Silent Melody by Mary Balogh

Author:Mary Balogh [Balogh, Mary]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Historical Romance
ISBN: 9780425158623
Google: LxIEAAAACAAJ
Amazon: 0425158624
Barnesnoble: 0425158624
Goodreads: 78523
Publisher: Berkley
Published: 1997-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

It was a warm night, fortunately. She had hoped for it for all of the week past, a week during which the weather had been cloudy and somewhat chilly. But tonight was perfect. There were moonlight and starlight to sparkle off the surface of the River Thames as they crossed it by boat. She raised her face to the light for a few moments and was aware of the vast mystery of the universe.

And then they stepped out of the boat—Viscount Burdett took her hand and held it firmly and smiled at her while Lord Quinn helped Aunt Marjorie and the Earl of Weims helped Doris. A few moments later they were standing inside the entrance to Vauxhall Gardens, and she was looking around at the place she had been told about and had dreamed of seeing. The famous pleasure gardens, the great rival of Ranelagh Gardens, which she also longed to see. Both were said to be magical by night.

To their right, extending away into the distance, was a long colonnade with an arched, Gothic roof, hung with golden and red lamps. Ahead were the trees she had heard about, the grove, and the numerous shady walks. The trees were hung with festoons of lamps. Along the wide central path, farther in among the trees, she could see a brighter blaze of light. That would be the rotunda, the place where orchestras played and famous singers performed and people danced, the place where the more wealthy patrons sat in boxes and ate and drank while they enjoyed the spectacles around them. Viscount Burdett had hired a box there to-night.

"Lady Emily." Her arm was resting on his satin sleeve. He touched his fingers briefly to hers. "Do you find it pleasing?"

It was magical, spectacular. It was hard to believe that this was a park, with trees and grass, with sky above. She wondered briefly what it must be like in the daytime, when there would be no lamplight to mask reality, or what it would be like with the lamps unlit and all the crowding masses gone. But she pushed the thought aside. She did not want to know.

She smiled dazzlingly at the man who had conversed with her at several balls during the past weeks and had called upon her at Aunt Marjorie's and walked with her in the Mall of St. James's Park. He was the most constant among a startlingly large number of gentlemen who paid her attention wherever she went. She did not know what the attraction was, unless perhaps there was novelty in paying court to a woman who could only smile and nod no matter how outrageous their compliments or how tedious their conversation. Almost always there was a group of them, who spoke with one another and did not therefore find her silence tedious. The crowds also released her from the necessity of concentrating every moment of every evening on other people's lips.

Lord Quinn said the attraction was that she was the loveliest young lady in London—or in England, for that matter.

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