Mary Balogh - Web of Love

“A few minutes ago,” he said, “you were full of enthusiasm for showing off your village to Mrs. Simpson. You don’t need to give up that pleasure for me, Madeline. I will be quite happy painting alone. I prefer to be alone when I paint. I can concentrate better.”

They came to a stop outside his room.

“You really don’t want me with you, do you?” she said. “I am getting on your nerves, Allan?”

He looked exasperated. “No, you don’t get on my nerves,” he said. “Have I said the wrong thing again? I have, haven’t I? I have hurt you again. I don’t seem to be able to help doing so these days, though I never mean to do it. Stay with me, then, Madeline, if it is what you really wish to do. I would like that.”

“I think we should end our betrothal,” she said in a rush, her voice not quite steady. She looked about her hastily to make sure that the corridor was deserted.

“What?” he looked at her, incredulous. “Have I hurt you that badly? I must be a far worse brute than I thought. I merely wanted you to have a pleasant afternoon, free of the necessity of fetching and carrying for me. Come, Madeline, don’t overreact. Smile at me and say you forgive me.”

“It is not just today,” she said. “And it is not your fault. Perhaps this was inevitable, Allan. You are recovering and regaining your independence. You don’t need me any longer.”

“Yes, I do,” he said, reaching out for her hand, which she kept clasped in the other one in front of her. “I wouldn’t be alive now if it were not for you. Do you think I can ever forget that?”

“I’m not blaming you,” she said. “You did need me, yes. You leaned on me for a long time. And I made the mistake of thinking that you would always need me like that. It was very naive of me. You don’t need me now, and I have to be happy for you that you don’t.”

He tried to laugh to relieve the tension. “Can we not just love each other?” he asked. “Does there have to be any need? Any dependence? Can we not just have a normal, happy marriage?”

She shook her head slowly. “I don’t think so,” she said. “I don’t think we love each other, Allan. Not in that way.”

“I love you,” he said. “You are very, very special to me. I owe you my life and my sanity.”

“I love you dearly too, Allan,” she said. “But I don’t think we could make a marriage of it. We are too different from each other. We would bicker and bicker and come to thoroughly dislike each other before we had been married a year. I don’t want that to happen. I am too fond of you.”

He shifted his weight on his crutches and blew out air from puffed cheeks. “I can’t quite believe I am having this conversation,” he said. “You always seemed so unattainable, you know. Lady Madeline Raine, whom everyone admired. I did not think you had even noticed me. And now I feel as if I am the one who has let you down. I have made you unhappy.”

“No, not you,” she said. “You really are not to blame for anything, Allan. I am only unhappy with myself. My life seems to have been one string of self-delusions. Yet this time I was so sure. Oh, never mind. We must be thankful that we have come to our senses before it is too late.”

“I will make arrangements to leave tomorrow, then,” he said.

“Oh, no!” She reached out a hand to touch his arm. “No, Allan. That would cause unbearable pain and embarrassment. Please stay. You like Mama and Edmund and Dominic, don’t you? And you are painting and playing the pianoforte. You are gaining more independence here. Stay awhile.”

“I don’t want to cause you any unpleasantness,” he said, frowning. “If you want, I will stay for a few days longer, then. I’m sorry about this, Madeline. More sorry than I can say.”

“Well,” she said, smiling, “at least we have been able to put an end to a betrothal without hurling things at each other’s heads. We are still friends, are we not?”

“You will always be my friend,” he said. “I will always love you, Madeline.”

“Like a sister,” she said. “It will be better that way. You are in some pain, standing there, Allan. Go inside your room now and lie down for an hour. And do it. Don’t pace the floor brooding on what has just happened.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said, raising one hand in a smart salute and smiling at her rather ruefully.

RAIN STARTED AT SOME TIME DURING THE night and continued to fall for the following two days. A most miserable sight, Madeline declared to anyone who was prepared to sympathize, when one had been imprisoned in a city for months on end and now had boundless energy to work off. She promised Ellen and Jennifer that on the next fine day they would ride down onto the beach and perhaps even climb the steep path up to the clifftop.

“That way you can see both places during the same outing,” she said. “That is, if the rain ever stops and the mist ever lifts.”

But for the time being the mist hung low over the valley and a fine rain came steadily down. Lord Eden took Jennifer to visit the Carringtons on one day and the Courtneys the next. The earl and countess divided their time between their children and their guests. Madeline and Ellen sat in the music room a few times, listening to Lieutenant Penworth play. And the dowager countess spent time with him in the portrait gallery, the two of them discussing the paintings there.

Ellen declined the chance to be a part of both visits. She felt a little tired after the day of the ride and the visit to the village, and felt the need to spend some time quietly indoors. Alone, even, if she could be so without appearing rude to her hosts.

She was not actively miserable. Indeed, she felt a certain contentment that she had not felt since Charlie’s death. But she needed to live through those last days of his life as Dominic had described them to her. She needed to fill in the gap that had yawned empty and frightening for so long. She had said good-bye to him in their rooms-she could still see him, eager to be on his way, to have done with the pain of parting, his eyes devouring her-and then there had been nothing. Only Dominic, through his pain and his fever, telling her that Charlie was gone. And only her realization weeks later that it was true. And only that walk over the churned-up land south of Waterloo where she knew he was buried with thousands of other men.

She needed to live through in her mind what he had lived during those days. She needed to watch him die. And she needed to accept his death. She needed to let him go.

Charlie had been her husband. Dearly, dearly loved. But “had been” were the key words. He was dead. He was a part of her past. Always to be remembered. Always to be cherished in memory. But in the past.

And at last she could think of him with only a dull ache of longing. At last she could remember and smile at some of the memories. The terrible raw agony of her grief was over.

And she had a future to look ahead to. She had felt her child move in her.

“That climb up the cliffs is really quite dangerous, though very exhilarating,” the countess said to her as they sat together in the morning room, stitching. “And it is very strenuous to go up. The first time I did it was in the opposite direction. And Edmund would allow it only after I had promised faithfully to cling to his hand every step of the way. We were betrothed then.” She smiled at the memory.

“I am looking forward to seeing the sea again,” Ellen said. “It seems strange that we are so close and have not yet seen it.”

“English rain!” the countess said. “You know, what I have been trying to say as tactfully as possible is that perhaps you should not tackle that climb. I will stay down on the beach with you if you wish, and we shall stroll along like a couple of respectable matrons.”

“Because I am increasing?” Ellen asked.

The countess lowered her head over her work. “We have heard about that, naturally,” she said. “Your father-in-law did make a public announcement.”

“I am feeling quite well,” Ellen said, “and do not get as tired as I did at first. But I think you are right. I shall take the walk on the beach without the climb.”

“I am glad for you,” the countess said. “You are good with children. You are happy about it, aren’t you?”

“Yes.” Ellen put down her own work on her lap. “Oh, quite ecstatic. I didn’t think it would ever happen to me. I had quite resigned myself to being childless.”

“It is the most wonderful feeling in the world, is it not?” Lady Amberley said, smiling warmly at the other. “One feels heavy and uncomfortable and lethargic at the end, and then there is all the pain of the birthing. And when it is over, one feels that one could never ever go through such a dread experience again. But then a few months later, one thinks that perhaps after all one can do it one more time.” She laughed. “I am at that last stage at the moment, and very envious of you.”

The dowager countess too found the opportunity to advise Ellen not to do anything too strenuous.

“Young people are quite, quite mad, my dear,” she said, “and feel that they must ever be squandering their energy. But you must not feel that you have to keep up with them. Edmund and Dominic and Walter will see to it that your stepdaughter is kept safe, you know.”

“I have already decided not to climb the cliff, ma’am,” Ellen said. “I just wish the rain would stop so that I may at least see the cliff.”

They both laughed.

And Ellen marveled again how both ladies could be perfectly aware of her pregnancy and doubtless suspected its paternity, and yet could treat her with such quiet courtesy and even friendliness.

Lord Eden found her on the second afternoon when she had sought out some privacy in the conservatory. She was stitching at her embroidery. She smiled at him and returned her attention to her work.

But of course she was very aware of him, standing tall and straight with his back to her, looking out at rain-soaked lawns and trees. His hands were clasped behind him. They were fidgeting.

She stitched on, his tension conveying itself to her. And yet he did not look tense when he turned to face her. He was smiling.

“I am afraid I frightened Miss Simpson on the way home from the Courtneys’ just now,” he said. “The roadway down the hill opposite is very steep. I told her not to worry if the carriage slid a little in the mud. The coachman had been with Edmund for almost a year without having an accident. The one before him lasted only six months.”

“And I suppose the road is quite safe?” Ellen said.

“Oh, assuredly.” He grinned. “And the coachman was my father’s before he was Edmund’s. But she is made of stern stuff, your stepdaughter. I felt sorry for the deception when she only turned white and clung to the strap and did not scream at all.”

“Wretch!” Ellen said, laughing despite herself. “I hope she ripped up at you when she realized the truth.”

“She was so brave,” he said, “that I did not have the heart to tell her.”

There was an awkward little silence after they had both laughed again, and Ellen dipped her head to her embroidery.

“Ellen,” he said, “I think we should marry.”

She looked up at him, her needle suspended in the air.

“I know that you are not even halfway through your mourning period yet,” he said. “I know that you loved Charlie and still love him and always will. And I know that you are able and willing to take care of this child on your own, Ellen. But even so, it will be an illegitimate child. You have chosen not to try to give it the respectability of Charlie’s name. Let it have my name, then. Marry me. Will you?”

“No, Dominic,” she said. “No, it would not be right.”

“Why not?” he asked. He stooped down in front of her so that he could look into her face. “It seems to me the only right thing to do.”

“I have been married once,” she said. “It was a good marriage. We loved each other. I couldn’t contemplate a loveless marriage.”

He winced slightly. “I know you don’t love me,” he said. “I would not expect that, Ellen. But listen to me. There are three of us here, not just two. I can get up and walk away from you and live the life of my choice. You can leave this place and go to your father or find yourself a place in the country and live the life of your choice. But there is someone else who has no choices. Someone who will go through life with the label of bastard. Do you want that?”

“I will use my free choice to love the child every moment for the rest of my life,” she said. Her eyes were on his hands, which held her wrists so that she could no longer sew.