“The physician only suspected heart trouble, Alex,” the earl said. “Your father has seemed quite well since last winter.”

“Oh,” she said, holding the letter against her and twirling around. “He is coming home at last. I must go and tell your mama. And Dominic if he is back yet.”

The Earl of Amberley chuckled as his wife left the room. “I suppose a mere husband will have to take second place for a while next summer,” he said. “Do you remember Purnell, Madeline? But of course you do. He was here for a while during the summer of my betrothal to Alex. And who could forget the strange way he left in the middle of the night and the middle of a ball? Rather a strange character, wasn’t he? But very fond of Alex and she of him. Did you like him?”

Madeline considered. “He was very quiet,” she said. “I did not have a great deal to do with him. I scarcely remember him.”

“How is Lady Andrea?” he asked, nodding toward her own letter.

“What?” she said. “Oh, I haven’t finished it yet. I was listening to Alexandra. I am very happy for her. I think I’ll take this upstairs with me.” She smiled and left the room.

He was coming home. Oh, dear God, he was coming home. Or to England, anyway. Probably not to Amberley. His parents, Lord and Lady Beckworth, lived in Yorkshire. He would doubtless go there. Alexandra would travel there to meet him. Edmund and the children would go with her.

It was unlikely that he would come to Amberley.

If he did, she would stay away. She would go to Dom in Wiltshire, perhaps.

She would not have to see him even if he came. She did not want to see him.

Oh, God, he was coming home. Perhaps to Amberley. Perhaps she would see him again.

ELLEN WAS SMILING to herself as she unpinned her hair and shook it loose. She had been given her orders, and she would obey them. She would lie down and rest for an hour.

She would have done so anyway. She really was feeling quite tired. But it had been amusing and rather touching to have Dominic tell her in the gig on the way home that she must promise him to go to her room without delay, or he would carry her there. And to have his mother meet her in the hallway, take her arm through hers, and escort her to her room, scolding her gently along the way.

But she was not sorry she had made that climb. And really, they had done it in such slow stages that there had been very little exertion involved. And then, when they had reached the top and had to wait for one of the gigs to return for them, Dominic had made her lie down on the grass, spreading his coat beneath her in case there was any dampness left in the ground.

“But you will be cold,” she had protested. “This is October, Dominic.”

He had stretched out on the grass beside her, the dampness notwithstanding, and propped himself up on one elbow.

“I have survived worse,” he had said. “So have you.”

“Do you remember…?” And they had been off again into shared reminiscences, so that the arrival of the gig had finally taken them by surprise.

Ellen got into bed beneath the top cover and closed her eyes. She imposed relaxation on her body. They could surely be friends after all. And that would be enough. She would make it enough. It had been a happy afternoon. Blissfully happy.

The door to her room suddenly opened without any knock to herald someone’s arrival. Ellen turned her head to find Jennifer standing there, her face white, in obvious distress.

“What is it?” She pushed herself up on an elbow.

Jennifer closed the door and stood against it. “How long has it been going on?” she asked. “Since before Papa died?”

“What?” Ellen frowned.

“You and Lord Eden,” the girl said. “Were you lovers even when Papa was still alive? Were you?”

Ellen closed her eyes briefly and swung her legs over the side of the bed. “Jennifer…” she said.

The girl’s voice was shaking. “I suppose it is his baby you are expecting too,” she said, “and not Papa’s at all. It is, isn’t it?”

“I was never unfaithful to your father,” Ellen said. “Never, Jennifer. I loved him.”

“He never suspected, did he?” Jennifer said. “And neither did I. Papa thought that Lord Eden was always visiting because they were friends. But it was you and him, wasn’t it? And it is hardly surprising. I am only amazed that I was naive enough not to see it. Papa was not a handsome man, and he was much older than you. Lord Eden is the most handsome man I have known. How long has it been going on, Ellen? For years?”

Ellen shook her head. “Listen to me,” she said. “I know you are distraught and that you will not believe anything I say now. But listen, please. And when you have calmed down, you will know that I have told you the truth.”

She had never seen Jennifer sneer before. But she saw it now. “Papa believed your lies for years,” she said. “And I have always believed them. Let me see if I believe this one. I am listening.”

“Lord Eden-Dominic-and I are betrothed,” Ellen said. “And you are right. It is his child. I conceived it a month after your father’s death. While Dominic was recovering from his wounds in my rooms.”

“A remarkable recovery!” Jennifer said.

“There was nothing between us before that,” Ellen said. “He was your father’s friend. I was his wife. And I was faithful to him entirely from inclination. I loved him. Afterward, when Dominic was with me, we turned to each other for comfort, and this child was conceived. What we did was wrong. We both owed your father’s memory better than that. I have lived through terrible pangs of guilt, and even accused myself of infidelity at first. But I was not unfaithful, Jennifer, and I would not have been if your father had lived. Neither would Dominic. He is a man of honor.”

“You’re a slut and a whore!” Jennifer said quietly.

Ellen got hurriedly to her feet. A shaking hand came up to cover her mouth. “You will know when you have had time to think,” she said, “that you are being unfair, Jennifer. I wish you had not found out like this. Did you suspect when we were together this afternoon? I have been trying to find a way to tell you. Your grandfather and your aunt know already, though they do not know the identity of the father. I will talk with Lady Amberley or her mother-in-law. Perhaps they can help you. I know I can’t at the moment. I’m so sorry.”

“I don’t need anyone’s help,” Jennifer said. “I am not a child to be comforted with a hug. I lost Papa just a few months ago. But I still had you. I loved you as if you really were my mother, though you are young enough to be my sister. I am glad you are neither, Ellen. And I am glad at least that Papa never knew what was going on under his very nose. His wife and his best friend! It would have killed him.”

Ellen bent her head and closed her eyes. After a few moments she heard the door of her room open and close again.

Half an hour passed before she felt calm enough to go in search of the dowager Countess of Amberley.

LIEUTENANT PENWORTH FOUND JENNIFER half an hour after that in the music room. She was sitting at the pianoforte depressing keys seemingly at random with one finger.

“You are going right back to basics?” he said. “Wouldn’t scales be more productive?”

She put her hands palm-up, one on top of the other, in her lap and looked down at them.

“I must have said something particularly clever,” he said, hobbling closer to her on his crutches, “if I have silenced you.”

“Go away,” she said quietly.

He stopped behind the bench and looked down at the cluster of dark ringlets at the back of her head. “Why do I have the feeling that what you are really saying is ‘please help me’?” he said. “What’s the matter?”

“Go away,” she said.

He sat down slowly and carefully on the edge of the bench. “I have lost some of my body parts,” he said. “But I still have two perfectly serviceable shoulders left. Do you want to use one of them?”

She put one hand flat along the keyboard and pressed down all the keys beneath it. Then she slammed the hand down twice more. “Leave me alone,” she said. “Just leave me alone!”

He looked at her hand for a few silent moments before positioning his crutches under his arms and starting to get up.

“Don’t go!” she said. And she spread both arms along the keyboard and laid her forehead down on her hands. The noise was quite deafening until it faded away.

He set one hand lightly against the curls and sat quietly.

“Ellen’s baby is not Papa’s,” she said. “It is Lord Eden’s and they are going to be married. And Papa has not been dead four months yet. And I have no business saying this to a near-stranger.”

“That doesn’t matter,” he said. “Sometimes it is easier to talk to a stranger. You are badly hurt?”

“Papa worshiped her,” she said. “I think he loved her more than he loved me. And she pretended to love him. But she deceived him. With his closest friend.”

“I saw them together,” he said gently. “Your father and your stepmother, I mean. It never seemed like pretense to me. Are you sure this was going on before your father died?”

“She swears it was not,” she said. “But she is a liar as well as everything else I called her. I hate her. And him. But her more, because she deceived me too. I loved her.”

“Perhaps she is telling the truth,” he said. “Eden was with her, wasn’t he, after he was wounded? There can be a powerful bond between a wounded man and the woman who nurses him. I know. It happened to me too. Perhaps there was nothing between them until then. I have the greatest respect for Mrs. Simpson. And for Eden. I don’t think they would have done that to your father.”

“Were you in love with Madeline before you were wounded?” she asked.

“Not really.” He moved his hand to her shoulder as she sat up again. “I admired her a great deal. But then, I admired several young ladies, yourself included. I fell in love with her afterward-for a time. We have ended our betrothal now.”

She looked sharply around at him.

“We have not quarreled,” he said. “We have merely agreed, rather sadly, that what happened in Brussels was not a very real or lasting experience. We would not suit. We realize it now. Strange things can happen in those sorts of circumstances, you know. Perhaps even what has occurred with Eden and your stepmother. Give her a chance to show you that she is not what you called her-I can imagine what that was. But don’t assume without further proof that what has happened since your father’s death was also happening before then.”

“You are being kind to me,” she said. “Why? I never lose an opportunity to be rude to you.”

“Perhaps that is why,” he said with a smile. “Perhaps I have needed someone to be rude to me. Too much kindness has been driving me insane.”

He removed his hand from her shoulder as the door to the music room opened behind them. He turned to see the dowager countess enter. She smiled at him and raised her eyebrows significantly.

“I am going to choose a book in the library,” he said, pulling his crutches beneath his arms again.

The dowager watched him leave the room, while Jennifer sat with bent head again, examining the palms of her hands.

“Well, my poor child,” the dowager said, taking the place on the bench that Allan Penworth had just vacated and putting an arm about the girl’s shoulders, “it would seem that my son and your stepmother have been causing you some pain.”

THEY WERE ALL INVITED that evening to dine with the Courtneys. Just an informal gathering, Mr. Courtney had assured them genially when he had come over the previous day, in the rain, to issue the invitation, to keep the young people amused. He said nothing about the older people, but everyone knew that Mr. Courtney liked nothing better than a lively social gathering, especially when it was in his own home.

He insisted on calling his home a farmhouse and his drawing room a parlor. In reality, he was a prosperous tenant farmer, a fact that was reflected in the size and grandeur of his home. But Mr. Courtney was not one to put on airs. His only real ambition had ever been to marry his only daughter well, and he had achieved that three years before, when she had married the younger brother of Baron Renfrew.

Even Lieutenant Penworth decided that he would join the party. He shared a carriage with Madeline, Lord Eden, and Ellen. Jennifer, who had neither looked at nor exchanged a word with Ellen since the afternoon, traveled in the other carriage with the earl and his wife and mother.

Lord Eden touched Ellen’s hand while a footman was helping the lieutenant into the carriage and Madeline was hovering over him.