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.
“Yes,” she said softly. “I have valued our friendship.”
She was, he noticed, already referring to it almost in the past tense. Soon it would be fully in the past-it was very unlikely that they would meet again after they left here. He never went to Bath, and she almost never left it.
“Friendship,” he repeated softly, bending his head closer to hers. “It does not seem a strong enough word, does it? Are we not a little more than just friends?”
And what the devil did he mean by that? But unfortunately it was only later that he thought to ask himself the question. At present he was caught up in an uncharacteristic moment of seriousness and sincerity.
“Oh, don’t say so,” she cried, and he could hear distress in her voice. “Please don’t say so. Don’t spoil what we have shared. Don’t flirt with me.”
Oh, good Lord!
“Flirtation is the farthest thing from my mind,” he assured her.
Yet if it was not flirtation, what was it exactly? He had the dizzying feeling that he had inadvertently steered his boat into uncharted waters.
And then, because he had tipped his head downward and she had not moved, their foreheads touched. He closed his eyes and did not move. Neither did she.
He felt a sudden, deep melancholy again, even worse than he had felt yesterday after their walk to the waterfall.
He opened his eyes, moved his head slightly, and brushed his lips over hers.
But only for a brief, mad moment before lifting his head and gazing off toward the church. Their hands were still clasped tightly, he realized.
He was aware of her ragged breathing for a few moments and had a ghastly thought. That was probably-no, undoubtedly-her first kiss. And yet it hardly qualified for the name. But he could not now make the occasion more memorable for her by returning his lips to hers and doing the deed more thoroughly and more expertly.
It would be the very worst thing he could do.
He ought not to have kissed her at all.
He just did not go about toying with the sensibilities of innocent young schoolteachers. Or with his own for that matter.
Good Lord, they were just friends. Just friends!
“I think,” she said softly, “we ought to go back to the inn, Lord Whitleaf. I see that people are coming out, and I cannot hear music any longer.”
He ought to apologize, dash it all. But that would draw attention to what had not really been a kiss at all.
He could still feel the shock of her warm, soft mouth against his.
Dash it all, why had he not listened to her when she told him over a week ago that a friendship was impossible between a man and a woman? He had used the example of Edgecombe and the countess to prove her wrong. But he had failed to consider the fact that they were lovers as well as friends.
A single man and a single woman could not be both.
Nor could they be just friends, it seemed. The devil of it was that he wanted her-sexually. And it simply would not do.
“I will escort you,” he said, vastly relieved that the assembly had ended in time to avert further indiscretions.
Edgecombe and the countess were waiting outside their carriage. Other people and carriages and horses milled about them in high-spirited disorder as everyone called good night to everyone else.
Peter smiled and looked cheerfully about him.
“Miss Osbourne and I have been wiser than all of you,” he called as they approached the crowd. “We have been strolling quietly out here and enjoying the cool air.”
She too, he saw when he glanced down at her, was smiling brightly.