by Mary Balogh
She swallowed against a moment’s disappointment that now it was over.
Forever.
It did not matter. It would not matter. She would always remember.
He drew free of her and rolled off her, careful to lower her skirt over her legs and lift her bodice over her breasts as he did so. He lay on his back beside her after setting his own clothing to rights, one arm flung over his eyes, the other hand palm-down over the back of hers as it lay on the grass between them.
It seemed to her that he slept for a few minutes.
How could anyone possibly sleep after that? But he had, of course, expended a great deal of energy.
Deep inside her she harbored his seed.
The beginnings of rational thought niggled at the edges of her mind.
“Susanna,” he said sleepily, while she lay with closed eyes, reliving every moment of what had just happened.
She turned her head to look at him. He was tousled, slightly flushed, impossibly handsome.
“Come away with me,” he said.
“What?” An irrational hope blossomed for a moment.
“Let’s go away,” he said. “Why say good-bye when neither of us wants it to happen? Let’s go to North Wales. Let’s see Mount Snowdon together and go walking over the hills and along the beaches. Let’s do it. Let’s run free.”
And the horrible thing was, she thought as she stared at him, that he meant it. And that for two pins she would have cast caution and good sense to the winds and agreed to go with him.
“And afterward?” she said.
“Afterward?” He laughed softly. “To the devil with afterward. We will think of that when the time comes. I won’t ever leave you destitute, though, I promise. Come with me. Let’s do it.”
Rational thought came crashing back from wherever it had been hiding and took up residence in her conscious mind again.
She would be his mistress.
They would have a wild, doubtless glorious fling together, and then he would pay her off. Because he was a basically decent and kind man, he would see to it that she did not starve after he discarded her.
She could be his mistress.
His whore.
“I like my life as it is,” she said. “I love the school and my work there and my pupils and my fellow teachers. I have to go back tomorrow.”
“You do not have to do anything,” he said.
“You are right.” She sat up and straightened her dress as best she could with slightly shaking hands. “I do not. I do not have to go away with you.”
He sat up too.
“I cannot bear to let you go,” he said as she reached for her bonnet and pulled it on over her disheveled curls. “Can you bear to let me go?”
“No,” she admitted, pausing as she tied the ribbons beneath her chin. “But there are no alternatives that I can bear even as well as saying good-bye to you.”
“Susanna-” he began.
But she had got to her feet and stood looking down at him. She had even dredged up a half-cheerful smile from somewhere.
“I will treasure the memory of this fortnight,” she said. “Even the memory of this. But this is the end. It must be. Anything else would be sordid.”
“Sordid.” He frowned up at her and then reached for his hat and got slowly to his feet to stand beside her. “Would it?”
“Yes,” she said. “I am a teacher, not a courtesan. I will remain a teacher.”
He looked at her for a long moment, his eyes unfathomable, and then he nodded.
“I beg your pardon,” he said. “I do beg your forgiveness for the insult.”
“It was not insulting,” she said softly, “to let me know that you would prolong your acquaintance with me if you could. Shall we go back instead of walking farther? We must have been gone for some time, and Frances will wonder what-”
“We have been up to?” he suggested.
Slowly and ruefully they smiled at each other.
When he offered his arm, she took it, and they resumed their walk, albeit in the opposite direction. She felt all the unreality of the past half hour or so.
Except that it was not unreal.
Between her thighs she could feel the trembling aftermath of what they had done together.
Inside, she felt an unmistakable soreness.
Deep inside she harbored his seed.
Too late she thought of consequences.
12
Peter returned home to Sidley Park in September after he could be sure that all his mother’s houseguests had left. He wondered a little uneasily as his carriage approached the house if he was going to find it easy-or even possible-to share his home with his mother now that he had made a decision to settle here. He loved her dearly, but she had always ruled Sidley as though it were her own domain and everyone in it as though she were a supreme deity who knew what was best for them. It was a good thing she had ruled her children with a loving as well as a firm hand-though that very fact, of course, would make it harder to exert his will against her now.
But why anticipate problems when they did not even exist yet?
When his carriage drew to a halt before the house and the coachman opened the door, Peter did not even wait for the steps to be set down but vaulted out onto the cobbled terrace like an eager boy home from a dreary term at school.
It did not take him long to discover that problems did indeed exist.
His mother had been alleviating the tedium of her days since the departure of the houseguests by having the drawing room refurbished with a preponderance of pink colorings and frills. Most notably there were frilly pink cushions everywhere, though even they were preferable to the pink curtains, which were pleated and ruched and frilled and scalloped in ways that made him feel slightly bilious.
“This has always seemed such a plain, dark, gloomy room,” she explained, her arm linked through her son’s as she took him to inspect what had been done. “Now already it looks light and cheerful, would you not agree, my love? It will look even better when the portraits have been replaced with some pretty landscapes.”
“Where are the portraits going?” he asked her, masking the dismay he felt with a tone of polite interest. They were portraits of some of his ancestors, and he had always been proud of them, fascinated by them, and altogether rather fond of them. They were a link to his father, whom he could not remember, and to his heritage on his father’s side, in which no one else but he had ever seemed interested.
“To the attic,” she said. “I have always hated them. One does not need such gloomy reminders of the past, would you not agree, my love?”
He grunted noncommittally.
The drawing room, he thought-though he did not say so aloud-looked like an oversize lady’s boudoir. It would look even more so with different pictures.
“Well, what do you think?” she asked, beaming up at him.
It was time, perhaps, to play ruthless lord and master. But she looked so very happy and so very sure that he would be pleased too. And it was a mere room when all was said and done. He could live with a pink room-provided it was not the library or his bedchamber.
“It is very… you,Mama,” he said. It really was a room suited to her. She had always been pretty-she still was-and delicate and very feminine. Pink had always been her favorite color.
“I knew you would adore it,” she said, squeezing his arm. “It is so good to have you home again. But, my love, it was most provoking of the Raycrofts to insist that you remain in Somerset when they knew you wished to be here. Our guests were very disappointed, especially Lady Larchwell, who was hoping, I daresay, that her daughter would take your eye. Miss Larchwell is a pretty young lady and modest too, considering the fact that her maternal great-grandfather was a duke. You would like her. You really ought to have asserted yourself with the Raycrofts, you know. You are just too kindhearted for your own good.”
“I must confess, Mama,” he said, “that I enjoyed my stay at Hareford House very much indeed.”
“Well, of course you did,” she said, seating herself on a chair and almost sinking out of sight amid a pile of cushions. “Though I daresay the company was not very distinguished. It is not so here either now that all the houseguests are gone. I will be glad of your company, my love.”
“Well, there are the Markhams,” he said. “I will certainly be happy to see Theo again. And there are the Harrises and the Mummerts and the Poles.”
But his mother pulled a face and made no reply.
She had always behaved graciously enough toward their neighbors, but she had always treated them too with a condescension that spoke of the social distance she felt existed between them. The Markhams were a distinguished enough family, it was true, and had always been prominent in political circles-Theo’s father had actually been a minister in the government for a number of years. But though there had been a time when his mother visited often at Fincham Manor and occasionally took him and his sisters with her, the relationship had cooled long ago. It was a pity. Theo’s mother still lived at Fincham during the winter months, and she was much of an age with his mother. They might have been friends.
“And speaking of the Markhams,” he said, suddenly thinking of something, “do you remember Mr. Osbourne?”
Her fingers stopped playing with the lace frill of one of the cushions, and she stared blankly at him.
“I cannot say I do,” she said.
“He was the late Sir Charles Markham’s secretary for a number of years,” he explained.
“Was he?” She gave the matter some thought, but then shrugged and shook her head. “Then I would not have known him, would I?”
“You scolded me once,” he said, “when he was teaching Theo and me to write in some fancy script in his study. You came dashing in and then were very upset because you had thought we were up in Theo’s room when instead we were breathing in ink fumes and probably giving ourselves a headache.”
“You had very delicate health, my love,” she said. “I always feared for you, especially if I could not find you where I expected you to be. But I do not remember that particular incident.”
“And then there was the time,” he said, “when I was home from school for a week and went over to Fincham with you-without the girls-only to discover that Theo did not have a school holiday and Edith was away at a birthday party somewhere. I went riding off on one of the horses from the stable to run an errand with Mr. Osbourne-I daresay I told him I had your permission or else he thought that at my age I did not need it. You were so upset by the time we came back that I believe you were actually ill after we came home. It was the last time I saw him.”
“Oh?” she said. “Was he dismissed? I daresay he ought to have been.”
“He died,” he said. “Suddenly. Of a heart attack.”
“Oh?” she said. “That was unfortunate. But what can have put a mere secretary into your mind years after his death? Do be a love and ring for the tea tray.”
He did so without answering her question. It made perfect sense, of course, that she would not remember a man who had really been no more than a glorified servant. It was even less likely that she would remember Susanna Osbourne-not that he had been about to mention her name to his mother.
He was trying hard to forget it himself-or at least the guilt with which he remembered it.
He called upon all his neighbors in the coming weeks. The Harrises told him about their recent stay at Tunbridge Wells, the Mummerts wanted to know about all the latest fashions in London, since they were planning to spend a few weeks there in the spring, and the Poles regaled him with stories of the exploits of their numerous grandchildren. They were all perfectly amiable, but none of them issued any invitations to him to dine or play cards or join them at any other entertainment. It had never been done-he was Viscount Whitleaf and as far above them in station as the stars. Everything in their manner during his visits demonstrated an almost awed respect. All of them assured him that they were deeply honored that he had called. But he issued no invitations either-his mother would be uncomfortable, even upset, about having her house invaded by inferior company.
Her house!
It was his!
Dash it all, it was harder than he thought to change his way of thinking. Sidley had been his mother’s domain since her marriage. And though it had been his property for twenty-three years, for eighteen of those he had been a minor and it was only natural that his mother remain in charge.
Why the devil had he not told his uncles and his mother when he turned twenty-one that he was far too young to think of marriage but that he was at exactly the right age to take over the running of his own life and home and estate? It would have been easy then. It would have been the natural thing to do. It was what everyone had surely been prepared for.
Or why, when he had decided not to marry, had he not told his mother quite firmly that she was going to have to find somewhere else to live than the main house at Sidley?
But of course he had been too young for all of it. His life had been effectively lived for him for twenty-one years. How could he have developed the wisdom overnight to act as he ought?
He called one day at Fincham and was delighted to find Theo at home. Edith was no longer there, of course. She had married Lawrence Morley two years ago and now lived in Gloucestershire with her husband. Lady Markham was currently there with her, lending her support after the recent birth of Edith’s first child.
Peter called several times after that first visit and sometimes went riding with his longtime friend. On one of those occasions he asked the same question he had raised with his mother.
“Do you remember Osbourne?” he asked.
“ William Osbourne?” Theo asked. “My father’s secretary, do you mean?”
“I rather liked him,” Peter said. “He always had time for us, if you remember. It was a pity about his death.”
Theo leaned forward out of his saddle to open a gate into a field so that they could ride across country instead of having to keep to the dusty lane.
“It was a tragedy,” he agreed. “Avoidable too, as such deaths always are. Though I do not suppose he saw it that way, poor fellow.”
“He could have avoided it?” Peter asked.
“Easily,” Theo said dryly, as he shut the gate behind them. “By not putting that bullet through his brain.”
“He killed himself?” Peter’s hands tightened so suddenly upon the reins that his horse reared up and he had to struggle to keep his seat and bring it back under control.
“You did not know?” Theo was frowning when Peter finally looked back at him. “No one told you?”
“Only that he had died,” Peter said.
“Hmm.” Theo continued on his way across the field. “That makes sense, I suppose. You were always sheltered from any unpleasantness, weren’t you? What put you in mind of him now, anyway?”
“I ran into his daughter this summer,” Peter said.
“Susanna?” Theo said. “I was under the impression she had fallen off the ends of the earth, poor girl-though I suppose she is a woman now. Edith was inconsolable, apparently, when she ran off, and my mother was frantic. Fortunately I was away at school and missed all the drama. I was sorry about Osbourne, though. He was a decent fellow.”
“ Why did he kill himself?” Peter asked.
“All sorts of unlikely possibilities were suggested to me when I asked the same question at the time,” Theo said. “Either no one knew the real reason or else everyone was being very cagey about it. He had to be buried in unconsecrated ground-which probably did not matter much to him but would have been hard on Susanna if she had stayed for the funeral. Apparently she did not. Anyway, should we change the subject?”
They did not refer to it again either on that afternoon or on any subsequent occasion. But Peter was left wondering what the devil could have been so dire in Osbourne’s life that he had put an end to it despite the fact that he had a daughter to support. Her running away was a
little more understandable now, though. Her father had committed suicide-a nasty sin according to Church doctrine. Poor child-running off to London and trying to find employment there. If Lady Hallmere was indeed responsible for sending her to Miss Martin’s school in Bath, then he would forever feel kindly toward her.
But he still tried hard not even to think of Susanna Osbourne-or of what he had done to her the day before she left Barclay Court.
He spent some time out on the home farm, though not as much as he would have liked. The harvest was almost all in and it would have seemed mildly ridiculous to jump in to help now, all energy and enthusiasm, when there was very little left to do.
He spent some time with his steward and went over all the books with him, despite the fact that he carefully examined each monthly report that was sent him. But Millingsworth had been appointed by Peter’s guardians when he was a very young child. The man was organized, efficient, knowledgeable, and experienced and looked upon Peter-or so it seemed-as if he were still a boy whose presence in his domain was a slight nuisance that had to be endured only because he was the official employer.
When he was in the house, his mother hovered over him, worried that he was not eating properly or dressing in a manner appropriate to the weather or giving serious enough thought to his future-to marrying well and setting up his nursery, that was. She was careful to see to it that the servants answered his every summons promptly, that his every whim was catered to, that he was served the very best of everything at mealtimes even if the portion in question had already been set on her plate. She came close to tears if he ever decided to set foot outdoors when it was raining or damp or when the wind was blowing at any force above the merest breeze. She even appeared in the library doorway one night well after midnight when he was reading to ask him if he did not think it was time he went to bed as he knew how easily he got a headache the next day if he stayed up too late at night.
It was all horribly irksome. Perhaps he would have faced it all and dealt with it all if he had not been so mortally depressed. But despite the enthusiasm with which he had jumped from his carriage on his arrival, he could not shake off the gloom he had carried with him from Hareford House.