“Yes-s-s,” he said, stretching his swollen, cut lips and showing her that the final sound was a more violent one than the one she had produced.
“Zzzzsssss,” she said.
He was enjoying himself. The old Ashley, though somewhat battered. But she was concentrating too hard for the thought to be conscious.
“Yes,” he said.
“Yyaazzss.”
“Yes-s-s.”
“Yyaassss.”
“Yes.”
“Yyass.”
“Yes.”
“Yass.”
He was laughing. “Yes, Emmy, yes,” he said, and he opened his arms to her.
She was laughing too, helplessly, excitedly, like a child with a hard-won prize. She could speak! She could form words and make sound and be understood. She could speak all of one word. She could not stop laughing. She swayed forward a couple of inches—and stopped.
The laughter went from his face even as she felt it drain from hers. His arms dropped back to his knees.
“Emmy,” he said, “marry me. Marry me and make me laugh again. Marry me and teach me your silence, your serenity. Marry me and let me teach you to speak—to hold a whole conversation. To drive people distracted with your constant chattering. Marry me.”
The temptation was almost overwhelming. For a few minutes seven years had fallen away and they had been purely happy together as they had always used to be. In a rare two-way communication he had stepped into her world as surely as she had stepped into his. The temptation to believe that those few minutes could be expanded to a lifetime was powerful indeed.
She shook her head.
He had sat looking at her for a long time before she gave in to a small temptation. She lifted one of his arms from his knee, nestled her cheek against the back of his hand, and turned her head to kiss it. Then she set his arm back over his knee.
“Yes, I know,” he said when she looked into his face again. “You love him, Emmy. And there have been Alice and Thomas in my life. Our fondness for each other will not overcome those barriers. Have it your way then.”
She smiled at him.
“But Emmy,” he said, and he was signing again, “if there is a child—and there may be a child—you must marry me. You must. Do you understand? ’Twould not be just you and me then. There would be someone else, more important than you or me. Children are so very fragile, and so very innocent. Protecting them must always come before any other consideration. Promise me?”
She could see in his face the rawness of memory. The knowledge that there had been one child—his own son—whom he had been unable to protect. His hands made a baby seem a tender, precious being.
She nodded. “Yass,” she said.
“Thank you.” He reached across and took both her hands in his. He raised them one at a time to his lips. “If you do not catch a chill, Emmy, in that soaked dress, there is no justice in this world. Come back to the house with me.”
“Yass,” she said, getting to her feet and grimacing as her dress clung wetly to her. She walked beside him, glad that he did not offer his arm. When they reached the lawn, she smiled at him, gathered her wet skirts about her, and ran off alone in the direction of the side door.
•••
Amaid answered the bell she had rung, and she signaled to the girl that she wanted hot water. When the maid returned, she carried a large jug of steaming water and a message.
“His grace wishes to see you in the study at your earliest convenience, my lady,” she said, bobbing a curtsy.
Emily felt a fluttering in her stomach. Of all of them, Luke was the one she most dreaded having to face. Not that he had ever been harsh with her. He had never chastised her—or any of his own children. But then Luke never needed to use either harsh words or violence in order to impose his will on his household. His very presence was enough. His eyes were worse. The study! It was a formal summons, then. And her “earliest convenience” meant now, or sooner than now.
She washed quickly, pulled on a clean, dry gown over small hoops, dressed her hair in a hasty knot, and drew a few steadying breaths.
