He squeezed her hand.
“And what about you?” she asked. “Dare I ask if the apparent amity between you and Mrs. Simpson in the last few days means anything?”
He grinned. “Yes,” he said. “It means that there is an amity between us, Mad.”
She pulled a face at him.
He winked at her. “And perhaps a little more. I’m not at liberty to say anything more just yet.”
She dropped her napkin on the table and ran around the table to wrap her arms about his neck from behind. “Then I will not by any means tell you how happy I am for you,” she said. “I won’t say a word.” She kissed his cheek. “Did Alexandra tell you that her brother is coming home next summer?”
He rested one hand on her arm. “Is that important to you?” he asked.
“Not at all, silly,” she said, straightening up and ruffling his hair. “But it is very important to Alexandra. She is excited.”
“Nice of you, then,” he said, “to bring it to my attention purely for her sake, Mad.”
She laughed. “It was more than three years ago,” she said. “I am not foolish enough to think that an old infatuation can be rekindled, Dom. I have grown up a little since that time. And don’t look at me like that. I know that I am just deceiving myself, and not you at all. Well, then, I do want to see him again. Just out of curiosity. So there! Are you satisfied, you horrid man?”
“You are probably crossing off days in your diary already,” he said, and covered his head with his hands as she tried to beat a tattoo on it with the back of a spoon.
LIEUTENANT PENWORTH TOLD the dowager countess when she inquired at the luncheon table that no one need concern themselves about him. He intended to spend his final afternoon in the country outdoors painting.
Jennifer was sitting next to him. “Are you good?” she asked while the other occupants of the table began to talk about something else.
“If I say yes,” he said, “I will doubtless be accused of conceit. If I say no, you will accuse me of feeling sorry for myself again. I choose to say nothing.”
“I see you are in your usual sunny mood,” she said. “How are you going to carry everything?”
“I thought of using the easel as one of my crutches,” he said, “and grasping everything else in my teeth.”
Jennifer laughed. “It was a foolish question,” she said. “Doubtless you mean that you do not wish me to offer my help. I was not about to, sir.”
“Stupid of me to think such a thing,” he said. “Actually I have servants lined up to load the gig for me, and a groom to drive me partway down the valley, from where there is, according to the earl’s mother, a particularly lovely view of the house, and to return for me two hours later. You see how I am beginning to be able to organize my life again?”
“I am all admiration,” she said. “May I come too?”
“I am not good company when I am painting,” he said. “I like to lose myself in what I am doing and am easily distracted by someone trying to chatter to me.”
“I will be very quiet,” she said, “and not even whisper to you. I declined an invitation to go riding with Anna and Walter and some other people this afternoon. I said I was tired.”
“Did you?” He looked more closely at her. “Come if you must, then. But I do not want to hear any complaints that you are bored. If you are, you may just pick yourself up and walk back to the house. Understood?”
“And to think,” she said, “that there was a time when I thought you a gallant and dashing officer. You are not very gracious, are you?”
“If I had two legs,” he said, “I would go down on one of them and beg you to accompany me. Under the circumstances, I would look rather foolish, would I not?”
“Decidedly,” she agreed.
An hour later the gig bounced its way for perhaps half a mile down the valley before the lieutenant was satisfied that he had the view of the house that the dowager had told him about. Jennifer spread a blanket on the ground and sat on it, her arms wrapped about her knees while he set up his easel and stool a short distance away in such a manner that she would not be able to see his work.
“Did you sort out your problem yesterday?” he asked before seating himself.
“I think so,” she said with a sigh. “I was very naive, it seems, expecting that some people in this world are perfect. Ellen is not perfect, after all, but she is not a villain either.”
“So all is well between you again?” he asked.
“I think so,” she said. “A little strained, but not quite broken.”
“I am glad,” he said. “Now, you must stop talking to me so that I can concentrate.”
“But I did not say the first word,” she said indignantly. “You did.”
She could have painted too, since painting had always been one of her favorite activities. But she had decided merely to watch and be lazy. She felt lethargic after an emotional twenty-four hours.
She was sitting in the same position an hour later, lost in daydreams, when she was recalled to reality with a start by the voice of her companion.
“All right,” he said vengefully. He cleaned his brush with furious energy and pushed himself upright with his crutches. “You win.”
“I am delighted to hear it,” she said. “But what is the prize? And what was the game?”
“You have made quite sure that you have ruined my afternoon,” he said.
“I?” She looked at him, all amazement. “I have not made a sound.”
“I might have been able to concentrate better if you had been shouting and singing,” he said.
“Well.” Jennifer glared up at him indignantly. “There is no pleasing you, is there?”
He spent some time sitting down awkwardly on the blanket beside her. Jennifer clasped her knees even more tightly and did not offer her help.
“I wish I had died!” he said unexpectedly.
“But you did not,” she said.
“I think I could accept the loss of my leg,” he said, rubbing his hip and grimacing. “I think in time I can learn to adjust my way of life to that. It is my face I cannot reconcile myself to.”
“You think yourself very ugly?” she asked.
“I know myself very ugly.” He spoke through his teeth and continued to rub his hip. “How can I ever…? How can I live anything like a normal life?”
“By becoming unaware of your scars,” she said. “If you keep hiding from people, turning your face away so that only the unscarred profile shows, they will continue to notice you. And if you keep on scowling, they will think you ugly.”
He laughed. “And will doubtless think me handsome if I smile?”
“No,” she said. “You will never be handsome. Intriguing, perhaps. Attractive, perhaps.”
“Attractive!” he said scornfully. “I am going home, you will be pleased to know. Before Christmas. I must face my family, even though it will be an ordeal.”
“Doubtless,” she said. “Are you going to scowl at them too?”
“You are not a very sympathetic person, are you?” he said.
“You once yelled at me not to pity you,” she said. “Have you changed your mind?”
“No,” he said. “I would a thousand times prefer your taunts to everyone else’s pity.”
“A compliment!” she said. “We are making progress.”
He stared ahead of him. “How one moment of time can change the course of a whole lifetime,” he said. “I used to dream of a perfectly normal life. I didn’t ask for much. Just my home and family. A wife by the time I was thirty, perhaps. Some children. A quiet life.”
“And now you must live the life of a hermit because you are ugly and crippled?” she asked.
He glared at her from his one eye. “It pleases you to make fun of me,” he said. “What woman would not recoil in disgust at an advance from me? Do you know why I have not been able to paint this afternoon? Because I have been sitting there wanting to kiss you, that’s why. Now, tell me that the idea does not repel you.”
She thought for a moment. “The idea does not repel me,” she said.
