Page 35 of Surrender to the Earl
She, too, sobered. “But you have done everything I asked of you—more than even that. You escorted me to my new home and kept me safe from the dangers of the road. Why should you feel unsettled now?”
“Because this household is full of strangers to you.”
“But the land agent said?—”
“He’s a stranger, too,” Robert interrupted. “He seems to have done his job, at least as far as household servants go. Everything shines with polish and is well taken care of.” But the servants had exchanged suspicious glances with each other and he couldn’t forget that.
“I could smell the lemon polish,” she said, smiling. “And in the unused rooms, sheets covered the furniture. They’re removing all of that now.”
“You haven’t seen the last of me, Audrey. I plan to visit you most frequently. I will feel better to see you settled in.”
“You worry about my blindness,” she told him, “but you needn’t. My other senses do almost as well, and people reveal much by their voices.”
“Tell me what it was like,” he said, deliberately delaying his departure. “Going blind, I mean. You must have been so frightened.”
He drew her toward a chair, and she accepted his help with a smile.
“It was a long time ago, Robert. I was seven, and so weak with sickness. I most remember being relieved to wake up feeling better.”
“And your sight was just gone?”
“Completely, like the sun had blown out. I remember my mother holding me and crying, and though she was relievedI would live, there was great sorrow, too. And fear. She worried that Blythe would succumb as well, but although she experienced the fever, it was never as severe as mine.”
“How did you cope, being so young?” Was he trying to torture himself, to feel even more guilty that this woman was alone in the world because of him?
“I was very sad for a long time, of course.” Her voice was lower, almost distant. “It is difficult to think of those days, when I was coming to the realization that people would treat me differently. I might have been only seven, but I was smart, and I understood what was happening. My mother was the only one who treated me the same, who did not coddle me or behave as if I should now be confined to bed or a chair by the window for the rest of my life.”
“She sounds like a good woman.”
“She was, and her death seven years ago was like the light leaving our family.”
She sighed and lost herself in a moment of reflection, but Robert had learned patience in the army.
“It was she who suggested I keep the world of sight alive in my mind, to replay the memories over and over, so I wouldn’t forget them. What my family looks like, the sun setting, a winter storm.”
“That did not make you feel bitter?”
“It did not make it worse,” she corrected. “Of course I felt bitter that I would be different, but my mother didn’t let me linger long in that. She pointed out that God has plans for people, and we can’t always know them.”
“A wise woman,” he murmured.
Audrey grinned. “She was. And I was lucky enough to have Molly. Finding things in the dark was almost a game between us. Even then, she was my guide in my new world, reading the words I painfully wrote out for my governess.”
“You still write?”
“Not often, but I learned to write by guiding my pencil between two pieces of string. I can make myself understood, but Molly is usually my secretary. But what Molly couldn’t help me with was the loss I felt being unable to see people’s faces. It is shocking how we depend upon that. We adjust everything we say and do because of a person’s expression, and I realized that at seven years of age I felt … left out. I gradually adjusted, of course, and learned about tones of voice, but it’s not the same.” She hesitated, then sighed. “I will confess, that part of me feels like that little girl again. I never imagined how much confident knowledge of my home affected me.”
“You’ll have that again,” he insisted. “It will just take time.”
She gave him a rueful grin. “You are so certain of me?”
“I am. But now I must go. My steward is expecting me. I have yet to set foot in my country house in nine years. Apparently, there is much I need to do.”
“And I am certain of you,” she countered.
“Thank you, but men do not need to be so bolstered,” he said. “We are confident.” He rose to stand before her, took her hand, and bowed over it. “Until tomorrow, Audrey.”
“That is not necessary, Robert. You have much to do.”
