by Mary Balogh
But she was not so fortunate this time.
Theodore was standing in the hall as she came downstairs, probably waiting to see her on her way. A newly arrived visitor was talking with him there. For only a fraction of a second did Susanna think that perhaps this was one of the expected houseguests. But then, almost simultaneously, she realized that the visitor, broad-shouldered in his many-caped greatcoat, was a young man and that he was Viscount Whitleaf.
He looked up at the same moment and their eyes met.
She was flooded with such a powerful and unexpected longing that she only just found the strength not to dash down the remaining stairs and hurl herself into his arms.
“Miss Osbourne,” he said.
“Lord Whitleaf.”
She came slowly downward. She wondered if he had known she was coming to Fincham Manor.
“Susanna is going out for a walk,” Theodore said. “I have offered to accompany her, but she needs to be alone. She has just been reading the letter her father wrote her on the last day of his life. Do go without further ado if you wish, Susanna. I’ll take Whitleaf in to see my mother. He has an invitation to extend.”
“Later, Theo, if it is all the same to you,” the viscount said without taking his eyes off Susanna. “I will go back outside with Miss Osbourne-if she will accept my company.”
The thought of his mother-of what his mother had done-flashed through her mind, but he was not his mother. And suddenly she could not bear the thought of going out alone, of leaving him behind.
“Thank you,” she said, and turned to leave the house without looking back.
22
“One could say without too much exaggeration,” Peter had remarked just last evening to Bertie Lamb, his favorite brother-in-law, Amy’s husband, “that the house is packed to the rafters and bulging at the seams.”
The crowd was made up mostly of relatives and relatives of relatives-and of course the Flynn-Posys, who were not related to anyone else there but who obviously had hopes of rectifying that situation at some time in the foreseeable future. Arabella Flynn-Posy was seventeen years old and dark-haired and dark-eyed and remarkably pretty despite a mouth that had a tendency to turn sulky at the slightest provocation. His mother adored her-and her mother adored him. An imbecile with a pea for a brain would have understood their intentions.
“But your mother is ecstatic,” Bertie had said. “So are your sisters. And I am partial to a crowd myself, I must admit. Jolly good show about the ball, old chap-it will brighten things up around here.”
His mother was, of course, not ecstatic about that one thing, Peter knew. But he had impulsively decided that he wanted to invite all his neighbors to a grand Christmas celebration at Sidley Park, and he had gone ahead and invited them all to a ball on the evening of Christmas Day without consulting anyone except his cook and his butler and his housekeeper, who would be directly involved in the preparations-and who were now dashing about in transports of delight at the prospect of a Sidley ball.
His mother had been the last to be told.
Well, no, not quite the last.
He still had not been to Fincham Manor when he told her. It really would be too bad if the Markhams were unable or unwilling to attend the ball since he would quite readily admit in the privacy of his own mind that the whole thing had been arranged for them. Well, not them precisely.
The ball was for Susanna.
Love did not die very quickly, he had discovered during the intervening weeks. It did not even fade quickly-or at all. And it was a deuced depressing thing if the truth were known. His only hope, he had tried to tell himself since learning that she was indeed to come to Fincham, was to stay away from her and trust they did not inadvertently run into each other over the holiday.
So what had he done to put that very sensible decision into effect? He had arranged his first-ever ball at Sidley for her, that was what. And now he had driven himself over to Fincham to extend the invitation-in person, of course, because he knew she must have arrived by now.
And now here he was a mere few minutes later, hurrying out of the house faster than he had hurried in out of the cold, his invitation having been mentioned to Theo but not-as was right and proper-delivered formally to Lady Markham and to Edith. But that could wait. So could warming his hands and his feet and the rest of his person.
Susanna needed him-or so he told himself.
She had changed in the course of a few weeks. Her face looked pinched and pale, her eyes dark-shadowed in contrast. And it seemed to him that the changes went beyond what the distress of the morning must have brought her.
He caught up to her on the terrace outside and took her firmly by the arm. She was looking about as if she did not quite know in which direction she wanted to walk.
“Come to the stables,” he said. “With any luck my curricle will still not be unhitched. Let me take you for a drive.”
“Yes,” she said without looking at him. “Oh, yes, please.”
This was not quite how he had visualized the morning, he thought as they walked in silence to the stable block and into the cobbled yard, where indeed his horses were still hitched to his curricle. But she had already read her letter-had just read it, apparently.
He helped her up to the high seat and took his place beside her. He took the ribbons from the groom’s hands and gave the horses the signal to start. He could not help remembering the last time she had ridden beside him thus when they had gone to Miss Honeydew’s cottage together. He glanced down into her face, shaded by the brim of her bonnet, but she was staring ahead.
As soon as they were on the driveway he took his horses to a faster pace. He had the distinct feeling that she needed to leave Fincham behind, at least for a while.
She looked up at him, her cheeks already slightly rosy from the cold, and laughed quite unexpectedly.
He urged his horses to an even faster pace.
“Anyone for a race to Brighton and back?” he asked.
This time when she laughed there was a somewhat reckless gleam in her eyes, and he kept up the pace for several minutes, concentrating upon what he was doing. He had not exactly sprung his horses, but he had also never traveled at this speed with a lady passenger beside him.
“Oh, Peter,” she cried, “this is wonderful!”
He knew that her exuberance was very close to hysteria. But there was nothing he could do for her except this-to be with her, to give her the illusion of escape, however brief.
But eventually he slowed down. They had the wind behind them, but even so it was a cold winter’s day, and speed did not do anything to keep one warm in an open conveyance. Besides which, these lanes had not exactly been designed for reckless driving.
“Tell me about your Christmas concert,” he said.
“Oh, it went very well,” she told him. “It always does, of course, but every year we fear the worst. There were no disasters and only a few very minor crises, none of which were obvious to the audience, I daresay. Not that the audiences at such events are ever very critical. They come fully intending to be pleased. It was a large audience-I was so pleased for the girls.”
She proceeded to tell him about the play she had directed, the choirs, the solos, the dancing, the Nativity tableau Miss Thompson had organized at the last moment, and the end-of-term prizes presented by Miss Martin.
“Miss Thompson has joined the staff, then?” he asked.
“She never did leave Bath,” she said. “I do believe she is enjoying herself, and we all enjoy having her-especially Claudia. They must be very near each other in age, and they have struck up a close friendship.”
She turned her head toward him after another minute or two.
“You came home to Sidley, then?” she said.
“I did,” he told her. “You asked me to, if you will remember, and I came directly from Bath. I have been here ever since.”
She gazed at him in silence while he looked ahead along the road.
“I have even q
uarreled with my steward,” he told her.
“Oh, dear,” she said.
He grinned. “It was not exactly a quarrel,” he said. “I made a suggestion and he rejected it without even hearing me out-very gently and tactfully as if I were still a half-wit nine-year-old. I looked him in the eye and told him I did not enjoy being interrupted, and I thought his lower jaw was going to scrape on the floor. He listened after that with both ears and both eyes, made one small suggestion, which was very sensible, and we came to an agreement. It may be my imagination, but it has seemed to me in the week or so since it happened that he now looks upon me with something bordering on respect.”
“Oh, Peter.” She laughed. “How splendid of you. I wish I had been there to see you pokering up and telling him that you did not enjoy being interrupted.”
“If he had been very observant, though,” he said, “he might have noticed that my knees were knocking together.”
She laughed again.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
He had thought he was just driving aimlessly about the lanes in the vicinity of Fincham, but now that she had asked he realized that he was headed in a very definite direction-toward Sidley Park, in fact, though he knew in the same moment that it was not the house that was his destination.
“I don’t think,” he said, “you are quite ready to go back to Fincham yet, are you?”
“No,” she said.
“But you do need to get in out of the cold,” he said. “I’ll take you to the dower house at Sidley. It’s empty but well kept. We will light a fire in the sitting room and warm up. And you can tell me about your letter-or not, as you wish. You can sit there for as long as you need to-either alone or in my company.”
“You are very kind,” she said.
But there was no more light chatter or laughter. They had served their purpose-she was now calm whereas it had been clear that she was in high distress when he first saw her.
There was no more conversation at all, in fact, as he drove them the rest of the distance, turning onto the long driveway to Sidley, turning off it again almost immediately to take a narrower, wooded trail to the dower house.
He helped her down, unhitched the horses before leading them into the stable stalls and laying out some feed for them, and then took Susanna into the house.
“It is very prettily situated,” she said.
“Yes,” he agreed, taking her by the elbow and leading her to the sitting room. “I have always loved it almost more than the main house. I have always felt at home here.”
The sitting room was also the library. There were several tall bookcases filled with books, many of them his boyhood favorites. The large sofa and chairs were of soft, ancient leather, probably in no way elegant in the eyes of the fashion sticklers, but marvelously comfortable.
He went down on one knee by the fireplace without first removing his greatcoat, and lit the fire that was already laid there.
“Come and warm your hands,” he said.
“I like this room,” she said as they stood side by side, almost shoulder to shoulder, holding out their hands to the thin flames that would soon crackle into full life. “It is cozy. I could be happy here.”
“Could you?” He turned his head and found himself in the middle of one of those moments of heightened awareness. He was sure she was blushing even though her cheeks were already rosy from the cold.
She lowered her glance and removed her bonnet. She undid the fastenings of her cloak too, though she left it around her shoulders as she sat in the chair to one side of the fire. He threw off his greatcoat and took the chair at the other side.
This, he supposed suddenly, was not at all proper.
But to the devil with propriety.
“I am glad you chose to read the letter,” he said, “and I am glad you chose to do it here. Was it very hard to read?”
She touched her middle fingers to her temples and made circles there for a while as she looked down at her lap.
“I had not realized,” she said, “what a… living thing handwriting is. It was his handwriting, and it was as familiar as his face. I felt as if I were looking at him a few minutes before his death.”
He said nothing.
“He loved me,” she said, looking up into his face and lowering her hands.
“Of course he did.”
“He thought his death would be the best thing for me, ” she said. “He was facing disgrace and perhaps worse, and he chose death for my sake. Can you imagine anything more foolish than that?”
He watched tears well into her eyes. She blinked them away.
“How could his death benefit me?” She drew a deep breath and released it slowly. “He made provision for me, and told me I would be happy.”
“Provision?” he said.
“Oh, Peter,” she said, “they are coming to Fincham today-my two grandfathers and my grandmother, all the way from Gloucestershire. But they are strangers. Whatever am I to do?”
He thought of her as a twelve-year-old in London, trying to find employment and of the same child being sent to school in Bath as a charity girl, all alone in the world. How very different her life would have been if she had waited.
He would never have met her-except on that one barely remembered occasion when they were children.
“I would not plan on doing anything if I were you,” he said. “Meet them and allow the relationship to develop from there. They are your blood kin.”
“I am so frightened,” she said. “And what a very foolish thing to say.” She sat farther back in her chair.
“It might be worth remembering,” he said, “that as they draw nearer to Fincham today, they are probably very frightened too.”
“I had not thought of that,” she said. “Do you suppose it is true?”
“If they are prepared to make such a long journey in the dead of winter just to meet you,” he said, “I would say it is undoubtedly true.”
“Oh,” she said, and she closed her eyes.
He let her rest while he poked the fire in order to disperse the flames more evenly. A shower of sparks crackled up the chimney.
“They sent him away,” she said without opening her eyes, “after he had fallen in love with his brother’s wife and then killed his brother in a fight. But she followed him and they married.”
“Your mother?” he asked, seating himself again.
“Yes,” she said. “I think it must have been a great and very painful love. One filled with guilt. I wonder if they ever knew a moment of happiness.”
Probably not. The William Osbourne he remembered had certainly not been an unfeeling brute of a man.
“He wrote,” she said, “that my mother paid the ultimate price when she died giving birth to me and that now it was his turn.”
“But why then?” he asked. “Why did he wait twelve years?”
He thought she would not answer him, and he certainly would not press. This was her story. He had no right to hear it unless she chose to tell him. But she did answer after a while.
“His secret was out,” she said. “He had recently told Sir Charles himself since someone was trying to blackmail him by threatening to expose him. But then sh-. But then that person decided to ruin him anyway by telling untrue stories that surely would have been believed when his past was disclosed too.”
It sounded, Peter thought, like something a woman might do-a scorned woman. And Susanna had been about to say she before she used the more neutral person instead. Poor Osbourne. Perhaps he had tried to find comfort in another woman’s arms, and it had cost him his life.
He was facing disgrace and perhaps worse,she had said earlier. Worse than disgrace?
Had rape been the threatened charge, then?
“It has just struck me,” she said, “that my one grandfather and grandmother lost two sons within twelve years of each other, and that my other grandfather lost a daughter. And that the circumstances must have been particularly painful for all of th
em.”
“And then,” he said, “they lost you when you disappeared.”
“Theodore told me,” she said, “that they searched for me but could not find me.”
She spread both hands over her face.
He knew after a few moments that she was not weeping but that it was costing her an enormous effort to control her tears. He got up out of his chair, crossed to her, and without really thinking of what he did, scooped her up into his arms, leaving her cloak behind, and sat on the sofa with her on his lap. He cradled her head against his shoulder and held it there when she buried her face against him, her hands still covering it, and wept.
He knew that she was weeping out eleven years’ worth of grief-for her mother and father, for her grandparents, perhaps for her dead uncle. And for herself. He held her and let her cry as long as she needed to. At last he offered her a handkerchief, and she took it and dried her eyes and blew her nose before putting it away in a pocket of her own.
“I am sorry,” she said, resting the side of her head against his shoulder again. “Did you even know I was at Fincham?”
“I did,” he said. “Why do you think I went there this morning?”
“Theodore said something about an invitation for his mother,” she said.
“An invitation for you all,” he said, “but especially for you. There is to be a ball at Sidley on Christmas evening. We have a houseful of guests and I have invited everyone from the neighborhood too. It will be the first grand event that I have hosted at Sidley. You must come.”
“Oh, no, Peter,” she said, sitting up and looking down at him with troubled eyes. “I cannot possibly do that.”
“You can,” he said. “It is for you. I thought you would be proud of me. It is a very little dragon I have slain, but I have done it anyway. It was my idea, and I have done all of the planning and all of the inviting. Don’t refuse to come. Please don’t.”
He would not want to attend himself if she did not-and that would lead to a mildly absurd situation.