by Mary Balogh
Lady Quinn turned back to Anna. “Faith, child,” she said, “you must think me totally lacking in a sense of duty. I undertook to bring Emily to town for the Season, yet I have married in the middle of it and now Theo is whisking me away to the Lake District for two weeks. But I would not have consented, Anna—and Theo would not have suggested it—if Emily had not assured me that she wishes to go to Penshurst with you and Harndon. Oh mercy on me, he is my nephew now and told me but an hour ago that I must call him Luke. Emily wrote me three letters, child. I had to believe that she really wishes to go.”
“She does, Aunt Marjorie,” Anna said. “She wrote to me too. She wants to spend a couple of weeks with me and the children. She misses us, I daresay, as we miss her. But she will come back for the rest of the Season. I can scarce believe the change in her.” She turned her head to look across the ballroom, and all the ladies with her did likewise.
Emily was sitting on a low chair near the French doors, looking elegant and lovely and flushed and very slightly disheveled. Charlotte’s baby was in her arms and showing persistent interest in her pearl necklace. Anna’s Harry was sitting on the floor at her feet, beating some toys with the flat of his hand. Joy was standing at her shoulder, disentangling the baby’s hands from the pearls. Agnes’s youngest was straddling Harry so that he could look Emily directly in the eye and hold her attention while he told her some lengthy tale.
“I cannot imagine, Anna,” Charlotte said, “why you are allowing Emily to go to Penshurst with you. ’Tis most improper. Jeremiah even calls it scandalous. If she is to go there at all, it should be as Lord Ashley Kendrick’s bride. ’Twould be more seemly under the circumstances for her to come home with Victor or with me while Lady Sterne—Lady Quinn—is away.”
“Victor and I would be very happy to have her, Anna,” Constance added.
“Emily is of age,” Anna said firmly. “It is her decision to go to Penshurst. It will be entirely proper. Luke and I will be there with her.”
Lady Quinn looked away from gazing at Emily and saw with some satisfaction that Lord Ashley—no, he was simply Ashley to her now—was leaning against a corner of the mantel at one end of the room, not a part of any group or conversation. He was watching Emily, a brooding look on his face—with a little imagination, one might almost have construed it as a somewhat lovelorn look. And the girl really was showing to best advantage today, Lady Quinn thought, dressed as she was in all her new finery, the sparkle of happiness still in her face, but the warmth of real pleasure back there too as she amused the babies and listened patiently with her eyes to the confidences of the other children.
The situation might just work out well, Lady Quinn mused. And it might well justify the sacrifice she and Theo had made in marrying and arranging a wedding journey right in the middle of the Season.
Some sacrifice! Lady Quinn turned her attention to her new husband. It was difficult to see him objectively as a man of advanced middle years. To her he was still the dashing, handsome, rakish young gentleman with whom she had fallen painfully in love when still married to Sterne. And who had unbelievably—and really quite uncomfortably—fallen in love with her. His eyes met hers across the room and they smiled at each other.
Just like young lovers, she thought fondly, impatient to be alone together.
• • •
It was the sleepy time of day. And a sleepy kind of day. It was a sunny afternoon, and the inside of the carriage was warm. Anna was nursing Harry, a shawl wrapped discreetly about her shoulders. When Emily glanced at her, she saw her lips moving and a dreamy expression on her face, and figured she must be singing a lullaby. Their mother must have sung her lullabies when she was an infant, Emily thought, before she lost her hearing. She could almost remember—almost, but not quite.
The children were supposed to be traveling with their nurse in the carriage behind, but none of them were. James, who was sometimes troubled by the attention his mama gave the baby, was curled up on the seat opposite, fast asleep. Perhaps the lullaby had been intended for him more than for Harry, who never seemed to need lulling. The other two children were riding, Joy up before Luke on his horse, George with Ashley.
It was a cozy family party that made its way toward Penshurst. And Emily was not without an awareness that the ties might have been even closer—she might have been Ashley’s wife by now. She set the side of her head against the comfortable cushions of Luke’s traveling carriage and gazed out the window. She wished Aunt Marjorie and Lord Quinn had not decided upon a wedding trip. She wished Ashley had not come to London. She wished her life there could have continued for the rest of the Season. She had been wildly happy—or at least had fully convinced herself that it was happiness she felt. If it had continued longer, perhaps self-deception would have become true reality. She was not sure now that she would be able to go back in two weeks’ time.
Viscount Burdett, knowing that she was leaving town for a few weeks and disturbed by the fact, as several other of her gentleman acquaintances had claimed to be, had made her a marriage offer just the evening before. He had wanted to talk with Victor this morning, before Victor left for home. But she had shaken her head quite firmly while smiling fondly at him. He had seen the smile and the fondness and had vowed to renew his courtship when she returned. She had not realized that he believed what they had was a courtship. What a foolish man he was—he had never been alone with her for longer than a few minutes at a time. He could not know if he would find her silence tolerable. He really did not know her at all. She wondered what the attraction was. Novelty?
Anna touched her arm suddenly and pointed through the window on her side of the carriage. In the distance, across a broad park, stood a large and elegant mansion, flanked on each side by equally elegant smaller buildings. Behind them rose wooded hills. When Emily leaned slightly across Anna, careful not to disturb Harry, who was asleep with his mouth open, she could see the spire of a church farther to the east of the house and a cluster of houses that she assumed made up the village.
She sat back in her corner, her head turned so that she could see the house as they drove onward to the village. They would approach it from the side, she realized, not from the front. She had not been quite prepared for the churning of pain and emptiness—and excitement—inside. It was his home. It was where he belonged, where he would be happy. No, where he would have been happy if Alice had returned with him, and Thomas. Ashley would never be fully happy again. This was where she had lived, where she had been a child. And he had loved her and blamed himself for her death. He must find the house more of a punishment than a pleasure, Emily thought sadly.
But this was where he belonged. And for ever after now, she would be able to picture him in his own proper domain. Wherever she was for the rest of her life—on the Continent with Aunt Marjorie, at Bowden with Anna, at Elm Court with Victor—she would have only to close her eyes and see this lovely house and the quiet, peaceful scenery surrounding it. And she would know loneliness. Things might have been so different, she reflected with regret. She might have spent her life here with him, if only the marriage he had offered her had been offered for different reasons.
It was a pretty village, centered on a village green, of which a wide river formed one side and the churchyard another. The houses looked well cared for. Some people on the streets stood still and watched them go by. Several curtsied or raised hands in greeting to Ashley, who was riding just ahead of the carriage, in Emily’s line of vision. Of course, he was already known here. And probably already liked. Most people smiled.
The carriage turned to cross the river, the sun sparkling off its surface. Anna turned her head.
“Beautiful!” she said. Emily could tell from the look on her sister’s face that the word had been spoken with fervor.
The gates into the park were just ahead. But the carriage slowed and then stopped before reaching them. There was a cottage beside the road with a sma
ll but lovingly kept garden. A young woman was doing something with the rosebushes at one side of the house. She straightened and looked toward the carriage, though she did not smile or make any sign of greeting. But there were two other people on the path in front of the house, an older man and a young boy, who was standing on the lower rung of the wooden gate. Ashley was talking to them, presenting Luke and turning to the carriage. Emily drew down the window.
They were Mr. Edward Binchley and his grandson, Eric Smith. The woman was Mrs. Katherine Smith, Eric’s mother. Eric, Emily estimated, was about four years old, a handsome child with dark hair and blue eyes. He was not unlike George, with whom he was exchanging interested glances. They might easily have been brothers.
“Mr. Binchley was the steward at Penshurst before his retirement,” Ashley was saying. “He is a store of useful information on the estate and neighborhood, as I have already discovered over several mugs of ale here.”
Emily looked at Mrs. Smith, who had made no move to come closer. She stood still and watched. She was very young—not much older than herself, Emily thought, and very lovely. She must be a widow if she and her son were living with her father, Emily reasoned, then found the woman’s eyes on her. She smiled warmly and for the first time Katherine Smith smiled—briefly.
They drove on.
The house was indeed rather new, Emily saw as they drove past the stable block and drew up before the broad steps leading to the huge double doors at the front of the house. It sparkled almost white in the sunshine. Whoever had built it had liked wide-open vistas. The view to the front stretched for miles over the park and the river and the road and distant farmland.
Luke lifted a drowsy and grumbling James from the carriage, and Ashley helped Anna descend with Harry. He grinned down at the baby, who was oblivious to everything about him. And then he turned back to Emily.
She set her foot on the top step, her hand in his, but he did not wait for her to climb down. He released her hand, set his hands at her waist, and lifted her to the ground, bringing her close to his body as he did so. Luke and Anna, preoccupied by their children, were not looking.
His eyes were smiling. Although the suffering was still there, far back in his eyes, Emily could see that for the moment he was enjoying himself. “Welcome to Penshurst, Emmy,” he said. “And welcome back to the countryside, where you belong, little fawn.”
Her hands had come to rest on his shoulders. Her body was arched inward, almost touching his. For those few moments she felt utterly happy. She felt foolishly as if she were coming home.
• • •
“Sir Alexander Kersey must have been a man of considerable good taste,” Luke said. “In design, the house and park are exquisite, Ash.”
Ashley had seen the dubious glances Luke had cast at the frills and pastel shades that dominated several of the rooms in the house. But the library, at least, was an entirely handsome room. They sank down onto leather chairs at either side of the unlit fireplace, Ashley with a brandy, Luke with his customary glass of water. Luke had just returned from the nursery, where he had as usual read a bedtime story to his children, helped Anna tuck them into their beds, and listened to them say their prayers. Anna was still giving Harry his night feed. Emily had withdrawn after dinner in order to spend a quiet evening in her own room.
“The sad part is,” Ashley said, “that he built it all for his descendants.”
“There will be some,” Luke said quietly. “Not direct descendants, perhaps, but in spirit. From your letters I gathered that you were fond of him and he of you. He approved of you as a son-in-law?”
Ashley nodded and stared moodily into his glass.
“Give it time,” Luke said. “Be patient with yourself. And at the end of the day forgive yourself.”
Ashley half smiled.
“’Tis none of my business,” Luke said, “and you may consign me to the devil if you wish, Ash. But why did you invite Emily here? I got the distinct impression that we were invited here because you wanted to invite her—not the other way around, as you have explained it to numerous people. Why do you want her here?”
Ashley turned the glass in his hands and still half smiled. “She is mine,” he said. “I cannot see other men pay court to her without wanting to break all their noses and smash all their teeth. She is mine.”
“By right of ownership?” Luke asked, eyebrows raised. “Or for more tender considerations, Ash?”
Ashley did not answer for a long while. “You did say I might consign you to the devil,” he said at last.
“Quite so,” Luke said, sounding infinitely bored. “Tell me some of your plans for Penshurst, Ash. Knowing you as I do, I will not believe that you intend to allow it to be run by your steward, no matter how capable a man he might be.”
18
ASHLEY stood at his window looking out across the park and the river. There was a farmer’s cart moving at a leisurely pace along the distant road. The birds beyond his window, hidden among the leaves of the trees, were in full chorus.
He felt almost relaxed this early-morning hour. He felt almost that he liked—or even loved—his new home. Just a few rooms away, Luke and Anna were sleeping. Their four children were asleep in the nursery, watched over by their nurse. Emmy was in the house.
He had gone into Alice’s rooms again the night before and had stood in her sitting room for a long while, not touching anything, feeling her presence, smelling that faintest suggestion of her perfume. He had almost made up his mind to give the order to have everything of hers cleared out, given away, or burned. Forgive yourself, Luke had said—just as Roderick Cunningham had said it before he left India. But Luke did not know the whole of it. He did not know that his brother had hated his wife—hated and pitied her—and had a dozen times wished her dead. And Luke did not know that on that fatal night he had not been at a business meeting but in another woman’s bed. Or that mingled with his terrible grief over the loss of the child he had loved had been a guilty relief at knowing that he no longer had as his heir another man’s child. He even knew the man’s identity—a handsome, red-haired army captain who had left India long before his son was born.
This morning Ashley had still not made a final decision about those rooms, but this morning he felt that perhaps after all it was possible to live again. I see now that I have not understood the true nature of your concern for the lady, Sir Henry Verney had said to him almost a week before, and the words had repeated themselves in his mind over and over since then. And since then he had accepted the undeniable fact that Emmy was a woman. She was a girl no longer. She was a woman.
He smiled suddenly and leaned forward, his hands on the windowsill, bracing himself. He might have guessed it. In fact, he felt that he had been almost expecting it, waiting for it. She had emerged from the house and was hurrying off in the direction of the river. The sun was scarcely risen. He doubted that many of the servants were even up yet. The only disappointing detail about her appearance was the fact that she was dressed as if for the park in London. She was even wearing a hat, prettily tilted forward over her lacy cap.
Ashley hurried into his dressing room.
She was on the river walk, standing still and gazing at the water, when he caught up to her. She was watching a mother duck with a string of little ones bobbing along behind her on the surface of the river. She was smiling. The smile did not fade when she saw him approaching. She pointed at the birds. Beautiful, she told him, kissing her fingertips and extending her hand toward the river.
He had been a little afraid that she would resent his presence as an intrusion on her solitude, but she did not look resentful. This was all so very beautiful, she told him again with one all-inclusive sweep of an arm. Despite the fashionable dress and the cap and hat, which made her look deliciously pretty, she looked more like the Emmy he loved. Her hair—what he could see of it beneath the hat—was unpowdered. Her face was c
lear of cosmetics and patches. Her smile was without the forced gaiety that had chilled him at Vauxhall.
“Yes,” he said, using his hands as well as his voice. “I told you you would love it, Emmy. And there is so much more to see.”
He found himself wondering if she would have looked so happy in this place and at this moment if she had married him, forced into it by propriety and the pressure both he and their families had exerted. They would have been together now for more than a month. They would have been lovers for that long. His mind, which had shied away from the memories and had shuddered at the very idea of thinking carnally of her, considered the thought somewhat sadly now. She had not wanted to marry him and had been strong-minded enough to hold out against all the persuasions.
He had brought her here to woo her. But he must not be overconfident, he knew. And he must do nothing to lose her friendship. Emmy’s friendship, he was realizing anew, was all he had to cling to. All that could turn his life around and give him occasional moments of peace. It had once been very much a one-way thing. He had talked at her, used her for his comfort—and felt superior because he could hear and speak and she could not. But friendship was a two-way process. Both friends had to give, both had to receive. Emmy had much to give—not through words or the inadequate substitute for words they had devised and would continue to devise, but through silence. He needed to listen to the silence. And he had much to give—acceptance, understanding, the willingness to recognize the validity of her world. Love. But friendship first and foremost. If that was all he could have of her for the rest of his life, then he would be very careful not to forfeit it.
He drew her arm through his and strolled with her, not even attempting for several minutes to talk. Conversation was really not necessary, he realized, when one could share quiet companionship with a friend. The river flowed quietly to one side of them. Trees and shrubs, most notably rhododendrons, carefully placed and selected, closed them in on the other side, so that there was an air of utter seclusion and peace. It all now seemed complete with Emmy there. And more lovely than it had ever seemed before.