How many times had he seen Emmy standing or sitting on that rock? And yet he had forgotten every single one of them. Just as he had forgotten the falls. Just as he had forgotten her. Yet he could not have forgotten what had been so important in his life. Why had he suppressed the memories?
It was a lovers’ tryst, he thought. He felt a moment’s resentment over the fact that his first visit to the falls had been spoiled thus. But perhaps it was as well. This was a mere place, after all. There was no magic here. And they had the right, the two of them, to meet where they would. They were to be married. And Emmy was of age. Seven years had passed since those days of his memory. Yes, of course she was of age. She had been fifteen when he left, had she not?
A child then. A woman now.
But instead of turning immediately away, as he knew he ought to have, he watched as Powell removed a handkerchief from a pocket, touched it to his brow, and turned to stride the few steps to the bottom of the pile of rocks.
“Lady Emily?” Lord Powell called.
She could not hear him, of course, but she must have seen him with her peripheral vision and realized that he was speaking. She did not turn her head to see what he said.
There was silence for a few moments. Ashley turned away. He had no wish to eavesdrop on lovers’ words. He had even less desire to watch a lovers’ embrace.
“Lady Emily,” Lord Powell said again, loudly and distinctly, as if he thought she was only partially deaf. “I shall return to the house now. I shall see you at breakfast? I shall— Perhaps we may talk further?”
Despite himself, Ashley paused and looked back. She had not turned. Powell stood where he was for a few moments, and then turned to stride away through the trees. He was still frowning, and watched the ground at his feet. He did not see Ashley.
A lovers’ spat? But how could one quarrel with Emmy? Ashley mused. What could she say to make one angry? She could, of course, ignore one when one was talking to her. Emmy could more effectively ignore someone than most other women. All she had to do was refuse to look at one. It would be a trifle annoying, to say the least.
Ashley grinned and set one shoulder against the trunk of a tree. He crossed one booted foot over the other. Good old Emmy. She was not after all allowing them to walk all over her just because she was deaf. He watched her.
She did not move except to clench her hands at her sides and tip back her head and close her eyes. Her hair cascaded all the way down to her bottom. She looked, Ashley thought, a hundred times more lovely than she had looked last night with her elaborately powdered curls and her silks and lace and her stays and hoops. And yet even last night she had been the loveliest lady at the ball.
His little fawn really had grown up, he thought regretfully. It was strange how one could come back after seven years, totally and dreadfully changed oneself, and yet imagine that everything and everyone one had left behind had somehow been happily frozen in time. If he had pictured Emmy at all during those years, it was as a slender, coltish child.
He had made no sound. Even if he had, she would not have heard it. And he was well behind her line of vision. But after a minute of stillness she opened her eyes and raised her head and looked over her shoulder directly at him. Being Emmy, of course, she had sensed his presence. She had known he was there. She had known he was not Powell—she had refused to turn her head for him.
She had known he was there.
The years had somehow rolled back after all. For the first time, there seemed to be a thread of warmth in the morning.
•••
Usuallyshe sensed someone coming up behind her, especially when she was alone. But sometimes that intuition failed her. It happened most often when she was absorbed in some activity and lost all sense of time and place. Painting had had that effect on her for the past year or so.
She turned with a start of guilt only when whoever it was was very close behind. She expected to see Anna or Luke. Anna would merely smile and hug her and commend her on her painting and pretend not to notice her appearance. Anna perhaps did not realize that she still treated her youngest sister as a child. Luke would raise his eyebrows and purse his lips and look at her painting and make some satirical remark about witches in the wood.
But it was Lord Powell who was standing there, looking perfectly immaculate. Even his wig had been freshly powdered, she noticed. If only she had heard him coming, she might at least have hidden her painting. Preferably, she would have hidden herself too. She felt suddenly naked. Not physically so but emotionally. He had come unexpectedly upon her other self. The very private self she could explain to no one.
This morning he looked more handsome than usual. Even with the frown on his face and the aghast look in his eyes. He looked very... civilized.
“Itisyou, by my life,” he said. His perfect manners appeared to have been left behind at the house, at least for the moment. His eyes moved down her body, from the topmost hair on her head to the tips of her toenails. It was a look of sheer horror.
Emily saw herself through his eyes. She saw her shapeless, shabby dress, with neither stays nor hoops beneath. And her bare ankles and feet. And her wild, tangled hair. In her embarrassment she felt and resisted the totally inappropriate urge to laugh. This washerworld, she might have told him if she had been able. So very different from his own. Why was she the one called upon to make all the adjustments?
But for five days she had been so very careful. So very determined.
She smiled.
He recovered his lost manners then and made her a hasty but elegant bow. “Lady Emily,” he said.
She tried to picture him without his wig, with dark, close-cropped hair. She rather believed he would look more handsome yet. Though quite undressed by current standards of fashion and propriety, of course. She hated fashion and propriety. Last night she had been dazzled—and wearied—by them. This morning she hated them.
“There are servants up and abroad,” he said. “House servants, grooms, gardeners. ’Twas his grace’s butler who informed me that you were up and outside already and had come this way. He also informed me that his grace and Lord Ashley Kendrick are up. You may beseen,Lady Emily.”
She had been seen. By him. She could not tell if he was warning her of possible embarrassment to herself, or whether he was scolding her.
She smiled again and raised her shoulders in acknowledgment of the fact that she had been caught out and was perhaps sorry. Yes, she was sorry. This morning was in the nature of a swan song to freedom, she would have told him if she had had words. She must work on some sort of shared language with him, she thought suddenly. As she had with Ashley. But then perhaps she did not want anyone else to know her. Perhaps she hid deliberately behind her deafness and muteness. Perhaps she was too frightened by—or attached to—her differentness to expose it to someone who might not understand or accept. But this man was to be herhusband.
