And then of course, there was no way of stopping the tears of either of them from flowing—and somehow they had their arms about each other, Susanna and this stranger who was not a stranger at all but Papa’s mother.
Peter was clearing his throat, though not in an attention-seeking way. So was the Reverend Clapton, who was leaning on his cane with both hands. Lady Markham and Edith were smiling with happiness. Mr. Morley looked as if he were in raptures. Theodore was beaming genially.
The colonel withdrew a large white handkerchief from a pocket of his coat, blessing his soul rather fiercely as he did so, held the handkerchief to his nose, and blew into it loudly enough to wake the dead.
24
“This is very pleasant, Peter,” his mother said, sinking into thebest chair, which he had drawn near the fire in the library. “Just the two of us together for a cozy chat. It does not happen often enough.”
He seated himself across from her. He had asked her to join him in the library after almost everyone else had retired for the night and only a few of the younger people were still amusing themselves in the music room.
“You are warm enough, Mama?” he asked her.
“I am,” she said. “My love, it was very naughty of you to leave the house this morning to deliver one of your invitations and not return until late in the afternoon. However, youwerevery attentive to Miss Flynn-Posy this evening. She is a sweet girl, is she not?”
“Very,” he agreed. “And doubtless she will make some man a wonderful wife someday soon. But she will not be mine.”
She looked a little surprised at such a categorical statement. But she smiled as she relaxed back against the cushions.
“You may well change your mind during the coming days,” she said.
“I will not change my mind,” he told her. “I have already chosen the woman I wish to marry.”
He watched her eyes light up with interest.
“Peter?” She clasped her hands to her bosom and sat up straighter.
“I am just not sure she will have me,” he said.
“Oh, but of course she will have you, whoever she is,” she cried. “You know you are one of the greatest matrimonial prizes—”
He held up a hand.
“Mama,” he said, “she is Susanna Osbourne.”
“Who?” She sat back again, all the animation draining from her face.
“William Osbourne’s daughter,” he said. “I love her, and I mean to have her if she will have me. I met her during the summer—she was staying with the Countess of Edgecombe not far from Hareford House. I saw her again in Bath when I went there with Lauren and Kit to attend Sydnam Butler’s wedding breakfast. And I have been with her today. She is at Fincham Manor for Christmas. Her grandparents have come there to meet her. I have invited them all to the ball here on Christmas night.”
She licked her lips. Her hands, he noticed, were gripping the arms of the chair.
“I suppose she set her cap at you,” she said. “If she has you believing she will not have you, Peter, that is just her cunning, believe me. You cannot seriously—”
“She wanted to have nothing to do with me during the summer,” he said, “after she had heard my name.”
Her lips moved, but she did not speak.
“Mama,” he asked, and it was an enormously difficult question to ask, “what was your relationship with Mr. Osbourne?”
“My?—” She bristled suddenly. “You are surely being impertinent, Peter. I am your mother, I would have you remember, even if youarenow grown up.”
“You were lovers,” he said.
“How dare you!” Her eyes widened.
“Just as you and Grantham were,” he said. “Except that then you told me it was the only time it had happened since my father died and that it had happened because you were lonely and could not help yourself. And yet it had been going on for a long time, and on the occasion when I saw the two of you together, you were here, inmyhome, with both Bertha and her mother as my guests under the same roof.”
“Peter!” She looked ashen.
