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.

“Shall we stroll along too, Mrs. Simpson?” he asked. “I confess to a need to work up more of an appetite for tea.”

“Thank you,” she said, taking his offered arm.

And they settled into a silence that he found difficult to break. It was strange-he had never felt awkward in her presence before. But he had noticed during the ride from Brussels that she had not once looked into his eyes. Damn him for a careless dancer. Their collision of the previous evening had been a small matter, but it had embarrassed her dreadfully.

And he had woken in a sweat during the night with the fragrance of her hair in his nostrils.

She was Ellen Simpson. Charlie’s wife. The quiet woman whose presence had always made Charlie’s tent a haven of peace and comfort. The woman in whose presence he had always been able to relax fully. The woman whose presence he had often been unaware of, though he had always noticed when she was not there for some reason.

She was just Ellen Simpson.

“Do you ever miss England?” he asked. “This is a very lovely spot, I must confess, but it is not home, is it?”

“Home!” she said softly. “Home is not a place to me, my lord. Home is my husband. And he has a habit of moving about with the army.” She smiled.

He looked down at her in some curiosity. He had never asked her about herself. He knew very little about her, in fact.

“Were you with your father from infancy?” he asked. “When did your mother die?”

“I went to Spain with my father when I was fifteen,” she said, “and lived with him until he was killed. And then I married Charlie. Ten years altogether. Ten years of wandering.”

She had not answered the second of his questions. Had her mother died when she was fifteen? Was there no other family to whom she could have gone?

“Which part of England are you from?” he asked.

“London mostly,” she said. “My father…That is, we had a home in Leicestershire, but we rarely went there. I grew up in London.”

“Do you not dream of going back?” he asked. “Of finally having a home of your own again? A place where you belong?”

“Yes, sometimes,” she said. “In the countryside. With no troubles and no dangers. So that I would not always have to live in terror that something was going to happen to Charlie. It must be heaven to live with one’s husband in peace. And in one place. A place that is one’s own. Oh, yes, I do wish for that.”

“The time will come soon enough,” he said, touching the hand that rested on his arm and withdrawing his fingers hastily. He did not want to make her uncomfortable again. “Charlie is talking of selling out once this business with Bonaparte is finally finished with.”

“Yes,” she said. “But I have learned in the past ten years not to look too far ahead and not to dream too much. I have my husband today. We will spend this evening together. That I can look forward to with some certainty and some eagerness. But not the home in the country. I will not think about that yet.”

“Charlie is a fortunate man,” he said.

She looked up at him, startled. “Oh, no,” she said. “I am the fortunate one. If you only knew! Charlie is the kindest and the most wonderful man in the whole world. He gave me a reason for living when I had none, you know. He is everything to me. My world would collapse if I did not have him.”

He had learned in the previous few weeks that there was more to Ellen Simpson than just the quiet strength of character that he had been long familiar with. He had learned that she could be gay and humorous and vitally beautiful. And now he was seeing that there was passion in her. He looked down at her, intrigued.

“I know something of Charlie’s kindness,” he said. “I am not sure that I would not have bolted from the terror of my first experience with battle if your husband had not been there to encourage me. It must have been a comfort to have him for a friend when your father died. Were you very fond of him?”

“He was good to me,” she said. “But I never knew him well. I had terrible problems adjusting to army life when I first went to Spain.” She smiled. “Charlie found me crying outside my tent one day because I had just brushed my hair and found the brush to be gray with dust, and there was nowhere to wash my hair. Or my clothes. I had never really experienced dirt before. He put his arm around my shoulders and sat on the ground with me and told me stories, just as if I were a child.” She laughed. “He was wholly paternal, you must realize. I was fifteen, and he thirty. And he told me of his little girl, whom he missed. Jennifer. After that, he used to seek me out often to see that I was not unhappy. And he used to bring me presents whenever he had been into a town. A fan. A mantilla. A clean comb.”

It was hard to imagine Mrs. Simpson as a bewildered girl, crying in the dust. He knew her as a woman who endured the worst of hardships with quiet cheerfulness. The only time he had seen her react to discomfort was when she had fallen from her horse into the mud one day and had been cursing like one of the men when he and Charlie had come up to her.

“I made friends among the women quite fast,” she said. “And I got used to the life. But you cannot imagine how having just a glimpse of Charlie came to light up my days. Sometimes he would wink at me from a distance. I suppose he was like the father I…He was like a father to me. Or an older brother.”

Like the father she had never had? Lord Eden completed in his mind. There was something fascinating about discovering what two of his friends had been like before he had met them.

“I asked him to marry me,” she said, and she flushed when he looked down at her with a grin. “It is shocking, is it not? After my father died, he wanted to send me to his sister in London. Lady Habersham, with whom Jennifer always stayed when not at school. He was willing to do that for me. But I asked him to marry me. I even begged him. He did not think it fitting. He said he was too old for me and not right for me.”

Lord Eden laughed aloud. “I shall have to tease him,” he said, “about being led squealing to the altar.”

“Oh,” she said, and she was laughing too. “Please don’t do that. Please don’t. I was very selfish. I did not even consider that perhaps he did not want to marry me. But I loved him so dearly. I could not bear the thought of being parted from him. Life would have had no more meaning. But I don’t think he has been sorry. I think I have brought him happiness, too.”

“If you had had to spend your days with him as I did when you were gone to England, ma’am,” he said, “you would be in no doubt about that. He was like a bear in a cage.”

She smiled brightly at him. “I am sorry,” she said. “I must have been boring you terribly, telling you these things.”

“On the contrary,” he said. “I have been fascinated.” And that was certainly no lie. He was totally surprised. He had always assumed that Mrs. Simpson had been persuaded into a marriage of convenience after the death of her father, though he had never been in any doubt of her devotion to Charlie. But of course, when he thought about it, he had to admit that her story made sense. Charlie was not at all the type of man to take advantage of an unhappy and bewildered girl.

“It seems that Lieutenant Penworth would make a good reconnaissance officer,” he said. “I am afraid I would be hopelessly lost in this forest by now. But you see? He has brought us full circle, and there is the picnic party.”

She seemed to have run out of confidences and conversation. It was something of a relief to be back with the others again and to be able to arrange matters so that he sat down on the blanket beside Jennifer. She was glowing with high spirits, as usual, and looking particularly fetching in a blue muslin dress and straw bonnet trimmed with blue flowers.

Lord Eden did not know why he could not shake from his mind the memory of Mrs. Simpson pressed to his body the night before, her face turned up to his. Surely such a thing must have happened to him before. If she had been a stranger or a passing acquaintance, doubtless he would have forgotten all about the incident by now. It was just that he was unaccustomed to thinking of her as a woman. She was Charlie’s wife, someone he liked and respected a great deal. But still, just Charlie’s wife.

It was foolish to feel this embarrassment, this awareness, in her presence. And to know that she shared the feeling. He did not like it at all. He set himself to charm Miss Simpson.

CAPTAIN SIMPSON TURNED to Ellen and blew out his breath from puffed cheeks. He laughed.

“Have you ever seen such a little whirlwind?” he asked. “If her mouth could move any faster, Ellen, she would make it do so.”

Ellen too laughed. “But she is enjoying herself so much,” she said. “And she has made so many friends, and amassed so many admirers, Charlie. You must be very proud of her.”

“I am,” he said. He walked away from the door through which his daughter had just whisked herself on her way to the theater with the Slatterys. “Sometimes I have to pinch myself, Ellen, just to believe she is my daughter. Can you imagine me being father to such a pretty little creature?”

“I can,” she said.

He smiled and sat down beside her on the sofa. “So this afternoon it was all Lieutenant Penworth, was it?” he said. “Can’t say I know the puppy, except that he’s a Guardsman. From Devon, she says, with a parcel of younger brothers and sisters and a love of riding and sailing and playing cricket. Do you fancy visiting our grandchildren in Devon, lass?”

“Oh, Charlie,” she said, laughing at him. “Jennifer is not ready to fix her choice yet. She very much has eyes for Lord Eden, but I think she is shy of talking to you about him because he is your friend.”

“Well,” he said, “I don’t want her married yet. She should have time to enjoy herself, shouldn’t she? Did you have a good time, lass?”

“Yes, I did.” She reached up a hand and smoothed it over the thinning hair at the side of his head. “But I would have preferred to be at home with you. Did you miss me?”

“I went to the shops,” he said.

She laughed. “You, Charlie?” she said. “To the shops?”

“How else could I buy you a present?” he said, grinning at her.

“A present? You bought me a present?” He had not done that for a long time, not since they were in Spain. Oh, he had given her money when she went to England, with strict orders to spend it on herself. But it was the little, often absurd presents that she had always valued most. “Where is it?”

“In my pocket,” he said. But he clasped a hand over the pocket as her hand went toward it. “What do I get first?”

She knelt on the sofa beside him and wrapped her arms about his neck. “What do you want?” she asked, and kissed him lightly on both cheeks.

“The lips,” he said. “Nothing less than the lips.”

“Oh,” she said, “it must be a very valuable present, then. All right, the lips it is.”