Silent Melody (31 page)

“She has not told you?” Major Cunningham laughed rather ruefully. “My apologies, Ash. I saw her in what I now realize is a common guise. But at the time I mistook her for a milkmaid. No harm was done—fortunately for all of us, she is rather fleet-footed. Since discovering her true identity, I have been the soul of honor. Besides, I have other interests of a more serious nature than that aroused by milkmaids. Come, Ash, shake my hand. There is no point in making a damned quarrel of all this.” He held out his right hand and took a step forward.

“One of us is going to die here today,” Ashley said. “If 'tis me, my property will become Harndon's. He will discuss with you how he wishes to dispose of it. If 'tis you, I will bury our friendship with you and consider that the deaths of my wife and my son and the nurse as well as the terrorizing of Lady Emily Marlowe have been justly avenged. I have brought you your own sword, as you see.”

“This is very foolish, Ash, and very unnecessary,” Major Cunningham said. “I have no wish to kill you.”

“Then you must stand and be killed,” Ashley said. “I suggest we strip down to shirts and breeches.”

He set down the major's sword on the floor and walked away to prepare himself. Luke was standing motionless inside the door, looking tight-lipped and rather pale.

“Ash,” he said quietly as his brother removed his skirted coat, “let me do this for you. I have a reputation as a swordsman that has been well earned, I believe.”

Ashley's smile was somewhat grim. “I had to do something for physical exercise in India,” he said. “I practiced swordplay. Besides, Luke, they were my wife and my son. And Emmy is my woman.”

“Yes,” Luke said rather sadly. “I love you, brother.”

Ashley grinned. “Zounds but I will hold those words over your head for the rest of your life,” he said, setting his long waistcoat down on top of his coat. He was no longer smiling when he straightened up and withdrew his sword from its scabbard. “Luke, tell her I love her. Care for her if she is with child.”

“Yes,” Luke said. “For your sake and because she is almost my sister and almost my daughter. She will always have my love and my protection. So will any child of hers—and yours.” He strode away then to the middle of the ballroom to talk quietly with Major Cunningham, who was ready in his shirtsleeves, drawn sword in hand. After a minute or so, Luke looked across at Ashley and nodded curtly.

“'Tis, as I understand it,” he said when Ashley had approached and the two men stood face-to-face and had crossed swords, “a fight to the death. Nevertheless you will not begin until I give the signal and neither one of you, for honor's sake, will hit the other from behind or stab the other when he is down.”

Ashley had not noticed that Luke too was wearing his sword. But he had it drawn now and set it beneath their crossed swords. Major Cunningham's eyes were on Ashley's, cool, calculating, rueful. He was a friend, Ashley thought, who had betrayed him during every moment of their friendship. A friend who must now die or who must kill him. This was no moment for sentiment, for regrets, for hurt feelings of betrayal.

Luke's sword came up, and with a clash of steel the swords of the combatants were separated. “Begin,” he said.

Major Cunningham was solidly built, strong, and fit. He was a soldier. As an officer, he habitually carried a sword. He led his men into battle with drawn sword. But that did not necessarily make him an expert in its use during single combat. Ashley was slender in comparison, taller, also fit. He had never been in a real sword fight. But, as he had just told Luke, he had learned and practiced the art of swordplay.

And Ashley had the advantage of motivation. His anger was cold and controlled. Alice had been many things. Perhaps—even probably—she had been a wicked woman. Certainly she had been a tormented woman. But she had been his wife and under his protection. Thomas had been another man's son, conceived in sin. But he had been an innocent baby, and a baby to whom Ashley had given the protection of his name. Emily was simply his love. He fought for all three of them, so that the two might finally rest in peace, so that the third might again live in peace. And he fought, though he did not consciously think of it, for the restoration of his honor, lost when his wife and child died while he was in the arms of another woman.

Swordplay, he discovered, was very different from serious combat. Swordplay was conducted according to strict rules of gentlemanly etiquette and honor. Combat was not. And in combat a hit drew blood. Major Cunningham drew first blood after several minutes of circling and clashing swords and sizing each other up. He did something with his left hand that drew Ashley's attention away from his sword for a mere fraction of a second and in that time was past Ashley's guard and had pricked him on the right shoulder.

There was pain, shock, and a fast-spreading stain of red in the corner of Ashley's vision.

“Enough, Ash,” Major Cunningham said, his voice breathless. “You have made your point. Honor has been served. Enough now.”

“To the death,” Ashley said coldly. Though it was painful, the wound did not incapacitate him. Instead it made him cautious. It made him grimly aware with his whole body of what his mind already knew—that one of them was to die. He ended the momentary lull in the fighting and bore his opponent back with the force of his attack.

They fought to what seemed an inevitable stalemate. They fought for long minutes until it seemed that exhaustion must end the fight before death did. But Major Cunningham lost his patience first. He lunged forward into what was only an illusory opening. A mere turning of Ashley's body sent the major's sword harmlessly past. But Ashley's own sword, firmly held, impaled his enemy.

The major went very still as his sword clattered to the ballroom floor. He stared into Ashley's eyes, and a peculiar twisted smile distorted his lips. A line of blood oozed from one corner of his mouth and trickled down to drip off his chin. Ashley pulled his sword free, and the dead body of his erstwhile friend crumpled at his feet.

Ashley looked down at the red sword in his hand and dropped it to the floor. There was no feeling of relief at being the survivor. There was no feeling of triumph at being the victor, or of guilt at having killed a man. There was no feeling at all. He stared downward.

“You will need to have that shoulder tended to, Ash. You are losing blood.” Luke's voice. Cool and calm, as might have been expected of him.

“Yes,” Ashley said.

“'Twas a fair fight. And a necessary one,” Luke said.

“Yes.”

“And if I ever again see you for one hairbreadth of a second take your eye off the sword of your opponent, even in a friendly bout,” Luke said, his voice shaking, “I will personally thrash you within an inch of your life, Ash. With a horsewhip.”

“Yes,” Ashley said.

“I shall see to everything here,” Luke said. “I shall have the nearest magistrate summoned and the body attended to. Go and have that blood stanched, Ash. Anna is stouthearted. Go to her in Emily's room. I instructed them to wait there. She will not have disobeyed my instructions. Do you need help with your coat?” He was again the cool, practical Duke of Harndon.

“No,” Ashley said. He walked to his discarded clothes and pulled on his coat, heedless of either the pain or the blood. He turned to leave.

“Ash,” Luke called.

Ashley looked back.

Luke said nothing for a moment. He merely nodded his head. “I meant what I said earlier,” he said. “Just in case you are ever in doubt.”

Ashley left the ballroom.

T
HE
sky was cloudless. It was going to be a clear blue when the sun rose. It was going to be a warm day. She walked first along by the river, looking across its smooth glassy surface, watching another mother duck—or perhaps the same one—lead her babies in a line down the very center of their highway. Then she walked up the hill, wandering in no particular direction, touching the bark of tree trunks, feeling grass and soil beneath her bare feet, breathing in sweet, cool air.

She stopped at one particular tree and saw that the bullet was still lodged there, just below the level of her eyes. She did not even look over her shoulder. She did not feel afraid any longer. Last night she had slept alone in her room, despite Anna's pleadings. She had not felt afraid.

Yesterday had been a horrid day. First the threat of having to leave Penshurst and of knowing that Ashley planned to sell it for her sake. Then her foolhardy confrontation with Major Cunningham. Then Luke's coming to them—to her and Anna—with set face and that look of authority that even Anna dared not defy, and commanding them to go to Emily's room and to stay there until he or Ashley came for them. And the long wait, during which they had both known that something was dreadfully wrong. Then Ashley's coming, white-faced, to tell them that all was well, that there was nothing more whatsoever to fear. Then he had stumbled forward, grabbed at a chair, overturned it, and landed on his knees. They had seen the blood.

Major Cunningham was dead. Ashley had killed him. Neither he nor Luke had given any great detail, but they had said that the major had killed Alice and Thomas and that in his determination to own Penshurst he had terrorized Emily, hoping that fear would drive her away and convince Ashley to sell.

She had helped Anna half lift, half drag Ashley to her bed and had helped remove his stained coat and cut away his blood-soaked shirt. But she had cleansed and bound the wound herself while he had watched with half-closed eyes.

She hated to think of the sword fight in which Major Cunningham had died. But she was not afraid any longer. She looked upward and turned about and about. The world was a beautiful, spinning place. Especially the natural world. If one remained a part of it, merely one creature among many, one's feet firmly resting on earth, great happiness was possible. And peace. She was happy this morning. She felt at peace with the world.

She wanted to watch the sun rise across the river. She wanted to see the colors of dawn reflected in the water. Perhaps one day she would paint the scene. But not today. Today there was too much beauty to behold in nature itself to spoil it by getting out her paints and analyzing the meaning of it all. This morning she was content merely to watch and to feel. Merely to be. She made her way toward the summerhouse.

She was standing in front of it, gazing down the hill and across the fields to the horizon, when she sensed that her morning was going to be complete. She turned her head and smiled. He was wearing his arm in the sling she had fashioned for him yesterday. But he had lost yesterday's pallor. And his eyes, smiling back at her, were clear of the suffering and the darkness that had lurked there since his return from India. She could see that at last he was at peace with himself.

He came to stand beside her, and set his good arm about her waist. She rested her head against his shoulder and together they watched the sun come clear of the horizon in a blinding burst of glory. She looked up at him and smiled. His eyes reflected the brightness of the sun. Not a word had passed between them. The peace, the silent communion, was perfect.

They had not spoken a great deal yesterday. Both he and Luke had spent a long time with the magistrate who had come to the house to investigate the death. Then they had spent an almost equally long time with Sir Henry Verney, who had also called. And finally Luke had played stern elder brother and implacable head of the family—his own words—and had sent Ashley off to bed early.

But Emily was glad there had been little chance for words. Yesterday had been the wrong time. They had needed this new day. Her heart began to beat faster, and despite herself, despite what deep down she knew to be the truth, she was anxious.

“Emmy,” he said, shrugging his shoulder and turning his head so that she could see his lips—so very close to her own—“'tis a clear, bright, warm morning. It feels like the first morning that ever was. Is this how Adam and Eve felt, do you suppose? Is this Eden?”

She loved the warmth and the merriment in his smile. Everything else was gone. She touched her fingers to his cheek.

“At last I feel that perhaps I have something to offer you,” he said, gazing back at her, his eyes softening to such unmistakable tenderness that she felt her anxiety melting away as if by the warmth of the newly risen sun. “My honor. I will not say that I was guiltless. I have confessed to you that I committed adultery. 'Tis a grievous offense. But there can be pardon for such sins, I do believe. I no longer feel so very responsible for their deaths, and I have avenged them. I feel that I have reclaimed my honor.”

“Yes,” she said. Foolish man—she had loved him anyway. But she knew that he had been unable to forgive himself and that therefore her love would never have been enough for him. They could never have been fully happy.

“My love has always been yours,” he said. “'Tis a strange thing to say, perhaps, when I almost completely forgot you during my years away. But that very fact tells me that unconsciously I had deliberately erased you from memory because my feelings for you disturbed me. You were only fifteen, Emmy. Even after my return I fought my love for you. In my mind those years had not passed—you were still a child. But you have always been a woman, have you not? Even when we first met? When you were fourteen?”

“Yes,” she said.

“Ah, Emmy.” He kissed her warmly, and for a while nothing else mattered except that they were together in sunshine, with no shadows at all to darken or chill. “Emmy, my love. Forgive me for forgetting you. Forgive me for denying your womanhood.”

She set her hands on either side of his face and smiled at him. “Yes,” she said. She was not sure she could say it, but she would try. “I love you.” She knew that he was still unsure of himself, unsure of his worthiness for happiness and peace. “I love you.”

His smile softened and was again untroubled. He set his hand over one of hers—it was her injured one, still rather sore now that she had removed the bandages, but she stopped herself from wincing—and turned his head to kiss her palm.

“Thank you.” He grinned at her. Ashley's grin, all mischief and sparkling eyes and happiness. “If you wish,” he said, “you may tell me all the ways you love me so that we can make a speech lesson out of this.”

She laughed, and he hugged her and rocked her with his good arm.

“Ah, Emmy,” he said, releasing her sufficiently that she could see his lips. “You have the most infectious laugh I have ever heard. My love, marry me. Will you? Not because you have lain with me and may be with child by me. But because 'tis the only thing in the world we can do to be complete and happy. Will you marry me?” His eyes were anxious once more.

“Yes,” she said. “Ahshley.”

They simply smiled at each other for a long while. She could see no clouds behind his eyes, no troubles, not even any remaining doubts. Only a happiness and a peace that matched her own. His face was lit up by the sunlight.

“Will we stay at Penshurst?” he asked her. “I will sell it if you wish, Emmy. We can live elsewhere. It does not matter where as long as we are together.”

But she had set her fingertips over his lips before using her hands to speak.
No,
she told him.
We will live here. This is home.

And after he had searched her eyes and had seen that she meant it, he looked happy again. Bad things had happened at Penshurst, Emily mused. They had culminated in the death of a man yesterday. But they were over and done with. Penshurst was merely a place, a beautiful house in natural surroundings with congenial neighbors, a few of whom would become close friends—Sir Henry Verney and his sister, Katherine Smith, Mr. Binchley. It was a place she and Ashley would make home, a place in which their children would be born and raised, a place where they would grow old together. They would make of it a good place with good memories.

“Yes,” he said, using his free hand to sign to her as well, “it is home. Because you are here with me, Emmy. But I am going to send you to Bowden tomorrow.”

Her smile faded and her eyes widened.

“We should marry at Bowden, not here,” he said. “And we should marry soon, Emmy. Because we wish to and because we must. We will send for your family and mine today, and tomorrow when you go to Bowden with Anna and Luke, I will go to London for a special license. We should be able to marry within two weeks.”

She bit her lip. She would be two weeks without him?

“An eternity,” he agreed, smiling ruefully. “This arm sling is mere decoration, you know, worn to arouse sympathy and to invite people to wait on me hand and foot. It does not incapacitate me for any of the important activities of life.”

She watched him remove it and drop it to the grass before flexing his shoulder and grimacing only slightly.

“Making love, for example,” he said, looking at her with a curious mixture of playful smile and smoldering eyes.

“Yes.” She touched one hand to his cheek again. “Yes.” It seemed important that they make love this morning. Not because of any fear or need for comfort, motives that had clouded their past lovemakings. But purely for the sake of love and sharing and joy.

He took her by the hand and led her into the summerhouse. It was flooded with the bright light of early morning. He turned and drew her against him. They smiled at each other before his mouth found hers.

•   •   •

“Faith,
child,” Lady Quinn said, kissing Anna warmly on both cheeks, “you will think us mad. Lud, we
are
mad.”

“This is a grand place, I warrant you, lad,” Lord Quinn said, rubbing his hands together and looking about the hall of Penshurst. He was addressing Luke. “I told Marj 'twould look magnificent by the light of the morning sun.”

“But he has never seen the place before,” Lady Quinn said, tossing her glance upward. “The moon and the stars were bright last night, Anna, my love. We were watching them.” Lord Quinn chuckled. “And Theo concocted the notion that we should leave town almost as soon as we had returned there and come here for breakfast. We have traveled half the night.”

“And are hungry, by my life,” Lord Quinn said. “I could devour an ox. Now, where is that youngest nephy of mine? Not up yet to welcome his aunt and uncle to his own home? Pox on it, but I have a good mind to go up and turn him out of bed with a pitcher of water over his head. If I but knew which direction to take.” He gave vent to a short bark of laughter.

“Ashley is outside, Theo,” Luke said, “taking the air.”

“At this hour? A lad after my own heart,” Lord Quinn said.

“And how is my dear Emily?” Lady Quinn asked. “I can scarce wait to bring her back to town with me, I vow. Unless—” She looked hopefully, first at Anna and then at Luke. “Unless she has something more important to do with her time, that is.”

Luke looked at his wife, who was smiling back at him, and raised his eyebrows. He pursed his lips. “By some coincidence, Aunt,” he said, “Emily is out taking the air too.”

Lord Quinn slapped his thigh with the three-cornered hat he had removed from his head. “Egad,” he said, “it worked, Marj, m'dear. You did not marry me in vain.” He roared with laughter.

“Theo,” his wife said, “you will be putting strange notions into dear Anna's and Luke's heads, I do declare. We merely thought that
if
we married and went away on a wedding journey, and
if
Emily came here with Anna for a fortnight, and
if
Ashley was not a dreadful slowtop . . .”

“They did not go out
together
this morning,” Anna said. “Luke saw them both, but separately,” she added, flushing. “Still, we are hoping . . .”

“I have been set to spying on my own brother and sister-in-law as an occupation suited to my dotage,” Luke said in his haughtiest, most bored voice. “My duchess has encouraged me.”

Lord Quinn slapped his thigh again. “And has there been much to spy upon, lad?” he asked.

“Oh, most assuredly,” Luke said. “We had better take you in to breakfast, Aunt Marjorie and Theo. If we await the return of Emily and Ashley, we might well be here until dinnertime. We might well all starve. Madam?” He bowed elegantly and offered Lady Quinn his arm.

“Dear Emily,” she said with a sigh. “And dear Ashley.”

“I warrant you, Marj,” Lord Quinn said, roaring his comment after his retreating spouse as he gave his arm to Anna, “she will be brought to bed of a boy come nine months from today.”