by Mary Balogh
“As if that would be possible,” Miss Mary Calvert added ingenuously.
“You had better dance the opening set with me, Gertrude,” John Raycroft said cheerfully and without any tactful gallantry whatsoever. “I understand that the alternative is Finn, and Ros assures me that that would be a fate akin to death.”
The ladies all laughed again.
“That is very obliging of you, John,” Miss Calvert said. “Thank you. Mr. Finn is kind and earnest and I like him exceedingly well. But I must confess that he is no dancer.”
It had been obvious to Peter that she did indeed like Finn and that Finn had every intention of working up his nerve within the next year or ten to make her an offer.
“I have it on excellent authority,” he said, smiling down at her, “that Finn is a good farmer. And I have had more than one conversation with him myself on the subject of crops and livestock and drainage and such and have found him a most knowledgeable fellow.”
She beamed happily back at him.
They proceeded on their way between green fields just beginning to turn to gold and thick hedgerows in which wildflowers were entangled, their collective perfumes lying heavy on the air, all the ladies chattering merrily about the coming assembly.
Before the subject had been exhausted they approached a fork in the lane and John interrupted, pointing with his cane to the branch on the right and explaining to Peter that it would take them back to the village by another route whereas the one on the left led to Barclay Court, to which the Earl and Countess of Edgecombe had still not returned. But even as he spoke, Miss Calvert exclaimed with pleased surprise, and her sisters turned their heads to look and then went skipping off to meet two ladies who were proceeding toward them on foot from the latter direction.
“It is the countess,” Miss Calvert explained. “They are back home, John. How delightful!”
Peter recognized the Countess of Edgecombe-the earl was an acquaintance of his. He had always admired the lady, who was tall and dark and strikingly beautiful-and who had the most lovely soprano voice he had ever heard. She enjoyed considerable fame in the musical world and traveled all over Europe performing before large audiences.
“So it would seem,” John Raycroft said cheerfully. “Famous!”
But Peter’s eyes had come to rest upon the countess’s companion. She was a young woman, small and shapely. Beneath her green bonnet, which was a shade darker than her dress, he could see that her hair was a bright and interesting shade of auburn. She had a smiling, pretty face that did the hair full justice.
She was, in fact, a notable beauty, and he gazed at her with considerable admiration.
But even as he looked a strange thought verbalized itself with crystal clarity in his mind.
There she is,he thought.
What his mind meant by those three innocent-sounding but somehow ominous words he did not pause to ponder. He was always admiring the pretty young ladies he met. He was always eager to make their acquaintance. He was always preparing to be obliging and charming. He was always preparing to flirt. But his heart was well guarded against any deeper feeling-had been for five years.
It was an unguarded thought he had just had, though.
There she is.
As if she were some long-misplaced part of his soul, for God’s sake.
He might have felt a little foolish-not to mention uneasy-at the almost theatrical extravagance of his reaction to the unknown beauty had he been at leisure to ponder it.
But he was not.
There was a flurry of exuberant greetings as the two parties came together at the fork in the lane. Everyone, it seemed, had an acquaintance with everyone else except for Peter and the lady whose name, he soon learned, was Miss Osbourne. He waited for someone to make the introductions. She had sea green eyes, he could see now that he stood within a few feet of her. They formed a marvelous combination with her hair. Her clothes had been well chosen to complement her coloring.
Lord, but she was a beauty. Why had he not met her before? Who the devil was she, apart from Miss Osbourne?
“Lord Whitleaf,” the countess said, “may I present my friend, Miss Osbourne? She teaches at Miss Martin’s School for Girls in Bath, where I was also a teacher before I married Lucius. This is Viscount Whitleaf, Susanna.”
Susanna Osbourne. The name suited her. And her eyes were large and long-lashed and surely her finest feature, though in truth he could not discern the smallest imperfection in any of the others.
She curtsied. Unencumbered by Miss Raycroft and Miss Calvert, who had released their hold on his arms while greeting the ladies from Barclay Court, he made her an elegant bow and fixed upon her his warmest, most charming smile.
“Miss Osbourne,” he said. “An already glorious summer day suddenly seems even warmer and brighter.”
His female entourage laughed with collective merriment at the outrageous compliment. Miss Osbourne did not. And the warm smile she had been wearing since her eyes alighted upon his party cooled considerably as she looked back at him with…with what in her eyes? Dislike? Contempt? It was one or the other.
“My lord,” she murmured in acknowledgment of the introduction before looking away to smile more warmly again at everyone else.
“But how lovely that we have met some of our friends so soon after leaving Barclay Court,” the countess said. “Lucius and I arrived home yesterday, bringing Susanna with us from Bath for a couple of weeks before school resumes for the autumn term, and now we are on our way to pay our respects to some of our neighbors. We were going to Hareford House first, in fact. Mr. Raycroft, we were hoping to persuade you to walk back with us to visit Lucius, who is shut up with his estate manager this morning. Are you staying at Hareford House, Lord Whitleaf? You must come too if you will. Lucius will be pleased.”
“Lord Whitleaf is to stay until after the village assembly the week after next,” Miss Mary Calvert announced brightly and triumphantly. “He is to dance with each of us, though I am not even speaking to Rosamond since she has the advantage over us of living at Hareford House and is thus to dance the opening set with him while I have to wait for the fourth set since Gertrude and Jane are older than I. Yet Rosamond is two weeks younger. It is all most provoking, Lady Edgecombe.”
But she laughed as she spoke to indicate that she was not seriously chagrined and took advantage of the moment by skipping up to Peter’s side and taking his right arm. She smiled up at him while Miss Jane Calvert appropriated his left arm.
“Will you and Lord Edgecombe and Miss Osbourne be there?” Miss Calvert asked the countess.
“At the assembly? This is the first I have heard of it. But we almost certainly will be,” the countess assured her. “It will be delightful. Ah, thank you, Mr. Raycroft.”
John was offering one arm to the countess and the other to Miss Osbourne, who took it with a warm smile.
Peter proceeded after them down the lane with the four remaining ladies, who were all more animated than ever by the addition to their numbers and called out frequent comments and questions when they were not twittering among themselves or chattering to him.
So Miss Susanna Osbourne was a schoolteacher, was she? In Bath. It was no wonder he had not met her before.
What a sad waste of youth and dazzling beauty.
She was probably intelligent and bookish too.
Certainly she was not susceptible to male charm and flattery-not to his particular brand, anyway. He ought to have taken more notice of the countess’s introduction and avoided flatteries altogether. He ought to have chosen instead to dazzle them both with his intelligence and erudition by rattling off the names of all the wildflowers growing in the hedgerows-preferably the Latin names.
Perhaps that would have impressed her.
Of course, he did not know any Latin flower names.
Miss Martin’s School for Girls. He allowed himself a mental grimace even as he laughed at some witticism Miss Jane Calvert had just uttered.
I
t sounded formidable. And she taught there.
Like the quintessential lady schoolteacher, her character was totally devoid of humor.
But no, that was unfair. What the devil was it he had said to her? Something about the summer day seeming warmer and brighter for her presence in it? He winced inwardly. Good Lord, could he not have done better than that? Had he really expected her to simper all over him with gratitude at being so complimented?
Sometimes he embarrassed himself.
He focused his attention on the two ladies on his arms and the other two in his orbit and flirted good-naturedly with them for the rest of the outing.
Raycroft and the ladies from Barclay Court appeared to be holding a sensible conversation, he noticed, except when interrupted by a comment or question from behind.
Peter felt faintly envious. He almost never held sensible conversations with females. He flirted with them instead, and flirting had become a habit. It had not always been the case, had it? He remembered talking endlessly and earnestly to Bertha about all the subjects that had fascinated him at university and about religion and politics and philosophy-until, that was, he had recognized the glazed look in her eyes as one of unutterable boredom.
2
Susanna Osbourne had thought she was not going to be able to come to Barclay Court and had been disappointed, even though she had tried to tell herself that it did not really matter.
She had remained at the school in Bath all summer with Claudia Martin to care for the charity pupils, who had nowhere else to go during the holiday. Anne Jewell, the other resident teacher, had gone to Wales for a month with her son, David, at the invitation of the Marquess of Hallmere, an old acquaintance of hers.
But while Anne was still away, Frances Marshall, Countess of Edgecombe, a former teacher at the school herself, had stopped off in Bath with the earl, her husband, on the way back to their home, Barclay Court in Somerset. They had been away for a few months in Austria and other European countries, where Frances had been engaged to sing. They had come to invite Claudia or Anne or Susanna to go home with them for two weeks. The three of them were still Frances’s dearest female friends, even though she had been married for two years.
Claudia had urged Susanna to go. She could manage the girls perfectly well alone, she had said, and there were always the nonresident teachers to appeal to if necessary. Besides, Anne would surely be back any day. But Susanna had a loyal heart. Claudia Martin had given her employment five years before when she had still been a charity pupil at the school herself, and she would not easily forget her gratitude or the obligation she felt to set duty before personal inclination.
She had told Frances without any hesitation at all that no, she would not go this time. And of course, Frances had not argued. She had understood. But then, just the day before Frances and the earl were to leave, Anne had come home and there had been no further necessity for Susanna to stay too.
And so here she was in Somerset during a particularly sunny and warm spell in late August. It was not the first time she had been here, but the wonder of such visits would never pall, she had been sure. Barclay Court was stately and spacious and lovely. Frances was as dear as ever, and the earl was exceedingly kind. The neighbors, she remembered, were amiable. She knew that Frances would go out of her way to entertain her royally. Not that any effort was necessary. Just the rare enjoyment of being on holiday was entertainment enough, especially when the setting was so luxurious.
She and Frances were out for a visit to the Raycrofts, whom Susanna had particularly liked when she first met them. They had decided to walk rather than take a carriage since the weather was lovely and they had been traveling all of yesterday. When they were scarcely half a mile on their way, they had heard cheerful, laughing, youthful voices and had seen that the younger Raycrofts and Calverts were out walking too.
Susanna had felt her heart lift with gladness. Life had seemed very good indeed.
Until it no longer did.
Frances and Mr. Raycroft were talking about Vienna. Frances had been there very recently, and Mr. Raycroft’s betrothed, Miss Hickmore, had just gone there with her parents to spend the autumn and winter months.
Mr. Raycroft, tall, loose-limbed, sandy-haired, his face good-humored more than it was handsome, had always been particularly amiable. Frances had once suggested, only half in jest, that Susanna set her cap at him. But he had shown no romantic partiality for her-and she had felt none for him. She felt no pang of regret to learn now of his betrothal, only a hope that Miss Hickmore was worthy of him.
He was gentleman enough to draw Susanna into the conversation, explaining that he was as ignorant as she of what such places as Vienna were really like, having never set foot outside the British Isles himself.
“It is undoubtedly a most lovely city,” he said, smiling kindly at her, “though I am sure it cannot surpass London in beauty. Are you familiar with London, Miss Osbourne?”
She determinedly tried to concentrate upon the conversation rather than upon the other thoughts that whirled in jumbled disorder through her mind.
“Only very slightly,” she said. “I spent a short time there as a girl but have not been since. I envy Frances’s having seen Vienna and Paris and Rome.”
“Lady Edgecombe,” one of the young ladies called from behind them, “do you suppose there will be any waltzes at the assembly the week after next? I shall simply die if there is one and Mama forbids us to dance it as she surely will. Is it really quite shockingly fast?”
“I have no idea, Mary,” Frances said while Susanna turned her head to see who had spoken. “I did not even know of the assembly, remember, until you mentioned it a few minutes ago. But I hope there will be a waltz. It is a lovely, romantic dance and really not shocking at all. At least, it has never seemed so to me.”
And there he was in the middle of them, Susanna saw with a sinking heart, one lady on each arm as he had been when she first set eyes on him, the other two hovering about him as if he were the only man in the world of any significance-an opinion with which he undoubtedly concurred.
She was not inclined to think kindly of him, though she would concede that he could not be blamed for his name.
Viscount Whitleaf.
She turned suddenly cold at the remembered name-as she had done a few minutes ago when Frances introduced her to him.
He was without any doubt the most handsome gentleman she had ever set eyes upon-and she had thought so even before she was close enough to see that he had eyes of an extraordinary shade of violet. He looked as if his valet might well have poured him into his coat of dark blue superfine and his buff pantaloons. His Hessian boots looked supple and expensive, even with their shine marred by a light coating of dust from the lane, and his shirt was white and of the finest linen. His tall hat sat upon his dark hair at just the right angle to look slightly rakish but not askew. And he had the physique to display such clothes to full advantage. He was tall and slender, though his shoulders and chest were broad and his calves were shapely.
If there were any physical imperfection in his person, she certainly had not detected it.
The very sight of him among the Raycrofts and the Calverts had filled her with awed wonder.
Then Frances had mentioned his name.
And he had bowed with studied elegance-so out of place on a country lane-and smiled with practiced charm and paid her that lavish, ridiculous compliment while looking so deeply into her eyes that she would not have been surprised to discover that the hair on the back of her head was singed. He had white, straight, and even teeth to add to all his other perfections.
There had been delighted laughter from the other young ladies, but Susanna would not have known what to do or how to reply even if she had not still been stunned from hearing his name. Her mind had been paralyzed and it was only by sheer chance that her body had not followed suit.
Even if he could not help his name, Susanna thought now, remembering that it was not any Viscount Whitle
af against whom she held a grudge, nevertheless she already disliked him quite heartily. A gentleman ought to set about making a strange lady feel comfortable, not throw her into confusion. She did not know much about men, but she could recognize a vain and shallow one when she met him, one so wrapped up in the splendor of his own person that he expected every woman he encountered to fall prostrate at his feet.
Viscount Whitleaf was such a man. He lived up to his name.
She had accepted Mr. Raycroft’s offered arm with gratitude. But with every step she had taken along the lane since, she had felt the presence of Viscount Whitleaf behind her like a hand all along her spine. She resented the feeling and despised herself for allowing it.
Of course the name Osbourne would probably mean nothing whatsoever to him. And he could not really be blamed for that either. He had been only a boy…But he ought to remember. It ought to be a name burned on his brain as his was on hers.
She wished fervently now that Anne had not returned to Bath when she had and that she had not come to Barclay Court with Frances and the earl. She wished herself back in the safety of the school-in the dreary, endless safety.
Though why should she? And why should she allow her holiday to be ruined by a shallow, conceited, careless man who clearly thought he only had to look at a woman with those fine violet eyes for her to fall head over ears in love with him?
Susanna turned to face the lane ahead again, unconsciously squaring her shoulders and lifting her chin as she did so, and asked Mr. Raycroft where he would go if he could choose anywhere in the world. Would he choose Greece, as she would?
“Greece would be well worth a visit, I believe, Miss Osbourne,” he replied, “though I have been told that travel there is very uncomfortable indeed. I am a man who enjoys his creature comforts, you see.”
“I do not blame you at all,” Frances said. “And I can assure you that I have not yet seen a country to rival England in beauty. It feels very good to be home again.”
They reached the village soon after that and stopped to speak with Mrs. Calvert, who came outside the house to greet them, though they declined her invitation to step inside. When they continued on their way without the Calvert sisters, Viscount Whitleaf walked ahead with Miss Raycroft on his arm, and the two of them chattered merrily all the way to Hareford House, obviously very pleased with each other’s company.