“Frances,” she said, “this has been a lovely evening, has it not? Thank you so much for bringing me.”
Edgecombe smiled kindly down at her while offering his hand to help her into their carriage, the countess bade Peter a good night before climbing in after her, Edgecombe vaulted in behind, and within moments their coachman was maneuvering the carriage out of the crowd.
Peter heaved a silent sigh of relief as he lifted a hand in farewell and then gave his attention to Miss Raycroft, who had grasped his arm and was prattling excitedly to him about the delights of the evening.
But he was only half listening to her.
What you need is a dragon to slay,she had said while they were still inside the refreshment room.
What you need is a dragon to slay.
When Frances tapped on the door of Susanna’s bedchamber, Susanna mumbled something that was certainly not come in, but she must not have spoken clearly enough. Frances turned the knob, opened the door a crack, and peered around it.
“Oh, you are still up,” she said, opening it wider when she saw in the light of a single candle burning on the dressing table that Susanna was standing by the window. “I thought you might welcome someone with whom to mull over your first-ever ball. You were very quiet on the way home after saying it was a lovely evening. A lovely evening, Susanna? Is that all? Lucius said you were probably too shy with him to talk volumes. But now I have left him in our bedchamber, and it is just you and I.”
She stepped into the room and closed the door behind her.
“Oh,” Susanna said brightly as she busied herself with closing the curtains and realized even as she did so that now she would have no excuse not to turn around, “it was all very pleasant, was it not?”
“Now it is only pleasant? And lovely too? Is that not damning the evening with faint praise?” Frances laughed softly. And then she fell silent as her friend fussed with the fall of the curtains. “Susanna? You are not crying, are you?”
“No, of course I am not,” Susanna protested. But her brief words ended on an ignominious squeak.
“You are. Oh, you poor dear!” Frances exclaimed, hurrying across the room toward her. “Whatever happened?”
Susanna laughed shakily and fumbled in the pocket of her night robe for her handkerchief as she turned. Frances too, she saw, had undressed, ready for bed. She was wearing a long, flowing dark blue dressing gown, and her dark hair lay loose down her back.
“I feel very foolish at getting caught being a watering pot,” Susanna said after blowing her nose, “especially on such an inappropriate occasion. They are not tears of grief, I do assure you. Quite the contrary. It really was a wonderful, wonderful evening, was it not? I’ll remember it all my life. I danced every set but two. It was all quite beyond my wildest dreams. And even one of those two I could have danced. Mr. Finn offered to lead me out, but Miss Honeydew was feeling a little faint and I took her to the refreshment room instead. And during the last set Viscount Whitleaf and I strolled outside where it was cool rather than dance.”
She went and sat on the bed and, when Frances took the chair beside the dressing table, she drew up her legs so that she could hug her knees, and tucked the folds of her robe about her feet.
“Ah, this feels just like old times,” Frances said with a smile. “I still miss you and the others, you know, and life at school and those times when two or more of us would sit up talking far too late into the night. Which is not to say I would give up my present life to return there, but…Well, even happy choices involve some sacrifice. And most of us, I suppose, would like to both have our cake and eat it if only it were possible.”
“Did you enjoy the evening?” Susanna asked.
“Of course I did,” Frances said. “I always enjoy a local assembly better than any grand ball. And this one was made special by the fact that you were there and that you had a number of agreeable partners. And that there was a waltz and I was able to dance it with Lucius and see that you were dancing it too. Yes, it was all quite nearly perfect.”
“I will have a great deal to tell when I return to Bath,” Susanna said. “Among a dizzying number of other things, I will be able to tell Claudia and Anne-and Mr. Huckerby-that I actually waltzed at a real ball-or at a real assembly anyway-and with no less a personage than a viscount. Not quite a duke, perhaps, but close enough.”
She had always made a joke with her friends of her determination to snare a duke one day. She smiled and then rested her forehead on her up-drawn knees.
“It is lovelier than any other dance,” Frances said with a sigh. “It is so…oh, romantic.”
“Yes.” Susanna closed her eyes and remembered the glorious wonder of it. It had seemed to her that she had almost floated over the boards beneath her feet without actually touching them. It had seemed as if waltzing and her dream of flying free had become one and the same. Except that waltzing had not been done alone, but with a man who had held her in the circle of his arms and smelled of musk cologne and masculinity. For the space of that one set of dances dream and reality had touched and merged and she had known complete happiness-one of those rare interludes in any life.
It had been sheer magic.
She would always remember-half with wonder, half with a sort of pain. For a while, she feared, the pain might outweigh the wonder.
And then, quite unexpectedly and ignominiously, the tears were back and soaking into her robe and she uttered a quite audible hiccough as she tried to control them.
“Oh, goodness,” she said, fumbling in her pocket for her handkerchief and managing to produce a shaky laugh, “what an idiot you will think me.”
There was a brief but disconcerting silence.
“Susanna,” Frances said then, “you have not fallen in love with Viscount Whitleaf, have you?”
Susanna jerked her head upward and gazed horrified at her friend, wet, reddened eyes and all.
“No!” she exclaimed. “Oh, no, Frances, of course I have not. Whatever put such a silly notion into your head?”
But the trouble was that her tears seemed to be beyond her control tonight. Her eyes filled again, and she felt two tears spill over onto her cheeks. She mopped at them hastily with her handkerchief and held it to her eyes.
“Ah, my poor dear,” Frances said softly.
“But you are quite wide of the mark. Oh, this is very silly of me,” Susanna wailed. “I am not in love with him, Frances. Truly I am not. But I do like him exceedingly well, you see. We have even become friends during these two weeks. And tonight I waltzed with him. But now that the assembly is all over, I cannot help remembering that the holiday is almost over, that within a few days I will be returning to Bath. Don’t mistake me-I look forward to going back. It is my home and my other friends are there. And the prospect of a new teaching year with some new girls and the return of the old is always exhilarating. But just at the moment I am contemplating the sadness of saying good-bye to you and Lord Edgecombe and everyone else here.”
“Including Viscount Whitleaf,” Frances said softly.
“Yes.” Susanna smiled wanly as she put her handkerchief away again. “Including him.”
“But he is just a friend?” Frances asked, frowning, her eyes looking troubled even in the candlelight.
“Yes,” Susanna assured her, making her smile brighter. “Of course that is all he is, you silly goose.”