Web of Love

by Mary Balogh

  He was interested to see her blush. “I bought it as a surprise for Charlie,” she said. “He thinks green is my color.”

  “It is,” he said. “He is quite right.”

  He had never danced with her like this before. Never held her. Her slim body was warm and supple beneath his hand. Charlie was a fortunate man.

  He recalled his first meeting with Mrs. Simpson in Spain, and his surprise at her youth and beauty and elegance. She was not at all the type of woman he would have expected to be married to the rough-mannered and bighearted Charlie Simpson.

  And yet there could be no doubt about the fact that her world revolved about her husband. His respect for her had grown with the years. He would never forget coming upon her after one vicious skirmish in Spain when all was still confusion on the battlefield. He had suffered a flesh wound in the arm and must have looked unusually pale as he staggered back from the front toward her tent, the first familiar landmark he had seen. Her hands had gone to her mouth, her eyes had grown round with horror, and she had begun to wail so that he had forgotten his own pain for a moment.

  As it turned out, she had noticed only the paleness of his set face and had assumed that he was bringing her bad news. Her manner had changed instantly when she realized her mistake, and calm, steady hands had soon been easing his coat from him and cutting away his blood-soaked shirtsleeve and cleansing and dressing his wound. But she had cried again an hour later when Charlie had appeared, tattered and incredibly dirty, but miraculously unhurt. And she had hurled herself against him and wrapped her arms around his neck and murmured his name at least a dozen times.

  He could feel envious of his married friend at such moments.

  “Do you think Charlie is watching and wishing he were in my place?” he asked her, looking down into her eyes and grinning. He spun her around a corner of the floor until she laughed up at him with delight.

  And then another twirling couple collided with her from behind and sent her careering against him. His arms came tightly about her to steady her. Her face was still turned up to his.

  Probably no more than a second passed while he became aware of her slim and shapely feminine form pressed to him, and found himself looking directly into her wide gray eyes and down to her parted lips. He was surrounded by the fragrance of her hair, of which he had been vaguely aware since they had started dancing.

  She felt him with every part of her, from her shoulders to her knees. All hard masculine muscularity. She felt suffocated by his cologne, mesmerized by his green eyes, only inches from her own.

  She felt herself blush hotly.

  “So sorry. Clumsy of me!” a genial giant called over his shoulder as he maneuvered his partner into the throng of dancers again.

  Lord Eden set firm hands on her shoulders as he stepped back from her. “How careless of me not to foresee that,” he said. “Are you hurt, ma’am?”

  “Not at all,” she said, brushing her hands over her skirt and smiling at his chin. “Please forgive me.”

  “For allowing yourself to be tossed by an ox?” he said. “I would be tempted to slap my glove in his face if he did not look as if he were enjoying himself so vastly. Oh, dear, it has happened again to another unfortunate couple. I shall be sure to keep half a ballroom between him and us for the rest of the set, ma’am, I do assure you.”

  She laughed and placed her left hand on his shoulder again. “Perhaps instead of challenging him to a duel, you should hang bells around his neck, my lord,” she said, “so that everyone will know that he is coming.”

  He felt uncomfortable. How unforgivably clumsy of him to have allowed her such embarrassment. He forced himself to laugh back. “And I thought you did not have a malicious bone in your body, Mrs. Simpson,” he said. “For shame, ma’am.”

  She found it very hard to look up into his eyes. He suddenly seemed very large indeed, and very close to her. She felt more breathless than the exercise of dancing would account for. How unspeakably embarrassing!

  Would the music never end?

  They smiled and talked on.

  THE COUNTESS OF AMBERLEY was drawing a brush absently through her hair and regarding her husband in the mirror. He was standing beside her stool, his arms folded.

  “Do you think Madeline will marry Colonel Huxtable?” she asked. “He seems a very pleasant man, don’t you think, although she has known him for only a few weeks.”

  “I suppose he will have to make her an offer before the question becomes relevant,” the earl said, taking one of her curls between his finger and thumb.

  “Of course he will make her an offer,” she said, smiling at him. “Doesn’t everyone?”

  “Then I would have to guess that she will say no,” he said. “Doesn’t she say that to everyone?”

  She sighed. “Perhaps she is looking too hard for love,” she said. “Perhaps she would grow into love if she would only give herself a chance to get to know some eligible gentleman.”

  “Like we did?” he said.

  “Yes,” she agreed, “like we did. We had no thought of loving each other when we became betrothed, did we?”

  “Oh,” he said, “I had every thought of loving you, Alex. The betrothal might have been largely forced upon me, but I had every intention when I contracted it of coming to love you. And it did not take long.”

  She reached back and touched his hand with her free one. “Dominic likes Miss Simpson,” she said. “She is very sweet. I like her. But is she a little young for him, Edmund?”

  “There are eight years between you and me,” he said. “Are you too young for me?”

  “No,” she said. “I did not mean just in years. Oh, never mind. They have only recently met. Edmund, do you know what that horrid Maisie Hardcastle told me?”

  “Can’t imagine,” he said, lowering his head and nuzzling her earlobe. “Some shocking scandal, doubtless.”

  “I gave her no encouragement whatsoever,” she said, “and tried my best not even to listen. But she would insist that it was her duty to tell me so that I might protect Madeline’s reputation.”

  The earl snorted. “Did she, indeed?” he said. “Are you ready for bed, Alex? If we don’t go there soon, Caroline is going to be up, hungry as a bear, ready to start the day.”

  She got to her feet and turned into his arms. “She said that Mrs. Simpson is the daughter of the Countess of Harrowby,” she said. “Do you know her?”

  “I know of her,” he said, undoing the top button of her nightgown and moving his hands across her shoulders beneath it. “I know poor old Harrowby, of course. An alcoholic wreck, I’m afraid.”

  “Maisie made a point of saying that she did not say that Mrs. Simpson was the daughter of the Earl of Harrowby,” she said.

  “Quite likely, I’m afraid,” the earl said, undoing the second and third buttons of her nightgown so that he could open it back over her shoulders. “The lady has something of a spicy reputation.”

  “Poor Mrs. Simpson,” she said. “Maisie will slaughter her character if she can, you know.”

  “I believe she tried with you once, my love,” he said. “But I thwarted her by marrying you.”

  “Thank you,” she said crossly. “We all know that without your generosity my reputation would have been in shreds forevermore. And do take that grin off your face.”

  “I love you when you are prickly,” he said. “And you know very well that you married me eventually quite of your own free will. Though Christopher might have found himself in a nasty situation if you had not.”

  “Edmund,” she said, catching at his wrists, “don’t do that until we are lying down, please. You know it always makes me weak at the knees.”

  “Easily remedied, my love,” he said, stooping down and swinging her up into his arms.

  ELLEN WAS LYING beside her husband, his arm beneath her head, as usual.

  “You would not like to come?” she asked. “Tomorrow is a free day for you, Charlie, and the forest is said to be a beautiful pl
ace.”

  “I would as soon stay at home, lass,” he said, “unless you really want me to come. Is it asking too much to expect you to go about everywhere with Jennifer? I am very selfish, aren’t I? I’ll come, then. I’ll come with you, Ellen.”

  “No.” She sighed and kissed his cheek. “You would hate every minute of it, and I would not enjoy myself at all. But it would have been pleasant, would it not, to have been at home together tomorrow? We could have taken a stroll in the park in the afternoon. But never mind. We will have the evening. The Slatterys have invited Jennifer to the theater, remember?”

  “Mm,” he said. “That will be nice, sweetheart. Would you prefer that I took you out somewhere?”

  “No,” she said. “I want one of our quiet evenings at home together, Charlie. Just you and me. Just like old times.”

  They lapsed into silence, and she was back in the ballroom, the music swirling in her head, the room spinning wildly about her. Noise and laughter, color and movement. The smell of a man’s cologne. She turned restlessly onto her side.

  “I’m cold,” she said when her husband opened his eyes and turned his head.

  “On a warm night like this, lass?” he said. “Hey, you are shivering.” He rubbed his large hands over her back and pulled the blankets close about her. “Cuddle close, sweetheart. I’ll warm you up.”

  “I love you, Charlie,” she said, burrowing her head beneath his chin and closing her eyes tightly. She spread her hands on his broad and warm chest. “I love you so very much. You do believe that, don’t you?”

  “Of course I believe it, lass,” he said, smoothing one hand over her hair. “And you know you are my treasure and always will be. Are you feeling warmer? Lift your face to me and let me kiss you.”

  She tipped back her head with an almost desperate eagerness and slid one arm up about his neck.

  THE SUN SHONE FROM A CLOUDLESS BLUE sky as two open barouches made their way along the Rue de la Pépinière, out through the Namur Gate at the south end of Brussels, and on their way to the Forest of Soignes. It was a perfect day for a picnic.

  Lady Madeline Raine rode in the first carriage with her friends Miss Frances Summers and Lady Anne Drummond. Ellen and Jennifer Simpson rode in the other, the picnic hamper on the seat opposite them. Colonel Huxtable, Lieutenant Penworth, Lord Eden, Captain Norton, and Sir Harding Whitworth rode beside the carriages.

  Madeline twirled a yellow parasol about her head and felt determinedly happy. It was possible to feel so if one concentrated only on the warm sunshine and the beauty of the forest that was approaching, and if one looked only at the splendor of the uniforms of four of their escorts and forgot about the significance of those uniforms.

  “I have never been out to the forest before,” Lady Anne said, “though I have heard that it is lovely. I did not expect the trees to be quite so large.”

  The three ladies gazed about them at the beechwood trees, their trunks tall and massive, smooth and silvery.

  “I always feel as if I should whisper when I am here,” Madeline said. “It is almost like being in a cathedral.”

  “I believe this is where we should turn off the main road,” Colonel Huxtable said, turning back to see Lord Eden’s affirming nod, “before we reach the village of Waterloo.”

  “Is this the way the French will try to come?” Lady Anne asked of no one in particular as horses and carriages turned from the wide Charleroi Chaussée and into the forest with its widely spaced trees.

  “Oh, no,” Miss Summers said quite firmly. “Ferdie says that they will come from the west to try to cut off our supply lines with Ostend. That will be the best tactical move, he says.”

  “I think that for the rest of today we should declare military talk strictly forbidden,” Madeline said gaily.

  “I could not agree more,” Colonel Huxtable said, “for everyone knows that the French are not going to come from any direction at all. Trust his grace and the allied armies to ensure that, ladies.”

  “I would regret not having had one chance to take a good poke at old Boney’s men, though,” Lieutenant Penworth added.

  “Yes, a captured Eagle would be a splendid souvenir to keep in one’s ancestral castle for the rest of one’s life, would it not?” Sir Harding said in his somewhat bored voice. “Your youthful eagerness is quite exhausting, Penworth, and is boring the ladies.” He bowed from the saddle to Madeline with exaggerated courtesy.

  Madeline twirled her parasol and bit back the retort that it was all very well to affect world-weariness when one was a civilian and ran no danger of ever seeing an Eagle waving menacingly in one’s face from the clasp of a French hand. She smiled at a flushing Lieutenant Penworth.

  The colonel handed her from the barouche when a suitable picnic site had been chosen, and asked her to take a walk with him, since it was too early to eat. Lady Anne and Frances were already settling themselves on blankets that Captain Norton had spread on the ground. Sir Harding joined them there. Lieutenant Penworth was bowing over Jennifer Simpson’s hand.

  It was perhaps not quite proper to agree to walk alone in the forest with a gentleman, Madeline thought as she took the colonel’s arm and allowed him to lead her away. But she was past the age of chaperones and all that faradiddle. It felt good sometimes to be five-and-twenty and as free as a bird.

  “Now I know why you wore a dress of such a bright yellow,” the colonel said. “It was so that we would have sunshine even in the middle of the forest.”

  “Ah, my secret is exposed,” she said gaily, twirling the parasol even as she realized that its use was quite redundant with the trees acting as an effective shade.

  They settled into their usual conversation of light banter. It was the way she talked with almost all men these days. Never anything deeper. Was she afraid to get to know any man too closely? Was she afraid to allow any man to know her? But she shook her head and smiled. This was not a day for introspection.

  “You know…” the colonel said, and Madeline was instantly alert. The tone of his voice had changed. “Despite your very sensible ban on a certain topic for today, I will say that it is highly probable that I will have to leave Brussels at a moment’s notice.”

  “You did so today,” she said, smiling up at him, “to attend a picnic.”

  But she could not control this part of the conversation. His eyes were grave as he smiled back.

  “I may not be able to return immediately,” he said. “Perhaps you will be gone back to England before I do so.”

  “I shall stay,” she said. “Until Dominic is ready to go back, that is.”

  “If you have returned to England before I see you again,” he said, “may I find you out there?”

  “But of course,” she said gaily. “I always enjoy finding absent friends again, sir.”

  “Do you comprehend my meaning?” he asked, looking searchingly into her eyes.

  She gave up her pretense of gaiety. “Yes,” she said hesitantly. “Yes, I do, sir. And I wish you would not. Let us not spoil a day of pleasure.”

  He smiled ruefully. “You do not care for me?” he asked.

  “Oh, yes, I do,” she said hastily. “I do.”

  “But you are afraid of what might happen?”

  She drew in a deep breath. “I do not think of it,” she said. “It is not that at all.”

  “Ah,” he said. “There is someone else, then?”

  She looked sadly into his eyes. “Yes,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

  He smiled slowly. “And so am I,” he said. They walked on in silence for a while. “I do hope you are unrolling a ball of string behind our backs. Do you have any idea how to get back to the carriages? We might be doomed to wander here forever and ever, you know.”

  “What a dreadful fate!” she said. “But I am sure that after a few days, sir, when I am about to die of starvation, you will be gentleman enough to climb a tree to see if you can see the spires of Brussels or some other sign of civilization.”

  He la
ughed. “But these are not exactly a schoolboy’s dream of trees for climbing, are they?” he said.

  She had said yes, Madeline was thinking. She had said that yes, there was someone else. Why had she said that? Had she lied because it was an easy way to put an end to an uncomfortable conversation? And yet she had not felt as if she were lying. Was there someone else? Was that her problem?

  But she did not either like him or love him. She had not seen him for three years and was unlikely ever to see him again. He had settled in Canada. He had gone beyond Canada into the vast inland wilderness, working in the fur trade. She very rarely thought of him consciously except when Alexandra had a letter from him. But she had said yes. She had agreed that there was someone else.

  It was a long time since she had loved and hated James Purnell. A long time since that strange night at Amberley when he had danced with her in Edmund’s formal gardens to the faint sounds of music coming from the ballroom. When he had kissed her with a tenderness she had not known him capable of and with a passion that had had her expecting that she would be taken there in the garden, and wanting to be taken. When he had told her that she should leave him if she knew what was good for her, that he did not love her, that he felt only lust for her. When he had left in the middle of the night, even before the ball was over, and taken ship for Canada.

  It was all a long, long time ago. Like something from another lifetime. Yet she had just told Colonel Huxtable that there was someone else. James with his severe, handsome face and lean, restless body. James with his very dark hair and the lock that fell constantly over his forehead, no matter how often he pushed it back.

  Yes, she had loved him. Against all reason. A long, long time ago.

  LIEUTENANT PENWORTH BOWED to Jennifer. “Would you care to walk a little way, Miss Simpson?” he asked. “Perhaps you feel like some exercise after sitting for such a long time.”

  Well, the devil! Lord Eden thought. He was losing her to a scarlet cavalryman’s coat, to a young and eager boy. If he was not careful, he was going to find himself paired with Miss Frances Summers, who had been signaling her availability to him for all of the past month. But Miss Simpson would need a chaperone if she intended to walk out of sight, a strong possibility when they were in the middle of a forest.