don’t talk anymore about my going away to enjoy myself. I
He sighed and withdrew his hand from hers in order to put his arm about her shoulders. “I just hope that in five years’ time,” he said, “or ten, you will not feel tied down by the fact that you are married to me. But look, Madeline, you ought not to be here alone with me. If you won’t go away as you ought, then we must go out. A carriage ride in the park?”
“Are you sure you feel well enough?” she asked, sitting upright. “Are you willing to venture out, Allan? I know you did not enjoy the visit to Edmund’s a few afternoons ago.”
“Only because you are so anxious to protect me from embarrassment that you would not let me speak a word,” he said. “You must learn not to do that. But we argued that out quite effectively at the time. We don’t need to reopen that quarrel. Yes, let’s go out. If we go in a closed carriage, I won’t have to inflict the sight of me on anyone. Though of course in a closed carriage you really should have a maid. I’ll ring for a carriage to be brought around.”
“I’ll do it,” she said, leaping to her feet. “You sit there.”
“I said I’ll ring,” he said testily, and pulled himself slowly upright with the help of his crutches. “Oh, Madeline, pull the bell rope, will you? I’m sorry. And I have the feeling I am going to be apologizing to you for the rest of our lives.”
Chapter 17
JENNIFER AND ANNA, WALTER CARRINGTON, and Lord Eden spent more than an hour at the Tower of London, inspecting the armory and gazing at the crown jewels.
“It makes one wish there were some eligible princes floating around waiting to be married, doesn’t it?” Anna said to Jennifer. “Can you imagine wearing all that finery?”
“It would be splendid,” Jennifer agreed rather wistfully.
“But you would get very bored sitting on a throne all day,” Walter said, drawing a giggle from both girls, “drumming your jeweled fingers on the carved arm. Picture it. No freedom to walk in the park. Or to eat ices at Gunter’s.”
“Perhaps those princes would not be very handsome anyway,” Anna said, linking her arm through Lord Eden’s. “Now, what was that about ices?”
“You will freeze your insides,” he said. “But so be it. And you chose an open barouche too, Anna? At the end of September?”
“Anna is always gasping for air in a closed carriage,” her brother said, “and convinced that she is missing all sorts of spectacular sights, since she can look from only one window at a time.”
“I have a new bonnet,” that young lady said gaily, “and I want the world to see it. Do you like it, Dominic?”
“Very fetching,” he said. “But I don’t want you bending forward when you are within twenty feet of me, Anna, if you please. That feather would take my eye out.”
They decided to drive through Hyde Park before going to Gunter’s, since the leaves, according to Anna, were too lovely to be missed. There they met the closed carriage in which Madeline was riding with Lieutenant Penworth. Madeline let down the window in order to exchange greetings with the occupants of the barouche. The lieutenant stayed back in the shadows and said nothing.
Jennifer leaned forward and smiled. “How do you do, Lieutenant?” she called. “I am very pleased to see that you are out again. Do you remember me?”
“Of course he does,” Madeline said with a smile. “We decided to take advantage of a beautiful day and come out for a drive.”
Jennifer gazed in at the man who had raised a hand in acknowledgment of her greeting. She would not have known that it was he. This man looked thin and pale, and half his face was completely covered by a type of bandage. She remembered a lithe, good-looking, high-spirited young officer who liked always to be active.
“We are on our way to Gunter’s,” Lord Eden said. “Would you care to join us, Penworth? Madeline?”
“Perhaps some other time,” Madeline said quickly.
“Thank you,” Lieutenant Penworth said at the same moment. “That would be pleasant.”
She looked at him, surprised. “Are you sure you will not mind?” she asked.
“No,” he said abruptly. “Will you?”
“We will meet you there in a few minutes, then,” Lord Eden said as Madeline flushed and withdrew her head back inside the carriage.
“So I am finally to meet my future brother-in-law,” Lord Eden said as they drove on. “Madeline has been keeping him hidden.”
“I have been dying of curiosity,” Anna said.
“Poor man,” Jennifer said. “How can war be so cruel?”
“You did not wish to go,” the lieutenant was saying in the other carriage. “For my sake, Madeline? Or for yours?”
She looked at him in dismay. “For yours,” she said. “You have been unwilling for anyone to see you. And Gunter’s is a very public place. Allan, you don’t think I am ashamed of you, do you?”
“No.” He reached out a hand for hers. “But you have spent so long nursing me, that I think perhaps you are trying to protect me from all harm, physical and otherwise. It is exhausting for you when other people can see me, is it not? But I cannot keep you from all normal daily activities, Madeline. These are your family and your friends. You should spend time with them. If I am to be your husband, I must spend time with them too.”
She squeezed his hand.
A few customers at Gunter’s turned to watch the entrance of a rather grim-faced Lieutenant Penworth a few minutes later. He crossed without assistance to the table at which the other four were seated and took the only empty chair at one end of the table, the one next to Jennifer. Madeline, having made the introductions, was forced to sit at the opposite end of the table.
The conversation was bright and hearty for a few minutes. There was much laughter at the table. Then Anna launched into a description of the crown jewels and a lament over the fact that her papa had said they were to go home to the country within the next week or so.
“Well, Edmund and Alexandra and the children will be going as well,” Madeline said soothingly. “And I am trying to persuade Allan to come too for a while. He has not said no, so I hold out great hopes.” She smiled the length of the table at her betrothed, who was talking with Jennifer.
“Are you feeling better?” Jennifer was asking. “I was sorry to hear of your injuries, sir.”
“Thank you,” he said without looking at her. “I am fully recovered.” His face was pale and grim. He was not at all the same young man as the one she had danced with and walked with in the Forest of Soignes.
“Will you be returning to Devon soon?” she asked him. “I remember your telling me about your family and about how you loved your home.”
“I have no intention of taking myself back there in the foreseeable future,” he said.
“Oh,” she said, and took a mouthful of her ice. She had lost touch with the conversation that the others were engaged in. Lord Eden, she saw, was watching them from beside his sister.
“Your mother must be anxious about you,” she said. “And your papa and all your brothers and sisters.”
“Doubtless,” he said. “I would be the object of their pity for the rest of my life. They were proud of me.”
Jennifer played nervously with her spoon. She wished he had sat somewhere else. “Are they not proud of you now?” she said.
“Oh, yes.” His voice was cold. “I am their wounded hero.”
“Why do you wear such a large bandage?” she asked, and flushed at the rudeness of her question.
“My face is not a pretty sight,” he said.
“Have the wounds not healed?”
“As well as they ever will, I suppose,” he said. “Which is not to say a great deal at all.”
