Simply Magic (11 page)

She must not be greedy, she told herself. She might well have been doomed to watch everyone else waltz while she pretended to be enjoying herself as an onlooker. She would always have this memory of her first—and probably her last—waltz.

“It is customary, you know,” he said, leaning his head a little closer to hers, “for a man to lead his partner at the supper dance into the refreshment room. Will you take supper with me?”

“Is it suppertime already?” she asked as she looked about to see that yes, indeed, the room was fast emptying. “Oh, I am so glad. Yes, I will. Thank you.”

And so, she thought happily as he led her off to the refreshment room, her half hour with him was to be extended, even if they were to sit with other people.

What a very precious evening this was. With only three days left of her stay at Barclay Court, it had become a fitting finale for a memorable holiday.

Though there
were
still three days left.

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.