Luke pursed his lips and looked amused.
“Aunt Marjorie,” Anna said. “Oh, Aunt Marjorie, you are adear.”
“Impossible, madam,” the Reverend Hornsby said. “I would remind you that Emily is a fall—”
“Complete that thought, lad,” Lord Quinn said in perfectly agreeable tones, “and you will be licking up the blood from your nose.”
“Theodore!” The dowager glared coldly at her brother.
“Might I suggest the weather as a topic of conversation?” Lady Sterne said, getting to her feet and gesturing with both hands to indicate that she did not expect the gentlemen to scramble to theirs. “’Tis dull but invariably safe. I shall go and search for Emily. Faith, but the coming spring begins to looks brighter to me already. If I can but persuade her.”
Luke patted his wife’s hand.
“The clouds are low and heavy, egad,” Lord Quinn said. “But they are white rather than black. Or perhaps gray, to be strictly accurate. Will it rain, d’ye think? Hornsby?”
•••
LadySterne watched from the lowest terrace of the formal gardens as Emily trudged, head down, up the sloping lawn from the bridge. She was not wearing stays beneath her gown this morning, but even without she had a trim and pleasing figure. Her hoops were small, but then large hoops were falling out of fashion. She was not wearing a hat, and her lace cap had slipped so far to the back of her head that it was hardly visible from the front. There was, of course, all that glorious hair, which might have been described as either golden or blond without too much stretching of the truth.
And then, of course, there were her eyes, by far her best feature. Men would fall in love with her eyes alone, Lady Sterne mused, even if the surrounding package were but moderately pleasing. And Emily was more than moderately lovely.
She dressed up to look quite superb. The older lady recalled how she had looked for the ball just three nights ago.
Lud, but she would do very nicely indeed, Lady Sterne thought, feeling her spirits lifting by the minute. She had begun on occasion to catch herself feeling old. At the grand age of fifty. That was what had done it, of course. Fifty sounded a whole decade older than nine-and-forty. She needed something to keep her young. There was Theo, of course, but he felt more like a dear old habit than a force of rejuvenation.
If she could but take Emily to London with her. If she could but be given the challenge of bringing the girl into fashion despite her affliction. No,becauseof it. Much could be made of the novelty of a beauty who could neither hear nor speak—except with those eyes.
As for virgin brides... Pshaw! Lady Sterne thought. If truth were told, any man would be thankful to avoid blood and skittishness on his wedding night.
Emily had seen her, had realized that it was too late to take a different course and avoid the encounter, and came onward, smiling. Lady Sterne came face-to-face with her across the low hedge that separated the terrace from the lawn.
“’Tis like this, Emily, my love,” she said slowly and distinctly. “They would divide you up like a bone if they could and take you in a dozen different directions. Each for your own good, of course. Lud, men and their ideas of what is for a woman’s own good! ’Tis time more women stood up to them as you did yesterday to Lord Ashley and demanded to decide for themselves what was in their own best interest.” She forced herself to slow down again when she saw the slight frown on the girl’s face. “Become a bone if ’tis your wish, child. Or take your life in your own hands and bring it to London with me. We will enjoy the Season together. We will have every man in the kingdom groveling at your feet. What do you say?”
Emily looked gravely at her for such a long time that Lady Sterne felt her dream fading. The girl had not understood. And how could she possibly function in London, where all was noise and conversation and music and dancing? It was madness to have imagined... But then Emily smiled, first with her eyes and then with the rest of her face. She began to laugh in her strange, rather ungainly way, tipping back her head and looking more vividly lovely to Lady Sterne than she had ever appeared before. There were wildness and recklessness and animation and sheer beauty in her face. She was a true original. Yes, that would be the secret of her success. She was an original.
Every man in the kingdom? Lady Sterne thought. Nay, but it was no exaggeration.
She joined in Emily’s laughter. It was madness. But madness felt good. It felt... youthful.
•••
Penshurstwas situated in a pleasant valley, rounded and wooded hills behind, the park with its sloping lawns and copses in front. A wide river flowed to the east of the house. On the opposite bank was the village, clustered about a church with a tall spire. The house was squarely classical, set between a smaller matching stable block to one side and an office block to the other. It all looked still new and rather splendid.
Ashley drew his horse to a halt on the road, which afforded a wide view across the park to the house and the village and the hills—his carriage with his valet and his baggage were coming behind him. It was all very beautiful and very peaceful. He felt sad for Sir Alexander Kersey, who had purchased the land, pulled down the old house, and built this one. He had built it with the fortune he had made with the East India Company. He had intended to retire here, set up his dynasty here. But the dynasty had ended very soon after him. His son had died before him, Alice soon after, and Thomas with her. So already Penshurst had passed into new hands—his.
And he did not want it. Grand and lovely as it was, much as he had always wanted to settle on an estate of his own here in England, it had come to him in the wrong way and too late. Throughout his voyage home and in the days since, he had several times thought of selling it, going somewhere else, starting fresh. If Emmy had married him, perhaps he would have done so. He would not have wanted to bring her here.
Emmy. He felt a sinking of the heart whenever he thought of her—and she was constantly in the back of his thoughts, no matter how much he tried to concentrate his mind on the challenge ahead of him. He had ruined her life; he did not believe he was overdramatizing, especially since there was still the chance that he had got her with child.
But he could not think of that now. He nudged at his horse and continued on his way. Each time he had thought of it, he had realized that he could not sell Penshurst. Not yet, anyway. He had to go there, see the place where she had lived, where she had grown up. For her sake and her father’s he had to see that the estate was well run. He felt somehow tied to it, like a millstone about his neck.
He remembered something his friend Major Roderick Cunningham had said to him in India when he had announced his intention of resigning from his post and returning to England. Roderick had advised him to come back, to marry and have children, to put the past behind him. But finally he had set a hand on his friend’s shoulder and squeezed hard.
“But you will not, Ash,” he had said. “You will go to Penshurst and you will find her there and punish yourself with memories. You will make it the best-run estate in England as a kind of penance and you will be miserable. Well, do it. But not forever. Forgive yourself at last, sell the place, go somewhere else, and get on with the business of living the rest of your life.”
Rod had been right—at least on everything except that last point. Ashley did not know how he would ever be able to forgive himself. But self-pity would serve no purpose. Look where self-pity had got him in Bowden. He winced at the memory of how Emmy had found him just when his spirits had been at their very lowest ebb, when he had touched the very bottom of despair.
He had grasped for peace and had shattered it.
