“Quite as well as can be expected, my lord,” Susan said, dabbing at her eyes beneath the veil. “It is quite devastating to be without my poor dear husband, but my brother-in-law has been kind. I am sure you must quite know how I feel, Mrs. Simpson.”

Ellen inclined her head.

“Your mother is here with you too, Susan?” Madeline said. “I have been meaning to call upon the two of you. I shall do so one day, and bring Mama or Dom with me.”

“Oh, that is very kind of you, I am sure,” Susan said, large hazel eyes gazing soulfully at Lord Eden. “But I would not put you to any inconvenience on my account.”

“It will be no inconvenience at all, Susan,” Lord Eden said with a bow. “Perhaps we may call upon you tomorrow?”

“How very kind!” Susan murmured. “I find it very hard not to be able to venture outdoors until his lordship has the time to take me. Even a simple visit to the library becomes out of the question. Oh, Mrs. Simpson, we take husbands so very much for granted until they are no longer there at our convenience, do we not?” Another dab of the handkerchief.

Ellen inclined her head again.

Lord Eden was smiling. Ellen could hear it in his voice. “If it is the library you wish to visit, Susan,” he said, “your need is easily answered. I shall accompany you there tomorrow morning while Madeline converses with Mrs. Courtney.”

Hand and handkerchief flew to Susan’s mouth. “Oh, my lord,” she said. “I could not so impose upon your time. I would have said nothing if I had thought you would feel obliged to make the offer.”

“It is no imposition at all,” he said. “We will see you in the morning.” He nodded to Susan’s silent companion. “Renfrew?”

“As if she could not go to the library or anywhere else, for that matter, with Mrs. Courtney!” Madeline said indignantly when they had walked on a little way. “Or with a maid. Oh, really, Dom, Susan has not changed one little bit since she was a child.”

Lord Eden chuckled. “But it is a very little thing to accompany her to the library,” he said.

“Hm,” Madeline said in some disgust.

Ellen was relieved to find that her walking companion was now Madeline. And Madeline was soon laughing gaily and drawing smiles from Ellen over a trio of gorgeous dandies who were mincing along the pathway ahead of them.

When the carriage stopped later outside Lady Habersham’s house on Bedford Square, Madeline smiled eagerly at both Ellen and Jennifer. “It has been so pleasant to meet you again,” she said. “Let us not make this the last time. Will you come to tea? I know that Mama will be delighted to see you again, Mrs. Simpson. And of course she has not met Miss Simpson at all. Will you come? Tomorrow?”

“We have another engagement tomorrow,” Ellen said, feeling rather than seeing the stillness of the man opposite her.

“But we can come the next day.” Jennifer was flushed and bright-eyed. “Can we not, Ellen?”

“Yes.” Ellen smiled at Madeline. “That would be very pleasant. Thank you.”

Lord Eden vaulted from the carriage to help them down.

“Was not that just a lovely afternoon?” Jennifer said to Ellen when they were inside the house. She looked quite her old exuberant self, Ellen thought, despite the black clothes. “Suddenly there are things to do, Ellen, and friends to be with. And all without any effort at all on our part.”

“I am very glad for you,” Ellen said. “It is time you had some brightness in your life again. Mr. and Miss Carrington are to call for you tomorrow morning, did you say?”

The girl nodded happily. “Isn’t Lady Madeline just lovely, Ellen? I wish I could have her beauty and her charm and poise.”

“You will.” Ellen smiled as she removed her bonnet. “All she has that you don’t, Jennifer, is extra years and experience.”

“Lord Eden is excessively handsome even now that he is not wearing a uniform, is he not?” Jennifer said. “I just wish I did not feel like such a child when I am with him. I always have done. I don’t feel that way with other gentlemen. I don’t feel blushing and tongue-tied with Mr. Carrington, for example. Of course, he is not near as handsome as Lord Eden.”

Ellen had never been sure how her stepdaughter felt about Lord Eden. She hoped now that the girl would not develop a tendre for him. Oh, she hoped not. She did not think she would be able to bear that. But most of all, she hoped that Jennifer would not have a chance to develop a tendre for him. Would they see much more of him? She hoped not. If it had not been for Lady Madeline issuing that invitation to tea, she did not think that he would have suggested any further meeting. He had realized, as she had, that there could never be anything between the two of them but awkwardness and embarrassment.

She did not think that the visit had been his idea.

“Are you playing devil’s advocate, Mad?” Lord Eden was asking his twin in the carriage.

“Whatever are you talking about?” She looked at him with wide innocent eyes.

“That look won’t work,” he said. “This is me, remember?”

She grinned at him. “I wish you could have seen yourselves,” she said, “seated side by side in Lady Habersham’s salon. It was a sight for sore eyes, Dom. You were behaving like the stiffest of strangers.”

“It is called embarrassment,” he said, his voice testy. “But I notice that you did not do much to rescue me, 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.