“But your mother is ecstatic,” Bertie had said. “So are your sisters. And I am partial to a crowd myself, I must admit. Jolly good show about the ball, old chap-it will brighten things up around here.”
His mother was, of course, not ecstatic about that one thing, Peter knew. But he had impulsively decided that he wanted to invite all his neighbors to a grand Christmas celebration at Sidley Park, and he had gone ahead and invited them all to a ball on the evening of Christmas Day without consulting anyone except his cook and his butler and his housekeeper, who would be directly involved in the preparations-and who were now dashing about in transports of delight at the prospect of a Sidley ball.
His mother had been the last to be told.
Well, no, not quite the last.
He still had not been to Fincham Manor when he told her. It really would be too bad if the Markhams were unable or unwilling to attend the ball since he would quite readily admit in the privacy of his own mind that the whole thing had been arranged for them. Well, not them precisely.
The ball was for Susanna.
Love did not die very quickly, he had discovered during the intervening weeks. It did not even fade quickly-or at all. And it was a deuced depressing thing if the truth were known. His only hope, he had tried to tell himself since learning that she was indeed to come to Fincham, was to stay away from her and trust they did not inadvertently run into each other over the holiday.
So what had he done to put that very sensible decision into effect? He had arranged his first-ever ball at Sidley for her, that was what. And now he had driven himself over to Fincham to extend the invitation-in person, of course, because he knew she must have arrived by now.
And now here he was a mere few minutes later, hurrying out of the house faster than he had hurried in out of the cold, his invitation having been mentioned to Theo but not-as was right and proper-delivered formally to Lady Markham and to Edith. But that could wait. So could warming his hands and his feet and the rest of his person.
Susanna needed him-or so he told himself.
She had changed in the course of a few weeks. Her face looked pinched and pale, her eyes dark-shadowed in contrast. And it seemed to him that the changes went beyond what the distress of the morning must have brought her.
He caught up to her on the terrace outside and took her firmly by the arm. She was looking about as if she did not quite know in which direction she wanted to walk.
“Come to the stables,” he said. “With any luck my curricle will still not be unhitched. Let me take you for a drive.”
“Yes,” she said without looking at him. “Oh, yes, please.”
This was not quite how he had visualized the morning, he thought as they walked in silence to the stable block and into the cobbled yard, where indeed his horses were still hitched to his curricle. But she had already read her letter-had just read it, apparently.
He helped her up to the high seat and took his place beside her. He took the ribbons from the groom’s hands and gave the horses the signal to start. He could not help remembering the last time she had ridden beside him thus when they had gone to Miss Honeydew’s cottage together. He glanced down into her face, shaded by the brim of her bonnet, but she was staring ahead.
As soon as they were on the driveway he took his horses to a faster pace. He had the distinct feeling that she needed to leave Fincham behind, at least for a while.
She looked up at him, her cheeks already slightly rosy from the cold, and laughed quite unexpectedly.
He urged his horses to an even faster pace.
“Anyone for a race to Brighton and back?” he asked.
This time when she laughed there was a somewhat reckless gleam in her eyes, and he kept up the pace for several minutes, concentrating upon what he was doing. He had not exactly sprung his horses, but he had also never traveled at this speed with a lady passenger beside him.
“Oh, Peter,” she cried, “this is wonderful!”
He knew that her exuberance was very close to hysteria. But there was nothing he could do for her except this-to be with her, to give her the illusion of escape, however brief.
But eventually he slowed down. They had the wind behind them, but even so it was a cold winter’s day, and speed did not do anything to keep one warm in an open conveyance. Besides which, these lanes had not exactly been designed for reckless driving.
“Tell me about your Christmas concert,” he said.
“Oh, it went very well,” she told him. “It always does, of course, but every year we fear the worst. There were no disasters and only a few very minor crises, none of which were obvious to the audience, I daresay. Not that the audiences at such events are ever very critical. They come fully intending to be pleased. It was a large audience-I was so pleased for the girls.”
She proceeded to tell him about the play she had directed, the choirs, the solos, the dancing, the Nativity tableau Miss Thompson had organized at the last moment, and the end-of-term prizes presented by Miss Martin.
“Miss Thompson has joined the staff, then?” he asked.
“She never did leave Bath,” she said. “I do believe she is enjoying herself, and we all enjoy having her-especially Claudia. They must be very near each other in age, and they have struck up a close friendship.”
She turned her head toward him after another minute or two.
“You came home to Sidley, then?” she said.
“I did,” he told her. “You asked me to, if you will remember, and I came directly from Bath. I have been here ever since.”
She gazed at him in silence while he looked ahead along the road.
“I have even quarreled with my steward,” he told her.
“Oh, dear,” she said.
He grinned. “It was not exactly a quarrel,” he said. “I made a suggestion and he rejected it without even hearing me out-very gently and tactfully as if I were still a half-wit nine-year-old. I looked him in the eye and told him I did not enjoy being interrupted, and I thought his lower jaw was going to scrape on the floor. He listened after that with both ears and both eyes, made one small suggestion, which was very sensible, and we came to an agreement. It may be my imagination, but it has seemed to me in the week or so since it happened that he now looks upon me with something bordering on respect.”
“Oh, Peter.” She laughed. “How splendid of you. I wish I had been there to see you pokering up and telling him that you did not enjoy being interrupted.”
“If he had been very observant, though,” he said, “he might have noticed that my knees were knocking together.”
She laughed again.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
He had thought he was just driving aimlessly about the lanes in the vicinity of Fincham, but now that she had asked he realized that he was headed in a very definite direction-toward Sidley Park, in fact, though he knew in the same moment that it was not the house that was his destination.
“I don’t think,” he said, “you are quite ready to go back to Fincham yet, are you?”
“No,” she said.
“But you do need to get in out of the cold,” he said. “I’ll take you to the dower house at Sidley. It’s empty but well kept. We will light a fire in the sitting room and warm up. And you can tell me about your letter-or not, as you wish. You can sit there for as long as you need to-either alone or in my company.”
“You are very kind,” she said.