by Mary Balogh
She shook her head. “But we knew—,” she began.
He interrupted her. “Even on the day his letter announcing his marriage arrived?” he asked.
“I remember how you avoided for hours reading it aloud to her,” she said, closing her eyes briefly.
“Or on the day the letter came telling of Thomas’s birth?” he asked.
She shook her head again.
“Yes,” he said, “of course we knew, my dear. But Emily is a strong person. You can safely allow her to live her own life in her own way.”
She smiled ruefully at him. “He is dreadfully pale and thin.”
“Yes,” he agreed.
“I hope Alice and Thomas are well,” she said.
“Doubtless,” he said, “if they are back in England to stay, they will wish to remove to Penshurst without too long a delay since ’tis Alice’s home and now belongs to Ashley. In the meantime, you will persuade them to stay here, my love, and you will fuss over them and feed them and tuck them into their beds to your heart’s content. They will look quite human again by the time they leave here.”
She smiled.
“That is better,” he said. “I thought the sun had disappeared behind a cloud. And of course, my dear, you will have a wedding to prepare too. Royce seemed agreed that this would be the better place for it. You may plan and spend as lavishly as you wish. I shall not ask for an accounting.”
“Luke.” She leaned slightly toward him. Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes were shining again, her more normal expression. “All will be well, will it not?”
“All will be well,” he told her, covering her hand with his own. “But we neglect our guests, madam. Shall we lead the way back to the ballroom?”
• • •
“Lady Emily.” He leaned toward her at the supper table until her eyes focused on his mouth. “May I send a maid for your cloak? Will you step outside with me?”
Her heart was heavy with guilt and other things. She had been unable to do anything more than toy with her food. And rightly or wrongly, she felt that much attention was being directed at her. Probably rightly. She would be under observation for two reasons. It was expected that Lord Powell would declare himself tonight. And she had just danced for the first time in her life. Besides, she felt suffocated. She was very aware of the group clustered about Ashley not far distant and of Ashley himself, brightly chattering in their midst.
She still could not quite grasp the reality of his return home.
She would give anything in the world, she thought, to escape to her room. Or better still, to escape alone outdoors. She always found crowds and conversation overwhelming. She missed so much. She was always so aware of her differentness, of her inability to understand more than a fraction of what was being said, of the impossibility of communicating her own thoughts beyond the simplicity of smiles and nods. But she could not escape—she would not. She had pledged herself to be like other women as far as she could.
She smiled and nodded. Lord Powell drew back her chair as she got to her feet, and offered his arm. She took it and felt the eyes of everyone in the room follow them to the door and through it. Or so it seemed.
It was not really cold outside, although it was only April and late at night. The slight breeze even felt refreshingly cool. They strolled the length of the cobbled terrace and back again. There was no one else outside. He stopped at the top of the steps leading down to the upper terrace of the formal gardens, perhaps thinking it would be too dark down there for her to be able to read his lips. He turned to her.
“Lady Emily,” he said, “I believe you must know why I came to Bowden Abbey at his grace’s invitation.”
She gazed mutely at him. If she could have stopped this moment, delayed it for a day or two, she would have. Her head was pounding in a tight band just behind her eyes. But it could not be delayed. Every moment since his arrival five days ago had been leading to this one. She wished suddenly that she had a voice, that she could apologize for her bad manners in dancing with Ashley when she had promised the set to him. His own manners had been too polished to allow him to refer to the matter during supper.
“I came here not knowing you,” he said. “Not knowing if . . . You are beautiful. Poised and elegant and perfect in every way.”
And a fraud. And without a whole heart to give. But perhaps he did not want her heart.
“You cannot speak,” he said. “’Twould be thought by many men to be an insuperable handicap in a w-wife. But not to me. I have always preferred quiet women. And my mother will gladly continue to run my household and entertain our guests—’tis what she does best. You would merely have to charm everyone with your beauty and your smiles.” He smiled at her.
No. Oh no. So she would merely be another protected child in another household that would run very well without her. He merely wanted an ornament for his home, a—a breeder for his children? He was choosing her because she was quiet and biddable—and because she would allow his mother to continue dominating his household? Did he believe that what he saw, what he had seen in five days, was everything that was her? She felt a stabbing of fear. He saw only a smiling, placid, reasonably lovely woman? Was she nothing more to him?
But when it came to the question of what she meant to him—what did he mean to her? And what really did she know of him beyond certain facts she had read from his lips? Was she merely using him to give purpose and a measure of independence to her life? Was it enough? Was it even fair?
She had believed she had thought through her decision very sensibly and very carefully. Suddenly she felt that she had not thought it through at all.
“Lady Emily.” He had possessed himself of her hand. Unwillingly she noticed the difference between his touch and Ashley’s. His hand lacked the warmth, the strength of Ashley’s. She shook off the unwelcome thought. “Will you do me the honor of marrying me?”
He had said nothing of love. That realization at least brought relief with it. But only for a moment. He was offering her everything else—his name, his home, his family, a place at his side for the rest of her life. He thought she was poised and elegant and perfect.
Have they tamed you and your heart has not cried out for the wild?
She could see in her mind Ashley’s mouth forming the words.
But Ashley was married. He had forgotten her—or rather, she had never been of any importance to him as a woman—and he had married someone else. He had been married for three years. The fact that he had come home and had danced with her made no difference to anything at all. She had learned to live without Ashley. She had taken her life back for herself and had pieced it together again. She had enriched it, making it more deeply lived than it had been even before she met him. The fact that Ashley would be a part of her for as long as she lived mattered to no one but herself.
She wanted marriage. She wanted a home of her own. She wanted children. She wanted to be normal. She could fight for the right to run her own home and entertain her own visitors. She could show that she was capable of doing both. It would be the new challenge of her life. And she could do no better than Lord Powell. Luke had chosen well.
“Lady Emily?” He was peering at her anxiously in the near darkness. “Will you? Do you understand what I have said? Is it too dark out here?”
For one who had made up her mind quite deliberately over the past five days, she reasoned, she was alarmingly hesitant. There was no reason to hesitate. There was every reason not to. She had no reason to feel guilty. Her heart was no less whole than it had been five days ago. Her love for Ashley was her own private concern—always had been and always would be. Lord Powell had neither offered his own heart nor asked for hers. He had merely offered an arrangement that could be comfortable for them both. And as for the loneliness of not being known—well, she had never been known by anyone. Though almost by Ashley, an unwilling part of her mind
whispered. She half nodded.
“You will?” He smiled broadly. “Zounds, but I was not sure. Not sure at all. You will marry me?”
She nodded a little more firmly, though his lips were moving faster now and she could not see every word. But he looked so very pleased. She resisted the temptation to close her eyes, to block out everything except herself. She had made every effort over the past few years to live outside herself as well as deeply within, to be a part of the social world in which she had to live her life.
He had taken her other hand, and kissed the back of each before holding her palms against his chest.
“You have made me the happiest of men, Lady Emily,” he said. “My mother will be pleased. So will all my family. They have made me realize in the past year or two, you see, that ’tis my duty to bring home a bride and to set up my nurs— Well.” He looked embarrassed.
But she had stopped making the effort to follow the rapid movement of his lips.
“I knew as soon as Harndon approached me,” he said, “that you would be the perfect choice. You are the daughter and sister of an earl, sister-in-law of a duke, the possessor of a competent dowry. You are the right age.” He smiled. “Pardon me, but I did not want someone directly from the schoolroom. I wanted someone who has proved that she knows how to behave in society. I have a position to maintain. I have brothers and sisters yet to marry. I wanted someone I could trust.” His smile became almost boyish. “And someone quiet. I could scarce have done better on that score, could I?”
From tonight on her life would have to change more drastically, she thought. But could she bear to live every day as she had lived the past five? Could she do this? Could she live permanently in the wearying world of other people merely because she wanted . . . well, merely because she wanted!
“And in addition to everything else,” he said, and her eyes read his lips again, “I have conceived a fondness for you.”
Ah. She had not wanted that. She lowered her gaze and looked at his hands holding hers against him. And yet it was what she must want, for him as well as for herself. A relationship without fondness would not prosper. There could be fondness even if there could not be love. Very deliberately she turned her hands to clasp his, to squeeze them.
He waited for her to look up. “May I have your brother make the announcement tonight?” he asked her. “Now?”
She swallowed involuntarily. Tonight. Now. Once the announcement was made, it would be irrevocable. It would be like being married. There would be no going back from a public announcement. She would be bound to him for life. But that was what she wanted. That was what she had decided for her own future. It would be a good future. The best she could ever expect. Luke had helped plan it. She could trust Luke. Besides, she had already given her consent.
But when she looked at him to nod her head, she found herself shaking it instead.
“Lady Emily?” He frowned. “Not tonight?”
She shook her head again.
“Tomorrow, then?” he asked.
Tomorrow. Yes, tomorrow. Not tonight, so very publicly. Tomorrow, when there would be just the family to hear—and Ashley, a treacherous part of her mind said. She thrust the thought back.
She nodded and smiled. Yes, tomorrow. By tomorrow her mind would be calm. Good sense would have returned. By tomorrow she would have forgotten that she had danced tonight. With Ashley.
She would never forget dancing with Ashley. It would be etched on her memory like his departure for India. Like the first time she ever saw him. But by tomorrow she would have put it all away again in that deep recess of her being where it would not intrude on daily living or cause suffering to anyone except herself.
“Tomorrow, then,” he said. “Perhaps ’twill be better then. I have not relished the thought of going back into the ballroom and becoming so much the focus of attention. You are cold.”
She had shivered though she did not feel cold at all.
“Let me escort you inside,” he said. “I long for tomorrow. To be able to write to my mother. To know that the future is finally settled.”
She wondered what his mouth would feel like on her own. But she was glad he had not kissed her. Not tonight. Soon enough she would know his kiss and a great deal more. Tomorrow she would think about it. Tomorrow she would begin to prepare for it. Tonight she was weary. So very weary.
• • •
Waiting until today had not perhaps been a great idea after all, Emily thought as she lay wide awake in bed. It was very early—or very late, depending upon the perspective from which one viewed the time. She had been in bed for only a few hours—the ball had ended very late and she had forced herself to stay to the end. She had not slept at all.
It was daylight. She would not sleep now.
There had been an embarrassing air of expectation when they had returned to the ballroom. She feared she had deeply mortified Lord Powell by her insistence that they postpone the announcement. Perhaps Luke’s guests thought she had refused him. She still did not know his given name, she thought. Yet they were betrothed.
Yes, they were. She had said yes. Even though they had told no one and no announcement had been made, she had said yes. They were betrothed. He would probably want to be married before the summer was out.
She wished now that she had agreed to allow him to speak to Victor so that the announcement might have been made. It would all be finally irrevocable.
It was irrevocable now.
Emily pushed the bedclothes back from the bed and got out to cross the room to the window. It was the very loveliest time of the day, now when no one was yet up except perhaps a few grooms in the stables. It was the time of day she loved best, the time of day when she felt most free.
She had promised herself, she thought, but she was tempted anyway. She gazed longingly across the side lawn over which her window looked toward the line of trees in the distance. She could not see the river or the falls, but she knew they were there, just beyond the limit of her vision. Her favorite place in the world. Her haven of peace.
It was the way in which her differentness showed. Her need for solitude, for the living things of nature that were as content as she to communicate without demanding reciprocity. To give and to receive without obligation. Her contentment. Her happiness.
Her loneliness. Why had she had to grow up? Why had she had to need?
Was it Ashley who had taught her unwittingly about loneliness? About the needs of a woman?
She had promised herself that she would not go to the falls while Lord Powell was at the house. It was not a normal activity. She had promised herself . . . But it was very early. And no one would be up much before noon anyway after such a late night. Besides, she would not have many more chances for freedom. Once she was married, she would have to be much more careful to behave respectably—normally. She owed him that.
But surely just this once . . .
Less than ten minutes later, Emily was leaving the house and turning in the direction of the trees and the falls. She had paused only long enough to pull on an old and loose sack dress and to drag a brush through her hair. She had hesitated over her shoes. She knew that, lovely as the day looked from inside her room, in reality it would be chilly at this hour of the morning. And there would be dew. But she could not bear the thought of being shod. She had to feel the earth beneath her feet. She had to feel the connection.
Beneath her arm and in her hands she carried her easel and paper and paints and brushes. She had tiptoed into the schoolroom to get them, hoping that she was not making noise that would disturb the children sleeping in the nursery rooms.
She was going to paint.
She had discovered painting fairly recently. She had been taught long ago to paint pretty watercolors by a very competent governess, of course. But she had always found the lessons and the exercises tedious. Why paint something that, ho
wever pretty, could not even begin to rival the real thing? Why attempt to reproduce what only God in his majesty could create? But she had discovered real painting, and it had become something of an obsession with her. Something so deeply necessary to her that she wondered how she was to leave it alone when she married Lord Powell.
She would have to leave it alone, at least most of the time. But this morning was hers. Later today he would tell Victor that she had said yes, and Victor would tell everyone staying at Bowden that they were betrothed. Later today she would no longer be free. She would exchange freedom for conformity and the greater independence she would enjoy as a married lady. But this morning she was still free. Or if that was not strictly true, then she would cheat a little.
She would steal one more hour of freedom.
She set her things down when she reached the falls and stood for a long time, as she usually did, looking, listening with her body, smelling, feeling. She let it all seep inside her, the beauty, the wonder, the glory of it. Beneath her bare feet, cold and wet from the dew, she could feel the pulse of the world. The pulse of life.
Idleness was so often seen as a vice. Every moment had to be occupied with busy activity and endless conversation even if one never stopped to ask what purpose was served by a particular task or by a particular communication. Idleness was so often despised. And yet it was in idleness, she knew, that one touched meaning and peace. Sometimes she put the name God to what it was she touched, but the name was too evocative of rules and restrictions and sin and guilt. In the Bible, which she had tried to read since Luke taught her how, she had noted with interest how the great meaning and peace behind everything had instructed Moses not to name it. It had called itself merely the I AM. Emily liked that. It was in idleness that one came face-to-face with the I AM. With simple, elemental Being.