as soon as he heard the news.”
“The news?” Ellen felt herself turn cold.
“About his expected grandchild,” her sister-in-law said. “I don’t recall ever seeing Papa quite so excited about anything, Ellen.”
“You told him,” Ellen said, closing her eyes briefly. “Dorothy, I asked you not to tell anyone else yet.”
“No, dear.” Lady Habersham stopped walking. Her voice was full of concern. “No. You asked me not to tell Jennifer. I did not realize that perhaps you would wish to be the first to break the news to Papa too. But of course. It was thoughtless of me, wasn’t it? Of course you would want to tell him yourself. And now I have spoiled it for you. Oh, I am so sorry, Ellen.”
“No.” Ellen put one hand over her face and shook her head. “No, it is not that, Dorothy. I am sorry. I’m not angry with you. I am just being silly about this whole thing, I suppose. I want to keep it a secret, when it will be quite obvious to anyone who cares to look within the next month or two.”
“It is just that you are so very alone,” her sister-in-law said. “If Charlie were only with you, Ellen! Oh, I can imagine just how proud and happy he would be. But we are your family too, dear-Papa and Phillip and I. And Jennifer, of course. We will help you to feel the happiness of the event, even though, of course, there is bound to be a great deal of sadness for you too.”
“You are so kind to me,” Ellen said, looking up at Lady Habersham. “I really don’t deserve…Oh, dear.”
“Well,” her sister-in-law said, “in two days’ time you will meet Papa and Phillip. And all will work out well, you will see. Papa is not a monster, you know. Not at all. And he is going to love you. And Jennifer too.”
“Has he agreed to receive her only because he wants to meet me?” Ellen asked.
Lady Habersham squeezed her arm again. “Never mind about motives,” she said. “It is the results of the meeting that will be important, Ellen. He will not be able to help loving her once he sees her.”
“So he will meet the grandchild of questionable legitimacy in order to be sure of meeting the one of whose birth there can be no doubt,” Ellen said quietly.
Lady Habersham patted her arm. “Ah, here they come again,” she said. “And all laughing merrily, as young people should. Is not Anna Carrington a very pretty young lady, Ellen? Her hair is as dark as Jennifer’s, but cut very short, if I am not mistaken. And Mr. Carrington is a very presentable young man too.”
MADELINE RODE BESIDE her brother during the carriage ride to Bedford Square.
“I really appreciate this, Mad,” he said. “I owe you a favor.”
She grinned at him. “I shall not forget,” she said. “But this is no burden on me, Dom. Allan was tired this morning when I went to read to him, and decided that he will rest this afternoon. And I wish to see both Mrs. and Miss Simpson again. I liked them both in Brussels.”
“When is Penworth going to admit any visitors but you?” he asked. “And when is he going to venture outside?”
“It will take time,” she said. “He will do both eventually, Dom. Have patience with us. Please?”
“I want to talk to him,” he said. “If he is to be my brother-in-law, I want to get to know him. And he should meet Mama and Edmund.”
“He will,” she said hastily, laying a hand on his sleeve. “He will, Dom. Do try to put yourself in his place. How would you feel?”
He looked at her silently for a few moments and then turned to look out the window at the passing streets. “Probably much the same,” he said. “Except that I don’t think I would have betrothed myself to anyone.”
“Only because there are not as many women who are as impudent as I,” she said. “It quite puts me to the blush to know that I proposed to my future husband. But if I had not, he would never have married me. So I am not sorry. Will Mrs. Simpson receive you, do you think?”
“I don’t know.” He grimaced. “And I don’t at all know if I am doing the right thing, coming here again like this. But I have to make sure that she has recovered.”
“And you really feel nothing for her, Dom, beyond the concern you would naturally feel for your friend’s widow?” she asked.
“No, nothing,” he said. “I have known her for several years, remember. That foolishness lasted only a few days. I just need to make this one visit. Then it will all be over.”
“Oh, liar, Dom,” she said, settling her shoulders against the corner of the seat and looking steadily at him. “I am Madeline, remember? Your twin.”
He glared back. “I brought you with me for moral support,” he said, “not as father confessor. And on this one you are wrong anyway.”
She shrugged and said nothing. But she made him feel uncomfortable all the rest of the way by sitting sideways and staring at him.
She still said nothing as they waited for Lady Habersham’s butler to take Lord Eden’s card upstairs. But it most certainly helped to have her with him when they were shown into an upstairs salon. He could collect his breath and his thoughts while presenting his sister to Lady Habersham and while waiting for the effusive greetings Madeline exchanged with the other two ladies.
He bowed over Jennifer’s hand and acknowledged Ellen’s curtsy with a nod.
She sat down with a straight back, not touching the back of her chair. She folded her hands quietly in her lap. Lord Eden took his courage in both hands and crossed the room to take a seat beside her. Madeline began to talk with animation to the room at large.
Her face was thinner and had lost color. Her gray eyes, by contrast, looked larger and more luminous as she rested them steadily on Madeline’s face. Her fair hair, smooth and shining, was drawn back from her face in the old simple style, resting in a knot at the back of her neck.
Unbidden memories came to him of her face flushed and animated at a ball and heavy-eyed with passion on a pillow, that hair framing her face like a shining halo.
“I trust you are feeling better, ma’am?” he said. Words of ridiculous formality. He had murmured love words into her ear, against her mouth.
“Yes, I thank you, my lord.” She lowered her eyes away from Madeline and looked to the side. But not at him. “I was very foolish. I had been bent over a letter for more than an hour.”
She had cried out her love to him, murmured his name over and over again.
“I hope you have recovered thoroughly,” she said. “You are looking well.”
How did she know? She had not looked at him.
“Thank you,” he said. “I have made every effort to regain my health.”
The hands in her lap looked relaxed until one observed closely and saw the whiteness of her knuckles. She had sat beside him many times with one of those hands in his, smiling at him while he kissed each finger separately.
“I felt that I must call on you and Miss Simpson,” he said, “to see that you have settled comfortably in this country.”
He had dreamed once of settling her on his own estate in Wiltshire. He had told her about it once when she lay in his arms, her hand smoothing gently over the bandages on his chest. He had told her how it had been his since the death of his father but how he had never really thought of it as home. But he had dreamed of doing so then with a wife of his own to take there. Though he had not said that to her.
“That is very kind of you, my lord,” she said. “We have settled well. My sister-in-law has been very good to us, and tomorrow we are to take tea with Sir Jasper Simpson.”
“With Charlie’s father?” he asked in some surprise.
The name brought spots of color to her cheeks and increased his own discomfort. The name of her husband, his friend.
“Yes,” she said, “we are to meet him tomorrow.”
He had dreamed of presenting her to his own family. As his future wife. He had dreamed of how his mother would love her, of how Edmund would approve his choice, of how Alexandra and Madeline would become her close friends.
He had dreamed a whole lot of dreams that he had never experienced with his other mistresses. But then, she had not been his mistress. It was an unsatisfactory word applied to her, suggesting a kept woman.
Ellen had been his lover. For a brief time. In the past.
“Miss Simpson will come with us, Dom,” Madeline’s bright voice said, reminding Lord Eden that he was in a
