Mary Balogh - Web of Love

They both chuckled.

“Will your memories make you a more indulgent parent?” she asked.

“Not at all,” he said. “I promised Alex before our marriage that I would never lay a violent hand on any children of ours. And I won’t. But I am sure I will think of some other perfectly satisfactory punishments. And I will need them. I already recognize the occasional gleam in my son’s eyes.”

“Oh,” Jennifer said when they reached the rock and she gazed up the cliff that towered over them. “We are going up there? Is it possible?”

“You have to cling to the rock by your teeth in places,” Walter said. “But it is possible. It is not for the fainthearted, though.”

“Well,” she said, “my teeth are as strong as the next person’s, I suppose.”

“I’ll scramble up this first cluster of rocks, then,” he said, “and haul you up after. Once you are up on the path, it is just a matter of putting one foot in front of the other and not freezing when you are halfway up.”

“You are a wonderful builder of confidence,” she said, setting her hands on her hips and watching him climb up the first few feet, which the tides had worn sheer and smooth.

“It is really not as bad as it looks,” the countess said reassuringly. “The path widens as you get higher, and is really quite firm underfoot.”

“You may wish to avoid looking down,” the earl said.

“Here you are, then,” Walter said, kneeling on the path and reaching down a hand for Jennifer’s. “You must keep hold of my hand when you are up here.”

Madeline and Lord Agerton, Anna and Miles followed them up.

“You had better go up to see that they all behave themselves,” the countess said to her husband, drawing a grin from him in response. “Mrs. Simpson and I are going to walk on the beach.”

“Oh, I do wish I could go up too,” Ellen said. “This sea air is marvelous. And the view must be lovely from up there.”

“We will drive up there tomorrow,” the countess said.

Lord Eden smiled down into Ellen’s wistful face. “Do you want to go now?” he asked. “We can take it very slowly. We do not have to keep up to the others.”

“Dominic!” Lady Amberley said.

“Oh, I would love to,” Ellen said. “Do you think I might?”

The countess looked appealingly to her husband. He merely raised his eyebrows to her.

“We’ll stop every few feet for you to rest,” Lord Eden said. “And you needn’t look so cross with us both, Alexandra. This is a lady who has tramped and ridden through mud and searing heat, and forded swollen rivers and crossed the Pyrenees Mountains into France. Ellen is no wilting flower.”

“But she has never been pregnant before,” his sister-in-law said.

“Alex.” The earl held out a hand for hers. “You are merely trying to avoid having to make the climb yourself, aren’t you? There has been too much of London and soft living for you, my girl. Come here and I’ll lift you up. We’ll allow Dominic and Mrs. Simpson to come at their own speed behind us. We will take the gigs home when we get to the top, Dominic, and send one back for you.”

“I feel rather like a naughty child,” Ellen said to Lord Eden a few minutes later, when she had hold of his hand and was moving slowly upward, “doing the forbidden.”

“There is a broad ledge a little higher,” he said. “We will stop there for a while.”

It was quite magnificent, Ellen decided when they stood on the ledge. They already seemed high up, though they had not come very far. The breeze was a wind up there, and was whipping her cloak against her. The tide was coming in fast. There were several lines of breakers stretched across the miles of the beach, those closest to the sand white with foam. The sun was sparkling on the water.

“There is not a lovelier sight on earth, is there?” she said. “The sea always makes me want to cry.”

“It is a lovely sight and yet it makes you want to cry?” he said.

She turned her head to smile at him. “With the wonder of it,” she said. “Not from misery.”

“We are island people,” he said. “The sea is in our blood.”

“I suppose so.” She set her hands against her abdomen and stood very still.

“You are all right?” His voice was anxious.

“Oh, yes, quite all right,” she said. “He moved, Dominic. Oh, and again.” She looked at him and smiled in delight. “Feel for yourself.”

He stood behind her and put his arms about her, one hand stretched over her ribs beneath her breasts, the other lower. She took that hand in hers, set it flat against her, and waited, very still.

“There. Oh, there,” she said. “Did you feel it?” She held up a silencing hand and waited again. “Oh, did you feel it, Dominic? Do you think he is protesting the climb?”

“That bubble?” he said. “Was that it?”

She laid her head back against his shoulder and laughed softly. “Yes, that bubble,” she said. “A tiny foot or fist. He is really there, you see, making his presence felt.”

He wrapped his arms about her and held her against him. “Was it wise to come up here?” he asked. “Would you prefer to go back down?”

“No, indeed,” she said. “Your son and I, sir, are not so chickenhearted. I think he is merely signaling his protest because I have stopped.”

“Is he?” he said. “Sooner or later, I am going to have to teach him that he may not give orders to his mother.”

“He is wise, you see,” she said. “He is doing so while he still may. While you cannot get your hands on him.”

He laughed softly, stopped himself just in time from kissing her cheek, and gazed quietly out to sea with her for a few minutes more before releasing her, taking her hand in a firm clasp, and resuming the ascent.

Walter and Jennifer had scarcely paused in their climb, and emerged hot and panting on the clifftop long before anyone else. The two gigs that Lord Amberley had had sent from the house were waiting there, Lieutenant Penworth sitting in one of them.

Jennifer walked across to him, trying to catch her breath. “You came,” she said. “What a good idea. Can you see the view?”

“I have seen a lot of sheep,” he said. “Do they qualify as a view?”

“No.” She laughed. “Oh, I can’t talk. I am so breathless.”

“You will doubtless be disappointed to know that I drove this gig here myself,” he said. “It was not quite as exhilarating as galloping a fast horse, of course. But infinitely preferable to an afternoon spent at a pianoforte keyboard.”

“And I am supposed to be disappointed?” she said. “I do not follow your meaning, sir. But I can’t argue. No breath. I am going to tell Madeline you are here. She must be close to the top.”

She somehow found the energy to walk back to the clifftop while Walter climbed into the gig beside Allan Penworth.

Madeline and Lord Agerton were indeed almost at the top, she saw. So were most of the others. Except for Ellen and Lord Eden, standing on the broad ledge far down, wrapped in each other’s arms. She was unable to remove her eyes from them for a few startled moments. Then she turned and half-ran back to the gig, her message undelivered.

“Oh, do look at them, Edmund,” the countess said. “Is there nothing you can do to persuade them that they were made for each other?”

“They seem to be doing quite nicely on their own,” he said, looking obediently down.

“But they will persist in making difficulties for themselves,” she said, “mark my words. And in another two weeks she will go back to London and he will go to Wiltshire, and they will both be miserable.”

“If they do anything so foolish,” he said, “it will be by their own choice, love. It almost happened to us, if you will remember. But being the sensible people we are, we worked out our own problems without anyone’s help, and here we are living happily ever after.”

“Is there nothing you can do?” she asked.

“Nothing whatsoever,” he said firmly, looking down again at his brother, who had his arms about Ellen Simpson from behind and was gazing with her down to the beach and the breakers below.

MADELINE FOLLOWED ALLAN PENWORTH into the green salon when they arrived home in the gig. She clasped her hands behind her and did not help him to lower himself into a chair even though she could see that he was very tired.

“It was lovely to see you up there on the cliffs,” she said, “and to know that you had driven the one gig yourself. I am very proud of my patient, Allan.”

“And so you should be,” he said with a smile that she knew hid pain. “If it were not for your bullying, I would probably be lying comfortably staring at a ceiling in Brussels now.”

She laughed. “I don’t think so,” she said. “I credit you with far more spirit than that.”

“I am going to go home,” he said. “To Devonshire, I mean. It is time I faced the music.”

“I’m so glad,” she said. “Your mother will be happy.”

He grimaced. “I can just imagine it,” he said. “She will not be willing for me to lift a spoon for myself.”

“I’m quite sure you will soon show them that you are perfectly capable of wielding not only a spoon but also a knife and fork,” she said.

“I’ll be leaving here within a few days, Madeline,” he said.

She smiled rather sadly. “Will you?”

“Do you want me to have a word with your brother before I go?” he asked.

“No.” She shook her head. “I’ll tell him after you have left. Allan, I feel that I want to cry, and yet this is the only way, is it not? Will you write to me at least? I don’t want to lose my star patient altogether.”

“I’ll write,” he said.

“I will not offer to help you to your room,” she said. “But that is where you must go, Allan. You do not quite know what to do with yourself, do you?”

He smiled. “I’ll go, nurse,” he said, “without argument.”

She walked out into the hallway with him and watched him make his slow progress up the first few stairs. She turned toward the library. Edmund had gone in there after their return with a bundle of letters in his hand. Perhaps there was one for her.

There was one-from Lady Andrea Potts, who was in Paris with the colonel. But Madeline had scarcely broken the seal and read the first paragraph before having her attention effectively diverted by the hurried arrival of her sister-in-law.

“I had just sat down with Christopher on my knee,” she said breathlessly, eager eyes directed at her husband, who was leaning against the mantel, smiling indulgently at her. “Where is it, Edmund?”

“Where is what?” he asked, eyebrows raised.

“Oh, don’t tease!” she said. “My letter from James. Where is it?”

“Oh, that,” he said. “Now, let me see. Where did I put it?” He looked about him before patting the breast of his coat and withdrawing a letter from an inside pocket. “Is this it? Ah, yes. Addressed to the Countess of Amberley. You, my love. From Mr. James Purnell in Canada.”

“Oh, Edmund, give it to me!” she said in exasperation, snatching it from his hand and ignoring his grin. “This is two in one year. How splendid. Do you suppose he is all right?”

“I suppose he is still alive if he can write you a letter,” the earl said. “And I suppose you will find out the rest when you have opened and read the letter. How am I expected to know?”

“Oh!” the countess said, turning away from him while Madeline read over again for the seventh time the last sentence of the first paragraph of her own letter.

“He is in Montreal,” the countess said. “He has come out of the interior this year and is to work in Montreal for the winter.” She read on. “He says it is very strange to be back in Lower Canada after being inland for three years. The people and the buildings and the noises are difficult to get used to. Imagine, Edmund!”

Madeline no longer read the sentence. She merely directed her eyes toward it.

“Oh, Edmund!” The countess spun around to face her smiling, lounging husband, her eyes shining and excited. “He is coming home next summer.” She looked back to the letter. “He is bringing the furs to auction. He will be here for a few months. Oh.” She looked at him, speechless for a moment. “I am so excited.”

“Yes,” the earl said, “I had noticed. I imagine Madeline has had her suspicions too. Would you say Alex is looking forward to seeing her brother again, Madeline?”

“What?” Madeline said. “Oh, yes, I think so.”

“He has never seen the children,” the countess said. “I wonder if he even knows about Caroline yet. Or about Papa. Perhaps he does not even know that.”