by Mary Balogh
She raised her eyes to his.
“And love is something we have in abundance,” he said. “Tell me if I am wrong.”
She said nothing.
“Not just a sweet, sentimental, romantic kind of love,” he said, “though there is that too. You have the gritty kind of love, Susanna, which would sacrifice your own happiness if necessary and carry on with life without bitterness. And I have learned a great deal about it in the last little while. I love my family and my home. And I love you.”
“Peter,” she said, but she shook her head and could say no more. She bit her lower lip.
“Are you going to destroy our love,” he said, “just because I am wealthy and titled and you are a schoolteacher-though you are something of an heiress too, I was informed yesterday. And just because I am Whitleaf? Just because I will always honor my mother? Just because she and your father once sought comfort for their loneliness with each other?”
She closed her eyes.
“Or are you going to marry me?” he asked her. “Are you going to make three elderly people in the ballroom very happy by allowing me to make an announcement tonight?”
“Oh, Peter!” She looked up sharply. “That is grossly unfair.”
He stared grimly back at her. And then he smiled. And then grinned.
“It is rather, is it not?” he said. “But will you? Make them happy, that is?”
She had simply despised all those girls in Somerset who had melted beneath his every smile-until, that was, she had realized that it was his sheer likability they had responded to. But even so…
Was she to become one of them?
“What does your mother have to say about this?” she asked him. “Have you told her?”
“I have,” he said. “My mother has been possessive, a little domineering, even selfish, in her dealings with me during my lifetime, Susanna, but there is no doubt in my mind that she loves both my sisters and me totally. She will love my wife rather than lose me. I cannot promise you an easy relationship with her, but I believe I can assure you that it will not be impossible-unless it is to you.”
She gazed at him. Was this really possible after all, then? Or was she listening with her heart rather than with her common sense?
Was it with one’s heart that one ought to listen?
And then he took away all her power to listen with anything but her heart. He closed the distance between them, possessed himself of her gloved hand in both his own, and went down on one knee before her.
“Another horrible cliché,” he said with a grin. But the grin faded almost immediately. “Susanna, will you please, please marry me? If you cannot truthfully tell me that you do not love me, will you tell me instead that you will marry me?”
And the only protest she could think of making was an utter absurdity.
“Peter,” she said, leaning a little closer to him, “I am a teacher. I have obligations to my girls and to Claudia Martin. I cannot simply walk out in the middle of a school year.”
“When does it finish?” he asked her.
“July,” she said.
“Then we will marry in August,” he said. “The month we met. That particular dragon, you see, was not even worthy of the name. A mere worm. Any others?”
“Oh,” she said helplessly, “there must be dozens.”
“Then you had better name them quickly,” he said, “or it will be too late. I am going to kiss you very thoroughly and then bear you off in triumph to the ballroom. Supper follows the waltz-the perfect time for announcements. I arranged it that way.”
“You are very confident, then, Lord Whitleaf,” she said.
“I am not,” he said. “Heaven help me, I am not, Susanna. Put me out of my misery. Tell me that you love me-or do not. Tell me you will marry me-or will not. Please, my love. I am not confident.”
She supposed the dozen reasons for saying no would rush at her long before the night was out. She supposed equally well that she would vanquish them one at a time by the simple expedient of remembering how he looked at this precise moment-anxious, his eyes full of uncertainty and love, down on one knee. And by remembering how she felt at this moment-overwhelmed by love.
She drew her hand free of his, cupped his face with both hands, and leaned forward to kiss him softly on the lips.
“I do,” she said softly, “and I will.”
“I knew, ” he said, “that I should have done this in the drawing room rather than in here. There is a kissing bough there. I suppose, though, I will manage well enough without one.”
And suddenly he was on his feet, bringing her to hers at the same time and drawing her into an embrace that proved his supposition quite correct.
And the strange thing was, Susanna thought-when she could think at all-that it was not in any way a lascivious kiss that they shared, lengthy as it was. It was one of joy, of hope, of commitment, of love.
Ah, yes, those dozen reasons were not going to stand even a moment’s chance of being allowed a hearing.
“My love,” he said against her lips. “My love.”
“Peter,” she said.
And they kissed again before he placed her hand very formally on his arm and led her back in the direction of the ballroom.
The music had stopped.
Everyone was already at supper.
Her betrothal was about to be announced. Her betrothal.
26
The wedding of Susanna Osbourne to Viscount Whitleaf was solemnized at the church near Alvesley Park in Wiltshire on a perfect day in August.
Alvesley had been chosen from among a number of contending places-for a number of reasons. Although Susanna’s grandparents had been eager to host the event in Gloucestershire, even they admitted that their homes and the village inn could not possibly accommodate all the distinguished guests who would be invited and that the assembly rooms above the inn would be a shabby location for the wedding breakfast even if they had been large enough.
Sidley was a serious contender, but how could Susanna’s fellow teachers travel so far when there were charity girls to look after? And the viscount would not hear of marrying his lady without her friends in attendance.
For a while only Bath seemed a viable option-and one that was perfectly acceptable to both the bride and the groom-until Lauren, Viscountess Ravensberg, and the Duchess of Bewcastle again took it upon themselves to organize wedding celebrations. Though actually it was Eleanor Thompson who set the plans in motion when she informed her sister in her weekly letter of the predicament concerning the charity girls and commented upon the vast size of Lindsey Hall.
No one ever knew-or asked-how the duchess persuaded the very toplofty Duke of Bewcastle to take in twelve schoolgirls for a whole week surrounding the wedding of one of their teachers, but she did, and his grace was even seen to smile upon her during the wedding itself, a rare enough public display of affection.
Alvesley it was, then, and guests came from every corner of England, it seemed, and even from Scotland and Wales-the viscount’s sister and her husband from the former, Mr. and Mrs. Sydnam Butler with David and their four-month-old daughter from the latter. The viscountess came from London, where she had enjoyed a gratifyingly successful Season, having drawn the admiring attentions of two distinguished widowers. She came despite the fact that she had not seen Lauren, her niece, since the latter was a baby. The viscount’s sisters and their families came, as did some of his friends, most notably Theo Markham and John Raycroft with his new bride.
Susanna’s grandparents came with two of her aunts and their husbands, whom she had met during a visit at Easter. And all her closest friends were there-Claudia Martin, Anne Butler with Mr. Butler, and the Countess of Edgecombe with her husband, newly returned from a singing engagement in Paris. Eleanor Thompson was there and Lila Walton and Cecile Pierre, the French and music teacher, and even Mr. Huckerby had made the journey from Bath. And of course, the twelve charity pupils attended the wedding too, supervised by Miss Thompson and Miss
Walton, though they were so thoroughly awed by the occasion and the company that no supervision was really necessary. Even Agnes Ryde was mute and wide-eyed.
It was a wedding worth waiting for, as the bride and groom agreed after the event. But, ah, the wait had been tedious in the extreme.
On three separate occasions between Christmas and August the viscount had traveled to Bath. On two of those occasions he had stayed for a week, on the third for ten days. And yet he had found his sojourns there almost more frustrating than the long spells when he was not there, since Susanna flatly refused to neglect any of her duties-or would certainly have done so if he had ever asked. During those weeks he had come to understand that a teacher’s work was more a way of life than a job. There was almost literally no spare time, even for a languishing fiancé.
Apart from the dreariness and frustrations of the wait, though, they had been happy months for Peter, who felt that all his dreams had suddenly come true and would come to full fruition once he had a wife by his side at Sidley-not that a wife had been part of the original dream. Once she was there, he doubted that he would ever want to step beyond the bounds of Sidley and its neighborhood-his home, his circle of contentment and happiness.
Susanna did have regrets about the life she would leave behind on her marriage. The school had been home and haven to her as a girl. It was where her bewildered, badly bruised heart had healed. It had been home and workplace during her young adulthood. She loved teaching, she loved the girls, she loved her fellow teachers, especially Claudia, who had been both sister and mother as well as friend to her for many years.
But all women must leave behind their homes and their families when they married. And in her case it was, she believed with growing conviction as the months passed, a worthy exchange. She could never have been truly happy as an unmarried woman, with no man, no children, no home of her very own. Not truly happy. And she loved Peter far more deeply than she could have imagined loving any man. Perhaps it was because she liked him and admired him as much as she loved him.
And there was no school near Sidley, she had discovered. It was a lack she meant to rectify, and though Peter had merely laughed when she had mentioned it during one of his visits to Bath, it had been an affectionate, indulgent laugh, and there had been love and admiration in his eyes.
She had dreaded the end of school in July, telling herself with each passing event that it was the last in which she would be involved. At the same time, she had thought the end of term would never come.
She was to have a wedding in August.
She was to marry Peter.
She was to spend the rest of her life with him, for as long as they both lived.
But August came, as it inevitably does each year.
And with it came the wedding day, a perfect blue-skied sunshiny day.
Peter was sitting at the front of the church, John Raycroft beside him, aware that the pews behind them were filling with guests, though he did not turn his head to look.
He felt, in fact, as though it would be impossible to turn his head if he tried. Surely for once in an otherwise exemplary career, his valet had knotted his neckcloth very much too tightly, though the man had almost wept over its perfection after standing back to examine his handiwork an hour or so ago.
He ought not to have come so early, he thought, as his stomach started to feel like a churning cauldron.
What if she simply did not come?
What if someone spoke up during that dreaded silence after the vicar had asked if anyone knew of any impediment to the marriage?
What if his tongue tied itself in knots?
What if he dropped the ring?
What if Raycroft had forgotten to bring it?
“Do you have the ring?” he whispered out of the side of his mouth.
“I do,” Raycroft whispered back with smirking complacency-though he had been just as much of a wreck two months ago when Peter had been his best man. “Just as I did when you asked five minutes ago.”
What if she said I don’t instead of I do? Or was that I won’t and I will? He could not for the life of him remember what the correct wording was. He must listen very carefully to the vicar when the time came.
What if?…
Oh, Lord.
And then there was a distinct swell in the hushed murmurings from the pews behind, and he guessed that Susanna must have arrived with Colonel Osbourne. And then he was sure of it as he looked up at the vicar and the Reverend Clapton, who was celebrating the nuptial service with him, and saw that the latter was beaming with grandfatherly pride as his eyes focused on someone at the back of the church.
Peter stood and turned as the organ began to play.
And there she was.
Finally the phrase made perfect sense to him.
She was dressed from head to toe in delicate ivory, her gown fine lace over satin, her bonnet covered with lace, one layer of which covered her face. She looked small, almost fragile, beside her large grandfather with his erect military bearing. She also looked incredibly lovely. And no bonnet or layer of lace could obscure those bright golden-red curls.
As she came closer, he could see her face and her eyes. They were looking back into his own, huge with anxiety and perhaps wonder and-oh, yes, and definitely with love.
Ah, Susanna.
Even now he could not quite believe that they had overcome the odds to reach this moment.
He realized that he had been gazing back, an identical look on his own face. But no one was going to speak during that moment of silence, and no one was going to drop the ring, and Raycroft did have it with him. His tongue would remain unknotted, and she would say I do or I will, whichever it was.
All was well.
He smiled slowly at her and felt such a welling of happiness that it almost threatened to overwhelm him.
He smiled, and suddenly the sunshine shone as brightly inside the church as it did outside.
But he looked so much like the man who had dazzled and terrified her on the lane from Barclay Court almost exactly a year ago that she marveled how a stranger could become the very beat of her heart in so short a time. And this time it did not matter that he was Viscount Whitleaf. It was a name, a title, that she would share in a few minutes’ time.
He was dressed elegantly in black and cream and white.
There surely could be no more handsome man in the world.
Her inexplicable terror vanished.
She had wept in her grandmother’s arms early in the morning but had been unable to explain even to herself why she did so. Grandmama had said it was because she was in love, that if she were marrying for any other reason, she would do so with steely calm. She had blown her nose and laughed.
But the terror had remained, and it had been very difficult to stay dry-eyed when Anne and Frances came to her dressing room to hug her, and very nearly impossible when Claudia had arrived and held her close for surely a whole minute before releasing her.
“Susanna,” she had said, “I found it difficult to let Frances and Anne go-they were and are dear friends. But you are more than a friend. You came to me as a bewildered, sullen, unhappy girl, and I loved you from the first moment, well before your true nature shone through. I would not let you go to any man who was unworthy of you or to anyone you did not love with all your heart. Though what I would do to stop you I do not know.”
She had laughed and stepped back and dried her eyes.
“Ah,” she had said, “why did I neglect to notice that all three of you were young, lovely women? If I had noticed, I would not have befriended any of you in a million years. I would have remained aloof.”
She had laughed again and looked fondly at each of them in turn.
And now, Susanna discovered as soon as Peter smiled, she was not terrified at all. Why should she be? This was her wedding day, and here they were at church together. And there was something more than the smile itself to dazzle her.
There was the look in his eyes.
>
It warmed her from the roots of her hair to the tips of her toes.
“Dearly beloved,” the vicar began.
And indeed it was a brief moment of time after the long wait. But a glorious moment nonetheless. Peter spoke his responses, she spoke hers, the shiny gold ring slid onto her finger-ah, but she could not list all the moments. It was all one jumble of happiness.
And then the vicar-no, Grandpapa Clapton-was pronouncing them man and wife and leading them off to the vestry to sign the register. And Peter was lifting her veil up over the brim of her bonnet and-quite scandalously-kissing her briefly right on the lips. With the vicar and Mr. Raycroft and both her grandfathers looking on.
The organ was beginning a loud, joyful anthem as they came out of the vestry and proceeded along the nave, past the pews occupied by their relatives and friends. It seemed to Susanna that she had never smiled so much in her life-and yet she bestowed a special smile on her girls, seated side by side in two pews, all neatly clothed in their Sunday best, all on their very best behavior.
She had once been one of them.
A gaily decorated open barouche awaited them outside the church gates. A crowd of villagers had gathered to enjoy the show. But they did not hurry toward the gates. The congregation spilled out behind them, and they were caught up in hugs and handshakes and smiling greetings. They were also showered with rose petals, mostly by the girls.
They were flushed and laughing by the time they had climbed into the barouche and someone had closed the door and given the coachman the signal to drive off toward Alvesley for the wedding breakfast.
Susanna sat across one corner of the seat, Peter across the other corner, their hands clasped on the seat between them, their fingers laced as they waved to the crowd in the churchyard and out on the road.
And then, apart from the stiff-backed coachman, they were alone together.