by Mary Balogh
It could well be that he would be gone forever.
It was possible she would never see him again. Ever.
She leapt up suddenly and dashed into her dressing room. She shoved her feet into a pair of shoes and grabbed the first cloak that came to hand—her red one. She flung it about her shoulders and rushed from the room and down the stairs. Was she in time? She felt that she would die if she was not.
Ashley. Oh, Ashley.
There was only one footman in the hall. And a mound of boxes and trunks by the doors, which stood open. There was no carriage outside.
Emily sagged with relief. She was not too late. Ashley must be at breakfast. She took a few steps in the direction of the breakfast parlor, and the footman hurried ahead of her to open the doors. But she stopped again. No. She could not after all see him face-to-face. She would shame herself. She would cry. She would make him uncomfortable and unhappy. And she would see the pity in Anna’s and Luke’s eyes.
She ran outside and down the steps onto the upper terrace and on to the formal gardens. She ran fleet-footed through three tiers of the gardens and then down the long sloping lawn to the two-arched stone bridge over the river. She ran across the bridge and among the old trees that lined and shaded the driveway for its full winding length to the stone gateposts and the village beyond. But she did not run all the way to the village. She stopped halfway down the drive, gasping for breath.
She stood with her back against the broad trunk of an old oak and waited. She would see his carriage as it passed. She would say her own private good-bye. She would not see him, she realized. Only his carriage. He would not see her. He would not know that she had come to say good-bye. But it was just as well. Fond as he was of her, to him she was just a type of younger sister to be indulged.
She could remember her first meeting with him, the day she arrived at Bowden Abbey to live with Anna, feeling strange and bewildered. She had instantly liked Luke, though she had learned later that her sister Agnes was terrified of his elegant appearance and formal manners. But he had been kind to her and he had spoken with her as if she were a real person who had ears that could hear. And incredibly she had understood most of what he said—he moved his lips decisively as he spoke and he kept his face full toward her. So many people forgot to do that. But she had felt uncomfortable during tea in the drawing room until Ashley had arrived late and demanded an introduction. And then he had bowed to her and smiled and spoken.
“As I live,” he had said, “a beauty in the making. Your servant, madam.” She had seen every word.
Tall, handsome, charming Ashley. He had gone to sit beside his sister, Doris, and had proceeded to converse with her after winking at Emily. He had taken her heart with him. It was as simple as that. She had adored him from that moment as she had adored no one else in her life, even Anna.
Ashley had a loving heart. He loved Luke, even though they had been close to estrangement for almost a year. He loved his mother and his sister, who were now in London, and he loved Anna and Joy. He loved her too. But no more intensely than he loved the others. She was Emmy, his little fawn. She was just a child to him. He did not know that she was a woman.
He would forget her in a month.
No, she did not believe that. There was nothing shallow in Ashley’s love. He would remember her fondly—as he would remember the rest of his family.
She would hold him in her heart—deep in her heart—for the rest of her life. He was all of life to her. He was everything. Life would be empty without Ashley. Meaningless. She loved him with all the passion and all the intense fidelity of her fifteen-year-old heart. She did not love him as a child loves, but as a woman loves the companion of her soul.
Perhaps more intensely than most women loved. There was so little else except the sight of the world around her with which to fill her mind and her heart. She had somehow made a life of her own dreams before meeting Ashley. It had not always been easy. There had been frustrations, even tantrums when she was younger—when perhaps she had remembered enough of sound to be terrified by its absence. She had no conscious memories of sound since it had been shut off quite totally after the dangerous fever she had barely survived before her fourth birthday. Just some fleeting hints, yearnings. She did not know quite what they were. They always just eluded her grasp.
Ashley had become her dream. He had given her days meaning and her nights fond imaginings. She did not know what would be left to her when the dream was taken away—today, this morning.
She was beginning to think that she must have missed him after all. Perhaps he had gone ahead and his luggage was to follow later. She was almost numb with the cold. The wind whipped and bit at her. But finally she heard the carriage approach. Not that she could hear it in the accepted sense of the word—she often wondered what sound must have been like. But she felt the vibrations of an approaching carriage. She pressed herself back against the tree while grief hit her low in the stomach like a leaden weight. He was leaving forever and all she would see was Luke’s carriage, which was taking him to London.
Panic grabbed her like a vise as the carriage came into sight, and despite herself she leaned slightly forward, desperate for one last glimpse of him.
She saw nothing except the carriage rolling on past. She moaned incoherently.
But then it slowed and came to a full stop. And the door nearest her was flung open from the inside.
• • •
There had been a feeling of mingled sadness and relief as the carriage lurched into motion, drew away from the house, and turned at the end of the cobbled terrace to take the sloping path beside the formal gardens and past the long lawn to the bridge.
He was on his way. Soon now he would be beyond the park, beyond the village, and leaving Bowden land behind him. He could look ahead with pleasure and excitement. Ashley set his head back against the comfortable upholstery of his brother’s carriage and closed his eyes with a sigh of relief. It had been easier than he had expected.
But he did not keep his eyes closed. When he heard the rumble of the bridge beneath the carriage wheels, he opened them again for one backward glance at the house. He looked at the trees of the driveway and beyond. He could see a small group of deer grazing peacefully off to his left.
And a slight flutter of red.
It caught his eye when the carriage was already on a level with it and for a moment he could not identify it. But then he knew.
Emmy’s cloak!
He leaned forward without thought and rapped sharply on the front panel for the coachman to stop. Almost before the carriage had come to a complete standstill, he flung open the door and jumped down onto the driveway. He looked back.
Ah. He had not been mistaken. And only now when it was too late did he realize that it might have been better if he had kept on going. He was not going to escape painful good-byes entirely after all.
She was standing against a tree trunk, holding it with both hands behind her as if she feared falling. Her face was all eyes and ashen paleness despite the slight color the wind had whipped into her cheeks. He walked toward her slowly and came to a stop only when he was a few inches in front of her. He felt guilty. He was off on an adventure, off to begin his adult life. All of the world, all of life were ahead of him. But Emmy, his close companion for almost a year, was to be left behind to—to what? What would life hold for a child who would grow into a woman who could not always understand others or communicate with them?
“Little fawn,” he said softly. He clasped his arms together and shivered. You must be cold, he told her in one of their private signs—as if physical comfort was of any significance at this moment.
She made no reply. Her eyes gazed back into his—and filled with tears.
Ah, Emmy.
He leaned forward until his body pinned her against the tree. He wished—Lord, but he wished he had not noticed the flapping of h
er red cloak. What could he say to her in either words or gestures? He knew she was desperately unhappy, and her unhappiness clouded the exhilaration he had been feeling. He tilted back his head and closed his eyes. He clenched his hands tightly at his sides. He should have done this properly yesterday instead of just telling her cheerfully to be a good girl.
When he raised his head and opened his eyes, he found that she was looking at him. Her face was only inches from his own.
There were no words. And no gestures, except one, which was no part of their private language. There was only one way to say good-bye.
Her lips were cool, soft, and motionless beneath his. She had been chilled by her wait for his carriage. He warmed them with his own, softly and gently. He warmed them until they pushed back against his, and he realized in sudden shock that what they were sharing was undoubtedly a kiss.
A kiss, not of a brother and sister, but of a man and woman. Her body against his, he noticed now that he had been alerted, was slim, coltlike, soft with budding womanhood.
He felt a flush of heat, a rush of tightness to his groin.
He lifted his head, feeling disoriented. She was Emmy. She was a child who needed comforting. She needed some sign of affection from him, something to wrap about herself until she had grown accustomed to his absence. She certainly did not need . . . He framed her face with gentle hands, keeping one still while the other smoothed back her windblown hair.
“I will be back, little fawn,” he said softly but distinctly, as he always spoke to her, noting that the tears had gone so that she was able to read his lips. “I will be back to teach you to read and write and to teach you a more complete language you can use—not just with me but with everyone. One day, Emmy. But by that time you will have found other friends to love, other friends who will love you and learn to find meaning in your silence. You must not mind my going too deeply, you know. I am a careless sort of fellow. There will be others far more worthy of your affection.” He smiled gently at her.
She gazed at him in such a way that he was given the impression that her whole soul gazed out at him. Her right hand, clenched loosely into a fist, lifted and pulsed lightly over her heart. I feel deeply. I am serious. My heart is full. It was a gesture he used sometimes when talking, a sign that he was speaking the deep emotions of the heart. It was a gesture she had picked up from him and added to their all-too-inadequate language. He wondered if the gesture was involuntary at this particular moment.
“Ah,” he said. “I know, Emmy. I know. I’ll be back. I’ll not forget you. I’ll carry you here.” He stepped back from her at last and touched a hand to his own heart.
And then he turned and strode back to the carriage. He vaulted inside, shut the door firmly behind him, and sat back as the vehicle lurched into motion. He blew out his breath from puffed cheeks.
Emmy. His dear little fawn. Sweet child.
He tried to convince himself that that was how he had seen her, how he had treated her right to the end. He had put his body against hers and his lips to hers in an almost instinctive gesture of comfort. Brother to sister, uncle to niece, man to child. But he was uncomfortably aware that his chosen method of giving comfort had been unwise and inappropriate to the occasion. He had discovered a body and a mouth that would very soon belong to a woman.
He did not want Emmy to be a woman—foolish thought. He wanted her always to be that wild and happy child who had brought him peace when his life had been in turmoil. He wanted to remember her as a child.
He was ashamed of himself for reacting to her for one startled moment as a male. He loved her. But not as a man loves a woman. The feelings he had for her were quite unique in his experience. He loved no one else as he loved Emmy. He wished—ah, he wished he had not sullied his feelings for her by reacting to her physical closeness as a man reacts to a woman. He would not remember her so. He would remember her standing on the rock above the falls, her skirts loose about her legs and short enough to reveal bare ankles and feet, her blond hair in a wild tangled mane down her back, her lips smiling, her lovely eyes telling him that, incredible as it might seem, she had found peace and harmony in her silent world.
The village was already behind him, he noticed. He was well on his way. His future had already begun. His thoughts turned ahead to India and his new life. What would it be like? How well would he meet the challenge? He could feel the exhilaration of youth and the thirst for adventure humming in his veins.
• • •
Emily stood where she was for many long minutes after she had felt the vibrations of the carriage moving off again. Her head was back against the tree trunk. Her eyes were closed. And then she pushed herself away from the tree and began to run recklessly, heedlessly, through the woods, over the bridge, in among the trees again, faster and faster, as if all the fiends of hell were at her heels.
She stopped only when she came to the falls and had bounded up the rocks beside them so that she could cast herself facedown on the flat rock that jutted out over the water. She buried her face on her arms and wept until her chest was sore from the weeping and there were neither tears nor energy left.
Behind her closed eyes she could see him as he had appeared when he vaulted out of the carriage, before she had been blinded by tears, tall and slender and handsome, his long dark hair tied back with a black silk ribbon and unpowdered as usual. He had been elegant in cloak, frock coat, waistcoat, and breeches. But elegant in his own almost careless manner—quite unlike Luke, with his Parisian splendor.
She lay on the cold rock beside the falls, spent and passive, for hours until at last she felt a hand on her shoulder. She had neither seen nor sensed anyone coming, but she was not surprised. She turned her head to see Luke sitting beside her, his eyes intent and sympathetic on her. She set her face back against her arms while his hand patted her shoulder.
There was nothing left to live for. Ashley had gone. Perhaps forever. Taking her heart, her very life with him.
And yet there was Anna, her eldest sister, who had been more of a mother to her than anyone else in her life. And there were her brother, Victor, the Earl of Royce—and Charlotte, her sister, though both lived far away with their spouses. And Agnes, Lady Severidge, the sister next in age to herself, who would be living close by at Wycherly Park after she returned from her wedding trip. There was Joy, her niece, on whom she doted. And there was Luke.
She loved Luke dearly. He loved Anna and Joy, and Anna loved him. Emily would love anyone who loved Anna. And he was Ashley’s brother, though he was not as tall as Ashley, nor was his face as good-humored or quite as handsome—at least not to Emily’s partial eyes. But he was Ashley’s brother.
When he turned her finally and lifted her onto his lap and cradled her just as if she were a child, she cuddled against him, trying to draw comfort from him. He too must have hated seeing Ashley leave this morning. Ashley had used to say that Luke was cold and did not care for him. But she knew that it had never been true. Luke was neither cold nor unloving.
Luke had made it possible for Ashley to find purpose in life. He had arranged for Ashley to join the East India Company. And he had given her a home here with Anna instead of forcing her to live with Victor and Constance, who felt awkward with her silence even though they loved her well enough.
She felt some warmth creep back into her body as Luke murmured comforting words to her. She could tell he was doing so by the vibrations of his chest.
She loved Luke. She loved her family. But it was going to be very difficult to live on. Ashley had found purpose in life. How was she to find purpose in hers? Could it have meaning without Ashley?
But she knew, emerging as she was now from the blackest depths of despair, that she must live on and that she must do so without him. For he would not come back. She knew that. He might return at some distant time in the future. But the Ashley she knew and loved would change. And she would change.
Ashley could not be had. He loved her, but she was not in any way central to his very being. He would soon consign her to nothing more important than a fond memory. She knew that. She had no illusions about what she meant to him.
She would grow up without him. She would live without him. No one would ever know how much he would always be a part of her. She would live as if her heart had not broken from love for him—although it had.
She would always love him, but from this moment on she would take her life back and live it as fully as she had before she set eyes on Ashley a year ago—and all else had faded into insignificance. And it had been a full life, even if it had necessarily been an almost totally solitary one.
Even at its darkest moment, life was a precious gift.
1
1763
“FAITH, child,” Lady Sterne said, “but you are as lovely as all your sisters put together. With no offense meant to the two who are present.” She laughed, clasped her hands to her bosom, and let her eyes sweep once more over the young lady who stood in the middle of the dressing room.
“Oh, but she really is,” Lady Severidge said generously. “She really is beautiful.” At the age of six-and-twenty, seven years and two children after her marriage, Agnes was still pretty, though she had grown almost plump.
“Of course she is as lovely as all of us put together,” Anna, Duchess of Harndon, said, smiling her bright, warm smile. “And lovelier even than that. Oh, Emmy, you look wonderful.” But in truth Anna herself looked equally lovely. Although she was well past her thirtieth year and had given birth to her fourth child only three months before, her face was still youthful and unlined, and her figure was again as trim as it had been before her marriage.