Eden turned to find Ellen. He wanted to be with her when she saw the view.
“Oh, dear,” Susan said at his elbow, while Lord Agerton was still busy with her horse, “I think I had better stay here, my lord. Climbing up might be possible, but I know I would be terrified to come down again. I have no head for heights. I shall be quite all right down here. I shall take a turn along the bank of the stream and back.”
“What, Susan?” Lord Eden said with a grin. “You can never be so chickenhearted. You, who used to climb trees in pursuit of trapped kittens?”
“But I always used to get stuck,” she said. “And someone had to come to my rescue.”
“I have a sturdy arm,” he said. “Will you trust it to keep you from falling? I will not let you slip, I promise.”
“Oh, thank you,” she said. “You are very kind.”
Anna and Jennifer, Walter and Miles Courtney were having a race to the top of the slope, with a great deal of crashing through the trees and shouting and shrieking. The others ascended somewhat more sedately. Susan hung heavily on Lord Eden’s arm and forced him to frequent stops, with the result that they were soon far behind the rest.
“I am spoiling your enjoyment,” she said.
“Not at all.” He smiled down at her. “You were always such a timid little thing, Susan. How is it that you could survive a life of following the drum for three whole years?”
“It was not easy,” she said. “I found it very difficult, my lord. But I felt that I must stay close to my husband, you see.”
He covered her hand with his. “Of course,” he said. “Do you miss him, Susan?”
“Life must go on,” she said, accepting the large linen handkerchief that he held out to her. “I would not burden you with my grief, my lord. It is good to be home with my family and friends. That is, if I may take the liberty of calling you my friend, my lord.”
“Well,” he said in some amusement, “if I am not your friend, Susan, I don’t know who is.”
By the time they reached the clearing almost at the top of the slope, it seemed that everyone else had already looked his fill. Except for Ellen, who was still gazing downward, back along the valley the way they had ridden to the house and its gardens and outbuildings, and to the distant line of the sea.
“Well, here comes Susan at last,” one of her brothers announced.
“You are not to think naughty thoughts,” she scolded loudly. “Lord Eden was merely helping me ascend the slope. I am so foolish that I had to rest several times. Nothing else was happening at all.”
Howard Courtney flushed, and Lord Amberley exchanged a look with his wife. Madeline paused in her conversation with Lord Agerton and looked closely at Susan. Lord Eden, too, looked down at her, startled, and across to Ellen, who still had her back to him. Susan released his arm and strolled across to join her.
“It is a lovely view, is it not?” she said. “It was very bad of Howard to suggest what he did just now. I am all of a blush, Mrs. Simpson. All because Lord Eden was my beau before I chose my husband instead of him. I am afraid that I hurt him badly at the time, but that was a long time ago. And you and I know that being a widow ousts all thoughts of beaux and romance quite out of one’s head. The very idea!”
Ellen smiled. “I don’t believe anyone thought any such thing,” she said.
“Oh, I am not so sure of that,” Susan said. “Just consider what Anna said about you last evening. She was merely being silly, of course, you being in mourning for your husband and in a delicate situation besides. But I felt for you even so. It is painful to be accused of flirting, is it not?”
The younger people were beginning the descent with as much noise and enthusiasm as they had shown on the way up.
“Come, Susan,” Lord Eden said from behind the two ladies. “I have enlisted Agerton’s support for the descent. With one of us on each side of you, I don’t think you could fall even if you tried.”
“Oh,” she said, “how kind you are. I am such a silly goose, Mrs. Simpson.”
Ellen, looking at Lord Eden for the first time that morning, found herself smiling back when he grinned and even winked at her.
When they were all at the bottom of the hill and mounted again, Lord Amberley gave them the choice of continuing on up the valley or returning to the house.
“Oh, do let us continue,” Jennifer said eagerly, and immediately clapped a hand to her mouth. “That is, if everyone else wishes to do so, of course, my lord.”
But it seemed that everyone did-the most vocal elements of the group, anyway.
“It seems we are not to see anything of our children this morning after all,” Lord Amberley said apologetically to his wife.
“Doubtless they will survive,” she said. “Mama had promised to paint with Christopher, apparently. What sort of disaster that may lead to, I shudder to think.”
They both laughed.
“We will take them for a ride down onto the beach this afternoon, shall we?” he suggested.
“That sounds like heaven, Edmund,” she said with a smile.
A mile or so farther upstream, they came to faster-flowing water and a trail of old stepping-stones spanning its width.
“Aha, they are still here,” Lord Eden said. “Walter, Howard, are those stones in the center not the very ones we placed there three years or so ago? The old ones had disappeared, I recall.”
“Yes, they are,” Madeline said, riding up alongside her brother. “I recognize the very flat one in the middle. The very solid and safe one. It does not look near as much fun as the one that used to wobble there when we were children.”
“Do you remember the dunking I got once when I fell in?” Lord Eden said with a grin. “What were we doing at that particular time? Crossing backward, or on one leg, or blindfold?”
“We did them all at one time or another,” Howard said. “I think it was blindfold and backward when I got wet-and had a thrashing for it when I got home.”
“Do let us go across,” Anna said. “There are the ruins of an old abbey at the top of the slope opposite, Jennifer. I want to show it to you.”
Lord Eden groaned. “Oh, the energy of the young!” he said, dismounting and lifting first his cousin and then Jennifer to the ground. “Away you go, then, children. We older folk will follow at a more sedate pace.”
Anna pulled a face and turned toward the stream.
He lifted Madeline to the ground. She stood staring ahead along the bank of the stream.
“It was just along there,” she said, “that he kissed me for the first time. The last time I was here, Dom. It seems like forever ago.”
“Purnell?” he said. “So it was. I believe I was walking Susan along the opposite bank-because she was afraid to cross over-and nobly resisting the urge to kiss her. Oh, Lord! Another lifetime, Mad.”
Susan, who had been lifted to the ground by the earl, was protesting quite clearly and timidly that she could not possibly set foot on one of the stepping-stones, not if her life depended on it. She looked appealingly at Lord Eden.
“And I have no intention of going across either, Susan,” Lord Amberley said. “I have had quite enough violent exercise for one day, I thank you. You and I will stroll along the bank together and tell each other how foolishly all these children are behaving. Shall we?”
“Oh,” Susan said, glancing at Lord Agerton, who was helping the countess across the stones, and at Lord Eden, who was tethering Ellen’s horse to a tree. “You are very kind, my lord.”
“Not at all, Susan,” he said. “I will be glad of the company.”
“I am sure you do not need my hand,” Lord Eden said with a smile at Ellen. “I have watched you cross much worse without assistance. But I must play the gentleman, you see, in case anyone is looking.” He stretched out a hand to her.
She placed hers in it and followed his lead across the stones, which were indeed sturdy and safe.
“Do you want to go up?” he asked when they reached the other side. “Or shall we stroll along the bank here? Is it wise for you to have so much exercise?”
“Perhaps not overmuch,” she said. “The stroll sounds good. But perhaps you want to stay with the others?”
