Silent Melody (3 page)

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 her 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.

She
would
change. She would grow up into the womanhood that was already changing her both physically and emotionally. And she would learn to live without him. She would not mope and pine her life away for what could not be had.

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.

1763

“F
AITH,
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.

“You will be the belle of the ball tonight, as I live,” Lady Sterne said. She was in the dressing room only partly by right of the fact that she was Anna's godmother. Although she was no blood relation, she had assumed the role of favored aunt to Anna's sisters as well as to Anna herself. After all, she always reminded them, when a woman had no daughters of her own, then she simply had to adopt a few. “'Tis a pity you cannot dance, child. But no matter. Dancing merely makes a lady flush and sweat—and smell.”

“Aunt Marjorie!” Agnes said, shocked.

Lady Emily Marlowe's eyes followed their lips for a while, but it was a weary business and she knew she had missed at least half of what had been said—as she always did in a conversation that involved more than one person. But no matter. She had caught the trend of the conversation, and it pleased her to for once be called beautiful—as other women were beautiful. She turned her head to steal another glance at herself in the pier glass of Anna's dressing room. She scarcely recognized herself. She was dressed in pale green, her favorite color, but all else was unfamiliar. Her petticoat, with its three deep frills, was held away from her legs by large hoops. Her open gown was trimmed with wide, ruched, gold-embroidered robings from bosom to hem. Her stomacher, low at the bosom, was heavily embroidered with the same gold thread. The three lace frills that edged the sleeves of her chemise flared at the elbows below the sleeves of the gown. Her shoes were gold. Her hair—ah, it was her hair that looked most unfamiliar.

Anna's maid had dressed her hair rather high in front, in the newest fashion, and curled and coiled at the back. In the glass Emily could see the frills of the frivolous lace cap that was pinned back there somewhere, its lace lappets floating down her back. Her hair was powdered white. It was the first time she had allowed anyone to do that to her.

Beneath the gown she could feel the unfamiliar and uncomfortable tightness of her stays.

At the grand age of two-and-twenty, she was about to attend her first real ball. Oh, she had occasionally—when Luke, Duke of Harndon, had insisted—attended local entertainments with her sister and brother-in-law, and there had sometimes been dancing, which she had sat and watched. And she had always been present at the occasional balls held here at Bowden Abbey, though usually she had watched unseen, looking down from the gallery. Dancing had always fascinated her.

She had always wanted, almost more than anything else in the world, to dance.

She could not dance. She was totally deaf. She could not hear the music. Though sometimes she imagined that once upon a time she must have heard it. She could not remember music—or any sounds at all—but there was a feeling, an inner conviction that music must be more beautiful, more soul-lovely than almost anything she had ever seen with her eyes.

Tonight she was to attend a ball, and everyone was behaving as if the whole occasion were in her honor. Almost as if this were her come-out. In reality the ball was in honor of Anna. There was always a ball at Bowden a few months after Anna's confinements, following the christening of the baby. There had been balls after Joy's birth seven years ago, and after George's and James's more recently. Now there was to be this one, following Harry's birth. He needed to demonstrate to his neighbors, Emily had once seen Luke say as he bent over Anna's hand and kissed her fingers, that his duchess was just as beautiful now as she had been three months before, nine months swollen with child.

“Lud,” Lady Sterne said now, taking Emily's hands in her own and bringing both her eyes and her mind back from the glass, “but you have not heard a word we have said, child. I vow your head has been turned by your own beauty.”

Emily blushed. She wished Aunt Marjorie would speak more slowly.

“Luke will approve, Emmy,” Anna said with her warm smile, cupping Emily's chin with one gentle hand and turning her head so that she would see the words.

That would be no small accomplishment. Although Luke loved her unconditionally, Emily knew, he also did not always approve of her. He paid her the compliment of treating her as if she had no handicap. He often pushed her into doing things she had no wish to do, assuring her briskly that she could do anything in the world she set her mind to doing, even if she must do it silently. He was unlike Anna in that way, and the two of them sometimes exchanged hot words over her. Anna felt that her sister should be allowed to live her life in her own way, even if doing so made her unsociable and totally unconventional. The implication, loving though it was, was that Emily could never be quite as other women were. Luke was more capable of bullying.

There had been the time when she was fifteen, for example, and he had decided that it was time she learned to read and write. And she had learned too—slowly, painfully, sometimes rebelliously, with Luke himself as her patient but implacable teacher. After the first week, he had banished Anna from the schoolroom and had never allowed her back in. Enough of foolish tears, he had told her. Emily had learned in order to prove something to him—and more important, to herself. She had had everything to prove to herself at that painful stage of her life.

She had proved that she could learn, as other girls could. But she had learned the severe limits to her world. Books revealed to her universes of experience and thought she had never suspected and would never properly understand. She
was
different—very different. On the other hand, there was in her intense relationship with the world close at hand something unique, she believed.

Luke's approval, Emily thought now, smiling back at her eldest sister, was worth having. Sometimes she almost hated him, but always she loved him. He had been both father and brother to her during the almost eight years since she had come to live at Bowden.

“And Lord Powell will be
enchanted
,” Agnes said. “Oh, Emmy, he is such a very distinguished-looking gentleman. And he seems genuinely not to mind the fact of your affliction.”

Lord Powell liked to talk. He rather enjoyed the novelty of having a silent listener, Emily suspected. But indeed he was rather handsome and his manners were polished and charming. It was hardly a surprise, of course. Luke had chosen all of her suitors with meticulous care. All four of them had been eligible in every possible way. She had rejected the first three without making any effort whatsoever to become acquainted with them—or so Luke had claimed. He had regarded her with pursed lips and a look of mingled exasperation and amusement in his eyes after each had left.

“Emily,” he had said on one of those occasions, “if you would merely cultivate a different image while you are being courted, my dear. If you would only
not
do your best to appear before the flower of male, unmarried society as the witch of the woods.”

It was unfair, as she would have told him if she had had his advantage of a voice. She might have written it, but she never enjoyed holding such awkward conversations. It was unfair, because it was
she
who had rejected them, not they who had taken fright and left her. Besides, she did not look like a witch. But it did not matter.

And now Lord Powell was here, paying court to her. He had been here for five whole days. Luke had decided to invite him while other visitors were here for Harry's christening and for the ball that would follow it. Perhaps, he had reasoned—Emily was well acquainted with his mind—the formality of the occasion would force his sister-in-law to stay in company and to behave in a more conventional manner than was usual with her.

And she had stayed in company and behaved herself and worn stays and hoops and shoes and curls and caps—though nothing as elaborate as tonight, it was true. But not just because of the house guests and the christening.

This time she had decided to allow herself to be courted.

“I vow 'twould be strange indeed if he did not come to the point tonight,” Lady Sterne said. “He will make you his offer, child, and Harndon will make the announcement before the night is over. But mercy on me, I almost forgot that Victor is here. 'Twill be Victor who will make the announcement—mark my words.”

Victor, the Earl of Royce, was Emily's brother. He was here for the christening with Constance, his wife, and their child. So was Charlotte, Emily's other sister, with the Reverend Jeremiah Hornsby, her husband, and their three children. Charlotte was in the nursery now, nursing the newest baby before attending the ball.

“Will you say yes, Emmy?” Agnes looked eagerly at her. “William says that Lord Powell has spoken privately with both Victor and his grace. It can mean only one thing. How splendid 'twill be to have a wedding in the family again. But would it be here or at Elm Court? Victor will want it at Elm Court, I do declare. How provoking of him.
Will
you say yes?”

There was a feeling of breathlessness and panic at seeing on the lips of her sister and Lady Sterne what she had really known already in her own heart. Lord Powell had come to court her—Luke had arranged it all on a visit to London. He had walked with her and sat with her and talked with her and had seemed pleased with her. She had not discouraged his attentions. Tonight there was to be a grand ball. And she had been fully aware of the private meeting this afternoon involving Lord Powell, Victor, and Luke. Everyone had been aware of it.

Tonight in all probability she was going to be called upon to make her final decision. Not that there was any decision still to be made. She had already decided to have him. She was going to be Lady Powell. She was going to marry and have a home of her own where she would be dependent upon no one. She was going to have children of her own. She was going to have a warm, cuddly baby like Harry to hold, but he would be all her own.

She was going to change—again. She was going to be more than just half respectable. She was going to be entirely so. Anna and Luke and all her other relatives were going to be proud of her.

But Anna was hugging her suddenly, as far as the combined widths of their hoops would allow. She let Emily see her lips before she spoke. “You are frightening her,” she said. “Emmy does not have to do anything she does not want to do. She is different, but very special. She belongs here. We love her. You must marry no one just because you think you ought, Emmy. You may stay here forever. I hope you
will
stay here. How would I live without you?”

Very well, Emily thought, watching her sister blink back bright tears. Anna had Luke, whom she loved dearly and who loved her with an equal intensity, and she had her four children, on whom they both doted. Emily had—no one. She belonged nowhere. It was true that her brother and sisters issued frequent invitations for her to come and stay and always urged her to remain indefinitely. And it was true that even Luke had explained to her—it was just before the appearance of the first suitor—that Bowden was her home as much as it was his and Anna's and their children's, that he was thinking of her lasting happiness, but only she could know where that happiness lay.

“You must never feel that I am urging marriage on you because I wish to be rid of you,” he had said, looking at her with keen eyes. “Even though your sister, my wife, has accused me of just that.” He had thrown a stern look at Anna, who had protested the introduction of a suitor. “I will present you with marriage possibilities, my dear, because I feel it is my duty to do so. You will decide if you want marriage and all it can bring with it or if you would prefer to remain with us here, as much a member of our family as Joy or George or James. Have I made myself clear, Emily? Madam?”

He had made both her and Anna reply.

“But Lord Powell is very handsome,” Agnes said now. “I do not know how you could resist him, Emmy. I could not if I were still young and unmarried and he paid me court, I declare.” She smiled kindly. But Agnes, who had had choices, had married the very plain and portly William, Lord Severidge, for love and had long ago settled into dull domestic felicity with him.