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.”
“And no Alexandra,” his mother added with a smile.
The earl groaned. “And no Alex,” he said. “Devil take it, but I miss her, Mama. Is it normal?”
“Perfectly, I am afraid,” she said. “Are you going in to him, Edmund?”
“Yes,” he said, “as soon as I have flexed my elder-brother muscles. We seem to have arrived at quite a time of crisis, do we not?”
“A good time, I think,” she said. “He is going to need us. But that poor child. She is so very alone.”
The Earl of Amberley stood looking down at his brother a couple of minutes later. Lord Eden’s arm was still over his eyes.
“Do you want to talk about it?” the earl asked, pulling up a chair to the bed and seating himself.
“About the battle?” Lord Eden did not change his position. “Not really. It is hard to have clear memories of such a thing. It is all noise and confusion at the time. All I can ever see clearly afterward is the dead eyes.”
“I didn’t mean the battle,” the earl said.
Lord Eden took his arm from his eyes and stared upward. “I suppose Mad has been talking,” he said. “I made a mistake, that is all, Edmund. She has a husband’s death to grieve for. I fancied her because she has been my only nurse for a month and I saw no one else. It’s over now and really does not signify at all.”
“If you could have seen your face and Mrs. Simpson’s face this morning,” the earl said, “you would not have said that it does not signify, Dominic. You care for her deeply?”
Lord Eden stared upward. His jaw had tightened. “Yes,” he said.
“Do you have any reason to believe that she returns your feelings?” his brother asked.
“I cannot speak for Ellen,” Lord Eden said. “She loved Charlie. There can be no doubt about that.”
“No,” Lord Amberley said. “There cannot. You have been in love before, Dominic. Dozens of times before you reached your majority, even. Is there any chance that this one will go the way of the rest? Sometimes a lost love is painful at the time, but quickly recovered from.”
“I love her,” Lord Eden said. “I am not just in love with her.”
“Ah, yes,” his brother said sadly. “I am sorry, then, Dominic. I don’t know what happened exactly between
