She still could not quite grasp the reality of his return home.
She would give anything in the world, she thought, to escape to her room. Or better still, to escape alone outdoors. She always found crowds and conversation overwhelming. She missed so much. She was always so aware of her differentness, of her inability to understand more than a fraction of what was being said, of the impossibility of communicating her own thoughts beyond the simplicity of smiles and nods. But she could not escape—shewouldnot. She had pledged herself to be like other women as far as she could.
She smiled and nodded. Lord Powell drew back her chair as she got to her feet, and offered his arm. She took it and felt the eyes of everyone in the room follow them to the door and through it. Or so it seemed.
It was not really cold outside, although it was only April and late at night. The slight breeze even felt refreshingly cool. They strolled the length of the cobbled terrace and back again. There was no one else outside. He stopped at the top of the steps leading down to the upper terrace of the formal gardens, perhaps thinking it would be too dark down there for her to be able to read his lips. He turned to her.
“Lady Emily,” he said, “I believe you must know why I came to Bowden Abbey at his grace’s invitation.”
She gazed mutely at him. If she could have stopped this moment, delayed it for a day or two, she would have. Her head was pounding in a tight band just behind her eyes. But it could not be delayed. Every moment since his arrival five days ago had been leading to this one. She wished suddenly that she had a voice, that she could apologize for her bad manners in dancing with Ashley when she had promised the set to him. His own manners had been too polished to allow him to refer to the matter during supper.
“I came here not knowing you,” he said. “Not knowing if... You are beautiful. Poised and elegant and perfect in every way.”
And a fraud. And without a whole heart to give. But perhaps he did not want her heart.
“You cannot speak,” he said. “’Twould be thought by many men to be an insuperable handicap in a w-wife. But not to me. I have always preferred quiet women. And my mother will gladly continue to run my household and entertain our guests—’tis what she does best. You would merely have to charm everyone with your beauty and your smiles.” He smiled at her.
No. Oh no. So she would merely be another protected child in another household that would run very well without her. He merely wanted an ornament for his home, a—a breeder for his children? He was choosing her because she was quiet and biddable—and because she would allow his mother to continue dominating his household? Did he believe that what he saw, what he had seen in five days, was everything that was her? She felt a stabbing of fear. He saw only a smiling, placid, reasonably lovely woman? Was she nothing more to him?
But when it came to the question of what she meant to him—what didhemean toher?And what really did she know of him beyond certain facts she had read from his lips? Was she merely using him to give purpose and a measure of independence to her life? Was it enough? Was it even fair?
She had believed she had thought through her decision very sensibly and very carefully. Suddenly she felt that she had not thought it through at all.
“Lady Emily.” He had possessed himself of her hand. Unwillingly she noticed the difference between his touch and Ashley’s. His hand lacked the warmth, the strength of Ashley’s. She shook off the unwelcome thought. “Will you do me the honor of marrying me?”
He had said nothing of love. That realization at least brought relief with it. But only for a moment. He was offering her everything else—his name, his home, his family, a place at his side for the rest of her life. He thought she was poised and elegant and perfect.
Have they tamed you and your heart has not cried out for the wild?
She could see in her mind Ashley’s mouth forming the words.
But Ashley was married. He had forgotten her—or rather, she had never been of any importance to him as a woman—and he had married someone else. He had been married for three years. The fact that he had come home and had danced with her made no difference to anything at all. She had learned to live without Ashley. She had taken her life back for herself and had pieced it together again. She had enriched it, making it more deeply lived than it had been even before she met him. The fact that Ashley would be a part of her for as long as she lived mattered to no one but herself.
She wanted marriage. She wanted a home of her own. She wanted children. She wanted to benormal.She could fight for the right to run her own home and entertain her own visitors. She could show that she was capable of doing both. It would be the new challenge of her life. And she could do no better than Lord Powell. Luke had chosen well.
“Lady Emily?” He was peering at her anxiously in the near darkness. “Will you? Do you understand what I have said? Is it too dark out here?”
For one who had made up her mind quite deliberately over the past five days, she reasoned, she was alarmingly hesitant. There was no reason to hesitate. There was every reason not to. She had no reason to feel guilty. Her heart was no less whole than it had been five days ago. Her love for Ashley was her own private concern—always had been and always would be. Lord Powell had neither offered his own heart nor asked for hers. He had merely offered an arrangement that could be comfortable for them both. And as for the loneliness of not being known—well, she had never been known by anyone. Though almost by Ashley, an unwilling part of her mind whispered. She half nodded.
“You will?” He smiled broadly. “Zounds, but I was not sure. Not sure at all. Youwillmarry me?”
She nodded a little more firmly, though his lips were moving faster now and she could not see every word. But he looked so very pleased. She resisted the temptation to close her eyes, to block out everything except herself. She had made every effort over the past few years to live outside herself as well as deeply within, to be a part of the social world in which she had to live her life.
He had taken her other hand, and kissed the back of each before holding her palms against his chest.
“You have made me the happiest of men, Lady Emily,” he said. “My mother will be pleased. So will all my family. They have made me realize in the past year or two, you see, that ’tis my duty to bring home a bride and to set up my nurs— Well.” He looked embarrassed.
But she had stopped making the effort to follow the rapid movement of his lips.
“I knew as soon as Harndon approached me,” he said, “that you would be the perfect choice. You are the daughter and sister of an earl, sister-in-law of a duke, the possessor of a competent dowry. You are the right age.” He smiled. “Pardon me, but I did not want someone directly from the schoolroom. I wanted someone who has proved that she knows how to behave in society. I have a position to maintain. I have brothers and sisters yet to marry. I wanted someone I could trust.” His smile became almost boyish. “And someone quiet. I could scarce have done better on that score, could I?”
From tonight on her life would have to change more drastically, she thought. But could she bear to live every day as she had lived the past five? Could she do this? Could she live permanently in the wearying world of other people merely because she wanted... well, merely because shewanted!
“And in addition to everything else,” he said, and her eyes read his lips again, “I have conceived a fondness for you.”
Ah. She had not wanted that. She lowered her gaze and looked at his hands holding hers against him. And yet it was what she must want, for him as well as for herself. A relationship without fondness would not prosper. There could be fondness even if there could not be love. Very deliberately she turned her hands to clasp his, to squeeze them.
He waited for her to look up. “May I have your brother make the announcement tonight?” he asked her. “Now?”
