She swallowed involuntarily. Tonight. Now. Once the announcement was made, it would be irrevocable. It would be like being married. There would be no going back from a public announcement. She would be bound to him for life. But that was what she wanted. That was what she had decided for her own future. It would be a good future. The best she could ever expect. Luke had helped plan it. She could trust Luke. Besides, she had already given her consent.
But when she looked at him to nod her head, she found herself shaking it instead.
“Lady Emily?” He frowned. “Not tonight?”
She shook her head again.
“Tomorrow, then?” he asked.
Tomorrow. Yes, tomorrow. Not tonight, so very publicly. Tomorrow, when there would be just the family to hear—and Ashley, a treacherous part of her mind said. She thrust the thought back.
She nodded and smiled. Yes, tomorrow. By tomorrow her mind would be calm. Good sense would have returned. By tomorrow she would have forgotten that she had danced tonight. With Ashley.
She would never forget dancing with Ashley. It would be etched on her memory like his departure for India. Like the first time she ever saw him. But by tomorrow she would have put it all away again in that deep recess of her being where it would not intrude on daily living or cause suffering to anyone except herself.
“Tomorrow, then,” he said. “Perhaps ’twill be better then. I have not relished the thought of going back into the ballroom and becoming so much the focus of attention. You are cold.”
She had shivered though she did not feel cold at all.
“Let me escort you inside,” he said. “I long for tomorrow. To be able to write to my mother. To know that the future is finally settled.”
She wondered what his mouth would feel like on her own. But she was glad he had not kissed her. Not tonight. Soon enough she would know his kiss and a great deal more. Tomorrow she would think about it. Tomorrow she would begin to prepare for it. Tonight she was weary. So very weary.
•••
Waitinguntil today had not perhaps been a great idea after all, Emily thought as she lay wide awake in bed. It was very early—or very late, depending upon the perspective from which one viewed the time. She had been in bed for only a few hours—the ball had ended very late and she had forced herself to stay to the end. She had not slept at all.
It was daylight. She would not sleep now.
There had been an embarrassing air of expectation when they had returned to the ballroom. She feared she had deeply mortified Lord Powell by her insistence that they postpone the announcement. Perhaps Luke’s guests thought she had refused him. She still did not know his given name, she thought. Yet they were betrothed.
Yes, they were. She had said yes. Even though they had told no one and no announcement had been made, she had said yes. They were betrothed. He would probably want to be married before the summer was out.
She wished now that she had agreed to allow him to speak to Victor so that the announcement might have been made. It would all be finally irrevocable.
It was irrevocable now.
Emily pushed the bedclothes back from the bed and got out to cross the room to the window. It was the very loveliest time of the day, now when no one was yet up except perhaps a few grooms in the stables. It was the time of day she loved best, the time of day when she felt most free.
She had promised herself, she thought, but she was tempted anyway. She gazed longingly across the side lawn over which her window looked toward the line of trees in the distance. She could not see the river or the falls, but she knew they were there, just beyond the limit of her vision. Her favorite place in the world. Her haven of peace.
It was the way in which her differentness showed. Her need for solitude, for the living things of nature that were as content as she to communicate without demanding reciprocity. To give and to receive without obligation. Her contentment. Her happiness.
Herloneliness.Why had she had to grow up? Why had she had toneed?
Was it Ashley who had taught her unwittingly about loneliness? About the needs of a woman?
She had promised herself that she would not go to the falls while Lord Powell was at the house. It was not anormalactivity. She had promised herself... But it was very early. And no one would be up much before noon anyway after such a late night. Besides, she would not have many more chances for freedom. Once she was married, she would have to be much more careful to behave respectably—normally. She owed him that.
But surely just this once...
Less than ten minutes later, Emily was leaving the house and turning in the direction of the trees and the falls. She had paused only long enough to pull on an old and loose sack dress and to drag a brush through her hair. She had hesitated over her shoes. She knew that, lovely as the day looked from inside her room, in reality it would be chilly at this hour of the morning. And there would be dew. But she could not bear the thought of being shod. She had to feel the earth beneath her feet. She had to feel the connection.
Beneath her arm and in her hands she carried her easel and paper and paints and brushes. She had tiptoed into the schoolroom to get them, hoping that she was not making noise that would disturb the children sleeping in the nursery rooms.
She was going to paint.
She had discovered painting fairly recently. She had been taught long ago to paint pretty watercolors by a very competent governess, of course. But she had always found the lessons and the exercises tedious. Why paint something that, however pretty, could not even begin to rival the real thing? Why attempt to reproduce what only God in his majesty could create? But she had discovered real painting, and it had become something of an obsession with her. Something so deeply necessary to her that she wondered how she was to leave it alone when she married Lord Powell.
