Several of those people greeted him now as he moved along the central aisle closer to the front of the church with his party. Several others looked at him and Miss Osbourne with interest. Others greeted Lady Potford, and she stopped a few times to exchange greetings with acquaintances.
“Oh, there is Mr. Blake,” Susanna said, and smiled more broadly as she raised a hand in greeting, “and Mr. and Mrs. Reynolds.”
“Do you wish to speak with them?” he asked.
“Maybe later,” she said. “Mr. Blake is the physician who attends the school when anyone is ill. Betsy Reynolds is a day pupil at the school.”
She was holding firmly to his arm, but he suspected that she was enjoying herself.
She was a lady, he thought. Her father had been William Osbourne. A mere nobody did not generally rise to the exalted position of secretary to a government minister or take up residence in that minister’s country home.
But William Osbourne, for some unknown reason, had put a bullet through his brain.
Peter took a seat next to the aisle. Susanna sat beside him with Miss Thompson beyond her and then Lady Potford. It was a little chilly, but even so he helped Susanna off with her cloak, which he draped over the back of her chair while she arranged her paisley shawl about her shoulders. She was wearing the same green gown she had worn to the assembly, he could see. It was trimmed with the ribbon she had bought at the village shop to which he had escorted her.
For a few moments he was assaulted by nostalgic memories of that fortnight, during which she had so unexpectedly become his friend-before he had spoiled it all by becoming her lover. He could vividly remember her laughing in his curricle and thus revealing the fact that as well as being terrified she was also exhilarated.
She had been so full of surprises during those two weeks. He had come very close to falling in love with her in earnest-something he had not admitted to himself until very recently.
Perhaps fortunately for his peace of mind, the concert began soon after they had seated themselves. There was a full orchestra. More important, there was the great pipe organ, which played several solos and inundated every light-filled space and every shadowed alcove of the Abbey with the music of Handel and Bach.
“You were quite right about the organ,” he said, moving his head closer to Susanna’s at the end of one of the pieces.
Her eyes were glowing with happiness.
“This is like a little piece of heaven,” she said.
This. What did she include in the word? he wondered. But she was quite right. This was easily the best evening he had spent since…Well, since he did not know when. His mind scanned all the evenings he had spent in London before going to Alvesley Park and then slipped back beyond them to a certain evening in Somerset when he had waltzed at a mere country assembly and then taken a stroll along the village street.
Perhaps he really had fallen a little in love with her. He hoped not. But he did not know quite how else to describe his relationship with Susanna Osbourne or his feelings for her. It was not just friendship, was it? It was a little deeper than that. And it was not quite being in love either. It was less frivolous than that.
He realized that the orchestra was in the middle of Handel’s Water Music, but he had no recollection at all of the first half of the performance. He focused his mind on the rest of it.
There were several small interludes during the course of the evening, when the audience could relax for a minute or two and exchange comments on the program. At the end, Peter knew, everyone would be reluctant to go home. Everyone would stand about in groups, talking, for perhaps half an hour before drifting off home. He looked forward to that half hour or so even though he would not wish away the rest of the evening.
But as it happened he was almost the first to leave.
Susanna had turned her head several times during the evening and had sometimes tipped it back to look upward. She was unabashedly admiring her surroundings and looking at her fellow audience members, Peter knew. He supposed that she was storing memories to take back to school with her. She turned her head away from him just before the final organ piece and looked back over her shoulder. It seemed to him that she turned to face the front again in great haste, and he noticed that she gripped the edges of her shawl very tightly with both hands.
He looked back himself, but a large, broad man two rows back was just straightening up after talking with someone next but one to him, and he effectively blocked the view of most of the audience farther back.
Peter turned his attention to a triumphant organ rendition of Bach’s Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring.
He turned, smiling, to Susanna after the last notes had echoed through the high vaults. She was shivering.
“Are you cold?” he asked, setting a hand over one of her clenched ones-and it was indeed like ice.
“I must leave now,” she said, her teeth chattering. “The concert has gone on longer than I expected. Claudia will be wondering…” She turned her head, and Peter could hear her speaking to Lady Potford above the hubbub of voices that followed the ending of the recital. “I must leave now, ma’am. I am expected back at school. I do thank you for inviting me-and you for suggesting me, Miss Thompson.”
“Oh, but you must not rush away, my dear,” Lady Potford said. “Miss Martin will certainly understand, and I daresay there are no classes tomorrow. I was hoping you and Viscount Whitleaf would come back for some tea.”
But Susanna did not even wait for her to finish speaking. She was drawing her cloak about her and getting to her feet, though her shoulders were hunched over as she did so. She stepped past Peter and hurried along the aisle, her head down.
“Oh, dear,” Miss Thompson said, “whatever has happened to upset her? She appeared to be enj-”
“Pardon me, ma’am,” Peter said, getting to his feet. “I will follow and make sure she gets home safely. Lady Potford, please do take my carriage and instruct my coachman not to wait for me.”
He did not hear her reply. Susanna was already almost out of the Abbey. He hurried after her.
He caught up with her at the outer doors and took her by the elbow.
“Something has happened to upset you,” he said.
“No.” She lifted a smiling face to his. “But I am always anxious when I have been away from the school for any length of time. It does not seem fair. Do not let me take you away early, Lord Whitleaf. I shall walk back alone. I am used to doing so.”
“At night? You most certainly will not walk alone on this night,” he said. “Will you not wait for my carriage? It should be here soon.”
She shook her head.
“I must go back,” she said.
“Then I will escort you.” He drew her arm firmly through his.
“Thank you.”
It was all she said for a few minutes as they walked. Actually, he discovered, it was not a cold night, and what little wind there was was behind them.
He wondered what had happened to rob her of her joy in the evening’s entertainment. Perhaps, he thought as he walked beside her and looked down at her bowed head, she had started remembering-as he had earlier. For him the memories were uncomfortable and touched upon his honor. For her they must be far worse even than that.
He set one gloved hand over hers on his arm.
“Susanna,” he said, “I must ask you, much as it might be better to let sleeping dogs lie. Did I… hurt you in any way at Barclay Court? Not just physically, I mean, though that too, I suppose. Did I?”