Mad. You made very sure that we walked together in Kensington Gardens.”
“Look me in the eye,” she said, “and tell me that you did not want to talk privately with her, Dom. And while you are about it, tell me that you have no spark of feeling left for her. Do it. Come on. And I shall call you liar.”
“She was my friend for three years,” he said in exasperation. “She nursed me when I was close to death, and I fancied myself in love with her for a week. Of course I have feelings for her.”
“You were lovers too, weren’t you?” she asked more gently.
“No, of course we weren’t,” he said.
“She was lying on the bed with you, Dom,” she said. “You were kissing her. I am not a green girl.”
“If you know so much, then,” he said irritably, “why did you ask?”
She shrugged. “I like her,” she said. “She is so different from your usual type of flirt, Dom. I think she is perfect for you. And though she undoubtedly was very devoted to Captain Simpson and has suffered a great deal since his death, I think perhaps she could come to love you too. She would not have become your lover lightly. So, yes.” She smiled rather impishly. “I was playing devil’s advocate. Or heaven’s angel, perhaps.”
“I think you had better concentrate all your angel-of-mercy tendencies on Penworth in future,” Lord Eden said. “And leave me to look after my own affairs.”
“And talking of affairs,” she said, “you are not about to pick up with Susan again, are you, Dom?”
“To what?” he said, frowning.
“She had you wrapped about her little finger before you bought your commission,” she said. “She started it again this afternoon, and you came running like a little puppy dog.”
“Because I said I would take her to the library?” he said. “What nonsense are you talking, Mad?”
“You have always had a dreadful weakness for helpless females,” she said. “You used to fall in love with them routinely, Dom. You know you did. I was very much afraid a few years ago that Susan was about to net you. You would have been miserable for the rest of your life. Now she is going to be after you again.”
“What nonsense you talk,” he said. “I am taking the woman to the library, not the altar!”
“I hope so,” Madeline said before transferring her gaze beyond the window.
ELLEN’S FLUTTERING HEART was calmed the following afternoon by the necessity of dealing with Jennifer’s extreme nervousness.
“Will he like me?” she asked her stepmother over and over again, her dark eyes huge with anxiety.
“If he does not,” Ellen said eventually, “then he does not deserve to be liked either, Jennifer. Just be yourself and don’t worry.”
“Papa never told me why he quarreled with Grandpapa,” the girl said. “But I think it was because of Mama. It was, wasn’t it, Ellen?”
The girl was no child to be comforted with some soothing story. “I think she was part of it,” she said. “But listen to me, Jennifer. Your papa married your mother even in defiance of his own father, and he loved you dearly until the day of his death. You know that. You have nothing to feel anxious about. If your grandpapa does not like you, then that is his problem, not yours. But let us not judge him ahead of time.”
Jennifer sighed. “I will be so glad to have this over with,” she said. “Thank goodness I was busy this morning and unable to brood on this afternoon. Mr. Carrington and Anna are such good company, Ellen. And Mr. Phelps, Anna’s friend, is an amiable gentleman too. I enjoyed myself so much. Was it not a happy coincidence that we also met Lord Eden and Mrs. Jennings? Though we knew yesterday, of course, that he was going to escort her to the library.”
“I am glad you had a happy morning,” Ellen said.
“Do you think Aunt Dorothy was offended that I could not eat much luncheon?” Jennifer asked. “I did not have any appetite, I’m afraid, after the six of us went to a confectioner’s for cakes. Mrs. Jennings was very friendly, Ellen. Her father is a tenant of Lord Amberley’s, you know. She has known Lord Eden and Lady Madeline all her life.”
Ellen was content to let her stepdaughter prattle on happily about the morning’s events until they were in the carriage with a rather tense Dorothy on their way to Sir Jasper Simpson’s residence on Clifford Street. And her own heart began to thump again.
She would have known he was Charlie’s father, she thought later as they were ushered into the drawing room, even if the room had been full of people. The same height and build. The same open, jovial face. His head was somewhat balder.
She curtsied and felt her stepdaughter doing the same beside her.
“My dear!” The elderly gentleman crossed the room and took Ellen’s hands in both of his. He stood shaking them up and down and looking into her face. “So you are Charlie’s wife. So young and so pretty. You are looking at a foolish old man, my dear. A foolish old man.”
Ellen smiled uncertainly at him. He was dressed in deep mourning, she noticed. “I am pleased to make your acquaintance, sir,” she said. “I promised Charlie that I would, if it was possible.”
“If it was possible!” he said, wringing her hands. “I am a foolish old man, my dear.”
Dorothy had already presented both of them to her father. But Ellen turned her head toward Jennifer and smiled. “Will you not meet your granddaughter?” she asked.
Sir Jasper released her hands and turned to Jennifer. “Let me look at you, my dear,” he said. He nodded. “Very pretty. Very pretty indeed. So you are Charlie’s girl, are you? Well, do you have a kiss for your grandpapa, child?”
“Yes, Grandpapa,” Jennifer said, leaning forward to place a kiss on Sir Jasper’s cheek. “You look very like Papa.”
“Do I?” he said. “Even to the bald head? Did your father lose his hair?”
Jennifer nodded.
Sir Jasper turned to the couple standing silently behind him with Lady Habersham. “Meet your aunt and uncle, my dear,” he said. He took Ellen’s hand in his as Jennifer curtsied and smiled uncertainly at the strange couple. “Meet your brother-in-law, Phillip, and his wife, Edith, my dear. It is high time, is it not?”
Mr. Phillip Simpson took Ellen’s free hand in his and laid his other on top of it. He looked closely into her eyes. “You are Ellen?” he said. He did not smile. He was not wearing mourning, though there was a black band on the sleeve of his coat. “I am glad you have come. Old quarrels should not go on for twenty years and more.”
Edith Simpson pecked her on the cheek and expressed pleasure at meeting her.
Ellen was directed to a seat, and found herself in conversation with her brother-in-law and his wife while tea was served. Phillip did not look anything like Charlie, she thought. He was thin and narrow-faced and sandy- haired. His wife looked remarkably like him.
They were a perfectly civil couple even if there was no great warmth in their manner. They told her about their two sons, both away at school. Charlie’s nephews. Ellen wondered how much Phillip regretted not having seen his brother again before his death. They had been close as boys. Most of Charlie’s stories had included his younger brother.
Jennifer, she was pleased to hear, was chattering with some animation to her grandfather. From the few snippets of their conversation that she heard, Ellen gathered that the girl was telling him about her schooldays and about her stay in Brussels.
“Well,” Sir Jasper said eventually, his raised voice drawing the two groups together, “we must repeat this pleasure. We must have tea again. And perhaps I will organize some sort of dinner and evening party that will be suited to our state of mourning. Something to celebrate my reunion with my daughter-in-law and my granddaughter.”
Lady Habersham took his words as a signal to rise and take their leave.
“I must not lose you again now that I have found you,” he said to Ellen as he was squeezing her hand at the doorway of the drawing room when she was leaving. Dorothy and Jennifer had already started on their way down the stairs. “I have been a foolish old man. I have been all these years without my own son. But I will not be without his children. I swear it.”
Ellen smiled and swallowed. “I am glad we have met,” she said. “Charlie would be glad.”
“Is this one to be a son?” he asked, patting her hand.
Ellen shook her head. “I don’t know,” she said.
“Well,” he said, “we will hope so, my dear.” And he leaned forward to kiss her cheek.
