Silent Melody by Mary Balogh Page A

known he was not Powell—she had refused to turn her head for him.
    She had known he was there.
    The years had somehow rolled back after all. For the first time, there seemed to be a thread of warmth in the morning.
    â€¢Â Â Â â€¢Â Â Â â€¢
    Usually she sensed someone coming up behind her, especially when she was alone. But sometimes that intuition failed her. It happened most often when she was absorbed in some activity and lost all sense of time and place. Painting had had that effect on her for the past year or so.
    She turned with a start of guilt only when whoever it was was very close behind. She expected to see Anna or Luke. Anna would merely smile and hug her and commend her on her painting and pretend not to notice her appearance. Anna perhaps did not realize that she still treated her youngest sister as a child. Luke would raise his eyebrows and purse his lips and look at her painting and make some satirical remark about witches in the wood.
    But it was Lord Powell who was standing there, looking perfectly immaculate. Even his wig had been freshly powdered, she noticed. If only she had heard him coming, she might at least have hidden her painting. Preferably, she would have hidden herself too. She felt suddenly naked. Not physically so but emotionally. He had come unexpectedly upon her other self. The very private self she could explain to no one.
    This morning he looked more handsome than usual. Even with the frown on his face and the aghast look in his eyes. He looked very . . . civilized.
    â€œIt
is
you, by my life,” he said. His perfect manners appeared to have been left behind at the house, at least for the moment. His eyes moved down her body, from the topmost hair on her head to the tips of her toenails. It was a look of sheer horror.
    Emily saw herself through his eyes. She saw her shapeless, shabby dress, with neither stays nor hoops beneath. And her bare ankles and feet. And her wild, tangled hair. In her embarrassment she felt and resisted the totally inappropriate urge to laugh. This was
her
world, she might have told him if she had been able. So very different from his own. Why was she the one called upon to make all the adjustments?
    But for five days she had been so very careful. So very determined.
    She smiled.
    He recovered his lost manners then and made her a hasty but elegant bow. “Lady Emily,” he said.
    She tried to picture him without his wig, with dark, close-cropped hair. She rather believed he would look more handsome yet. Though quite undressed by current standards of fashion and propriety, of course. She hated fashion and propriety. Last night she had been dazzled—and wearied—by them. This morning she hated them.
    â€œThere are servants up and abroad,” he said. “House servants, grooms, gardeners. ’Twas his grace’s butler who informed me that you were up and outside already and had come this way. He also informed me that his grace and Lord Ashley Kendrick are up. You may be
seen,
Lady Emily.”
    She had been seen. By him. She could not tell if he was warning her of possible embarrassment to herself, or whether he was scolding her.
    She smiled again and raised her shoulders in acknowledgment of the fact that she had been caught out and was perhaps sorry. Yes, she was sorry. This morning was in the nature of a swan song to freedom, she would have told him if she had had words. She must work on some sort of shared language with him, she thought suddenly. As she had with Ashley. But then perhaps she did not want anyone else to know her. Perhaps she hid deliberately behind her deafness and muteness. Perhaps she was too frightened by—or attached to—her differentness to expose it to someone who might not understand or accept. But this man was to be her
husband.
    â€œZounds, but it
does
matter.” His frown had returned, and his heavy brows almost met over the bridge of his nose. “The careless