How could she fight her fear? How could she overcome whatever it was that was causing it? It was that last point that had finally sent her in search of solitude. She needed to think. Or rather, she needed to analyze the strange, confused conviction that had come to her since talking with Ashley: Major Cunningham was the cause of her fear—allof it.
He was the original cause, of course. He had tried to ravish her when he had mistaken her for a servant. But it was not just that. He had shot at her. He had come into her room last night. He had brought the portraits and taken her dressing gown. She still had only very vague memories of the night, but she was almost sure she had woken up to see the shape of the portraits on her bedside table. And she was almost sure she had looked for her dressing gown before fleeing to Ashley and forgetting everything else in the sense of safety she had found as soon as his arms came about her. Major Cunningham had a previous acquaintance with Mrs. Smith—one that both of them wished kept secret.
She had proof of nothing. She understood nothing. But sheknew.She had nothing to take to Ashley. He would either not believe her at all or he would become suspicious of his friend without provable grounds. She could tell him about that first morning, of course. That was grounds enough to send the major away and to keep Penshurst. She could tell Ashley, or she could—
She felt the familiar hammering of her heartbeat in her throat, the familiar terror. Gazing from her window, she could see Major Cunningham walking about down by the stables and carriage house. He was organizing transportation for the picnic.
It would be madness to go down there. He hadshotat her. She would be unable to confront him with words. She was shaking with fear. She could accomplish nothing—because she was a woman and a deaf-mute. No, she wasnotmute. And though she was a woman, she was also a person who had always confronted the shadowy places in her life and brought them into the light. Her handicap could have made her passive and submissive and timid and dependent. She had made it into her strength. Until now.
No, even now.
Major Cunningham was alone in the carriage house when Emily arrived there, running one hand over a wheel of the open carriage. He looked up, startled, smiled, and bowed.
“Lady Emily,” he said. “Are you ready for the picnic?”
But she did not smile. She shook her head. Her heart was thumping.
“You are alone?” he asked, looking behind her. “I am surprised at your sister and his grace for allowing it. Permit me to escort you safely back to them.” There was nothing but kindly concern in his eyes.
Emily shook her head again. “I know,” she said slowly. It was so very important that she get it right.
“By Jove.” He grinned. “You can talk. I did not imagine it that first morning.”
“I know,” she said again, “about you.” She hoped she was saying the words right.
“About me?” He touched a hand to his chest and raised his eyebrows.
She had set herself too great a task. She knew that. How she longed for words. But somehow she would convey her meaning. “You.” She formed the shape of a gun with one hand and then pointed to her wounded hand. “You.” There was no sign he would recognize. “Lahst night. You. Mrs. Smith.”
Something happened to his eyes. Perhaps people who had ears did not know how eloquent the eyes were. But she knew from his eyes that she had not made a mistake.
He smiled. “I do assure you, Lady Emily,” he said, “that you are mistaken. I would perhaps be angry if I did not realize that the manner of our meeting put a lasting suspicion in your mind. But—”
She was shaking her head firmly, and he stopped speaking. “No,” she said. “I know. I know you.”
“’Tis to be hoped,” he said, “that you will not go to Ash with these quite groundless suspicions, Lady Emily. Zounds, he might believe you. And he is my dearest friend in this world.”
“Go,” she told him, making broad shooing gestures. Ah, it was too long and too hard to tell him that she would not allow Ashley to sell Penshurst to him. “Go.” She made an even wider gesture with her arm to show that she meant away from Penshurst—forever.
“By Jove,” he said, “you mean to frighten me.”
No,hehad meant to frightenher.She understood that. He could have killed her with that shot—he was a soldier. He might have murdered her in her bed last night. He wanted to frighten her so that Ashley would sell Penshurst to him and take her away.
“Go,” she told him again.
He stood smiling at her. She read a certain reluctant admiration in his look. She lifted her chin and kept it up.
“Are you not afraid now?” he asked her. “Alone with me like this?”
She was about to shake her head. But of course she was afraid. She was almost blind with terror. And she scorned to lie to him. “Yes,” she said. “Go.”
He could kill her now, she realized. There was no one else in sight. If he wanted Penshurst as passionately as she guessed he must, he might very well kill her, knowing she could tell Ashley and spoil everything for him. How foolish she was to have come. And yet she knew even as her knees trembled under her that she had had no choice. Life was more than just breathing and eating and sleeping. Life had to have quality and dignity.
“Ah, but you are merely an hysterical little deaf girl,” he said. “One who walks in her sleep and is obsessed with her lover’s dead wife. One who runs to him for protection every time she is frightened—and she is always frightened. Go back to the house, Lady Emily. Your charges are absurd.” He turned back to examine the wheel again.
She returned to the house, her back prickling with terror the whole way. He was right. Even if she could write everything down quite coherently, she had no modicum of proof for anything. And shehadbecome hysterical. But she would do it anyway. She was not going to let Ashley sell Penshurst. And she was not going to let Luke and Anna take her back to Bowden tomorrow.
She was going to stay and fight. For Ashley and for herself.
