Silent Melody (4 page)

“And Lud,” Lady Sterne said, clapping her hands, “if we stand here for much longer, admiring the child and anticipating her betrothal, the ball will be over and Lord Powell will have gone home. And no one will have seen Emily in all her finery.”

“Come, Emmy.” Anna smiled and took her by the hand. “Tonight you will stand in the receiving line with Luke and me. And my nose will be severely out of joint because everyone will be looking at you and will not notice me at all.”

“Pshaw!” Lady Sterne said as she strode to the door to lead the way downstairs to the ballroom. “Harndon has eyes for no one but you, child. He never has had since he first laid 'em on you at just another such ball.”

Anna laughed as she slipped her arm through Emily's, and Emily could see the happiness sparkling in her eyes. Emily herself fought bewilderment. There had been so much talk, most of which she had missed, though she had determinedly kept turning her head from one speaker to another, trying to concentrate. She often noticed the fact that other people did not find conversation wearying and did not seem to share her all-too-frequent urges to be alone and undistracted—it was just one more thing that set her apart . . .

She drew a few deep, steadying breaths. This evening was so far beyond anything in her past experience that her mind could contemplate it only as a complete and rather terrifying blank. She was dressed as formally and with as much glittering splendor as Anna. She was going to attend a full-scale ball. She was to stand in the receiving line, smiling and curtsying to all of Luke's guests. And she was to receive the continued attentions of Lord Powell and possibly—probably!—his marriage proposal too. She was going to accept.

By the time she came back upstairs in several hours' time, much would have changed in her life. Everything would have changed. She would be betrothed. As good as married.

There was something resembling panic in the thought.

Ashley. Ah, Ashley.

•   •   •

He
had forgotten just how cold England was. He shivered and drew his cloak more closely around him. He sat in a darkened carriage, looking out on darkness—though the landscape was not pitch-black, it was true. There were moonlight and starlight to illuminate the way. Although the coachman had been reluctant, he had agreed to continue the journey after dark. The man had even commented on what a pleasant warm evening it was for late April.

Warm! He shivered again. He had had time to get used to the coldness during the long voyage home from India, of course, but somehow he had expected that he would be warm again once he reached land.

Perhaps, he thought, setting his head back against the cushions, he would never be warm again.

And yet Lord Ashley Kendrick still clung to the notion that there was warmth to be had. At Bowden. If he could but get there. For months he had been living for the moment that was now only an hour away, if that long. He must be almost on Bowden land already, he reasoned. The thought of Bowden had sustained him through all the months of his voyage, through calms and storms, through the sleepless nights.

Luke, he thought. If only he could reach his brother. Luke was a pillar of strength. And Anna. Sweet, warm Anna. And their children, three now. Joy would be seven, George five, and James three. Luke had been almost apologetic in his letter announcing the arrival of George, Marquess of Craydon, his heir to the dukedom. Ashley had been delighted, and even more so when he had read of the birth of James two years later. Luke was secure in his line. There could never be any question now of Ashley's breathing down his neck.

He longed for Bowden and for Luke and Anna. Almost as if they could make all right for him. Almost as if he were not a man capable of ordering his own life and handling his own emotions and purging his own guilt. Almost as if there were warmth to be had. And peace.

Ashley rolled his head on the cushions as if to find a comfortable position for sleep. But he soon opened his eyes and stared out onto darkness. And inward into deeper darkness.

Peace! He had had the strange notion that it was to be found at Bowden. And only there. Now that he was approaching it—yes, he was sure now they were on Bowden land; they would pass through the village very soon—he stared at the truth. There was no peace to be had anywhere. Not even here. Why had he thought there was? What was it about Bowden that always brought with it the illusory idea of peace? As if it were a place unlike any other on earth. A place of escape, a refuge, a home, a belonging.

What was it about Bowden?

He had come back from India with the desperate idea that if he could but reach home all would be well again. Yet now, even before he had quite reached the house—the carriage was passing along the village street and slowing to make the turn between the massive stone gateposts onto the winding driveway through the park—he knew that he had deceived himself.

There was no home for him. No end to his journey. No end of the rainbow.

Even so he found himself leaning forward in his seat, eager for his first glimpse of the house as the carriage emerged from the trees to cross the bridge at the bottom of the long sloping lawn that led upward to the terraced formal gardens and the upper cobbled terrace and the house beyond.

But he sat back abruptly as the wheels of the carriage rumbled over the stone bridge.

Deuce take it, but they were entertaining. The house was lit up by what had to be a thousand candles. There were carriages outside the carriage house and stables.

Damnation, but what rotten bad fortune.

He should have stayed in London for a few days, he thought. He should have sent word ahead of him. Zounds, but they did not even know he had left India. They did not even know . . .

He set his head back against the cushions again and closed his eyes once more.

No, they did not even know.

•   •   •

“Well,
my dear,” the Duke of Harndon said to his wife, their first duties in the receiving line with his mother and Emily at an end, their secondary duty of leading off the opening set of country dances about to begin, “you may as usual have the satisfaction of knowing yourself by far the loveliest lady at the ball. 'Tis almost shameful with Harry in the nursery for only three months and you already—ah, nine-and-twenty, is it?”

“For the fourth year in succession,” she said, laughing at him. “Luke, you have been shopping in Paris again. Your coat is such a splendid dark shade of blue, and there is so much embroidery on your waistcoat that you put my gown to shame.”

“Ah, but 'tis the woman inside the gown who dazzles the sight, madam,” he said.

She laughed again. “I am glad you remembered your fan,” she said. “It still scandalizes a few people.”

He fanned her face with it. “My cosmetics I have abandoned with the greatest reluctance, my dear,” he said, “in deference to country tastes. But a man must be allowed to retain some of his pride. Without a fan at a ball I would feel quite naked, by my life.”

“'Tis what comes of those ten years you spent in Paris,” she said. “Luke, what will Emmy do?”

“Emily,” he said, “is looking so fine that every other lady's face, except yours, is tinged with green. And as I told her earlier, if she dressed thus all the time, I would by now be beating back all of His Majesty's army and navy and the single portion of his civilian male subjects as well from my doors. Perhaps I should be thankful that she is more often the witch of the woods.”

“Oh, Luke,” she said reproachfully.

“If you must quarrel with me, madam,” he said, “let it be later. Much later, in your bedchamber. But I will not play fair, I would warn you.”

“Will she have him?” There was acute anxiety in her voice.

“She would be a fool if she did not,” he said. “Powell has everything to recommend him to a bride below the rank of princess, I believe—looks, breeding, wealth, mildness of manners. And he is remarkably eager to bring the matter to a point. There are Emily's dowry and her connections to attract him, as well as his openly expressed determination to please his mother and do his duty by taking a wife and setting up his nursery. I believe too he is somewhat captivated by the prospect of a wife who will not prattle. There is the small question of love, of course, and experience has demonstrated to me that in reality it is no small matter at all. But I believe we can trust your sister to order her own destiny, my dear. There is nothing abject about Emily. One can only hope that Powell does not see her as someone who will be passive and biddable, poor man. The musicians and all our guests await my signal to start the ball. Shall I oblige them or would you prefer to indulge in a fit of the vapors?”

“No one else will understand Emmy as you and I do,” she said. “What if he does not like her when he learns more about her? As you say—”

“'Tis what marriage is all about, madam,” he said. “Have you not realized it? 'Tis about discovering unknown facets of the character and experience and tastes of one's spouse and learning to adjust one's life accordingly. 'Tis learning to hope that one's spouse is doing the same thing. 'Tis something only the two persons concerned can deal with. Let us dance.” He looked toward the leader of the orchestra, raised his eyebrows, and lifted one finger.

The music began.

•   •   •

“Egad,”
Theodore, Lord Quinn, Luke's maternal uncle, said to Lady Sterne, his longtime friend and lover, “but the young gels grow lovelier with every passing year. As do the mature ones. That is a fine new hairdo, I warrant you, Marj, m'dear. Takes ten years off your age.”

“Mercy on me,” she said, “but that would make me more than ten years too young for you, Theo.”

He threw back his head and laughed heartily before speaking again. “So will she have him?” he asked.

The two of them were sitting rather than dancing the opening set, which they had agreed was somewhat too lively for their aging bones. They looked across the ballroom to where Lord Powell was seated on a sofa beside Emily, talking to her despite the loudness of the music and conversation.

“Do they not look splendid together?” she asked. “And her affliction really does not signify, Theo. The dear man likes to talk, and Emily is well able to listen with her eyes. I had no notion that she would dress up so fine, though she has looked well for the past number of days, I declare.”

“Zounds,” Lord Quinn said, “but it would be hard, Marj, to be tied to a woman who could not answer one back. One hopes that is not her chief attraction to the man. One has the notion that there is more to little Emily than receptive silence. But how is one to know what she is saying with those big eyes of hers?”

“My dear Anna has always worried about her,” Lady Sterne said, her eyes softening on the sight of her goddaughter dancing opposite her duke, her face smiling and animated. “She has always taken the full burden of her family on her own shoulders even though Royce is the head of the family. 'Twill be good for her to know that the last of her sisters is well settled. Anna can be finally and fully happy.”

Lord Quinn patted her hand, though he did not leave his own on hers. They were ever discreet in public. “And so can you, Marj,” he said. “Anna is like the daughter you never had. You love her to distraction. I might almost feel jealous.”

“But you do not.” She turned her head to smile at him.

“But I do not,” he agreed. “I am fond of the gel m'self, Marj, and of Luke too. He has always been my favorite nephy, though one is not supposed to have favorites.”

“Ah, look at them,” she said, returning her attention to Emily and Lord Powell across the room. “As I live, Theo, she is smiling at him and he is dazzled enough to move back six inches. 'Tis just like my Anna's smile, I vow. If only they can be one half as happy as Anna and Harndon.”

Lord Quinn patted her hand again. “Leave love to take its course,” he said. “By suppertime he will have got up the courage to speak and she will have given him her answer with those eyes of hers and the announcement will have been made. Then our dear Anna will be happy, and you too. And hark ye, Marj, m'dear: 'Tis your happiness that concerns me more than all else.”

She smiled at him once more.

E
MILY
sat beside Lord Powell on the sofa and longed to dance. But no one had ever asked her to join a set, and she supposed that no one ever would. People had a strange notion of deafness. They assumed that because one could not hear, one could not really see either. More important, they did not seem to notice for themselves how much of sound came in vibrations that could be felt. Sound was not just a thing of the ears. It affected the whole body.

She could feel the rhythm of the dance. And she knew every step of every dance. She had watched with attentive longing for many years.

Lord Powell was telling her about his mother and about his younger brothers and sisters—a sure sign, she supposed, that he was moving closer to a declaration. There was a whole brood of them—his own word. Three of his six sisters were married, as was one of his three brothers. He had two nieces and a nephew already. He considered family, commitment to one's home and one's domestic duties, important. He had noticed how well Lady Emily was loved by her own nephews and nieces and how she loved to play with them. Children, he had observed, never needed words when they were able to see affection at work. And children almost never returned love that expressed itself only in words.

It was a compliment to the way she handled her deafness, Emily supposed. She smiled. Indeed, she had not stopped smiling since leaving Anna's dressing room.

There was a great deal to smile about, though she felt the strain of having to watch a man's lips when she longed to gaze about her, and even so missed many of the details about his family that he tried to share.

His eyebrows were dark and thick. A little too heavy for perfection of looks, perhaps, but they were the only small defect to an otherwise handsome appearance. His nose was well shaped if a little prominent. His eyes were dark and compelling. His hair, she supposed, was dark. She had not seen him without his carefully powdered wig, but thought his own hair must be short beneath. His teeth were good and only a little crooked—and not unattractively so.

She had noticed several of the other young ladies present gazing at him admiringly and glancing at her in envy. He was a handsome man, moderately tall and well formed. He dressed elegantly. Tonight he wore dark brown and gold.

“I am engaged for the second set with her grace,” he said, leaning toward her slightly as if to be heard above the noise that Emily could not hear, “and for the third with Lady Severidge. I have not engaged the supper dance with anyone, Lady Emily. Will you sit with me for that half hour? Perhaps after we have eaten, you will allow me to send a maid for your cloak and step out onto the terrace with me?”

Emily opened her fan. The room suddenly felt suffocatingly hot. She kept her eyes on Lord Powell's lips. They were rather full lips, well shaped. He had spoken slowly and precisely, she guessed, so that she would know the final request was important to him.

“I observed earlier,” he said, almost as if he felt his invitation needed explanation, “that it is a fine spring evening.”

She nodded and smiled.

“Perhaps,” he said, “you will allow me to speak on a matter of some importance? When we are on the terrace, that is.”

She held her smile and nodded again.

“Splendid,” he said, and looked enormously relieved as he rushed on with an account of his youngest sister's tyranny over her governess in the schoolroom. Emily could not understand most of what he said. She longed suddenly and illogically to be alone. Anywhere—alone. “I believe she would like you, Lady Emily. I believe you will—
would
like her.”

She liked
him,
Emily decided. Not just because she had determined to like him, but because he was a pleasant and earnest young man. She just wished he did not talk so much. Was silence so unnatural to those who could hear that they felt obliged to fill it without ceasing? But how could she dislike any man who loved his mother and his brothers and sisters? And who was willing to accept a wife who was handicapped—though she did wonder why. She wished she could ask him exactly why he wished to marry her. Did he think her beautiful? Did he like the fact that she was Victor's sister, Luke's sister-in-law? Did the mystery of her character intrigue him?

She looked down briefly at his hands. They were blunt-fingered, capable-looking hands. She imagined them touching her, touching her body—beneath her clothes. She imagined his mouth against hers, his body. Imagination forsook her after that. She was not really quite sure . . .

She looked up to find him telling her more about his sister—he had demanded that she apologize to the governess. He seemed to believe that because she could read lips she could understand everything he said. Would he be disappointed when he learned that she did not?

She had often wondered about physical love. Was it something that added a dimension to life? Or was it an intrusion, the ultimate invasion of privacy? By both necessity and inclination she had always been an excessively private person. She knew enough to understand that a husband would come right inside her body.

This man. Lord Powell. She did not yet know his first name, she realized.

On their wedding night she would have to allow him inside herself. Only so could she be a wife. Only so could she have the babies she wanted. Would it be wonderful, magical? Or would it be demeaning?

She knew sometimes during breakfast that Anna and Luke had loved the night before. They would be horrified if they knew that she knew, but she did. Perhaps it was the absence of one of her five senses that had sharpened the others. Certainly it was nothing very obvious. Just something about the softened look in Anna's eyes, something in the slight droop of Luke's eyelids. Or perhaps not anything even as overt as that. But whatever it was, it was something that told Emily that what they shared was more wonderful than anything she could yet imagine.

Perhaps she would know soon. Or perhaps she would be disappointed. Would it make all the difference, she wondered, that she did not love him, though she liked and respected him?

But there were other things to imagine. This man would become as familiar to her as her own image in the glass. He would be her companion for the rest of her life. Her friend, perhaps. She would live in his home. It would become hers, and his family would be hers. She would learn to run his household. Would she be able to do it? She had watched Anna run Bowden Abbey. She would have to write things down, she supposed. She would visit his tenants and his neighbors. She would not be able to allow herself to be daunted by the fact that she could not speak to any of them or even understand all that was spoken. Indeed, it was the exhilaration of the challenge that was one of the main inducements to her accepting the offer that was about to be made.

She would become like Anna. She would have a marriage like Anna's. Or was she deluding herself? Was such a thing possible for her? But she would have a chance at happiness. At last. After so long. And she would be happy. She had learned through hard experience that the will was a powerful thing. She would will herself to be happy, and she would be.

“The set has ended,” Lord Powell was saying, bent slightly toward her again. “More is the pity, I vow. I shall dance each set until the supper dance, Lady Emily, but I shall look in envy at each gentleman who occupies this sofa with you.”

It was the closest he had come to a declaration of ardor, though Emily, sensitive to the language of the body, guessed that he spoke what he thought she expected him to say. She smiled at him.

But something was wrong. The music had stopped, of course. She had felt that even before Lord Powell had mentioned it. There was something else. She felt something almost like panic and looked over her shoulder to the doorway.

A man was standing there. No one else appeared to have noticed him yet. He was wearing a long dark cloak and was only just removing a three-cornered hat even though he must have entered the house downstairs and passed numerous footmen before climbing the two flights of stairs to the ballroom. He was tall and thin. Beneath his dark unpowdered hair, which was neatly curled at the sides and bagged in black silk behind, his face was thin and pale. Pale to the point of being haggard. His expression was dark, morose.

She did not recognize him with her eyes. Only with her heart. Her heart lurched and left pulses beating erratically in her throat and in her temples. It left her breathless and gasping for air. She got to her feet and turned and stood still, watching.

Lord Powell, everyone, everything, no longer existed.

Only Ashley.

Ashley was home.

•   •   •

It
had been his intention as his carriage approached the house to avoid whatever entertainment was proceeding within—by the number of lights and carriages, it appeared that it must be nothing less than a ball. It had been his intention to have himself shown to a room—his old one, it was to be hoped—and to remain there until the morning. It certainly had not been his intention to make a grand, theatrical entrance.

But Cotes, his brother's butler, was in the hall when he entered it, apparently giving some instructions to one of the footmen standing there. And Cotes had looked at first stiff with suspicion of the stranger who had arrived apparently ill-dressed for the occasion, then shocked as he recognized the new arrival, and then his usual dignified, impassive self. And Cotes informed him, when he asked, that there was indeed a grand ball in progress and that the occasion was the christening of his grace's new son, Lord Harry Kendrick.

Ah, a new child. Another son. Ashley bowed his head and closed his eyes and swayed on his feet. One of the footmen had taken a step toward him, arm outstretched, by the time he opened his eyes. He held up a staying hand.

But he was close. So very close. Was he now to go to his room and shut himself inside and postpone everything until the morning?

“They are in the ballroom?” he asked.

“Yes, my lord,” Cotes said. “If your lordship would step into the salon, I shall fetch his grace myself.”

But Ashley turned as if he had not heard and made his way to the archway that led to the grand staircase. He would wait in no salon. He would retire to no bedchamber. Luke was close.

“My lord?” Cotes sounded surprised, even perhaps a trifle alarmed.

It was indeed a grand ball, considering the fact that it was taking place in the country, where most of the guests must have had to travel a long distance. The ballroom seemed filled with light and noise and laughter, with color and movement. Ashley stood in the doorway, unaware of the inappropriateness of his appearance, of his cloak and travel-creased clothes and top boots. He removed his hat, more from instinct than conscious thought. His eyes scanned the throng of people. He was unaware that a few of them were already beginning to look at him curiously. He was looking for only one person.

And then he saw him. A set of dances had just concluded, and he was bowing over the hand of his partner and raising it to his lips. Luke, looking as richly splendid and fashionable and elegant as he had looked on his return from Paris eight years ago. Luke, looking familiar and solid and dependable. Ashley stood very still.

Luke raised his head and looked toward the doorway. And raised his eyebrows in an unconsciously haughty expression characteristic of him. Ashley watched the expression become fixed and frozen on his face. Then Luke took a step toward him, stopped, frowned slightly, and came hurrying across the ballroom. He kept on coming, opening his arms when he was near, then closing them hard, like iron bands, about his brother. Ashley returned the embrace and closed his eyes very tightly.

“Good God!” Luke said after what felt to Ashley like minutes but was probably only seconds. “Dear Lord God. Ash!” His voice sounded dazed, shaken.

“Yes.” Ashley swallowed. He did not want to open his eyes.

But Luke ended the embrace and took a step back. He set his hands on Ashley's shoulders. “By God, Ash, it really is you. What the devil?” He patted his brother's shoulders as if to assure himself of the reality of his presence. “What the bloody devil?” Clearly he had forgotten his surroundings.

Ashley, facing into the ballroom, had become suddenly aware of them. Noise, or rather the surprising lack of noise considering the occasion and the largeness of the gathering, assaulted his ears. He was aware of people, of the very public nature of this reunion. He was aware of Anna, who came hurrying up behind Luke, looking scarcely a day older than when he had left and every bit as lovely, looking as sweet and as sunny as she had ever looked.

“Ashley,” she said, and Luke stood aside and she was in his arms. “Oh, Ashley, my dear, you are home.”

And then his mother was there, looking her usual composed, dignified self even though her eyes were wide with surprise. He had recovered some of his control and bowed formally over her hands and kissed her cheeks.

“Madam,” he said, “you are looking well.”