She looked up to find him telling her more about his sister—he had demanded that she apologize to the governess. He seemed to believe that because she could read lips she could understand everything he said. Would he be disappointed when he learned that she did not?
She had often wondered about physical love. Was it something that added a dimension to life? Or was it an intrusion, the ultimate invasion of privacy? By both necessity and inclination she had always been an excessively private person. She knew enough to understand that a husband would come right inside her body.
This man. Lord Powell. She did not yet know his first name, she realized.
On their wedding night she would have to allow him inside herself. Only so could she be a wife. Only so could she have the babies she wanted. Would it be wonderful, magical? Or would it be demeaning?
She knew sometimes during breakfast that Anna and Luke had loved the night before. They would be horrified if they knew that she knew, but she did. Perhaps it was the absence of one of her five senses that had sharpened the others. Certainly it was nothing very obvious. Just something about the softened look in Anna’s eyes, something in the slight droop of Luke’s eyelids. Or perhaps not anything even as overt as that. But whatever it was, it was something that told Emily that what they shared was more wonderful than anything she could yet imagine.
Perhaps she would know soon. Or perhaps she would be disappointed. Would it make all the difference, she wondered, that she did not love him, though she liked and respected him?
But there were other things to imagine. This man would become as familiar to her as her own image in the glass. He would be her companion for the rest of her life. Her friend, perhaps. She would live in his home. It would become hers, and his family would be hers. She would learn to run his household. Would she be able to do it? She had watched Anna run Bowden Abbey. She would have to write things down, she supposed. She would visit his tenants and his neighbors. She would not be able to allow herself to be daunted by the fact that she could not speak to any of them or even understand all that was spoken. Indeed, it was the exhilaration of the challenge that was one of the main inducements to her accepting the offer that was about to be made.
She would become like Anna. She would have a marriage like Anna’s. Or was she deluding herself? Was such a thing possible for her? But she would have a chance at happiness. At last. After so long. And she would be happy. She had learned through hard experience that the will was a powerful thing. She would will herself to be happy, and she would be.
“The set has ended,” Lord Powell was saying, bent slightly toward her again. “More is the pity, I vow. I shall dance each set until the supper dance, Lady Emily, but I shall look in envy at each gentleman who occupies this sofa with you.”
It was the closest he had come to a declaration of ardor, though Emily, sensitive to the language of the body, guessed that he spoke what he thought she expected him to say. She smiled at him.
But something was wrong. The music had stopped, of course. She had felt that even before Lord Powell had mentioned it. There was something else. She felt something almost like panic and looked over her shoulder to the doorway.
A man was standing there. No one else appeared to have noticed him yet. He was wearing a long dark cloak and was only just removing a three-cornered hat even though he must have entered the house downstairs and passed numerous footmen before climbing the two flights of stairs to the ballroom. He was tall and thin. Beneath his dark unpowdered hair, which was neatly curled at the sides and bagged in black silk behind, his face was thin and pale. Pale to the point of being haggard. His expression was dark, morose.
She did not recognize him with her eyes. Only with her heart. Her heart lurched and left pulses beating erratically in her throat and in her temples. It left her breathless and gasping for air. She got to her feet and turned and stood still, watching.
Lord Powell, everyone, everything, no longer existed.
Only Ashley.
Ashley was home.
•••
Ithad been his intention as his carriage approached the house to avoid whatever entertainment was proceeding within—by the number of lights and carriages, it appeared that it must be nothing less than a ball. It had been his intention to have himself shown to a room—his old one, it was to be hoped—and to remain there until the morning. It certainly had not been his intention to make a grand, theatrical entrance.
But Cotes, his brother’s butler, was in the hall when he entered it, apparently giving some instructions to one of the footmen standing there. And Cotes had looked at first stiff with suspicion of the stranger who had arrived apparently ill-dressed for the occasion, then shocked as he recognized the new arrival, and then his usual dignified, impassive self. And Cotes informed him, when he asked, that there was indeed a grand ball in progress and that the occasion was the christening of his grace’s new son, Lord Harry Kendrick.
Ah, a new child. Another son. Ashley bowed his head and closed his eyes and swayed on his feet. One of the footmen had taken a step toward him, arm outstretched, by the time he opened his eyes. He held up a staying hand.
But he was close. So very close. Was he now to go to his room and shut himself inside and postpone everything until the morning?
“They are in the ballroom?” he asked.
“Yes, my lord,” Cotes said. “If your lordship would step into the salon, I shall fetch his grace myself.”
But Ashley turned as if he had not heard and made his way to the archway that led to the grand staircase. He would wait in no salon. He would retire to no bedchamber. Luke was close.
“My lord?” Cotes sounded surprised, even perhaps a trifle alarmed.
It was indeed a grand ball, considering the fact that it was taking place in the country, where most of the guests must have had to travel a long distance. The ballroom seemed filled with light and noise and laughter, with color and movement. Ashley stood in the doorway, unaware of the inappropriateness of his appearance, of his cloak and travel-creased clothes and top boots. He removed his hat, more from instinct than conscious thought. His eyes scanned the throng of people. He was unaware that a few of them were already beginning to look at him curiously. He was looking for only one person.
And then he saw him. A set of dances had just concluded, and he was bowing over the hand of his partner and raising it to his lips. Luke, looking as richly splendid and fashionable and elegant as he had looked on his return from Paris eight years ago. Luke, looking familiar and solid and dependable. Ashley stood very still.
Luke raised his head and looked toward the doorway. And raised his eyebrows in an unconsciously haughty expression characteristic of him. Ashley watched the expression become fixed and frozen on his face. Then Luke took a step toward him, stopped, frowned slightly, and came hurrying across the ballroom. He kept on coming, opening his arms when he was near, then closing them hard, like iron bands, about his brother. Ashley returned the embrace and closed his eyes very tightly.
“Good God!” Luke said after what felt to Ashley like minutes but was probably only seconds. “Dear Lord God. Ash!” His voice sounded dazed, shaken.
“Yes.” Ashley swallowed. He did not want to open his eyes.
