Read Online Web of Love by Mary Balogh - Free Book Online Page B

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.
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    L IEUTENANT P ENWORTH 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.
    â€œShall we stroll along too, Mrs. Simpson?” he asked. “I confess to a need to work up more of an appetite for tea.”
    â€œThank 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.
    â€œDo you ever miss England?” he asked. “This is a very lovely spot, I must confess, but it is not home, is it?”
    â€œHome!” 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.
    â€œWere you with your father from infancy?” he asked. “When did your mother die?”
    â€œI 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?
    â€œWhich part of England are you from?” he asked.
    â€œLondon mostly,” she said. “My father…That is, we had a home in Leicestershire, but we rarely went there. I grew up in London.”
    â€œDo you not dream of going back?” he asked. “Of finally having a home of your own again? A place where you belong?”
    â€œYes, 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.”
    â€œThe 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.”
    â€œYes,” she said. “But I have learned in the past ten years not to look