Lord Powell had both her hands in his, and she gave him her full and determined attention. "I was very annoyed with him for forcing you against your will to dance last evening," he said. "I was almost ready to call him out, but I would not create a scene and embarrass you or my host. If he had succeeded in drawing you into making a spectacle of yourself, though, I believe I would not have been able to contain my anger. But you acquitted yourself well. I was proud of you." He squeezed her hands.

Against her will. He thought she had danced against her will. She knew that she would never ever forget the exhilaration and the sheer wonder of that half hour and that minuet. Her heart already ached with the memory.

"I would have our betrothal announced today if you will," he said.

"Your family is almost all gathered here, and Lord and Lady Severidge are to come from Wycherly later for dinner, I believe?"

Yes, it would be a good time for the announcement. Suddenly she wanted it to be soon. She regretted that she had not allowed it last evening. She wanted her future to be final and irrevocable.

Ashley, she was aware though she did not look in that direction, was standing on the bridge.

"May I speak with Royce?" Lord Powell asked.

Victor would make the announcement at dinner. Everyone would be pleased. Even Anna, who kept insisting that Emily did not have to marry anyone.

She nodded and smiled and was rewarded by a wide smile in return.

"You have made me very happy, Lady Emily," he said. "The happiest man in the world."

She had to share her news. Lord Powell had gone to the library to write to his mother. Anna and Luke often spent a half hour or so together in Anna's private sitting room in the middle of the morning, between the hour they spent playing with the children or taking them outside and the separate duties they busied themselves with for the rest of the morning. The household was not following quite its normal routine this week, of course, what with all the guests. And Luke was supposed to be setting out for London this morning. But perhaps he had not left yet.

She knocked on the door and after a decent pause opened it gingerly and peered around it.

At first she was embarrassed. She thought she had walked in on a very private moment. Luke and Anna were standing in the middle of the room, clasped in each other's arms. But then she saw the pallor of Luke's face and the shaking of Anna's shoulders.

"My dear." Luke held up a staying hand. "Do not go away, I beg of you."

Anna lifted her head, apparently only just becoming aware of Emily's presence. Her face was red from crying.

"Oh, Emmy," she said, "Emmy. Ashley's Alice and Thomas are dead. They perished in a fire more than a year ago and we were not there to comfort him. He has borne the burden entirely alone. And the burden too of having been from home himself when it happened.

How he must blame himself. He has come home for comfort, Emmy."

She saw every word, as if she really could hear and could not stop hearing.

Luke, as was to be expected, was in command of himself, though only just, Emily guessed as her eyes widened and turned to him.

"Emily," he said, "stay here with Anna, my dear. She has need of you for a while. I must find my poor Ashley. He has offended my mother by laughingas he told us about it, the foolish man. He is deeply, deeply hurt. You will stay?"

There was a faintness in Emily's head, but she nodded as Luke transferred Anna from his arms to hers and then hurried from the room.

Ashley, she thought. Ah, Ashley. Why had he not told her? Had he thought her arms not strong enough, her heart not big enough? Seven years was an eternity after all. The distance between them had grown vast. He had not told her.

Ah, Ashley.

As she sat down on the sofa with Anna, their hands clasped tightly together, she forgot why she had come to the sitting room.

"Emmy," Anna said, her reddened face a mask of grief, "we are going to have to be very gentle with him and very kind to him. Poor Ashley."

Emily raised her sister's hands and set them against her cheeks.

Luke had come to stand beside him on the bridge. He said nothing, as he rested his arms on the stone parapet and gazed down into the water of the river flowing beneath. Ashley was throwing stones into it, trying to skip them, but the angle was too sharp. They all sank quite decisively.

"I suppose," he said, breaking the silence at last, "you left Anna and Doris in tears, and Mother notin tears?"

"Theo and Lady Sterne bore our mother off between them," Luke said, "and I left Doris to Weims's care. Anna was in tears, yes."

"For something that happened more than a year ago," Ashley said, throwing the next stone farther than the others. It still sank. "To people she did not even know. 'Tis foolish. Ah, well. I noticed that Powell had Emmy almost in an embrace in the garden a short while ago. Anna must be in high hopes of having a summer wedding to plan."

"Ash," Luke said, "you need to talk about it, my dear."

Ashley laughed. "Zounds," he said, "I remember how disconcerted and indignant I was when you first called me that, Luke. You have still not abandoned all your Parisian ways, I see. I noted your fan last evening. 'Twas a glittering occasion, by the way. I am thankful I came in time for it."

"You are as brittle as glass," his brother said quietly. "And I believe you could shatter into as many pieces."

Ashley tossed his last stone over the parapet into the water and turned to rest one elbow on the wall. He looked at Luke with some amusement in his eyes.

"No longer," he said. "Look at me, Luke. I am quite relaxed. 'Twas merely the ghastly prospect of having to break the news to you all, you see. I was sorry in my heart I had not written to you before dashing off home. I knew very well that Anna and Doris would dissolve into tenderhearted grief, that Mother would stiffen her upper lip and accompany it with a face of stone, and that you would square your shoulders and attempt to take my burdens upon them. You play the part of head of the family exceedingly well."

"I did not come down here as head of the family, Ash," Luke said. "I came as your brother. Who loves you. You are in pain."

"Am I?" Ashley smiled. "It was a long and a tedious voyage. I ate poorly and slept worse. Both will be rectified now that I have my feet on firm earth."

"You came home," Luke said. "Not just to England, Ash. You came to Bowden. You might have stayed in London. You might have gone to Penshurst-'tis yours, I assume? But you chose to come home.

Why? Just so that you might hold us at arm's length? So that you might spurn help?"

"Help." Ashley laughed.

Luke turned his head and looked assessingly at him before directing his gaze back at the water. "I have been trying to imagine," he said, "how I would feel if 'twere Anna and one or all of my children. You are right: There could be no help, no comfort. Not immediately.

Perhaps never. But I believe that after a year I might turn to my family. Yet I can see that even then I might be afraid to allow them inside the shell I would have constructed about myself."

"Damn you," Ashley said.

"I would be bitter and brittle. I might laugh from behind my shell."

"You know nothing," Ashley said. "You know nothing."

"No. I do not," Luke admitted. "Tell me, Ash. Tell me what happened."

"I told you," Ashley said. "They died. They burned with the house. I did not know until a friend came to fetch me. I came home to smoking ashes. I had been away-at a business meeting."

"How did the fire start?" Luke asked. "Was the cause ever determined?''

Ashley shrugged. "A candle caught the draperies," he said. "A lamp was tipped over. Who knows? There was a war in progress. There had been any number of sporadic and inexplicable atrocities."

"There was a suspicion of arson, then?" Luke asked.

"But no proof," Ashley said with another shrug.

"Did you have enemies?" Luke asked.

"A nationful," Ashley said with a laugh. "I am an Englishman, Luke.

Englishmen were at war with Frenchmen. And there were Indian men fighting on both sides. 'Twas not a wise time to leave one's wife and son alone at home.

"Anna said that you must be blaming yourself," Luke said. "She was right. Were there no servants, Ash?"

"My valet was with me," Ashley said. "Alice had dismissed the other servants for the night except her faithful nurse and companion, who had been with her since she was a girl. She died with them."

"Only one servant." Luke frowned. "Why did she dismiss the others?

Was it customary? Even when you were from home?"

Ashley merely shrugged. "There were those, you know, who said I did it," he said. "When a wife dies in inexplicable circumstances, the husband is always suspect."

"Zounds," Luke said.

"They were, of course, wrong." Ashley laughed and drummed his fingers on the parapet of the bridge. "I should not have come here, Luke. I should have gone straight to Penshurst. Yes, 'tis mine. I was penniless seven years ago, but I am now in possession of two sizable fortunes, the one that I amassed for myself and the other that my wife brought me. And I am free to enjoy both, unencumbered by wife or child. What more could any man desire?"

"Stay here for a while," Luke said. "Let yourself be loved, Ash. Let yourself be healed. I cannot know what you have suffered or what you still suffer-'tis beyond imagining. But there is love to be had here. And perhaps healing too if you will but give it a chance. If you will give it time."

"I will stay for a few days," Ashley said with a shrug. "And then I will be on my way to Penshurst. To my new life. 'Tis the one I have worked toward since joining the East India Company, Luke. And now 'tis within my grasp. And so he lived happily ever after."

Luke turned his head to smile at him. "And perhaps 'twill do the trick, too," he said. "But stay here for a while. Anna will want to fuss over you. The children will wish to become acquainted with you and discover how indulgent you can be when wheedled. And I have missed you. Come back to the house with me? I will have toast and coffee brought to the study, unless you wish for something stronger. I noticed you ate almost no breakfast after all."

"Later," Ashley said. "I still revel in the coolness of English air. I would not willingly exchange it so soon for the indoors."

Luke nodded and after a moment turned to walk back to the house alone. Emmy, Ashley noticed when he looked after him, was no longer in the formal gardens with her beau.

He should have written to them a year ago. And when he returned to England, he should have gone straight to Penshurst. He was a mature man now, independent, confident, assertive, resourceful. He had spent six years achieving that effect, overcoming the handicap of having grown up as a dependent, irresponsible, bored younger son of a duke. So he had lost a wife and a child. Every day men lost wives and children.

He should have continued with the life he had made for himself and by himself.

But he had resorted to instinct rather than to cool judgment and good sense. He had come running home-home to Bowden and to Luke. And, without consciously realizing it, to Emmy. To a wild and happy child who no longer existed.

He should have told her this morning, he thought. It somehow hurt to know that she would learn it from someone else. She would be sad for him. He should have told her himself. But he knew that he could not have done so. He could not have told her the bald facts as he had to his family at breakfast. If he had said that much to Emmy, he would have grabbed for her and poured out everything else too.

Somehow with Emmy words could never be used as a shield. She seemed to know them for the inadequate vehicle of truth they were.

Emmy saw to the heart.

But he had no desire to use a woman as an emotional crutch.

He had a sudden unbidden image of Thomas with his soft down of gingery hair. It was an image he often held behind his sleepless eyelids when he lay down. Poor child. Poor innocent little baby. The sins of the fathers... No! It had been an accident. A tragic accident. That was all. No one, least of all God, would punish a child...

CHAPTER EIGHT.

The Earl of Royce was delighted by his talk with Lord Powell. He had begun to have doubts when nothing had been said after all last evening during the ball. Now he was happy and relieved for his youngest sister, whom he had not really expected to be able to settle in life. And he was grateful to his brother-in-law, who had made such efforts to find her a husband of suitable rank and fortune and one who would be kind to her. Powell seemed genuinely fond of Emily.

The earl did, though, hesitate about making the announcement on this particular day. It had not taken long for the news to spread through the house, to those who had not been present at breakfast, that Lord Ashley Kendrick's wife and child had perished in a fire a year ago in India.

But the Duke of Harndon was pleased too to hear that the betrothal had been agreed upon and that Powell was both ready and eager to have it made public. The duke insisted that the gloom that had descended on the house must be lifted and that his brother certainly had no wish to wallow in it. The celebration of a betrothal in the family would be just the thing to lighten everyone's spirits, he maintained.

And so the announcement was made during tea, when everyone was gathered in the drawing room, including the children. Even Lord Harry Kendrick was there, asleep with open mouth against his father's shoulder. Agnes and William had come from Wycherly Park with their children. The mood of the gathering was subdued, or rather determinedly cheerful, until Victor rose to his feet, cleared his throat for silence, and informed them that Lord Powell had offered for his sister, that Emily had accepted, and that there was no more to be said on the matter except that making the announcement gave him the greatest pleasure and that the nuptials would be celebrated some time during the summer. And that really he was no great speech maker.

There was general laughter.

Emily, standing beside her betrothed, watched her brother's face intently and felt a sense of finality. A calm contentment. It had been done now. The words had been spoken to all the people who mattered most in her life. There was no going back now. Not that she felt any wish to go back. She needed this marriage. She might be deaf, she might be different, but she was a woman.

Lord Powell had taken her hand and was bowing over it in a touchingly courtly manner and bringing it to his lips.

She could not hear the noise that the announcement aroused, but she could see its effect. Everyone looked at her, and everyone looked suddenly joyful. It had to be right, she thought, smiling. What she had done had to be right. Her family and Luke's were happy for her; they believed Lord Powell would make an excellent husband. But there was no chance to think further. She was being engulfed in hugs.

And her betrothed, she saw when she was able, was receiving his fair share as well. At the moment, Constance, Victor's wife, was embracing him, tears in her eyes.

Yes, it had to be right. It feltright.

Ashley was sitting in a far corner of the room. He had sat there all through tea, smiling, laughing, James on one knee, Amy on the other, Joy beside him. But they had abandoned him now, Emily saw, though she did not look directly his way, in order to join the general bustle of excitement about herself and Lord Powell. He sat there alone, still smiling.

"How can he smile and laugh?" she had seen Agnes say earlier to Constance. "Has he no feelings?"

But Emily, even without looking directly at him, had been able to feel the unbearable tension behind his smile. His wife and his son had died. Between leaving for a meeting and returning, he had had his whole family wiped out.

Ashley. She wished desperately that he had confided in her out at the falls this morning. Though that was not quite true either. For if he had told her, she would not have come back to change into pretty clothes and listen to Lord Powell's apology and agree to have their betrothal announced. She would have been caught up in a past that would have overshadowed her present and her future. Besides, she would have been unable to comfort him as she had used to do.

Nothing could comfort him for what had happened to him. It would have hurt to know that she was powerless to ease his pain.

Ah, but she wished-with her heart she wished-that he had told her.

And then while Jeremiah-the Reverend Jeremiah Hornsby, Charlotte's husband-was congratulating her and Lord Powell and hoping that they might do him the honor of asking him to conduct their wedding service, Ashley touched Emily on the arm.

"Well, Emmy." He took her hands in his and kissed her on both cheeks. "It seems I have returned home just in time to say good-bye to you. You were always like a dear sister to me. I hope you will continue to think of me as a kind of brother."

Like a dear sister. That was all she really saw. Yes, she had been that to him. That was how he had seen her. Like a sister. It was good to have been seen thus. Closer than a friend. A sister. And she was to continue to think of him as a brother-yes, he had said that too. Oh, Ashley. She smiled at him, but she squeezed his hands very tightly as well and spoke to him with her eyes. He understood her. Of course he understood. But lest he did not, she closed her hand into a fist and pulsed it against her heart.

"Yes, I know," he said. "I know it makes you sad,Emmy. But I have come home to give up sadness. Seeing you happy is good for me. Tis hard to believe you are no longer the child you were when I went away. You are all grown up. Be happy, little fawn. Promise me always to be happy."

Yes. She smiled again. The child you were when I went away. Ah, Ashley. Yes, she would promise. She would promise to try.