“Egad,”Theodore, Lord Quinn, Luke’s maternal uncle, said to Lady Sterne, his longtime friend and lover, “but the young gels grow lovelier with every passing year. As do the mature ones. That is a fine new hairdo, I warrant you, Marj, m’dear. Takes ten years off your age.”
“Mercy on me,” she said, “but that would make me more than ten years too young for you, Theo.”
He threw back his head and laughed heartily before speaking again. “So will she have him?” he asked.
The two of them were sitting rather than dancing the opening set, which they had agreed was somewhat too lively for their aging bones. They looked across the ballroom to where Lord Powell was seated on a sofa beside Emily, talking to her despite the loudness of the music and conversation.
“Do they not look splendid together?” she asked. “And her affliction really does not signify, Theo. The dear man likes to talk, and Emily is well able to listen with her eyes. I had no notion that she would dress up so fine, though she has looked well for the past number of days, I declare.”
“Zounds,” Lord Quinn said, “but it would be hard, Marj, to be tied to a woman who could not answer one back. One hopes that is not her chief attraction to the man. One has the notion that there is more to little Emily than receptive silence. But how is one to know what she is saying with those big eyes of hers?”
“My dear Anna has always worried about her,” Lady Sterne said, her eyes softening on the sight of her goddaughter dancing opposite her duke, her face smiling and animated. “She has always taken the full burden of her family on her own shoulders even though Royce is the head of the family. ’Twill be good for her to know that the last of her sisters is well settled. Anna can be finally and fully happy.”
Lord Quinn patted her hand, though he did not leave his own on hers. They were ever discreet in public. “And so can you, Marj,” he said. “Anna is like the daughter you never had. You love her to distraction. I might almost feel jealous.”
“But you do not.” She turned her head to smile at him.
“But I do not,” he agreed. “I am fond of the gel m’self, Marj, and of Luke too. He has always been my favorite nephy, though one is not supposed to have favorites.”
“Ah, look at them,” she said, returning her attention to Emily and Lord Powell across the room. “As I live, Theo, she is smiling at him and he is dazzled enough to move back six inches. ’Tis just like my Anna’s smile, I vow. If only they can be one half as happy as Anna and Harndon.”
Lord Quinn patted her hand again. “Leave love to take its course,” he said. “By suppertime he will have got up the courage to speak and she will have given him her answer with those eyes of hers and the announcement will have been made. Then our dear Anna will be happy, and you too. And hark ye, Marj, m’dear: ’Tis your happiness that concerns me more than all else.”
She smiled at him once more.
2
EMILYsat beside Lord Powell on the sofa and longed to dance. But no one had ever asked her to join a set, and she supposed that no one ever would. People had a strange notion of deafness. They assumed that because one could not hear, one could not really see either. More important, they did not seem to notice for themselves how much of sound came in vibrations that could be felt. Sound was not just a thing of the ears. It affected the whole body.
She could feel the rhythm of the dance. And she knew every step of every dance. She had watched with attentive longing for many years.
Lord Powell was telling her about his mother and about his younger brothers and sisters—a sure sign, she supposed, that he was moving closer to a declaration. There was a whole brood of them—his own word. Three of his six sisters were married, as was one of his three brothers. He had two nieces and a nephew already. He considered family, commitment to one’s home and one’s domestic duties, important. He had noticed how well Lady Emily was loved by her own nephews and nieces and how she loved to play with them. Children, he had observed, never needed words when they were able to see affection at work. And children almost never returned love that expressed itself only in words.
It was a compliment to the way she handled her deafness, Emily supposed. She smiled. Indeed, she had not stopped smiling since leaving Anna’s dressing room.
There was a great deal to smile about, though she felt the strain of having to watch a man’s lips when she longed to gaze about her, and even so missed many of the details about his family that he tried to share.
His eyebrows were dark and thick. A little too heavy for perfection of looks, perhaps, but they were the only small defect to an otherwise handsome appearance. His nose was well shaped if a little prominent. His eyes were dark and compelling. His hair, she supposed, was dark. She had not seen him without his carefully powdered wig, but thought his own hair must be short beneath. His teeth were good and only a little crooked—and not unattractively so.
She had noticed several of the other young ladies present gazing at him admiringly and glancing at her in envy. He was a handsome man, moderately tall and well formed. He dressed elegantly. Tonight he wore dark brown and gold.
“I am engaged for the second set with her grace,” he said, leaning toward her slightly as if to be heard above the noise that Emily could not hear, “and for the third with Lady Severidge. I have not engaged the supper dance with anyone, Lady Emily. Will you sit with me for that half hour? Perhaps after we have eaten, you will allow me to send a maid for your cloak and step out onto the terrace with me?”
Emily opened her fan. The room suddenly felt suffocatingly hot. She kept her eyes on Lord Powell’s lips. They were rather full lips, well shaped. He had spoken slowly and precisely, she guessed, so that she would know the final request was important to him.
“I observed earlier,” he said, almost as if he felt his invitation needed explanation, “that it is a fine spring evening.”
She nodded and smiled.
“Perhaps,” he said, “you will allow me to speak on a matter of some importance? When we are on the terrace, that is.”
She held her smile and nodded again.
“Splendid,” he said, and looked enormously relieved as he rushed on with an account of his youngest sister’s tyranny over her governess in the schoolroom. Emily could not understand most of what he said. She longed suddenly and illogically to be alone. Anywhere—alone. “I believe she would like you, Lady Emily. I believe you will—wouldlike her.”
She likedhim,Emily decided. Not just because she had determined to like him, but because he was a pleasant and earnest young man. She just wished he did not talk so much. Was silence so unnatural to those who could hear that they felt obliged to fill it without ceasing? But how could she dislike any man who loved his mother and his brothers and sisters? And who was willing to accept a wife who was handicapped—though she did wonder why. She wished she could ask him exactly why he wished to marry her. Did he think her beautiful? Did he like the fact that she was Victor’s sister, Luke’s sister-in-law? Did the mystery of her character intrigue him?
She looked down briefly at his hands. They were blunt-fingered, capable-looking hands. She imagined them touching her, touching her body—beneath her clothes. She imagined his mouth against hers, his body. Imagination forsook her after that. She was not really quite sure...
