He stopped cooling her face with his fan for a moment. “And so they are,” he said. “Neither is hungry and both find the indoors stuffy and long for air and exercise. ’Tis nothing to be alarmed about, my dear. ’Tis called youth and young love, I believe.” He smiled at her.
She gazed at him as if all the answers to life’s worries might be found in his eyes. “She will have him, you think?” she asked. “She feels an affection for him, Luke? She will be happy with him?”
He raised his eyebrows. “Your questions become progressively less possible to answer, madam,” he said. “’Tis my belief that the answer to all three may be yes. But only Emily and Powell can answer them for sure—and only with the passage of time. Are you intent upon creasing my cuff by gripping so hard?”
She released her grip immediately. “Luke,” she said, “why did he come back downstairs? He was so very tired.”
“I believe for that very reason,” he said. “He was too tired to sleep. Too emotionally excited, perhaps, at being home again after so long. I may have trouble sleeping myself, Anna—unless you can be persuaded to help me, of course.” His eyelids drooped over his eyes for a moment.
“Why did he dance with Emmy?” she asked. “And why did she dance with him, Luke? Shedancedwith him. I had no idea she could.”
Luke shrugged elaborately. “He wished to dance with the loveliest lady at the ball,” he said. “Emily is the loveliest—after you. She danced with him because, apparently, she has wished all her life to dance. She did remarkably well, my dear. She did not make a spectacle of herself.”
“Luke.” She looked at him with appeal in her eyes. Yet she seemed to have no words for what she wished to say. “Luke...”
He drew his closed fan along one of her arms to the ends of her fingers. “Emily is receiving her offer at this very moment,” he said. “She has appeared somewhat enamored of him, my dear. Certainly she has grown into a sensible young lady who is unwilling to pine her way through life as either Victor’s dependent or mine. And she is not near the untamed creature she once was. Ashley has his wife and his son staying at a London hotel. Tomorrow I shall go and fetch them home. I will persuade him to stay here and rest instead of accompanying me. You must not upset yourself unnecessarily. There are realities to dictate everyone’s behavior.”
“I am so very happy to see him at home again,” she said. “Happy for you, Luke, because he is your only surviving brother and there is a close bond between you. And happy for him. I cannot believe that India is the place to spend more than a few years of one’s life. It is certainly not the place in which to raise a young family. I am happy.”
“But you could wish that his timing had been a little better,” he said with a smile. “That he had arrived at least a few days later, or preferably a few weeks.”
“Yes,” she said lamely.
“You have ever been overprotective of Emily, my dear,” he said. “You persist in seeing her as delicate and more than usually vulnerable merely because she lacks one of the five senses most of us take very much for granted. Emily is not delicate. Merely different—verydifferent, I will confess. But she has a strength of character beyond that of almost any other woman I know, I do believe. Since the day he left, has she given one sign that she cannot order her life without him?”
She shook her head. “But we knew—,” she began.
He interrupted her. “Even on the day his letter announcing his marriage arrived?” he asked.
“I remember how you avoided for hours reading it aloud to her,” she said, closing her eyes briefly.
“Or on the day the letter came telling of Thomas’s birth?” he asked.
She shook her head again.
“Yes,” he said, “of course weknew,my dear. But Emily is a strong person. You can safely allow her to live her own life in her own way.”
She smiled ruefully at him. “He is dreadfully pale and thin.”
“Yes,” he agreed.
“I hope Alice and Thomas are well,” she said.
“Doubtless,” he said, “if they are back in England to stay, they will wish to remove to Penshurst without too long a delay since ’tis Alice’s home and now belongs to Ashley. In the meantime, you will persuade them to stay here, my love, and you will fuss over them and feed them and tuck them into their beds to your heart’s content. They will look quite human again by the time they leave here.”
She smiled.
“That is better,” he said. “I thought the sun had disappeared behind a cloud. And of course, my dear, you will have a wedding to prepare too. Royce seemed agreed that this would be the better place for it. You may plan and spend as lavishly as you wish. I shall not ask for an accounting.”
“Luke.” She leaned slightly toward him. Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes were shining again, her more normal expression. “All will be well, will it not?”
“All will be well,” he told her, covering her hand with his own. “But we neglect our guests, madam. Shall we lead the way back to the ballroom?”
•••
“LadyEmily.” He leaned toward her at the supper table until her eyes focused on his mouth. “May I send a maid for your cloak? Will you step outside with me?”
Her heart was heavy with guilt and other things. She had been unable to do anything more than toy with her food. And rightly or wrongly, she felt that much attention was being directed at her. Probably rightly. She would be under observation for two reasons. It was expected that Lord Powell would declare himself tonight. And she had just danced for the first time in her life. Besides, she felt suffocated. She was very aware of the group clustered about Ashley not far distant and of Ashley himself, brightly chattering in their midst.
