Silent Melody Read Online Free PDF Page B

her apart . . .
    She drew a few deep, steadying breaths. This evening was so far beyond anything in her past experience that her mind could contemplate it only as a complete and rather terrifying blank. She was dressed as formally and with as much glittering splendor as Anna. She was going to attend a full-scale ball. She was to stand in the receiving line, smiling and curtsying to all of Luke’s guests. And she was to receive the continued attentions of Lord Powell and possibly—probably!—his marriage proposal too. She was going to accept.
    By the time she came back upstairs in several hours’ time, much would have changed in her life. Everything would have changed. She would be betrothed. As good as married.
    There was something resembling panic in the thought.
    Ashley. Ah, Ashley.
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    He had forgotten just how cold England was. He shivered and drew his cloak more closely around him. He sat in a darkened carriage, looking out on darkness—though the landscape was not pitch-black, it was true. There were moonlight and starlight to illuminate the way. Although the coachman had been reluctant, he had agreed to continue the journey after dark. The man had even commented on what a pleasant warm evening it was for late April.
    Warm! He shivered again. He had had time to get used to the coldness during the long voyage home from India, of course, but somehow he had expected that he would be warm again once he reached land.
    Perhaps, he thought, setting his head back against the cushions, he would never be warm again.
    And yet Lord Ashley Kendrick still clung to the notion that there was warmth to be had. At Bowden. If he could but get there. For months he had been living for the moment that was now only an hour away, if that long. He must be almost on Bowden land already, he reasoned. The thought of Bowden had sustained him through all the months of his voyage, through calms and storms, through the sleepless nights.
    Luke, he thought. If only he could reach his brother. Luke was a pillar of strength. And Anna. Sweet, warm Anna. And their children, three now. Joy would be seven, George five, and James three. Luke had been almost apologetic in his letter announcing the arrival of George, Marquess of Craydon, his heir to the dukedom. Ashley had been delighted, and even more so when he had read of the birth of James two years later. Luke was secure in his line. There could never be any question now of Ashley’s breathing down his neck.
    He longed for Bowden and for Luke and Anna. Almost as if they could make all right for him. Almost as if he were not a man capable of ordering his own life and handling his own emotions and purging his own guilt. Almost as if there were warmth to be had. And peace.
    Ashley rolled his head on the cushions as if to find a comfortable position for sleep. But he soon opened his eyes and stared out onto darkness. And inward into deeper darkness.
    Peace! He had had the strange notion that it was to be found at Bowden. And only there. Now that he was approaching it—yes, he was sure now they were on Bowden land; they would pass through the village very soon—he stared at the truth. There was no peace to be had anywhere. Not even here. Why had he thought there was? What was it about Bowden that always brought with it the illusory idea of peace? As if it were a place unlike any other on earth. A place of escape, a refuge, a home, a belonging.
    What was it about Bowden?
    He had come back from India with the desperate idea that if he could but reach home all would be well again. Yet now, even before he had quite reached the house—the carriage was passing along the village street and slowing to make the turn between the massive stone gateposts onto the winding driveway through the park—he knew that he had deceived himself.
    There was no home for him. No end to his journey. No end of the rainbow.
    Even so he found himself