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
