Mary Balogh - Simply Magic

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.

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?