“Beautiful!” she said. Emily could tell from the look on her sister’s face that the word had been spoken with fervor.
The gates into the park were just ahead. But the carriage slowed and then stopped before reaching them. There was a cottage beside the road with a small but lovingly kept garden. A young woman was doing something with the rosebushes at one side of the house. She straightened and looked toward the carriage, though she did not smile or make any sign of greeting. But there were two other people on the path in front of the house, an older man and a young boy, who was standing on the lower rung of the wooden gate. Ashley was talking to them, presenting Luke and turning to the carriage. Emily drew down the window.
They were Mr. Edward Binchley and his grandson, Eric Smith. The woman was Mrs. Katherine Smith, Eric’s mother. Eric, Emily estimated, was about four years old, a handsome child with dark hair and blue eyes. He was not unlike George, with whom he was exchanging interested glances. They might easily have been brothers.
“Mr. Binchley was the steward at Penshurst before his retirement,” Ashley was saying. “He is a store of useful information on the estate and neighborhood, as I have already discovered over several mugs of ale here.”
Emily looked at Mrs. Smith, who had made no move to come closer. She stood still and watched. She was very young—not much older than herself, Emily thought, and very lovely. She must be a widow if she and her son were living with her father, Emily reasoned, then found the woman’s eyes on her. She smiled warmly and for the first time Katherine Smith smiled—briefly.
They drove on.
The house was indeed rather new, Emily saw as they drove past the stable block and drew up before the broad steps leading to the huge double doors at the front of the house. It sparkled almost white in the sunshine. Whoever had built it had liked wide-open vistas. The view to the front stretched for miles over the park and the river and the road and distant farmland.
Luke lifted a drowsy and grumbling James from the carriage, and Ashley helped Anna descend with Harry. He grinned down at the baby, who was oblivious to everything about him. And then he turned back to Emily.
She set her foot on the top step, her hand in his, but he did not wait for her to climb down. He released her hand, set his hands at her waist, and lifted her to the ground, bringing her close to his body as he did so. Luke and Anna, preoccupied by their children, were not looking.
His eyes were smiling. Although the suffering was still there, far back in his eyes, Emily could see that for the moment he was enjoying himself. “Welcome to Penshurst, Emmy,” he said. “And welcome back to the countryside, where you belong, little fawn.”
Her hands had come to rest on his shoulders. Her body was arched inward, almost touching his. For those few moments she felt utterly happy. She felt foolishly as if she were coming home.
•••
“SirAlexander Kersey must have been a man of considerable good taste,” Luke said. “In design, the house and park are exquisite, Ash.”
Ashley had seen the dubious glances Luke had cast at the frills and pastel shades that dominated several of the rooms in the house. But the library, at least, was an entirely handsome room. They sank down onto leather chairs at either side of the unlit fireplace, Ashley with a brandy, Luke with his customary glass of water. Luke had just returned from the nursery, where he had as usual read a bedtime story to his children, helped Anna tuck them into their beds, and listened to them say their prayers. Anna was still giving Harry his night feed. Emily had withdrawn after dinner in order to spend a quiet evening in her own room.
“The sad part is,” Ashley said, “that he built it all for his descendants.”
“There will be some,” Luke said quietly. “Not direct descendants, perhaps, but in spirit. From your letters I gathered that you were fond of him and he of you. He approved of you as a son-in-law?”
Ashley nodded and stared moodily into his glass.
“Give it time,” Luke said. “Be patient with yourself. And at the end of the day forgive yourself.”
Ashley half smiled.
“’Tis none of my business,” Luke said, “and you may consign me to the devil if you wish, Ash. But why did you invite Emily here? I got the distinct impression that we were invited here because you wanted to invite her—not the other way around, as you have explained it to numerous people. Why do you want her here?”
Ashley turned the glass in his hands and still half smiled. “She is mine,” he said. “I cannot see other men pay court to her without wanting to break all their noses and smash all their teeth. She is mine.”
“By right of ownership?” Luke asked, eyebrows raised. “Or for more tender considerations, Ash?”
Ashley did not answer for a long while. “You did say I might consign you to the devil,” he said at last.
“Quite so,” Luke said, sounding infinitely bored. “Tell me some of your plans for Penshurst, Ash. Knowing you as I do, I will not believe that you intend to allow it to be run by your steward, no matter how capable a man he might be.”
18
ASHLEYstood at his window looking out across the park and the river. There was a farmer’s cart moving at a leisurely pace along the distant road. The birds beyond his window, hidden among the leaves of the trees, were in full chorus.
He felt almost relaxed this early-morning hour. He felt almost that he liked—or even loved—his new home. Just a few rooms away, Luke and Anna were sleeping. Their four children were asleep in the nursery, watched over by their nurse. Emmy was in the house.
He had gone into Alice’s rooms again the night before and had stood in her sitting room for a long while, not touching anything, feeling her presence, smelling that faintest suggestion of her perfume. He had almost made up his mind to give the order to have everything of hers cleared out, given away, or burned.Forgive yourself,Luke had said—just as Roderick Cunningham had said it before he left India. But Luke did not know the whole of it. He did not know that his brother had hated his wife—hated and pitied her—and had a dozen times wished her dead. And Luke did not know that on that fatal night he had not been at a business meeting but in another woman’s bed. Or that mingled with his terrible grief over the loss of the child he had loved had been a guilty relief at knowing that he no longer had as his heir another man’s child. He even knew the man’s identity—a handsome, red-haired army captain who had left India long before his son was born.
This morning Ashley had still not made a final decision about those rooms, but this morning he felt that perhaps after all it was possible to live again.Isee now that I have not understood the true nature of your concern for the lady,Sir Henry Verney had said to him almost a week before, and the words had repeated themselves in his mind over and over since then. And since then he had accepted the undeniable fact that Emmy was a woman. She was a girl no longer. She was a woman.
He smiled suddenly and leaned forward, his hands on the windowsill, bracing himself. He might have guessed it. In fact, he felt that he had been almost expecting it, waiting for it. She had emerged from the house and was hurrying off in the direction of the river. The sun was scarcely risen. He doubted that many of the servants were even up yet. The only disappointing detail about her appearance was the fact that she was dressed as if for the park in London. She was even wearing a hat, prettily tilted forward over her lacy cap.
