Simply Magic

9

Peter found them two seats wedged between the teapot and the window before going to the food table. One thing a person could always count upon at a country assembly, he thought appreciatively as he filled plates for them both, was plenty of good food.

“Where will you go when you leave here?” Miss Osbourne asked him after he had set down their plates and fetched some tea and seated himself opposite her at their small table. “Will you go home?”

“To Sidley Park?” he said. “Not immediately. I do not wish to intrude upon the end of my mother’s latest house party there.”

“There is a house party at your own home, yet you are not there to host it?” She raised her eyebrows as she selected a small cucumber sandwich and bit into it.

“The thing is,” he said, “that my mother is desperately trying to marry me off. There is someone there whom she wishes me to court-and all the other guests would have been well aware of the fact if I had gone there.”

“You do not wish to marry?” she asked him.

“I most certainly do not,” he assured her. “Or at least, I do not wish to be trapped into a marriage not entirely of my own choosing.”

Her eyes laughed into his.

“I absolutely do not want my mother choosing my bride,” he said.

“I daresay,” she said, “she loves you.”

“She does,” he agreed. “But love can sometimes be a burden, you know. She first tried to marry me off when I was twenty-one years old and still wet behind the ears.”

“You did not love the girl?” she asked.

“I did.” He grimaced. “I was head-over-ears in love with her-because I was expected to be, of course. I was a cocky boy, Miss Osbourne, and was thoroughly convinced that I was my own man. But in reality I did everything I was expected to do. I thought I loved her.”

“But you did not really?” She set one elbow on the table against all the rules of etiquette and rested her chin in her hand. She gazed steadily at him. “What happened?”

Oh, good Lord, he was not prepared to go there with her. He smiled, though the expression felt somewhat crooked.

“One could say that I had an awakening,” he said. “It was really quite spectacular. I woke up one morning an innocent, cheerful babe, my head in the clouds, stars in my eyes, and I went to bed that same night a cynical old man, with my eyes opened to all the ugly realities of life. My almost-engagement was the biggest casualty. The woman I had loved so devotedly but no longer loved at all left the next morning with her family and I never saw any of them again. Fortunately, they live far to the north of England and seem never to come near London. Though I did hear that she married less than six months later.”

The loss of Bertha was not the biggest casualty, though, was it? His relationship with his mother was that. He had never been what can only be described as a mother’s boy, but he had loved her totally. She had been perfect in his eyes. When all was said and done, though, all he had really discovered about her on that day was that she was human.

And dash it all, had he actually been talking about that event, no matter how vaguely, to Susanna Osbourne? He never spoke about that episode. He rarely even thought about it. He grinned sheepishly at her.

“I was left with a rather rakish reputation as a breaker of female hearts,” he said. “Entirely undeserved. She did not have a heart.”

She continued to gaze at him.

“And so my mother’s ongoing…concern over my marital state-or my un marital state-is a continual burden,” he said, “though she means well.”

“One’s family can be a burden,” she said softly, “even if one’s mother died at one’s birth and one’s father died when one was twelve.”

His eyes sharpened on hers, but she was gazing through him rather than at him, he thought.

“Was there no other family for you,” he asked her, “on either side?”

It had seemed strange to him, when he thought about it after the picnic, that the Markhams had not found anyone of her own to take her in-or, failing that, that they had not done something themselves to make provision for her. She had been only twelve years old, for the love of God. And he had never thought of the Markhams as heartless people. What the devil had she been doing alone in London, looking for employment at the age of twelve?

“I do not really know,” she said, her eyes focusing on him again. “My father had…quarreled with his family and would never even talk about them whenever I asked. He would never talk about my mother or her family either. Perhaps, like me, he did not enjoy memories of the past.”

Who did when those memories were painful? And yet it seemed odd, even cruel, that Osbourne had not told his daughter anything about her heritage. Perhaps he had not expected to die young. No one did really, did they? Perhaps he had had no warning of his impending heart seizure. And so Susanna Osbourne had no one. Her mother had died at her birth, and Osbourne had told her nothing that would in any way have brought her mother alive for her. In her childhood dreams she had never been able to put a face on her mother-even an imaginary one.

He must remember Susanna Osbourne the next time he thought to complain about the number of sisters’ and nieces’ and nephews’ birthdays he was expected to remember.

“Will you go home after the house party is over, then?” she asked.

“I planned to go home the very day after I met you,” he said. “Finally, after five years of being away from it as much as I could, I was going back. But a couple of hours before you and I met I had my mother’s letter telling me of the house party she had planned in my honor-complete with eligible marriage prospect.”

“And so you are not going after all?” she asked.

He shrugged. Was he going to go? He was no longer sure. Sidley was his mother’s home as well as his, as it had been since her marriage to his father. And she ruled it with firm efficiency as she always had done. He was not sure they could both live there now-he was no longer her biddable little boy. He was even less sure, though, that he was prepared to ask her to leave or even insist that she make her home in the dower house at Sidley.

She was his mother. And cruelty had never come easily to him.

“Your finest asset and your greatest problem,” Susanna Osbourne said, “is that you are very kind.”

He realized, startled, that he had spoken his thoughts out loud.

“That sounds very like weakness,” he said, embarrassed, as he tackled the food on his plate.

“Kindness is not weakness,” she said firmly.

“It was kind to stay away from her party?” he asked.

She gazed at him, her chin in her hand again. The food on her plate had hardly been touched, he noticed. She sighed.

“What you need,” she said, “is a dragon to slay.”

He chuckled. “And a helpless maiden to rescue?”

“Tell me your dreams,” she said.

“Those bizarre wisps of things that flit through my head when I am asleep?” he asked, grinning at her.

But she did not smile back. She would not allow him to make light of the question.

“Your dreams, ” she said.

He pushed his plate away from him and thought for a few moments.

“They are not grand things at all,” he said. “I dream of tramping about my own land with a stout staff in my hand and dogs panting at my heels. I dream of knowing the land from the inside out, working it, knowing the feel of its soil between my fingers, the thrill of seeing crops I have helped plant poke green and fragile above the earth. I dream of knowing my workers and their families, of knowing their dreams and working with them to bring harmony to all our lives and aspirations. I dream of being master of my own home and my own life at last. I dream of knowing my neighbors in such a way that I can drop in on them at any time of the day or evening or they can feel free to drop in on me without any discomfort. I dream of a time when being Viscount Whitleaf does not set me apart from most other mortals who live in the vicinity of my home. There-is that enough?”

“Yes,” she said, smiling. “I am glad you convinced me that we could be friends. I am glad to have known you. I like you.”

He felt strangely touched by her words.

“Well, now.” He laughed softly. “That is praise indeed. Miss Susanna Osbourne likes me.”

She sat back in her chair and lowered her hands to her lap.

“I was not being sarcastic,” he told her. “I have always assumed that most people of my acquaintance like me-I do not believe I am a difficult fellow to get along with. But I do not recall anyone’s actually saying so. The words coming from you warm my heart-that pumping organ in my chest.”

Her smile held genuine amusement this time.

“Tell me your dreams,” he said.

She looked instantly wistful.

“Oh,” she said, “I have no dreams, really. I am contented with what I have.”

“If that is true,” he told her, “it is the saddest thing I have heard in a long while. We all need dreams. But I do not believe that you have none. I can see from your eyes that you have plenty.”

“From my eyes?” She looked suddenly wary. “Eyes cannot speak.”

“There you are wrong, Miss Literalist,” he said. “Eyes can be very eloquent indeed, yours more than most. Tell me your dreams. I have told you mine, and we are friends, are we not? I am not likely to shout with derision or stand on my chair to announce your secret dreams to the whole company.”

“They are as humble as yours,” she said, smiling again. “A home of my own. I lived in someone else’s house for my first twelve years and since then I have lived at the school in Bath. I dream of a home of my own in a place like this, where there are neighbors and friends. It does not have to be large. A cottage would suffice. And a small garden where I could grow flowers and vegetables and create beauty and plenty around me. And…Oh, and my ultimate dream.”

She stopped and bit her lower lip. But she continued when he said nothing.

“A husband and a few children, a family of my own to cherish and be loved by,” she said. “I do not dream of wealth or grandeur-only of love. There, you did insist. Those are my dreams.”

And they were indeed humble ones. No woman, he thought, should be denied her own home and family if she wished for them, and yet she believed they were impossible dreams for her. Were they? She was beautiful beyond belief and sweet-natured. And yet where, apart from here, would she ever go to meet eligible men? Perhaps he could…

But no. He could not. He certainly could not. There was no point in beginning to plot or scheme. Besides…Well, besides nothing.

Both their cups of tea, he noticed suddenly, had a grayish film of coldness covering the surface. Both their plates were still almost full of food.

“Let me get you a fresh cup of tea,” he suggested.

But her face showed surprise when she looked beyond him and, glancing over his shoulder, he could see that they were alone. Sounds of music and merriment were coming from the main room. The final set of the evening was already in progress.

“Good Lord!” he exclaimed. “Are you engaged to dance this set?”

“No,” she said.

“Neither am I,” he said in some relief. “It is exceedingly warm in here, is it not?”

“Yes,” she said.

“Shall we stroll outside,” he suggested, “until everyone else is ready to leave?”

She hesitated for only a moment.

“That would be pleasant,” she said.

And so five minutes later they were strolling along the village street, past the crush of carriages and servants waiting to pick up their respective passengers, past the shop, the churchyard, and the vicarage, and the church itself. She had taken his arm, and after a few minutes he clasped her hand in his, lacing their fingers and pressing her arm to his side.

“Being here for these last two weeks has reminded me of how very much more I enjoy the country than London or Brighton or any other large center,” he said. “I think I really must go home as soon as my mother’s house party has ended. Perhaps I will not have missed the whole of the harvest. And perhaps…Well, never mind.”

“Perhaps,” she said, “your dream really will come true one day soon. I hope so. You belong with people like these.”

“I would not have enjoyed these two weeks half as much, though, if I had not met you,” he told her, and was surprised by the sincerity of his words. They were the sort of empty, meaningless words he usually spoke when flirting

“The two weeks are not quite at an end,” she said. “There are still three days left. Oh, dear, only three days.”

Her tone was wistful. After those three days for her, of course, there was only a return to school and work to look forward to-though he knew from what she had said on other occasions that she genuinely enjoyed teaching. He knew too-she had just admitted it-that the idea of teaching for the rest of her life fell far short of her dreams.

They had stopped outside the church, in the shadow of an elm tree.

“Do you wish you could stay longer, then?” he asked.

“Oh, no,” she said. “All good things must come to an end, and it is time to go back. It is just that this has been the loveliest holiday I have ever spent, and there is a certain sadness in knowing that it is all but over.”

“Has it been made lovelier by the fact that I have been here?” he asked her.

Again it was the sort of question he would ask when flirting with a woman-and he would smile and she would smile, and they would both know he meant nothing by it. But Susanna Osbourne was giving serious consideration to the question, and he waited for her answer as if it were somehow important to him.

“Yes,” she said softly. “I have valued our friendship.”

She was, he noticed, already referring to it almost in the past tense. Soon it would be fully in the past-it was very unlikely that they would meet again after they left here. He never went to Bath, and she almost never left it.

“Friendship,” he repeated softly, bending his head closer to hers. “It does not seem a strong enough word, does it? Are we not a little more than just friends?”

And what the devil did he mean by that? But unfortunately it was only later that he thought to ask himself the question. At present he was caught up in an uncharacteristic moment of seriousness and sincerity.

“Oh, don’t say so,” she cried, and he could hear distress in her voice. “Please don’t say so. Don’t spoil what we have shared. Don’t flirt with me.”

Oh, good Lord!

“Flirtation is the farthest thing from my mind,” he assured her.

Yet if it was not flirtation, what was it exactly? He had the dizzying feeling that he had inadvertently steered his boat into uncharted waters.

And then, because he had tipped his head downward and she had not moved, their foreheads touched. He closed his eyes and did not move. Neither did she.

He felt a sudden, deep melancholy again, even worse than he had felt yesterday after their walk to the waterfall.

He opened his eyes, moved his head slightly, and brushed his lips over hers.

But only for a brief, mad moment before lifting his head and gazing off toward the church. Their hands were still clasped tightly, he realized.

He was aware of her ragged breathing for a few moments and had a ghastly thought. That was probably-no, undoubtedly-her first kiss. And yet it hardly qualified for the name. But he could not now make the occasion more memorable for her by returning his lips to hers and doing the deed more thoroughly and more expertly.

It would be the very worst thing he could do.

He ought not to have kissed her at all.

He just did not go about toying with the sensibilities of innocent young schoolteachers. Or with his own for that matter.

Good Lord, they were just friends. Just friends!

“I think,” she said softly, “we ought to go back to the inn, Lord Whitleaf. I see that people are coming out, and I cannot hear music any longer.”

He ought to apologize, dash it all. But that would draw attention to what had not really been a kiss at all.

He could still feel the shock of her warm, soft mouth against his.

Dash it all, why had he not listened to her when she told him over a week ago that a friendship was impossible between a man and a woman? He had used the example of Edgecombe and the countess to prove her wrong. But he had failed to consider the fact that they were lovers as well as friends.

A single man and a single woman could not be both.

Nor could they be just friends, it seemed. The devil of it was that he wanted her-sexually. And it simply would not do.

“I will escort you,” he said, vastly relieved that the assembly had ended in time to avert further indiscretions.

Edgecombe and the countess were waiting outside their carriage. Other people and carriages and horses milled about them in high-spirited disorder as everyone called good night to everyone else.

Peter smiled and looked cheerfully about him.

“Miss Osbourne and I have been wiser than all of you,” he called as they approached the crowd. “We have been strolling quietly out here and enjoying the cool air.”

She too, he saw when he glanced down at her, was smiling brightly.

“Frances,” she said, “this has been a lovely evening, has it not? Thank you so much for bringing me.”

Edgecombe smiled kindly down at her while offering his hand to help her into their carriage, the countess bade Peter a good night before climbing in after her, Edgecombe vaulted in behind, and within moments their coachman was maneuvering the carriage out of the crowd.

Peter heaved a silent sigh of relief as he lifted a hand in farewell and then gave his attention to Miss Raycroft, who had grasped his arm and was prattling excitedly to him about the delights of the evening.

But he was only half listening to her.

What you need is a dragon to slay,she had said while they were still inside the refreshment room.

What you need is a dragon to slay.

When Frances tapped on the door of Susanna’s bedchamber, Susanna mumbled something that was certainly not come in, but she must not have spoken clearly enough. Frances turned the knob, opened the door a crack, and peered around it.

“Oh, you are still up,” she said, opening it wider when she saw in the light of a single candle burning on the dressing table that Susanna was standing by the window. “I thought you might welcome someone with whom to mull over your first-ever ball. You were very quiet on the way home after saying it was a lovely evening. A lovely evening, Susanna? Is that all? Lucius said you were probably too shy with him to talk volumes. But now I have left him in our bedchamber, and it is just you and I.”

She stepped into the room and closed the door behind her.

“Oh,” Susanna said brightly as she busied herself with closing the curtains and realized even as she did so that now she would have no excuse not to turn around, “it was all very pleasant, was it not?”

“Now it is only pleasant? And lovely too? Is that not damning the evening with faint praise?” Frances laughed softly. And then she fell silent as her friend fussed with the fall of the curtains. “Susanna? You are not crying, are you?”

“No, of course I am not,” Susanna protested. But her brief words ended on an ignominious squeak.

“You are. Oh, you poor dear!” Frances exclaimed, hurrying across the room toward her. “Whatever happened?”

Susanna laughed shakily and fumbled in the pocket of her night robe for her handkerchief as she turned. Frances too, she saw, had undressed, ready for bed. She was wearing a long, flowing dark blue dressing gown, and her dark hair lay loose down her back.

“I feel very foolish at getting caught being a watering pot,” Susanna said after blowing her nose, “especially on such an inappropriate occasion. They are not tears of grief, I do assure you. Quite the contrary. It really was a wonderful, wonderful evening, was it not? I’ll remember it all my life. I danced every set but two. It was all quite beyond my wildest dreams. And even one of those two I could have danced. Mr. Finn offered to lead me out, but Miss Honeydew was feeling a little faint and I took her to the refreshment room instead. And during the last set Viscount Whitleaf and I strolled outside where it was cool rather than dance.”

She went and sat on the bed and, when Frances took the chair beside the dressing table, she drew up her legs so that she could hug her knees, and tucked the folds of her robe about her feet.

“Ah, this feels just like old times,” Frances said with a smile. “I still miss you and the others, you know, and life at school and those times when two or more of us would sit up talking far too late into the night. Which is not to say I would give up my present life to return there, but…Well, even happy choices involve some sacrifice. And most of us, I suppose, would like to both have our cake and eat it if only it were possible.”

“Did you enjoy the evening?” Susanna asked.

“Of course I did,” Frances said. “I always enjoy a local assembly better than any grand ball. And this one was made special by the fact that you were there and that you had a number of agreeable partners. And that there was a waltz and I was able to dance it with Lucius and see that you were dancing it too. Yes, it was all quite nearly perfect.”

“I will have a great deal to tell when I return to Bath,” Susanna said. “Among a dizzying number of other things, I will be able to tell Claudia and Anne-and Mr. Huckerby-that I actually waltzed at a real ball-or at a real assembly anyway-and with no less a personage than a viscount. Not quite a duke, perhaps, but close enough.”

She had always made a joke with her friends of her determination to snare a duke one day. She smiled and then rested her forehead on her up-drawn knees.

“It is lovelier than any other dance,” Frances said with a sigh. “It is so…oh, romantic.”

“Yes.” Susanna closed her eyes and remembered the glorious wonder of it. It had seemed to her that she had almost floated over the boards beneath her feet without actually touching them. It had seemed as if waltzing and her dream of flying free had become one and the same. Except that waltzing had not been done alone, but with a man who had held her in the circle of his arms and smelled of musk cologne and masculinity. For the space of that one set of dances dream and reality had touched and merged and she had known complete happiness-one of those rare interludes in any life.

It had been sheer magic.

She would always remember-half with wonder, half with a sort of pain. For a while, she feared, the pain might outweigh the wonder.

And then, quite unexpectedly and ignominiously, the tears were back and soaking into her robe and she uttered a quite audible hiccough as she tried to control them.

“Oh, goodness,” she said, fumbling in her pocket for her handkerchief and managing to produce a shaky laugh, “what an idiot you will think me.”

There was a brief but disconcerting silence.

“Susanna,” Frances said then, “you have not fallen in love with Viscount Whitleaf, have you?”

Susanna jerked her head upward and gazed horrified at her friend, wet, reddened eyes and all.

“No!” she exclaimed. “Oh, no, Frances, of course I have not. Whatever put such a silly notion into your head?”

But the trouble was that her tears seemed to be beyond her control tonight. Her eyes filled again, and she felt two tears spill over onto her cheeks. She mopped at them hastily with her handkerchief and held it to her eyes.

“Ah, my poor dear,” Frances said softly.

“But you are quite wide of the mark. Oh, this is very silly of me,” Susanna wailed. “I am not in love with him, Frances. Truly I am not. But I do like him exceedingly well, you see. We have even become friends during these two weeks. And tonight I waltzed with him. But now that the assembly is all over, I cannot help remembering that the holiday is almost over, that within a few days I will be returning to Bath. Don’t mistake me-I look forward to going back. It is my home and my other friends are there. And the prospect of a new teaching year with some new girls and the return of the old is always exhilarating. But just at the moment I am contemplating the sadness of saying good-bye to you and Lord Edgecombe and everyone else here.”

“Including Viscount Whitleaf,” Frances said softly.

“Yes.” Susanna smiled wanly as she put her handkerchief away again. “Including him.”

“But he is just a friend?” Frances asked, frowning, her eyes looking troubled even in the candlelight.

“Yes,” Susanna assured her, making her smile brighter. “Of course that is all he is, you silly goose.”

Friends do not kiss.

He had kissed her under the elm outside the church. Or was it pathetic to call that brief brushing of lips a kiss? She knew, though, that she would remember it for the rest of her life as a kiss-her first and doubtless her last.

Friends do not kiss.

But they were friends.

There was nothing else between them but friendship, in fact.

She did not want there to be anything else.

There could be nothing else.

She rested her forehead on her knees again.

“Susanna.” Frances had got up from her chair and come to sit on the side of the bed. She set a hand between her friend’s shoulder blades and patted her back gently. “I am so sorry. I am so sorry.”

Susanna concentrated upon taking deep, steadying breaths and holding the tears at bay. She had never been a weeper. Tonight’s tears were quite uncharacteristic of her.

“He is just a friend,” she said when she could be sure her voice would be reasonably steady. “But friends can become very dear, Frances. My heart would break if I had to say good-bye to you or Anne or Claudia and knew it would be forever.”

“Your heart is breaking, then?” Frances asked.

“No. Oh, no, of course not,” Susanna said. “It is just a figure of speech. I will be sad when this fortnight is over. Very sad. And also grateful for the many happy memories. But it is not even quite over, is it? There are three more days to enjoy.”

“I feel so very helpless,” Frances said after a minute or two of silence. “I feel absolutely wretched for you, Susanna. But I do not know what to say or what comfort to offer.”

It was obvious that Frances did not believe any of her protestations concerning Viscount Whitleaf. And because Susanna did indeed feel miserable about having to say good-bye to him-though truly they were only friends-she bowed her head and said nothing for a minute or two longer.

“You have been a comfort to me just by being here,” she said firmly at last, getting off the bed to stand beside it. “By being a friend. It was a lovely evening, Frances-the most wonderful of my life, and it has been a lovely holiday. You must forgive me, please, for shedding a few sentimental tears because it is almost all over. Now, do go back to Lord Edgecombe. I need my beauty sleep even if you do not.”

Frances took her hands and squeezed them, kissing her on the cheek as she did so.

“That’s my girl,” she said. “That’s my brave Susanna. Good night, then. I do hope you will sleep well.”

Susanna folded back the bedcovers as soon as she was alone, snuffed the candle, and climbed into bed. She pulled the sheet up to her chin and closed her eyes.

And was again waltzing with him.

And sharing dreams with him in the refreshment room and strolling with him in the fresh air outside, her arm linked through his, their hands clasped, their fingers laced together.

And again she was reliving that brief kiss.

In three days’ time she was going to be saying good-bye to him.

Her dear, dear friend.

Which was really a very foolish way of thinking about him when she had known him for less than two weeks and had not spent much longer than half an hour with him during any of those days. And when he was Viscount Whitleaf of all people.

Friendship. It does not seem a strong enough word, does it? Are we not a little more than just friends?

She could hear him speak those words-just before he touched his forehead to hers and then kissed her.

But she did not want to remember those words-or that kiss. She did not want to believe that they were anything more than friends. There would be just too much pain to bear if…

She turned over onto her side and slid one hand beneath the pillow. She drew up her knees and tucked the sheet beneath her chin.

Once more she was twirling about the dance floor, enclosed in his arms and music and magic.

Once more she was feeling his lips touch hers.