by Mary Balogh
She looked even lovelier tonight than she had yesterday, if that was possible. She was not wearing a bonnet tonight, of course, and he could see that her hair was cut short. It hugged her head in bright, soft curls that were less fiery than red, warmer than gold, but with elements of both. She wore a cream-colored gown that showed off her hair color to full advantage.
He deliberately stayed away from her-she had made her wishes quite clear yesterday. Perhaps he would not have spoken to her at all if he had not sat down beside Miss Honeydew after supper because he saw that she was all alone. Miss Honeydew was the elderly sister of a former vicar, now deceased. She had, he suspected, never been a beauty, since her top teeth protruded beyond her upper lip, and they and her long nose and face gave her a distinctly horsey appearance. Her hair always managed somehow to escape in untidy gray wisps from beneath the voluminous caps she wore, she squinted myopically at the world through large eyeglasses that were forever slipping down her nose and listing to the left, her head seemed to be in a constant nodding motion, whether from habit or infirmity it was not clear, and there was an air of general, smiling vagueness about her.
The neighbors, Peter had noticed during the past two weeks, were invariably kind to her and she had been included in various groups earlier in the evening. But he guessed that she lived a lonely existence with no children or grandchildren or even nieces and nephews to claim her or fuss over her.
And so he went to sit beside her and engage her in conversation.
She was asking him if he had heard of the upcoming assembly when Miss Osbourne walked by. Miss Honeydew grasped her by the wrist, shook her arm back and forth, and beamed up at her.
“Miss Osbourne,” she said, “there you are. I am delighted that you are staying at Barclay Court again. This is the first chance I have had all evening to speak with you.”
She had been talking with-or listening to-Dannen when the countess had spent some time with Miss Honeydew earlier.
Miss Osbourne smiled kindly down at Miss Honeydew without looking at Peter.
“How are you, ma’am?” she asked. “It is a pleasure to see you again.”
“This young lady,” Miss Honeydew said, looking at Peter while her hand still held Miss Osbourne’s wrist, “was remarkably kind to me the last time she was here. She came to visit me one afternoon when I had hurt my foot and could not get about, and she read to me for longer than an hour. I have eyeglasses, but I still find it difficult to read. Print in books is so small these days, do you not find? Sit down, child, and talk to me. Have you met Viscount Whitleaf?”
She had no choice then but to look at him, though it was a brief glance as she sat on a stool close to Miss Honeydew’s chair.
“Yes,” she said, “I have had the pleasure, ma’am.”
“Miss Osbourne,” he said, “what a pleasant day it has been. I looked up several times during the course of it, but not once did I observe a single cloud in the sky. And the evening is almost as balmy as the day, or was when I left Hareford House.”
She looked at him again, her green eyes grave. He smiled at her. He had promised to make nothing but bland conversation about the weather when they were forced into company with each other. He saw a sudden gleam of understanding in her eyes. She came very close to smiling.
“I believe,” she said, “I saw one fluffy cloud at noon, my lord, when I was returning from a drive with Frances. But it was a very little one, and I daresay it soon floated out of sight.”
He was utterly charmed as his eyes laughed back into hers. She was capable of humor, even wit, after all. But she colored suddenly and looked back at Miss Honeydew.
“I will walk over to your cottage and read to you again one day, ma’am, if you wish,” she said. “I will enjoy it.”
“I should like it of all things,” Miss Honeydew cried, nodding her head more forcefully than usual. “But you cannot walk all that way, child. It must be all of three miles from Barclay Court.”
“Then I shall ask-” Miss Osbourne began.
But Peter, totally forgetting his resolve to stay away from her and talk only about the weather when they did come face-to-face, yielded to a more impulsive instinct.
“For your pleasure, ma’am,” he said to Miss Honeydew, “I would be prepared to go to considerable lengths. It is your pleasure to have Miss Osbourne come to your cottage to read to you, and you will not be disappointed. You will allow me, if you please, to bring her there myself in my curricle.”
As if it were Miss Honeydew’s permission that was needed.
“Oh-” Miss Osbourne said, perhaps indignantly.
“Oh,” Miss Honeydew said, enraptured, her thin, arthritic hands clasped to her bosom. “How exceedingly kind you are to an old lady, my lord.”
“Old lady?” He looked about the room in some surprise. “ Is there an old lady present? Point her out to me, if you would be so good, ma’am, and I shall go and be kind to her.”
She laughed heartily at his sorry joke, drawing several glances their way. Peter guessed that she did not often laugh with genuine amusement.
“How you tease!” she said. “You are a rogue, my lord, I do declare. But it is exceedingly kind of you to offer to bring Miss Osbourne to me. You will both stay to tea when you come? I shall have my housekeeper make some of her special cakes.”
“Your company and a cup of tea will be quite sufficient to reward me, ma’am,” he said. “Ah, and Miss Osbourne’s company too.”
As if that were an afterthought.
Miss Honeydew beamed happily at him.
“It is settled, then.” He looked at the younger woman. “Which afternoon shall we decide upon, Miss Osbourne?”
She was looking back at him, the color high in her cheeks, an expression in her eyes he could not interpret-or perhaps he simply did not want to. And her eyes were not actually looking directly into his own, he noticed, but somewhere on a level with his chin.
It struck him then that, even apart from the fact that she did not like him, she might also be a little intimidated by him-or at least by his title. Perhaps the way he had greeted her when they were introduced was so far beyond her experience that he had made her uncomfortable. Worse, perhaps he had humiliated her. What was it she had said before they parted- I would ask you not to speak to me with such levity, my lord. I do not know how to respond.
It was a disturbing thought that perhaps he had been less than the gentleman with her.
“ Will you allow me to drive you to Miss Honeydew’s in my curricle?” he asked. “It will give me great pleasure.”
“Thank you, then,” she said.
“Tomorrow?” Miss Honeydew asked eagerly.
Miss Osbourne looked at her, and her expression softened. She even smiled.
“If that will suit Lord Whitleaf, ma’am,” she said.
“It will,” he said. “Ah, I see that Miss Moss must have found the music she was looking for earlier. She is beckoning me to come and turn the pages for her. You will excuse me?”
Miss Honeydew assured him that she would. Miss Osbourne said nothing.
“You looked,” Miss Moss said, giggling with a group of other young ladies as he came up to the pianoforte, “as if you needed rescuing.”
“Actually,” he said, “I was enjoying a comfortable coze with Miss Honeydew. But how could I resist the chance of being surrounded by music again-and by beauty?”
“Miss Osbourne will keep her company,” Miss Krebbs said. “She does not need you too, Lord Whitleaf.”
He humored the young ladies and flirted good-naturedly with them for the rest of the evening while wondering if Miss Osbourne would find some excuse not to ride in his curricle with him tomorrow.
Somehow, he realized, he had been aware of her all evening-even, oddly enough, when they were in different rooms or when both his eyes had been focused upon the sheets of music so that he could turn a page at the right moment.
He had not been similarly aware of any other woman.
; Dash it all, one day of the fourteen they would both spend in this neighborhood had already passed. Was he going to be content to allow the remaining thirteen to slip by too without at least making an effort to overcome her aversion to him and make a friend of her?
A friend?
Now that was a strange notion. Women and friendship-deep friendship, anyway-did not usually go together in his thoughts. He had come to think of them as mutually exclusive interests.
What exactly was his motive, then? But did there have to be one? She was an extraordinarily pretty woman and he was a red-blooded male. Was that not motive enough? He was not usually so self-conscious about his approaches to women. But then he had never before known a lady schoolteacher from Bath-except, without realizing it, the Countess of Edgecombe.
Anyway, he would have to see what tomorrow brought. At least they would be alone together for the three-mile drive to Miss Honeydew’s and back again-if Miss Osbourne did not find some way out of accepting his escort, that was.
And if it did not rain.
4
Frances’s matchmaking schemes were going to be doomed to disappointment, Susanna thought as she tied the ribbons of her straw bonnet beneath her chin the following afternoon. They were green to match her favorite day dress-not that she had many others to compete with it.
The Reverend Birney, good-looking in a fresh-faced, boyish sort of way, had been polite to her last evening. He had even conversed with her for a short while at the supper table, expressing an interest in a school that took in almost as many charity girls as paying pupils. But there had been nothing approaching ardor in his manner toward her.
Mr. Dannen, short-as Frances had warned-and slightly balding at the crown of his head, but not by any means unpleasing of countenance, had engaged her in conversation for almost an hour before supper even though he was the host and ought to have circulated more among all his guests. But she had asked him about Scotland, his mother’s country of birth, and he had proved to be the sort of man who needed very little prompting to talk at great length on a subject of personal interest to him. His descriptions had been interesting and she had not minded at all having to listen to them. But she had felt not the smallest spark of romantic interest in him. Or he in her, she guessed.
Miss Calvert was indeed interested in Mr. Finn-and he in her.
“Ah, you are ready,” Frances said from the open doorway of Susanna’s room. “Viscount Whitleaf is here. He is downstairs, talking with Lucius.”
Susanna grimaced and reached for her gloves. Her stomach felt suddenly queasy and her knees less than steady.
“I wish I were going to walk to Miss Honeydew’s cottage,” she said.
“You know we would have called out a carriage for you before we allowed that to happen,” Frances said.
“But he was there when I offered to go read to Miss Honeydew,” Susanna explained, “and he felt obliged to offer to take me in his own conveyance. Poor man! I was horribly embarrassed.”
Frances laughed and moved aside to allow Susanna to step out of her room.
“I do not suppose he minded in the least,” she said. “He is nothing if not gallant to ladies. It is very sweet of you, Susanna, to be willing to give up an afternoon for Miss Honeydew. I try to call on her a few times whenever we are at home. It has never occurred to me, though, to offer to read to her, despite the fact that I remember you did it the last time you were here too.”
By that time they were downstairs and approaching the front doors. They were open, and Susanna could see the Earl of Edgecombe and Viscount Whitleaf standing just outside them at the top of the horseshoe steps. They turned at the approach of the ladies, and the viscount swept off his hat and bowed.
“It is a glorious day again,” he said, his eyes laughing at Susanna. “Today there are definitely a few clouds in the sky-I counted twelve on my way over here-but they are small and white and harmless and actually add to the beauty of the sky.”
Susanna might have laughed out loud or at least smiled if she had not just stepped outside and seen the vehicle in which she was to ride-Frances and the earl must wonder why he was making such an issue of what ought to have been a passing mention of the weather. But she had seen the vehicle. He had said last night that he would escort her in his curricle, but she had been too caught up in the knowledge that he was going to drive her to reflect upon the fact that she had never ridden in one before. And this was no ordinary curricle. It was, she guessed, a gentleman’s racing curricle, light and flimsy, its wheels large, its seat looking small and fragile and very far up off the ground.
“And the occasional shade is welcome,” Frances said. “It is very warm today.”
“Miss Honeydew seems determined to ply us with tea and cakes after Miss Osbourne has read to her,” the viscount said. “We may be gone for quite a while, but you may rest assured that I will return Miss Osbourne safe and sound.”
“Whitleaf is a notable whip, Susanna,” the earl said with a laugh as they all descended the steps to the terrace. “You need not fear for your safety.”
“I am not afraid,” she said. “It is just that I have never ridden in a curricle before.”
And the seat looked even higher and the whole thing flimsier from down here-and marvelously elegant. The horses, which were being held by one of the grooms from the stable, looked alarmingly frisky. But even before she need start worrying about the journey itself…how on earth was she going to get up there?
Fortunately it proved easier than it looked. She climbed up to the seat with no dreadful loss of dignity, though she clung to the viscount’s hand as she did so. She moved over on the seat as far as she could go, but even so…
But even so, when he joined her there and gathered the ribbons into his hands, his outer thigh and hip were touching hers-and there was nothing she could do about it. And she had thought two days ago when they were walking back to Barclay Court from Hareford House that she had never felt more uncomfortable in her life! She had known nothing then about discomfort.
He gave the horses the signal to start, the curricle swung into motion, and her hand took a death grip on the rail beside it. For a few moments she could think of nothing but her own safety-or lack thereof.
“I will not let you fall,” he said as they moved from the terrace onto the lane. “And I will not spring the horses-unless you ask me to do so, that is.”
Ask him to…
She laughed and turned her head toward him. He looked back, and she felt all the shock of discovering that their faces were only inches apart.
“Laughter, Miss Osbourne?” he said, raising his eyebrows. “You are not enjoying the ride by any chance, are you?”
She was terrified. Her toes were curled up inside her shoes, her hand was still gripping the rail hard enough-or so it seemed-to put five dents in the metal, and every muscle in her body was clenched. The hedgerows rushed past them somewhere below her line of vision, the little clouds dashed by overhead, the horses trotted eagerly down the lane, their chestnut coats gleaming in the sunshine, the seat swung effortlessly on its springs. She was…
She laughed again.
“This is wonderful!” she cried.
Then, of course, she felt terribly foolish. How gauche of her! She was behaving like a child being given a rare treat. And yet she did not feel like a child as she became aware again of his thigh and shoulder brushing against hers.
His laughter mingled with her own.
He had caused her a largely sleepless night, she recalled. She had dreaded this afternoon and the thought of being alone with him again. What would she talk about? She had no wish to talk with Viscount Whitleaf of all people. Even apart from the name he bore she had decided on her first acquaintance with him-on her first sight of him-that he was shallow and frivolous. And yet she had not been able to forget that he had been sitting with Miss Honeydew when most of the other young people had avoided her all evening whenever they could do so without appearing ill-mannered. And that he ha
d made her laugh with that foolish but surely kindly-meant flattery about an old lady. And he had voluntarily doomed himself to the tedium of an afternoon at Miss Honeydew’s cottage. He had not-as Susanna had led Frances to believe-been trapped into offering her a ride in his curricle. He might easily have avoided doing so.
“You certainly enjoyed yourself with all the young ladies last evening” she said. “They would have been perfectly happy if there had been no other gentlemen present.”
“I did,” he admitted, turning the curricle onto the fork of the lane that led directly to the village with hands that looked very skilled indeed on the ribbons. “Enjoy myself, that is. It is a pleasure, you know, to listen to young ladies chatter and to turn the pages of their music when one knows that doing so makes them happy. But your barbed tongue was at work again, was it not? Would they have been happy with only me? I doubt it. Miss Calvert would not have been happy if Finn had not been there. Perhaps you did not notice that she spent some time in his company? And Miss Krebbs was very happy indeed when Moss asked her to reserve a set for him at the assembly-so happy that she allowed him to fill a plate for her at supper and sit beside her. Miss Jane Calvert would have spent a less enjoyable evening if she had not had the Reverend Birney in her sights for most of the time. And you would have sat all alone for an hour if Dannen had not been there.”
“Mr. Dannen was the host, ” she protested. “Besides, I was not talking of myself.”
“And as a final word in my defense,” he said, “it might be pointed out that all the gentlemen had an equal opportunity to gather at the pianoforte and turn pages of music.”