Ashley laughed.
“She means a great deal to you,” his friend said quietly.
“Yes.” Ashley was picturing her playing thus with her own children. His. Theirs. It was a thought that warmed him and troubled him.
“You are ready to live again, Ash. I can see it,” the major said. “Did you learn any answers from your morning visits? Did you discover what happened yesterday?”
“No,” Ashley said. “No to your second question. Yes to the first. There were some facts I needed to know. Some things from the past. Some things I needed to know if I am ever to let go of the past and move on into the future. Now I know. But the fact remains, of course, that somehow they were at home when they were not supposed to be there and that I was not there when I should have been. I might have saved them. That poor innocent baby! But I was busy satisfying my lust in the bed of a married woman.” He laughed harshly.
“There is always forgiveness,” the major said. “Even for the worst offenses, Ash. And there is always redemption. Yours is playing on the grass out there with those two little boys.”
Yes, he had come home looking for redemption, Ashley thought. From Emmy, though he had not known it at the time. But it was too simple an answer. And if he drew redemption from her, what would she gain in return? He had so little to offer beyond material things. He had nothing else to offer except a wounded soul.
“You need to marry her,” his friend said, “and have babies with her. But not here, Ash. You need to leave here, put behind you everything that would remind you of the late Lady Ashley. ’Twould not be fair to the new Lady Ashley to keep her here.”
Ashley drew a deep breath. Perhaps that was part of the problem, he thought. Perhaps he should go. Perhaps there could be happiness for both Emmy and himself if he left here, started somewhere else. And yet... And yet he had the deep inner conviction that this thing could not be run from. And that it should not be run from. What he would be running from was deep inside himself. He must confront it if there was to be a future. If there was to be Emmy.
“Sell Penshurst to me,” Major Cunningham said. “Sell it and go elsewhere and forget it.”
Ashley was so deeply immersed in his thoughts that it took a moment for his friend’s words to register on his consciousness. He turned his head and looked at him rather blankly.
“What?” he said. “You would buy Penshurst, Rod?”
The major looked rather embarrassed. “I like it,” he said. “And I have been giving serious thought to selling out of the army and settling at home. You know I am a gamer. I have amassed a tidy fortune and would as soon buy land with it as lose it all again at the tables. I like Penshurst. And it has occurred to me that I could do myself a favor and do my closest friend a favor at the same time by purchasing it.”
Ashley’s look was still rather blank. Roderick had come to Penshurst as his guest, and after a day he was offering tobuythe place? “But it is not for sale,” he said.
The major shrugged. “I am rather impulsive,” he admitted. “I ought not to have said anything, Ash. Certainly not yet. But I will not change my mind. I am convinced of that. Think about it. And think about her.” He nodded in the direction of the window. “If you change your mind, we will talk business. I will make you a definite offer.”
Ashley laughed. “You are doing this purely out of friendship,” he said. “How extraordinary you are, Rod. You would regret it within a month—selling your commission, settling on an estate you do not know in a part of the country with which you are unfamiliar. And yet I know you would do it in a moment if I said yes. I value your friendship more highly than to say the word. Penshurst is not for sale.”
The major shrugged again. “I am going out riding,” he said. “I want to explore this countryside, which is, as you have said, unfamiliar to me. Would you care to join me?”
“If you will forgive me, no,” Ashley said. “Luke and Anna have taken the other children out.”
“And you would not leave the Lady Emily unguarded,” his friend said. He chuckled. “’Tis commendable in you.” He slapped a friendly hand on Ashley’s shoulder and made for the door.
“Rod,” Ashley said before he reached it. “Thank you.”
He wondered how he would have coped with the tragedy and the guilt if Rod had not been there for him in India. He had always been the best of friends. He had seemed to value Ashley’s friendship, had sought after it and cultivated it. And it seemed to Ashley now that his friend had always given more than he had received, and that he was continuing to do so. There could be no other explanation than friendship for his extraordinary offer to buy Penshurst.
It was a tempting offer.
He could not accept it, though. Not ever. Somehow, he felt, if salvation was to be had, it was to be had here. He could not explain the feeling to himself. He had not even fully realized he felt this way until Roderick had offered him a way out. But it was so, he was sure. And so he was even less sure about Emily.
He turned to the window to watch her with the children. But they were coming toward the house, the boys running on ahead, looking flushed and excited. She was smiling. Ah, Emmy, always sweetly serene. Or almost always. What had happened yesterday to take away the serenity? Was it something that might recur? He would have to be very careful to see that she was properly protected for the remainder of her stay at Penshurst—perhaps forever, if she would listen to what he knew he must again say to her.
•••
Shewas painting. It was not coming easily, but she persevered. It was a different scene from any she had ever tried before. Although she was on the hill and there were numerous trees to paint, she knew she could not paint any of them. Her spirit had always been uplifted by trees, but today the trees were strangely silent. It was the flat farmland below that called to her. But she did not know the message and for a long time her brush did not know how to express it.
But finally she was absorbed. So absorbed that she knew when she finally felt his presence that he had been there for some time. Leaning against a tree, his arms crossed over his chest. Far enough away not to intrude upon her privacy or her creative need to keep her work unobserved. He smiled at her when she turned her head to look at him.
She felt desire deep in her womb, though she knew it was not entirely a physical thing. It was love that put the slight unsteadiness in her legs. A love that had now manifested itself in every way. She had decided after leaving the boys in the nursery to play at highwaymen and heroes that she would no longer fight to keep her love suppressed. Not for what remained of her two weeks at least. She would accept this time as a gift. It had been a freeing decision.
“Hello, Emmy,” he said. He strolled a little closer. “May I see?” He was signing as well as speaking the words.
“No,” she told him aloud, looking briefly at her painting. And then, very daringly, “Naht yet.”
