Free Silent Melody by Mary Balogh Page A

’tis merely outside you and me.”
    â€œOh, fie,” she said, laughing, “how strangely you talk, Ashley. You are to take me in to supper. I have a thousand questions to ask, eight hundred of them about young Thomas. Here is Lord Powell for Emily.”
    It was then that Emily too saw Lord Powell approach and that the magic was broken. She realized what she had done. She turned to smile uncertainly at her suitor.
    â€¢Â Â Â â€¢Â Â Â â€¢
    â€œEgad, but the lad has the energy of a twenty-year-old,” Lord Quinn said to Lady Sterne as they sat at the supper table, watching Ashley talking and laughing with his sister and her husband, with his mother, and with Agnes and William. “One would have sworn when he first arrived, Marj, that he was on the verge of collapsing with exhaustion. He is happy to be home, I warrant you.”
    â€œLud, but so thin,” Lady Sterne said. “He looks ill, Theo, though he is as handsome as the devil when he smiles, it must be admitted.”
    â€œAye, but ’tis the voyage that has done that to him,” Lord Quinn said. “A few English dinners and a few draughts of English ale will soon coat his ribs and plump him out again.”
    â€œIs he here to stay?” she asked. “’Twill mean much to Anna and Luke if he is. He has been sorely missed.”
    â€œI daresay,” Lord Quinn stated. “He has made his fortune in India, or so ’tis said, and he has married a rich wife into the bargain. Her papa has died and left everything to her, and therefore to my nephy too. They have come home to stay, I warrant you, Marj. There is the young lad to be considered, after all. England is the place to raise children.”
    â€œYes.” Lady Sterne smiled. “And so I may drift into old age and know my adopted family and yours to be happily settled, Theo. ’Tis a comfortable feeling. All will be complete by the time this night is out, think you?” She raised her eyebrows and nodded in the direction of the dining room door. Lord Powell and Emily, having finished their supper early, were leaving the room together.
    â€œAye, by my life,” Lord Quinn said. “A wedding in June, would you say, Marj? And Lady Powell will be delivered of a boy come nine months following that same night?”
    Lady Sterne sighed, too accustomed to the bluntness of her lover’s language to be shocked by the indelicacy of his remark. “Faith, but ’tis to be hoped,” she said. “My little Emily settled. I did not think to see the day, Theo. I thought no man would be willing to overlook the affliction.”
    â€œNay, but the gel is as pretty as a picture, Marj,” he said, handing her a large linen handkerchief, with which she dabbed at her eyes. He chuckled. “And not daunted by her affliction. She can dance, by Jove. Egad, but my nephy had some audacity to lead her out into the set as he did.”
    â€œDear Emily,” Lady Sterne said. “And dear Anna. Who will make the announcement after supper, do you think, Theo? Luke or Victor? I can scarce wait.”

4

    â€œL UKE?” Anna touched his arm and looked in the direction of the dining room door. “They are leaving.”
    He stopped cooling her face with his fan for a moment. “And so they are,” he said. “Neither is hungry and both find the indoors stuffy and long for air and exercise. ’Tis nothing to be alarmed about, my dear. ’Tis called youth and young love, I believe.” He smiled at her.
    She gazed at him as if all the answers to life’s worries might be found in his eyes. “She will have him, you think?” she asked. “She feels an affection for him, Luke? She will be happy with him?”
    He raised his eyebrows. “Your questions become progressively less possible to answer, madam,” he said. “’Tis my belief that the answer to all three may be yes. But only Emily