Silent Melody Read Online Free Page A

And she would learn to live without him. She would not mope and pine her life away for what could not be had.
    Ashley could not be had. He loved her, but she was not in any way central to his very being. He would soon consign her to nothing more important than a fond memory. She knew that. She had no illusions about what she meant to him.
    She would grow up without him. She would live without him. No one would ever know how much he would always be a part of her. She would live as if her heart had not broken from love for him—although it had.
    She would always love him, but from this moment on she would take her life back and live it as fully as she had before she set eyes on Ashley a year ago—and all else had faded into insignificance. And it
had
been a full life, even if it had necessarily been an almost totally solitary one.
    Even at its darkest moment, life was a precious gift.

1

    1763
    â€œF AITH, child,” Lady Sterne said, “but you are as lovely as all your sisters put together. With no offense meant to the two who are present.” She laughed, clasped her hands to her bosom, and let her eyes sweep once more over the young lady who stood in the middle of the dressing room.
    â€œOh, but she really is,” Lady Severidge said generously. “She really is
beautiful.”
At the age of six-and-twenty, seven years and two children after her marriage, Agnes was still pretty, though she had grown almost plump.
    â€œOf course she is as lovely as all of us put together,” Anna, Duchess of Harndon, said, smiling her bright, warm smile. “And lovelier even than that. Oh, Emmy, you look
wonderful
.” But in truth Anna herself looked equally lovely. Although she was well past her thirtieth year and had given birth to her fourth child only three months before, her face was still youthful and unlined, and her figure was again as trim as it had been before her marriage.
    â€œYou will be the belle of the ball tonight, as I live,” Lady Sterne said. She was in the dressing room only partly by right of the fact that she was Anna’s godmother. Although she was no blood relation, she had assumed the role of favored aunt to Anna’s sisters as well as to Anna herself. After all, she always reminded them, when a woman had no daughters of her own, then she simply had to adopt a few. “’Tis a pity you cannot dance, child. But no matter. Dancing merely makes a lady flush and sweat—and smell.”
    â€œAunt Marjorie!” Agnes said, shocked.
    Lady Emily Marlowe’s eyes followed their lips for a while, but it was a weary business and she knew she had missed at least half of what had been said—as she always did in a conversation that involved more than one person. But no matter. She had caught the trend of the conversation, and it pleased her to for once be called beautiful—as other women were beautiful. She turned her head to steal another glance at herself in the pier glass of Anna’s dressing room. She scarcely recognized herself. She was dressed in pale green, her favorite color, but all else was unfamiliar. Her petticoat, with its three deep frills, was held away from her legs by large hoops. Her open gown was trimmed with wide, ruched, gold-embroidered robings from bosom to hem. Her stomacher, low at the bosom, was heavily embroidered with the same gold thread. The three lace frills that edged the sleeves of her chemise flared at the elbows below the sleeves of the gown. Her shoes were gold. Her hair—ah, it was her hair that looked most unfamiliar.
    Anna’s maid had dressed her hair rather high in front, in the newest fashion, and curled and coiled at the back. In the glass Emily could see the frills of the frivolous lace cap that was pinned back there somewhere, its lace lappets floating down her back. Her hair was powdered white. It was the first time she had allowed anyone to do that to her.
    Beneath the gown she could feel the