Silent Melody (16 page)

Emily had seen her, had realized that it was too late to take a different course and avoid the encounter, and came onward, smiling. Lady Sterne came face-to-face with her across the low hedge that separated the terrace from the lawn.

“'Tis like this, Emily, my love,” she said slowly and distinctly. “They would divide you up like a bone if they could and take you in a dozen different directions. Each for your own good, of course. Lud, men and their ideas of what is for a woman's own good! 'Tis time more women stood up to them as you did yesterday to Lord Ashley and demanded to decide for themselves what was in their own best interest.” She forced herself to slow down again when she saw the slight frown on the girl's face. “Become a bone if 'tis your wish, child. Or take your life in your own hands and bring it to London with me. We will enjoy the Season together. We will have every man in the kingdom groveling at your feet. What do you say?”

Emily looked gravely at her for such a long time that Lady Sterne felt her dream fading. The girl had not understood. And how could she possibly function in London, where all was noise and conversation and music and dancing? It was madness to have imagined . . . But then Emily smiled, first with her eyes and then with the rest of her face. She began to laugh in her strange, rather ungainly way, tipping back her head and looking more vividly lovely to Lady Sterne than she had ever appeared before. There were wildness and recklessness and animation and sheer beauty in her face. She was a true original. Yes, that would be the secret of her success. She was an original.

Every man in the kingdom? Lady Sterne thought. Nay, but it was no exaggeration.

She joined in Emily's laughter. It was madness. But madness felt good. It felt . . . youthful.

•   •   •

Penshurst
was situated in a pleasant valley, rounded and wooded hills behind, the park with its sloping lawns and copses in front. A wide river flowed to the east of the house. On the opposite bank was the village, clustered about a church with a tall spire. The house was squarely classical, set between a smaller matching stable block to one side and an office block to the other. It all looked still new and rather splendid.

Ashley drew his horse to a halt on the road, which afforded a wide view across the park to the house and the village and the hills—his carriage with his valet and his baggage were coming behind him. It was all very beautiful and very peaceful. He felt sad for Sir Alexander Kersey, who had purchased the land, pulled down the old house, and built this one. He had built it with the fortune he had made with the East India Company. He had intended to retire here, set up his dynasty here. But the dynasty had ended very soon after him. His son had died before him, Alice soon after, and Thomas with her. So already Penshurst had passed into new hands—his.

And he did not want it. Grand and lovely as it was, much as he had always wanted to settle on an estate of his own here in England, it had come to him in the wrong way and too late. Throughout his voyage home and in the days since, he had several times thought of selling it, going somewhere else, starting fresh. If Emmy had married him, perhaps he would have done so. He would not have wanted to bring her here.

Emmy. He felt a sinking of the heart whenever he thought of her—and she was constantly in the back of his thoughts, no matter how much he tried to concentrate his mind on the challenge ahead of him. He had ruined her life; he did not believe he was overdramatizing, especially since there was still the chance that he had got her with child.

But he could not think of that now. He nudged at his horse and continued on his way. Each time he had thought of it, he had realized that he could not sell Penshurst. Not yet, anyway. He had to go there, see the place where she had lived, where she had grown up. For her sake and her father's he had to see that the estate was well run. He felt somehow tied to it, like a millstone about his neck.

He remembered something his friend Major Roderick Cunningham had said to him in India when he had announced his intention of resigning from his post and returning to England. Roderick had advised him to come back, to marry and have children, to put the past behind him. But finally he had set a hand on his friend's shoulder and squeezed hard.

“But you will not, Ash,” he had said. “You will go to Penshurst and you will find her there and punish yourself with memories. You will make it the best-run estate in England as a kind of penance and you will be miserable. Well, do it. But not forever. Forgive yourself at last, sell the place, go somewhere else, and get on with the business of living the rest of your life.”

Rod had been right—at least on everything except that last point. Ashley did not know how he would ever be able to forgive himself. But self-pity would serve no purpose. Look where self-pity had got him in Bowden. He winced at the memory of how Emmy had found him just when his spirits had been at their very lowest ebb, when he had touched the very bottom of despair.

He had grasped for peace and had shattered it.

Ashley smiled and touched his hat to several people he passed in the village. It was a pretty place. At the far end of the main street a humpbacked stone bridge crossed the river. At the far side of it was a cottage, somewhat larger than those in the village itself. And beyond that were the high gates leading into the park. They stood open.

But he paused beside the cottage. A young child was swinging on the gate leading into the well-kept garden. He stared at Ashley with large blue eyes. His dark hair was short and curly.

“Good day to you, lad,” Ashley said. “And who might you be?”

“I am Eric Smith,” the boy said. “Who are you?”

“Eric!” a voice called from behind him. A woman stood in the open doorway of the house. She was dressed plainly but decently. She was young and rather lovely. Ashley thought she must be the child's mother, though her hair was lighter.

“Madam.” He touched the brim of his three-cornered hat. “Good day to you. May I present myself? Lord Ashley Kendrick of Penshurst.”

She half inclined her head to him, though she did not curtsy as he had expected she would. Her face, which had looked embarrassed when she first called out to her son, was now expressionless.

But before Ashley could ride on, someone else appeared in the doorway, an older man, who stepped around the woman and came walking down the path toward the gate. He was smiling, though he looked at Ashley with shrewd, perhaps wary eyes.

“You are expected at the house, my lord,” he said. “Ned Binchley at your service. My grandson, Eric.” He set his hands on the shoulders of the child and stopped his gate-swinging, then turned his head to look back at the doorway, which was now empty. “My daughter, Mrs. Katherine Smith.”

“I am pleased to make your acquaintance,” Ashley said. The man was dressed as a gentleman, even if his coat and breeches had seen better days. He also spoke as a gentleman.

“I was Sir Alexander Kersey's steward for fifteen years,” Mr. Binchley explained. “I have an interest in the estate, my lord. If there is anything in which I can assist you, I am here.”

“But you are no longer the steward?” Ashley asked.

“I retired,” Mr. Binchley said, “almost five years ago, after young Mr. Kersey died.”

Ashley nodded, touched his hat again, winked at Eric, and rode on. The Kersey name had been mentioned. This was where they had belonged, where they had been known. This was where she had lived. She had ridden and walked along this driveway perhaps a thousand times. And she had lived in the house that was coming into view again. There would be signs of her inside. Unless decisions had been made after Alice's death without his having been consulted, many of her possessions would remain in the house. He could almost feel her presence already.

He shivered.

L
ADY
Sterne and Emily had agreed between them during the carriage journey to London—though Lady Sterne did all the talking, of course—that for the first week they would stay at home preparing to launch themselves into all the busy activities of the Season.

And so Lady Sterne had all the delight of summoning her mantua maker and of spending two long days having Emily's measurements taken and choosing patterns and fabrics with her and convincing her that she needed many more clothes than Emily had first thought.

She had the delight too of spreading the word that the sister of the Earl of Royce, the sister-in-law of the Duke of Harndon, was in town to take in the Season. She made a particular point of having it known that Lady Emily Marlowe was totally deaf and without speech but that she could read lips. And that her beauty surpassed even that of her sisters, who were remembered as great beauties. Had not one of them snared Harndon, the most handsome, the most discriminating, the most eligible bachelor of his time?

“Egad
,
but you are happy, Marj,” Lord Quinn said to her when the week was almost over. “I have not seen you so happy in a long while.”

“Of course I am happy,” she said, smiling sleepily at him. “'Tis the effect you always have on me, Theo. And it has been three whole weeks. An eternity. You were especially good today, dear.”

Discretion and the strictest of good manners had kept them apart at Bowden, but now that both had returned to London, they had resumed the weekly trysts that had brought them together for years. They were lying in each other's arms, lazy after lovemaking.

Lord Quinn chuckled. “Only because you were happy and especially eager, Marj,” he said. “'Tis the gel. You are enjoying having her. How the devil you are to launch her when she is stone deaf and has none of the pretty conversation the bucks all enjoy, I do not know. But the very impossibility has you enjoying yourself immensely, by my life.” He kissed her lips.

“'Tis one last chance,” she said. “I thought 'twas lost, Theo, when she was to marry Lord Powell. And I was glad for Anna's sake that all was settled. But I cannot pretend to be sorry that I could bring her with me. She is going to have all the young blades prostrate at her feet.”

Lord Quinn chuckled again. “I'll not forget,” he said, “how we schemed to bring my nephy together with your goddaughter eight years ago, Marj. They were married within a week, and as I predicted then, she was brought to bed exactly nine months later.”

“With a daughter,” she said. “You said 'twould be a boy, Theo. But we did do rather well, did we not? Dear Anna. She is still happy with him. And the boy came later—boys. Three of them.” She sighed and wriggled a little closer to him.

“By my life, Marj,” Lord Quinn said, “I believe we should try it again.”

Her head went back and she looked into his face.

“With that scamp of a younger nephy of mine and your little gel,” Lord Quinn said.

Lady Sterne looked at him consideringly for a long time. “Why did it happen, Theo?” she asked at last. “'Twas not ravishment, I am happy to say for Lord Ashley's sake. But why, then? She seemed fond enough of Lord Powell.”

“Marj, m'dear,” he said, “I thought 'twas women who were the romantics.”

She looked at him long and hard again. “Do you believe so?” she said. “Do you really believe so?”

“Egad,” he said, “but only one thing bothers me. If she loves the lad, why would she not have him? Perhaps I am wrong.”

“Oh, pshaw!” Lady Sterne said. “That should be as plain as the nose on your face, Theo. And as plain as the nose on mine. I would have seen it sooner if I had but crossed my eyes. Why else would she refuse him? Of course she loves him. Why else would she have said no?”

“There it is,” Lord Quinn said, his brows knitted into a frown. “Female logic. I never could get the hang of it, by my life. But you agree with me, Marj?”

“Faith, but you have deflated all my hopes,” she said. “I brought her here to find her a husband, Theo, despite all the odds. But if she loves Lord Ashley and will not have him, she will doubtless not have anyone else either.” She sighed.

“Then perhaps, m'dear,” he said, “we had better do what we did before. We had better bring them together.”

“Lud, but how?” she said. “He has offered and she has said no. He has gone off to Penshurst and she has come to town. How can we bring them together? With Luke and Anna 'twas easy. They were to attend the same ball; all we had to do was arrange it so that they took a good look at each other.”

“Egad, but 'twas more than that,” he said. “There was Luke swearing he would never marry. There was Anna swearing that
she
never would. But marry they did. We have to get the boy to London, Marj.”

“How?” she said. “He has just gone to Penshurst, nursing a broken heart over that poor dead wife of his. Doubtless he is also nursing a sense of shame over Emily. Does he love her, do you suppose, Theo?”

“He will,” Lord Quinn said. “But we have to bring him here to see her enslaving all the other young bucks, Marj. I can think of one sure way.”

She gazed at him. “You are looking positively sheepish, Theo,” she said. “Whatever are you plotting?”

“'Tis like this, Marj,” he said. “I believe 'tis time I made an honest woman of you, m'dear.”

Lady Sterne stared at him with incredulity for a few moments, and then she tipped back her head and laughed. “Theo,” she said when she was able, “you have been making a sinner of me for longer than twenty years. We have agreed on a number of occasions that 'tis better so, that neither of us fancies the shackles of matrimony.”

“If we were to get shackled, Marj—in St. George's, of course, with all the fashionable world in attendance—my nephy would have little choice but to come too.”

“We would marry,” she said, “merely to bring Lord Ashley to town, Theo? 'Twould be the most eccentric reason for marrying I have ever heard.”

He tightened his arm about her and kissed her hard. “The fact is, Marj,” he said, “I have been a bachelor all my life and have never thought of loneliness—till recently. But with the creeping of the years, I find myself with a hankering to have someone to wake up to in the nights and in the mornings. And someone in the chair on the other side of my hearth in the mornings and the evenings.”

“You have been eyeing the crop of young girls this Season,” she said. But she was blinking her eyes hard to keep the tears at bay.

Lord Quinn chuckled. “I am old enough to value comfort, Marj,” he said. “I am comfortable with you, m'dear.”

“Comfortable?” Her eyebrows shot up.

“Egad,” he said, “'twas not well expressed, by my life. You know I love you, Marj. I loved you in those days when you were married to Sterne. I loved you after you were widowed. I still love you. There has never been another woman for me. Never will be.”

She turned her face in to his shoulder. “But to marry in order to promote another match, Theo,” she said. “You must mean soon, do you?”

“We could have the banns read for the first time next Sunday,” he said. “You see, Marj, I have thought of how you will be after the gel has gone. She
will
be gone, y'know, either back to Bowden or off to Elm Court when summer comes. Or else she will marry someone, though I cannot see it happening. But the gel is not my main concern. You are. You will be unhappy, m'dear. You will be lonely. Again. You think I have not noticed in the last year or two that some of the sparkle has gone out of you? Perhaps you need a new life, a new challenge, one that will be a little more permanent than finding a husband for Anna's young sister. I'll be a challenge. I promise to be a challenge.”

“Oh, Theo,” she said, her face still against his shoulder. “Lud, but I am tempted. 'Tis ridiculous.”

“After the Season is over,” he said, “I would be able to take you to France, Marj, and to Italy and Austria and all the other places you always say you would visit if you but had the chance. Harkee, we could be young again, m'dear. Not in years—I have no wish to be young in years again. But young in hope. Egad, I like the sound of it. Marry me, woman.”

“And Lord Ashley will come to town for the wedding, and we will convince him that he loves Emily,” Lady Sterne said, laughing, “and convince Emily that he loves her. And then we will attend their wedding. 'Tis the wildest of wild schemes, Theo.”

“We will do it,” he said, raising himself on one elbow and leaning over her. “Now say yes, Marj, and kiss me. Without any more delay. There is still time to have each other again at our leisure. You know I hate to be rushed. Let us waste no more time, then.”

She sighed audibly. “Yes, then,” she said. And she raised her head to meet his lips with her own.

•   •   •

Emily
had never had any desire to go to London, to enter society. She might have done so with Anna and Luke, who occasionally went to town. She had always shuddered at the thought of being away from the countryside, of being forced to dress and behave as a lady all day and every day, of having to be in company with people who would look on her as a kind of freak. She had made sure before deciding to take Lord Powell's courtship seriously that he was the sort of man who spent most of his time on his own estate. Luke had understood that when choosing her suitors.

But now she found herself in London, preparing to enter society with Aunt Marjorie, subjecting herself to long sessions with a mantua maker and lengthy shopping expeditions to purchase shoes and hats and caps and fans and a dizzying array of other frivolities. It was the Season in London and she knew that they would attend fashionable entertainments every day, sometimes more than once a day. She would meet polite society. Soon—just one week after her arrival.

It was madness. It was impossible.

She faced it all with a sort of wild excitement. All of her carefully planned future had been thrown to the winds in exchange for a moment of foolish indiscretion out at the falls. The seemingly inevitable consequences had been defied and denied when she had refused to marry Ashley. And the stifling net that had been about to fall over her head in family plans for the remainder of her life had been avoided at the last moment—she had not been forced to go to Victor's or Charlotte's.

She felt incredibly free. She felt as if the whole world, the whole of life was awaiting her. She felt as if she had not lived thus far in her two-and-twenty years. She felt as if she had a great deal of living to do and as if at last she had all the opportunity in the world to do it.

She would not look ahead. Had she done so, she would have known that the Season would come to an end, that she could not live with Lady Sterne for the rest of her life, that eventually she was going to have to be dependent again on her family, and that perhaps she would not be allowed to determine her own very limited fate. She refused to think about it. She had not gone to London with any intention of finding herself a husband, though she knew that Lady Sterne had hopes of her doing so. She would never marry. Partly it was because she could not. She was no longer a virgin, and she knew that virginity was a man's primary requirement in a bride. But mainly it was because she had no wish to marry. She had given herself once to Ashley. She would never give herself again.

Yet even the fact that she was not in search of a husband was freeing and exhilarating. There was no ulterior motive to her coming to London for the Season. She had come merely to enjoy herself. She had no idea how that was to be accomplished, but she did not much care. She reveled in every moment of the week of preparation.

“I have never known a young lady more patient or more docile through such lengthy fittings, my lady, I declare,” Madame Delacroix, the mantua maker, said to Lady Sterne while Emily watched her lips.

But Emily wanted to be transformed. She wanted to be as fashionable, as beautiful as she could be. She wanted to forget everything else—her deafness, her differentness, her guilt, the mess she had made of her life. She wanted to be a new person. A
normal
person. She wanted to forget the world in which she had always been trapped.

“And I have never known one more beautiful,” Madame Delacroix added.

Doubtless she said the same things to every young lady client of hers, Emily thought, smiling at her image in the glass. But it was impossible not to be warmed by the compliment.

•   •   •

“Let
me look at you.” Lady Sterne had stood up when Emily entered her drawing room, and now she clasped her hands to her bosom. “Lud, I thought you lovely, child, on the evening of Harndon's ball. You are ten times lovelier now. What say you, Theo?”

“Egad,” Lord Quinn said. “If my head does not swell to twice its size tonight with two such lovely ladies to escort, 'twill be a wonder.”