“And if I ever again see you for one hairbreadth of a second take your eye off the sword of your opponent, even in a friendly bout,” Luke said, his voice shaking, “I will personally thrash you within an inch of your life, Ash. With a horsewhip.”
“Yes,” Ashley said.
“I shall see to everything here,” Luke said. “I shall have the nearest magistrate summoned and the body attended to. Go and have that blood stanched, Ash. Anna is stouthearted. Go to her in Emily’s room. I instructed them to wait there. She will not have disobeyed my instructions. Do you need help with your coat?” He was again the cool, practical Duke of Harndon.
“No,” Ashley said. He walked to his discarded clothes and pulled on his coat, heedless of either the pain or the blood. He turned to leave.
“Ash,” Luke called.
Ashley looked back.
Luke said nothing for a moment. He merely nodded his head. “I meant what I said earlier,” he said. “Just in case you are ever in doubt.”
Ashley left the ballroom.
28
THEsky was cloudless. It was going to be a clear blue when the sun rose. It was going to be a warm day. She walked first along by the river, looking across its smooth glassy surface, watching another mother duck—or perhaps the same one—lead her babies in a line down the very center of their highway. Then she walked up the hill, wandering in no particular direction, touching the bark of tree trunks, feeling grass and soil beneath her bare feet, breathing in sweet, cool air.
She stopped at one particular tree and saw that the bullet was still lodged there, just below the level of her eyes. She did not even look over her shoulder. She did not feel afraid any longer. Last night she had slept alone in her room, despite Anna’s pleadings. She had not felt afraid.
Yesterday had been a horrid day. First the threat of having to leave Penshurst and of knowing that Ashley planned to sell it for her sake. Then her foolhardy confrontation with Major Cunningham. Then Luke’s coming to them—to her and Anna—with set face and that look of authority that even Anna dared not defy, and commanding them to go to Emily’s room and to stay there until he or Ashley came for them. And the long wait, during which they had both known that something was dreadfully wrong. Then Ashley’s coming, white-faced, to tell them that all was well, that there was nothing more whatsoever to fear. Then he had stumbled forward, grabbed at a chair, overturned it, and landed on his knees. They had seen the blood.
Major Cunningham was dead. Ashley had killed him. Neither he nor Luke had given any great detail, but they had said that the major had killed Alice and Thomas and that in his determination to own Penshurst he had terrorized Emily, hoping that fear would drive her away and convince Ashley to sell.
She had helped Anna half lift, half drag Ashley to her bed and had helped remove his stained coat and cut away his blood-soaked shirt. But she had cleansed and bound the wound herself while he had watched with half-closed eyes.
She hated to think of the sword fight in which Major Cunningham had died. But she was not afraid any longer. She looked upward and turned about and about. The world was a beautiful, spinning place. Especially the natural world. If one remained a part of it, merely one creature among many, one’s feet firmly resting on earth, great happiness was possible. And peace. She was happy this morning. She felt at peace with the world.
She wanted to watch the sun rise across the river. She wanted to see the colors of dawn reflected in the water. Perhaps one day she would paint the scene. But not today. Today there was too much beauty to behold in nature itself to spoil it by getting out her paints and analyzing the meaning of it all. This morning she was content merely to watch and to feel. Merely to be. She made her way toward the summerhouse.
She was standing in front of it, gazing down the hill and across the fields to the horizon, when she sensed that her morning was going to be complete. She turned her head and smiled. He was wearing his arm in the sling she had fashioned for him yesterday. But he had lost yesterday’s pallor. And his eyes, smiling back at her, were clear of the suffering and the darkness that had lurked there since his return from India. She could see that at last he was at peace with himself.
He came to stand beside her, and set his good arm about her waist. She rested her head against his shoulder and together they watched the sun come clear of the horizon in a blinding burst of glory. She looked up at him and smiled. His eyes reflected the brightness of the sun. Not a word had passed between them. The peace, the silent communion, was perfect.
They had not spoken a great deal yesterday. Both he and Luke had spent a long time with the magistrate who had come to the house to investigate the death. Then they had spent an almost equally long time with Sir Henry Verney, who had also called. And finally Luke had played stern elder brother and implacable head of the family—his own words—and had sent Ashley off to bed early.
But Emily was glad there had been little chance for words. Yesterday had been the wrong time. They had needed this new day. Her heart began to beat faster, and despite herself, despite what deep down she knew to be the truth, she was anxious.
“Emmy,” he said, shrugging his shoulder and turning his head so that she could see his lips—so very close to her own—“’tis a clear, bright, warm morning. It feels like the first morning that ever was. Is this how Adam and Eve felt, do you suppose? Is this Eden?”
She loved the warmth and the merriment in his smile. Everything else was gone. She touched her fingers to his cheek.
“At last I feel that perhaps I have something to offer you,” he said, gazing back at her, his eyes softening to such unmistakable tenderness that she felt her anxiety melting away as if by the warmth of the newly risen sun. “My honor. I will not say that I was guiltless. I have confessed to you that I committed adultery. ’Tis a grievous offense. But there can be pardon for such sins, I do believe. I no longer feel so very responsible for their deaths, and I have avenged them. I feel that I have reclaimed my honor.”
“Yes,” she said. Foolish man—she had loved him anyway. But she knew that he had been unable to forgive himself and that therefore her love would never have been enough for him. They could never have been fully happy.
“My love has always been yours,” he said. “’Tis a strange thing to say, perhaps, when I almost completely forgot you during my years away. But that very fact tells me that unconsciously I had deliberately erased you from memory because my feelings for you disturbed me. You were only fifteen, Emmy. Even after my return I fought my love for you. In my mind those years had not passed—you were still a child. But you have always been a woman, have you not? Even when we first met? When you were fourteen?”
“Yes,” she said.
“Ah, Emmy.” He kissed her warmly, and for a while nothing else mattered except that they were together in sunshine, with no shadows at all to darken or chill. “Emmy, my love. Forgive me for forgetting you. Forgive me for denying your womanhood.”
She set her hands on either side of his face and smiled at him. “Yes,” she said. She was not sure she could say it, but she would try. “I love you.” She knew that he was still unsure of himself, unsure of his worthiness for happiness and peace. “I love you.”
His smile softened and was again untroubled. He set his hand over one of hers—it was her injured one, still rather sore now that she had removed the bandages, but she stopped herself from wincing—and turned his head to kiss her palm.
“Thank you.” He grinned at her. Ashley’s grin, all mischief and sparkling eyes and happiness. “If you wish,” he said, “you may tell me all the ways you love me so that we can make a speech lesson out of this.”
