Free Silent Melody by Mary Balogh Page B

and Powell can answer them for sure—and only with the passage of time. Are you intent upon creasing my cuff by gripping so hard?”
    She released her grip immediately. “Luke,” she said, “why did he come back downstairs? He was so very tired.”
    â€œI believe for that very reason,” he said. “He was too tired to sleep. Too emotionally excited, perhaps, at being home again after so long. I may have trouble sleeping myself, Anna—unless you can be persuaded to help me, of course.” His eyelids drooped over his eyes for a moment.
    â€œWhy did he dance with Emmy?” she asked. “And why did she dance with him, Luke? She
danced
with him. I had no idea she could.”
    Luke shrugged elaborately. “He wished to dance with the loveliest lady at the ball,” he said. “Emily is the loveliest—after you. She danced with him because, apparently, she has wished all her life to dance. She did remarkably well, my dear. She did not make a spectacle of herself.”
    â€œLuke.” She looked at him with appeal in her eyes. Yet she seemed to have no words for what she wished to say. “Luke . . .”
    He drew his closed fan along one of her arms to the ends of her fingers. “Emily is receiving her offer at this very moment,” he said. “She has appeared somewhat enamored of him, my dear. Certainly she has grown into a sensible young lady who is unwilling to pine her way through life as either Victor’s dependent or mine. And she is not near the untamed creature she once was. Ashley has his wife and his son staying at a London hotel. Tomorrow I shall go and fetch them home. I will persuade him to stay here and rest instead of accompanying me. You must not upset yourself unnecessarily. There are realities to dictate everyone’s behavior.”
    â€œI am so very happy to see him at home again,” she said. “Happy for you, Luke, because he is your only surviving brother and there is a close bond between you. And happy for him. I cannot believe that India is the place to spend more than a few years of one’s life. It is certainly not the place in which to raise a young family. I am happy.”
    â€œBut you could wish that his timing had been a little better,” he said with a smile. “That he had arrived at least a few days later, or preferably a few weeks.”
    â€œYes,” she said lamely.
    â€œYou have ever been overprotective of Emily, my dear,” he said. “You persist in seeing her as delicate and more than usually vulnerable merely because she lacks one of the five senses most of us take very much for granted. Emily is not delicate. Merely different—
very
different, I will confess. But she has a strength of character beyond that of almost any other woman I know, I do believe. Since the day he left, has she given one sign that she cannot order her life without him?”
    She shook her head. “But we knew—,” she began.
    He interrupted her. “Even on the day his letter announcing his marriage arrived?” he asked.
    â€œI remember how you avoided for hours reading it aloud to her,” she said, closing her eyes briefly.
    â€œOr on the day the letter came telling of Thomas’s birth?” he asked.
    She shook her head again.
    â€œYes,” he said, “of course we
knew,
my dear. But Emily is a strong person. You can safely allow her to live her own life in her own way.”
    She smiled ruefully at him. “He is dreadfully pale and thin.”
    â€œYes,” he agreed.
    â€œI hope Alice and Thomas are well,” she said.
    â€œDoubtless,” he said, “if they are back in England to stay, they will wish to remove to Penshurst without too long a delay since ’tis Alice’s home and now belongs to Ashley. In the meantime, you will persuade them to stay here, my love, and you will fuss over them and feed them and tuck them into their beds