She had watched her hand held against his lips, and she had felt it there-not just with the hand itself but with every cell in her body. No man had ever made her such a courtly gesture before. Ah, no one had. And it felt very good indeed. It felt more than just good.
And then his face blurred before her vision and she realized in some horror that her eyes had filled with tears.
She tried to pull her hand away, but he held on to it, his grasp tightening.
“Susanna,” he said, “have I upset you? I do beg your pardon. Do you not wish-”
“Yes,” she said shakily, dashing her free hand across her eyes. “I do. I will. I mean, it would give me the greatest pleasure to waltz with you, my lord. Thank you.”
But her stomach felt as if it had performed a somersault inside her. He had called her Susanna. How foolish to be so affected by that slight breach of good manners-by that wonderful sign of friendship.
He bowed elegantly over her hand and grinned at her.
“The evening preceding that waltz will be dull indeed,” he told her, his free hand over his heart.
Ah, he had seen that she was upset and otherwise discomposed, she realized. And so he was deliberately lightening the atmosphere by teasing her, even flirting with her. Oh, he was a kind man.
“Nonsense, Lord Whitleaf,” she said with a laugh that came out on a strange gurgle. “I have not forgotten that you are engaged to dance at least the first four sets of the evening with other partners. You cannot pretend that the prospect of so much female company is dull.”
He chuckled.
“But I had engaged to dance with them,” he said, “before I even met you. Once I did, I became impervious to all other female charms.”
“Flatterer!” She clucked her tongue and laughed again, with genuine amusement this time, and withdrew her hand from his.
“I am speaking the truth, you know,” he added. “I have found that friendship is far more stimulating than flirtation.”
“The female population of England would go into a collective decline if they heard you say such a thing,” she said. “We must go back.”
“Must we?” he said. “Or shall we run away and stay away forever and ever? Do you ever wish you could do that?”
“No.” But she gazed wistfully at him. Sometimes she did wish it. She had run away once. But in her dreams she could sometimes fly…
“You once told me you were not a romantic,” he said. “Are you not an adventurer either?”
“No,” she said. “My feet are firmly planted on the ground.”
“And your heart firmly pumping away in your chest,” he said, reaching out one hand to brush his knuckles lightly beneath her chin. “I am not quite sure I believe you, Miss Osbourne-on either count. But you are right, I suppose. If we are not to run away together, we had better return.”
He fell into step beside her and they proceeded on their way in a silence that soon became companionable again.
But a nameless yearning grew in her as they descended the path-a yearning perhaps to throw caution to the winds and step out of herself entirely into an unknown…
An unknown what?
Adventure?
Romance?
Neither was being offered her with any seriousness, and she would refuse even if they were. Dreams were all very well as long as one never confused them with reality.
The reality was that she was walking beside Viscount Whitleaf along the wilderness walk at Barclay Court during a lovely summer afternoon. The reality was that she was going to waltz with him tomorrow evening at her first-ever assembly. Even after that there would still be three days of her holiday left.
There was nothing whatsoever wrong with reality. Reality was very close to being perfect.
And even after those three days were over there would be Anne and Claudia waiting for her in Bath and the security of her teaching position. There would be the other teachers and the girls, including several new ones. There would be all the challenge of a new school year to prepare for. And pleasant memories of her holiday.
“A penny for your thoughts,” he said after they were down the steep part of the path and were drawing closer to the lake.
“I was realizing how many blessings I have to count,” she said.
“Were you?” He looked more closely at her. “In my experience people count blessings only when they are feeling sad. Are you sad?”
“No,” she said. “How could I be?”
He heaved a deep sigh, which he did not immediately explain.
“It beats me,” he said after a short silence. “But I feel melancholy too.”
Mr. Dannen and Mr. Raycroft were coming across the bridge to meet them with Miss Moss, Miss Krebbs, and Miss Jane Calvert. Soon the two groups came together, and a great deal of chatter and laughter ensued.
By the time they reached the picnic side of the bridge, Mr. Dannen had taken Susanna on his arm, and Viscount Whitleaf had offered one of his to Miss Krebbs and the other to Miss Jane Calvert. Mr. Raycroft was walking beside them.
The viscount was telling them that he had thought it was the late afternoon sunlight that was dazzling his eyes at the center of the bridge until he realized that it was their presence there that had been doing it.
The rogue!
But of course they were not taken in by such flatteries for a single moment. The tone of their laughter told Susanna that.
He was being kind to them, bringing happiness and gaiety to their day.
He had also donned a mask of frivolity. Or maybe it was not a mask at all. Maybe he had a gift for spreading joy. And yet he had said just moments ago that he felt melancholy. Could he feel both?
Yes, perhaps so. She was feeling both. She was living through one of the most joyful afternoons of her entire life. And yet…
And yet soon they would go separately back into their own very separate universes.
8
The mood of slight melancholy that had oppressed Susanna after the picnic had disappeared without a trace by the time she arrived with Frances and the Earl of Edgecombe at the assembly rooms above the village inn the following evening.
She doubted she had ever been more excited in her life, though she tried very hard not to show it-without a great deal of success, it seemed.
“Well, Susanna,” the earl said as he handed her down from the carriage, “you are fairly sparkling, I must say. Jewels would be superfluous.”
She was wearing none, of course. But then neither was Frances. Susanna suspected that despite the fact that her friend wore a gorgeous royal-blue satin gown, which was clearly expensive and made by the most skilled of seamstresses, Frances was actually making a deliberate effort not to outshine either Susanna or her less affluent neighbors.
Frances linked her arm through Susanna’s as they stepped inside the inn, leaving the earl to follow them in.
“I know just how you must be feeling,” she said. “I remember how I felt that night in Bath when Lucius’s grandfather and sister had invited me to a ball in the Upper Assembly Rooms. I was half frightened to death and half elated to death. Do you remember?”
“Claudia, Anne, and I noticed at the last moment that part of your hem was down,” Susanna said, “and we were all involved in stitching it up again with you inside it-in the school hallway of all places-when Mr. Keeble let the Earl of Edgecombe in, or Viscount Sinclair, as he was then.”
They both laughed at the memory and there was a low chuckle from behind them to indicate that the earl appreciated the joke too.