“Actually,” he said, “I was enjoying a comfortable coze with Miss Honeydew. But how could I resist the chance of being surrounded by music again—and by beauty?”
“Miss Osbourne will keep her company,” Miss Krebbs said. “She does not need you too, Lord Whitleaf.”
He humored the young ladies and flirted good-naturedly with them for the rest of the evening while wondering if Miss Osbourne would find some excuse not to ride in his curricle with him tomorrow.
Somehow, he realized, he had been aware of her all evening—even, oddly enough, when they were in different rooms or when both his eyes had been focused upon the sheets of music so that he could turn a page at the right moment.
He had not been similarly aware of any other woman.
Dash it all, one day of the fourteen they would both spend in this neighborhood had already passed. Was he going to be content to allow the remaining thirteen to slip by too without at least making an effort to overcome her aversion to him and make a friend of her?
A friend?
Now that was a strange notion. Women and friendship—deep friendship, anyway—did not usually go together in his thoughts. He had come to think of them as mutually exclusive interests.
What exactlywashis motive, then? But did there have to be one? She was an extraordinarily pretty woman and he was a red-blooded male. Was that not motive enough? He was not usually so self-conscious about his approaches to women. But then he had never before known a lady schoolteacher from Bath—except, without realizing it, the Countess of Edgecombe.
Anyway, he would have to see what tomorrow brought. At least they would be alone together for the three-mile drive to Miss Honeydew’s and back again—if Miss Osbourne did not find some way out of accepting his escort, that was.
And if it did not rain.
4
Frances’s matchmaking schemes were going to be doomed to disappointment, Susanna thought as she tied the ribbons of her straw bonnet beneath her chin the following afternoon. They were green to match her favorite day dress—not that she had many others to compete with it.
The Reverend Birney, good-looking in a fresh-faced, boyish sort of way, had been polite to her last evening. He had even conversed with her for a short while at the supper table, expressing an interest in a school that took in almost as many charity girls as paying pupils. But there had been nothing approaching ardor in his manner toward her.
Mr. Dannen, short—as Frances had warned—and slightly balding at the crown of his head, but not by any means unpleasing of countenance, had engaged her in conversation for almost an hour before supper even though he was the host and ought to have circulated more among all his guests. But she had asked him about Scotland, his mother’s country of birth, and he had proved to be the sort of man who needed very little prompting to talk at great length on a subject of personal interest to him. His descriptions had been interesting and she had not minded at all having to listen to them. But she had felt not the smallest spark of romantic interest in him. Or he in her, she guessed.
Miss Calvert was indeed interested in Mr. Finn—and he in her.
“Ah, you are ready,” Frances said from the open doorway of Susanna’s room. “Viscount Whitleaf is here. He is downstairs, talking with Lucius.”
Susanna grimaced and reached for her gloves. Her stomach felt suddenly queasy and her knees less than steady.
“I wish I were going towalkto Miss Honeydew’s cottage,” she said.
“You know we would have called out a carriage for you before we allowed that to happen,” Frances said.
“But he was there when I offered to go read to Miss Honeydew,” Susanna explained, “and he felt obliged to offer to take me in his own conveyance. Poor man! I was horribly embarrassed.”
Frances laughed and moved aside to allow Susanna to step out of her room.
“I do not suppose he minded in the least,” she said. “He is nothing if not gallant to ladies. It is very sweet of you, Susanna, to be willing to give up an afternoon for Miss Honeydew. I try to call on her a few times whenever we are at home. It has never occurred to me, though, to offer to read to her, despite the fact that I remember you did it the last time you were here too.”
By that time they were downstairs and approaching the front doors. They were open, and Susanna could see the Earl of Edgecombe and Viscount Whitleaf standing just outside them at the top of the horseshoe steps. They turned at the approach of the ladies, and the viscount swept off his hat and bowed.
“It is a glorious day again,” he said, his eyes laughing at Susanna. “Today there are definitely a few clouds in the sky—I counted twelve on my way over here—but they are small and white and harmless and actually add to the beauty of the sky.”
Susanna might have laughed out loud or at least smiled if she had not just stepped outside and seen the vehicle in which she was to ride—Frances and the earl must wonder why he was making such an issue of what ought to have been a passing mention of the weather. But shehadseen the vehicle. He had said last night that he would escort her in his curricle, but she had been too caught up in the knowledge thathewas going to drive her to reflect upon the fact that she had never ridden in one before. And this was no ordinary curricle. It was, she guessed, a gentleman’s racing curricle, light and flimsy, its wheels large, its seat looking small and fragile and very far up off the ground.
“And the occasional shade is welcome,” Frances said. “It is very warm today.”
“Miss Honeydew seems determined to ply us with tea and cakes after Miss Osbourne has read to her,” the viscount said. “We may be gone for quite a while, but you may rest assured that I will return Miss Osbourne safe and sound.”
“Whitleaf is a notable whip, Susanna,” the earl said with a laugh as they all descended the steps to the terrace. “You need not fear for your safety.”
“I am not afraid,” she said. “It is just that I have never ridden in a curricle before.”
