by Mary Balogh
Luke had been both brother and father to her for eight years. She loved him dearly and trusted him utterly. She swallowed. And remembered that Major Cunningham was Ashley’s friend. And that perhaps that sort of behavior was not considered so very reprehensible among gentlemen. But it would be seen as reprehensible if they knew the major had treated her so. They would have to do something about it, both Luke and Ashley. There would be dreadful unpleasantness. Ashley had looked so very happy to see his friend again.
She shook her head and then shrugged and smiled. It was nothing, the gestures told Luke.
Luke’s cool gray eyes could be the most fearsome things. They probed hers for a long while.
“I will bring you to Anna,” he said at last. “’Tis time for us to take the children outside. You will come with us, my dear, where you will feel safe. And where you will be safe. I will not allow any harm to come to you.”
She smiled at him as he patted her hand and looked deeply into her eyes again. She was safe now, she thought. And would be safe even though he was to be a guest here for the next week. She would be safe now that he knew who she was.
She did not feel safe. The normally comfortable silence was full of unknown terrors.
20
HE felt for the rest of the day that he had failed her in some way. She had needed his help—quite badly needed it, to have come hurtling into the library and hurling herself against him as she had when, even without the presence of Luke and Roderick in the room, there had been a footman coming up behind her and standing gawking in the open doorway, until he had withdrawn hastily at Ashley’s pointed look and closed the door behind him.
She had come for his help and he had been unable to answer her need because he had been entertaining. He had solved the problem by sending her away with Luke in order to find Anna—though he had not doubted that Luke would try to handle the situation himself. He had failed—she had been unwilling to confide in either him or Anna, Luke had told him later. She had pretended that all was well.
And she had told him the same thing when he had drawn her aside briefly after their midday meal. She had told him with shrugs and sunny smiles and blank eyes that all was well, that nothing had really been wrong in the first place. And she had run upstairs for her straw hat so that she might accompany Anna on return visits to ladies who had called during the past few days.
She had been smiling and serene when she returned and during dinner, at which they had other guests in addition to Roderick, and for an hour in the drawing room afterward. She retired early, disappearing quietly from the room. Perhaps only he noticed. They had had a silent conversation across the room before she went, using one of their oldest agreed-upon series of hand gestures.
Are you uncomfortable? he had asked, spreading his hands palms down in his lap and shaking them slightly.
Yes. A simple nod.
Do you want me to sit beside you? Hands pointing to his chest and to the seat beside hers.
No. A shake of the head. I am going to leave. Hands pointing to her bosom and to the door behind her.
It had all been very unobtrusive. No one else had known that they conversed.
Go, then. A smile and a hand wafted toward the door.
Thank you. Fingers touching her lips.
He had watched, troubled, as she left. The serenity she had displayed all evening had been a thing of the surface, rather as her gaiety had been in London. She had shut herself off behind the calm, smiling eyes.
He had failed her, he thought, frowning at the closed door. He should have left Luke to entertain Rod this morning and taken Emmy aside himself. He could not but remember that she had had eyes for no one but him when she had come running into the room, that it was to him she had come, burrowing against him for safety and protection.
And he had a niggling suspicion that he knew what might have happened. Or if not that, at least who it was who had upset her. The imagination could only boggle over the exact nature of the encounter if she had been that frightened by it.
He and Luke had ridden through the village and beyond it. When they were returning, there had been a horse tethered to the fence of Ned Binchley’s cottage. And the owner of the horse had been stepping out through the door as they drew abreast of the gate. Verney. Ashley had not known of his return from London. They had nodded stiffly to each other and exchanged pleasantries. Luke had conversed more easily, both with Verney and with Katherine Smith, who came out of the house behind him. Eric had darted out ahead of them.
“I am to go with Uncle Henry,” he had announced. “I am going to see the horses and the puppies. And Aunt Barbara and Lady Verney,” he had added as an afterthought.
Sir Henry had mounted his horse and lifted Eric up in front of him, and they had all gone their separate ways.
Ashley could not push from his mind the thought that somehow Verney and Emmy had met this morning, and something had happened. He had no evidence, no proof. But he did have a strong prejudice against the man and a conviction that he fancied Emmy. And the knowledge too that he had seduced and irreparably hurt Alice.
He slipped from the room soon after Emily had left it. She was nowhere to be found in any of the rooms where she might have taken refuge for a short while. He climbed the staircase and stood outside the door of her room for a few moments before lifting a hand and knocking. He knew it was a foolish thing to do, of course, when she would not hear him. But perhaps there was a maid in there with her. There was no sign of a light beneath the door, though. After a short while he turned the handle and opened the door gingerly. The room was dark and empty, as he had expected it to be.
She had gone outside, then. It was perhaps a strange thing to do when something—or someone—had undoubtedly frightened her just this morning. And already it was dusk outside. But Ashley knew that Emmy did not always behave as other women did. She drew nourishment and peace from the outdoors. It was quite conceivable that she would have gone out there. Up onto the hill, at a guess. To the summerhouse.
He wondered if she would resent his following her there. Perhaps not. She had come to him for comfort this morning. Granted, she had fought against his concern all day, but probably only because it had been more or less publicly offered each time. Perhaps in the quietness of the summerhouse she would be thankful to lean on him for a while. Besides, he did not like to think of her there alone. Verney would have to have brought Eric Smith back home sometime . . .
He took candles and a tinderbox with him. He had not thought to take any there before. The sky was clear and would in all probability be lit with stars and moon when full night came on. But even so, he reasoned, the inability to see was undoubtedly disturbing to someone who could also not hear.
It was not quite the thing to abandon his guests, he thought, even though he had had a quick word with Luke. But Luke and Anna were quite capable of being substitute hosts, and Rod’s easy charm had made the gathering a very merry one.
Ashley had gone to India as a very young man, eager to enjoy his work, eager to like the people with whom he would associate there. He had made numerous friends, but none had been as close or as loyal as Roderick Cunningham. He had gone out of his way, it had seemed, after his arrival with his regiment in India, to be presented to Lord and Lady Ashley Kendrick and to establish a close friendship with Ashley. The friendship had never really extended to Alice. She had disliked him.
Roderick was perhaps the only one of Ashley’s friends who had known about his marital problems. Not that Ashley had ever talked of them and not that Rod had ever openly intruded. But there had been quiet sympathy and support. He had excused her when she had deserted Ashley at a ball and gone home alone one night—an embarrassing situation, as she had intended. Rod had reminded him that life had been hard on her, with the still recent deaths of her brother and father. And after Thomas’s birth, he had commented good-naturedly on the fact that heredity often skip
ped a generation or two before reasserting itself. Somewhere in Ashley’s ancestry or in Lady Ashley’s, he had said with a laugh, there was a redhead. Alice had been even darker in coloring than he, Ashley, was. Yet Thomas had been undoubtedly red haired.
It was Roderick who had first told him that Mrs. Roehampton fancied him and meant to have him. They had laughed over that fact and over Rod’s jealousy—he fancied the woman himself, he said, but she would talk about nothing but his friend. And they had laughed over the numerous provocative, suggestive, erotic messages she sent via Rod. Messages that, unknown to his amused friend, had begun to have their effect on a celibate Ashley. Until he had maneuvered a meeting with the lady at a party.
She had looked him almost defiantly in the eye when they had come face-to-face. “Yes,” she had said.
“Yes?” He had looked back at her in some surprise.
“I can bear it no longer,” she had said. “You have won, my lord. Yes.”
They had made an assignation to meet the following evening—the evening and night that would forever be etched on Ashley’s memory. It had been a night of lust and pleasure and guilt—on both sides, it had seemed. The lady had seemed almost bitter.
“Persistence does sometimes win the prize, you see,” she had said to him at one point. “Your words are as seductive as your body, my lord.”
He had been too caught up in the pleasure and the guilt to question her words.
Rod had known they were together. But he had not uttered a word of censure, even after the disaster. He was the one to come for Ashley, who had had to get out of the woman’s bed to hear the news. He had been a pillar of calmness and strength and efficiency. He had made all the arrangements. He had spoken all the possible consolations. He had provided the alibi—Ashley had been with him all night; they had sat talking and drinking, since Lady Ashley had expressed the intention of staying the night with her friend and had taken her son with her. And finally he had been simply a friend.
“Go home to England, then, Ash,” he had said. “Go to Penshurst. Punish yourself for a while. But not forever. ’Twas an accident. A tragic accident. Eventually you will accept that and forgive yourself. Move away then. Sell the place. Marry again and have a family. Live again.”
And now, soon after his return to England, he had come visiting. It was good to see him again. To know that he was a true friend, that he cared.
Ashley stopped when he came in sight of the summerhouse. The dusk was deep now, almost darkness. But the door was open. She was sitting quietly on the sofa, he saw when he came closer.
• • •
It was strange how the mind and the emotions could be so much at variance, she thought. All day her mind had told her that she was perfectly safe—Ashley and Luke, and Anna too, had kept a close eye on her; in fact, she had found it something of a strain to smile and relax and appear perfectly normal for their sakes. And all day her mind had told her that she had met Major Cunningham under unfortunate circumstances, ones that had shown him in the worst possible light. All day he had been friendly and charming. He had seemed a worthy friend of Ashley’s. Luke and Anna obviously liked him. The neighbors who had come for dinner were clearly delighted with him.
And yet her mind could not persuade the rest of her to put the morning’s incident behind her, to forget about it, to feel convinced that it could not happen again. All day her imagination had reenacted the scene—as it had been, as it might have been. As it might have been . . . Terror had lurked all day only just behind the calm, cheerful facade she had assumed so that she would not be confronted again with questions.
And all day she had debated with herself the desirability of confiding in someone—not Ashley, perhaps, but Anna. Or Luke. Perhaps they could help her decide if what had happened was something Ashley should know about, or if the telling would merely damage a friendship unnecessarily. It horrified her to think that such behavior might be commonplace among gentlemen. But she could not tell Anna. Her sister would be dreadfully upset—and she had upset Anna more than enough not much longer than a month ago. And she could not tell Luke. He might do something as drastic as challenging the major to a duel. Luke had once had the reputation of being a deadly swordsman, but Major Cunningham was an army officer. Fighting was his job.
All day she had kept her secret and hidden her irrational fears. But by the evening they were threatening to show themselves again. It was ridiculous really, she told herself. She was surrounded by people. There were guests in the house, and even when they left there would be Ashley and Luke and Anna—and him. But as the light began to fade beyond the drawing room windows, she could think of only one thing. There was no lock on the door of her bedchamber. And her mind seemed quite powerless to tell her quite sensibly that he would not try to press his attentions on her any longer now that he knew who she was and now that he was beneath Ashley’s roof.
She had to get out, she knew. Outside where she would be safe. It was another irrational notion. The opposite was surely true. But she could not control the urge without giving in to panic and becoming hysterical in front of her family and Ashley’s guests. And so against all reason she slipped from the drawing room after making her silent excuses to Ashley and up the stairs to her room, where she changed into a plainer gown, removing her stays and her padded petticoat as she did so, and brushed out her hair. She drew a warm cloak about her even though she guessed the night would be warm, and slipped down the servants’ stairs and out through a side door.
She would go to the summerhouse, she decided. She could calm herself there, find peace there. Perhaps she would stay there all night so that she would not have to face the terror of that unlocked door. She felt no fear of the lonely hillside or of the fast-approaching darkness, even though she realized as she climbed that she had not thought to bring a candle with her.
The summerhouse was very warm; the heat of the day was still trapped inside. She left the door open and draped her cloak over the back of an upright chair. And she sat on the sofa and gazed out on the darkening scene beyond the window. After a few minutes she felt herself begin to relax. It was the first time she had relaxed since early in the morning when she had been sitting on the stile, wishing she had brought her paints with her.
Tomorrow, she thought, she would paint.
And then she felt the presence of someone else. Strangely, she felt no alarm. She turned her head and smiled. He was saying something, but the light was too dim for her to see. It did not matter. She did not want to talk. She did not want him asking her questions, discovering the answers in her eyes. She reached out one hand to him.
He sat beside her and held her hand. She could not have asked for more, she thought, than to be sitting here with him like this, quietly, peacefully, as they had done . . . was it just yesterday? Today seemed to have been a week long, a month long.
But the feeling did not last. Perhaps it had not been such a good thing for him to have come after all, she thought. Now that he was here, now that she was not alone to fight her own fears, she felt the return of terror, of the panic that had sent her hurrying through the library door and into his arms this morning. She leaned sideways so that her shoulder leaned against his arm. She rested her cheek against his shoulder.
He must have read the language of her body, she thought, as he could always read the language of her eyes and hands. He turned to her, transferring her hand from his right to his left, setting his right arm firmly about her shoulders, dipping his head close to hers. He was speaking again. She could not see what he said. She did not want to know. He had set two candles and a tinderbox on a small table as he came inside. She knew as soon as he moved that he was going to reach for them. But she grabbed his arm.
“No,” she said. “No, Ahshley.”
She did not want to talk. She wanted to hide, to be held close. She wanted to be a part of him, part of his strength. She did not want him to see her eyes. S
he closed them. She put an arm around his neck, urging him closer, and sought blindly for his mouth with her own.
His arm was firmly about her. His body was warm. His mouth was comforting, gentle. It was not enough. She parted her lips and touched his with her tongue. He drew his head sharply back and said something and got to his feet, drawing her up with him. She fit more comfortingly against him when they were standing. She linked both arms about his neck and leaned her whole weight into him. She could feel the barrier of his splendid satin evening coat and the heavily embroidered waistcoat beneath, and of his shirt and breeches. His arms were about her waist, his cheek against hers.
She realized she was sobbing only when he lifted his head and feathered soft kisses on her mouth. She could feel that he was talking or whispering to her. She pressed her mouth hard against his. Safety was close. So very close. A door had opened. All she had to do was step inside. But there was still the chance that the door would slam in her face or that danger would snatch her away from behind.
He held her with an arm while he caught up the folded blanket from one end of the sofa with his other arm and spread it on the floor. He tossed cushions at the end of it, then took her down with him until they were lying on the blanket, face-to-face. He held her close. She could feel the vibrations in his chest that told her he was still speaking.
He held her very close to him for a long time while she clung tautly, her eyes tightly shut. Then he turned her onto her back, sliding her almost beneath him as he leaned reassuringly over her. She could scarcely see his face in the darkness, but his hair was back, the length hidden inside the black silk bag, a ribbon bow holding it closed behind his neck. She pulled on the ribbon and freed his hair, so that it spilled about her face. He was lifting her skirt, removing undergarments, opening the front of his breeches.
