Silent Melody by Mary Balogh Read Free Book Online

and his brothers and sisters? And who was willing to accept a wife who was handicapped—though she did wonder why. She wished she could ask him exactly why he wished to marry her. Did he think her beautiful? Did he like the fact that she was Victor’s sister, Luke’s sister-in-law? Did the mystery of her character intrigue him?
    She looked down briefly at his hands. They were blunt-fingered, capable-looking hands. She imagined them touching her, touching her body—beneath her clothes. She imagined his mouth against hers, his body. Imagination forsook her after that. She was not really quite sure . . .
    She looked up to find him telling her more about his sister—he had demanded that she apologize to the governess. He seemed to believe that because she could read lips she could understand everything he said. Would he be disappointed when he learned that she did not?
    She had often wondered about physical love. Was it something that added a dimension to life? Or was it an intrusion, the ultimate invasion of privacy? By both necessity and inclination she had always been an excessively private person. She knew enough to understand that a husband would come right inside her body.
    This man. Lord Powell. She did not yet know his first name, she realized.
    On their wedding night she would have to allow him inside herself. Only so could she be a wife. Only so could she have the babies she wanted. Would it be wonderful, magical? Or would it be demeaning?
    She knew sometimes during breakfast that Anna and Luke had loved the night before. They would be horrified if they knew that she knew, but she did. Perhaps it was the absence of one of her five senses that had sharpened the others. Certainly it was nothing very obvious. Just something about the softened look in Anna’s eyes, something in the slight droop of Luke’s eyelids. Or perhaps not anything even as overt as that. But whatever it was, it was something that told Emily that what they shared was more wonderful than anything she could yet imagine.
    Perhaps she would know soon. Or perhaps she would be disappointed. Would it make all the difference, she wondered, that she did not love him, though she liked and respected him?
    But there were other things to imagine. This man would become as familiar to her as her own image in the glass. He would be her companion for the rest of her life. Her friend, perhaps. She would live in his home. It would become hers, and his family would be hers. She would learn to run his household. Would she be able to do it? She had watched Anna run Bowden Abbey. She would have to write things down, she supposed. She would visit his tenants and his neighbors. She would not be able to allow herself to be daunted by the fact that she could not speak to any of them or even understand all that was spoken. Indeed, it was the exhilaration of the challenge that was one of the main inducements to her accepting the offer that was about to be made.
    She would become like Anna. She would have a marriage like Anna’s. Or was she deluding herself? Was such a thing possible for her? But she would have a chance at happiness. At last. After so long. And she would be happy. She had learned through hard experience that the will was a powerful thing. She would will herself to be happy, and she would be.
    â€œThe set has ended,” Lord Powell was saying, bent slightly toward her again. “More is the pity, I vow. I shall dance each set until the supper dance, Lady Emily, but I shall look in envy at each gentleman who occupies this sofa with you.”
    It was the closest he had come to a declaration of ardor, though Emily, sensitive to the language of the body, guessed that he spoke what he thought she expected him to say. She smiled at him.
    But something was wrong. The music had stopped, of course. She had felt that even before Lord Powell had mentioned it. There was something else. She felt something almost like panic and