home.”
“Yes, Charlie,” she said. “At last.”
She did hesitate a moment, feeling the presence of the other two, but the pull of those extended arms was obviously too strong for her. She went into them and hid her face against her husband’s shoulder as he hugged her close and rocked her.
Lord Eden wondered as he had done a hundred times before at the deep affection that bound the two of them together. It was clear why Charlie doted on her. She was always quiet and cheerful and dignified. And she was rather lovely, with her slim, graceful figure, her shining fair hair drawn back into a knot at her neck, and her oval face with the large expressive eyes and straight nose and pretty mouth. One would not expect such a woman to be devoted to a man like Charlie, who was neither young nor handsome nor adept at the social graces.
It was good to see her back again. It was true that Charlie’s home had not seemed quite as comfortable a place without Mrs. Simpson in it, though when she was there she never made her presence obtrusive.
Lord Eden waited to be presented to the little beauty, who was eyeing him in some embarrassment and blushing most becomingly. Charlie had said, of course, that his daughter was pretty, but fond papas could frequently be unreliable when extolling the charms of their own daughters. On this occasion, though, the girl’s beauty had been underestimated, if anything. She was quite exquisite and quite the kind of woman who had always taken his fancy-small, well-endowed with curves, with a lovely eager face and a look of innocent timidity that called out for the protection of some male.
Perhaps he was destined to fall in love again, he thought as Charlie put an arm about the girl’s waist and presented her to him, fairly bursting with paternal pride. The girl blushed an even deeper shade and swept into a low curtsy. Dark eyelashes fanned her flaming cheeks. He had not been in love for a long time. Not since Susan, in fact-three years before. He had flirted since with almost every unattached lady he had met, and had possessed more than he could remember of a different class of female. But he would not be able to flirt with this girl. Not Charlie’s daughter. And of course she was not at all the kind of female whom he would try to possess. Perhaps he was due to fall in love again.
He smiled with appreciation at the girl and turned back to Mrs. Simpson. “I stepped inside to keep Charlie company if you had not yet arrived, ma’am,” he said, “and to welcome you home if you had. I will not stay. You are travel-weary, I can see.”
“Will you not take tea with us, my lord?” she asked, smiling at him. “It will be no trouble at all. You are no stranger.”
“You see?” the captain said. “I told you she would be offended, did I not, Eden?”
But Lord Eden looked into her tired eyes and smiled. “My own family has arrived since you left, ma’am,” he said. “Amberley, my brother, with his wife and children. And my twin sister. They were convinced that I needed fussing over, and came. I told my sister-in-law that I would probably be home for tea. And my nephew is planning to share his bread and jam with me, I was warned. He is going to feed me.”
“Then you must certainly make yourself available for target practice,” Ellen said. “Perhaps some other time, my lord. Tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow it is,” he said. “I would like to make you known to my sister and my sister-in-law sometime, ma’am. They have heard a great deal about Mrs. Simpson, who spoils me with cups of tea and who does not object to my sitting for hours on end in her living room, droning on to her husband about topics that are not designed for a lady’s amusement.” He grinned at her and took her hand again.
“I shall look forward to meeting them,” she said, and turned to smile at her husband with that warmth that
