“You were the one who thought there could be a friendship between us,” she reminded him. “There can be no friendship if only one party gets to ask the questions. Tell me about your childhood.”
“Hmm.” He gave the matter some thought. “It was filled with women—a familiar pattern with me, Miss Osbourne. My father died when I was three years old. I have no memory of him, alas. I do think it unsporting of him not to have waited at least another two or three years. I was left with my mother and five elder sisters. I daresay my parents had despaired of producing an heir and were jubilant when I finally put in an appearance. By that time my sisters too must have been aware that a family without an heir was a family headed for certain disaster. And indeed I came along only just in time to avert it. I was the apple of every female eye as I grew up. I could do no wrong in their sight. I was petted and cosseted and adored. No boy was ever more fortunate than I.”
She had turned her head and was looking steadily at him.
“There was no man in your life, then?” she asked.
“Oh, several,” he said. “There were official guardians and self-appointed guardians, all of whom ruled my estate and my fortune and me and arranged everything from my education to the reading and answering of my mail. It was all done for my benefit, of course. I was very fortunate.”
“I suppose,” she said, “they did no more than your father would have done if he had lived.”
“Except that then there would have been a relationship,” he said. “Perhaps there would have been some sharing. Some love.”
He was turning at the fork in the lane as he spoke. Perhaps he would not have spoken so unguardedly if he had not been thus occupied. Good Lord, he did not usually eventhinksuch abject thoughts. He felt quite embarrassed.
“You missed your father,” she said softly.
He glanced down at her. “You cannot miss what you never had, Miss Osbourne,” he said. “I do not even remember him.”
“I missed my mother,” she told him. “Yet she died giving birth to me.”
Ah.
“It is odd, is it not,” he said, “to miss people one never knew—or knew so far back that there is no conscious memory left. I was inundated with love from my mother and sisters, and yet perversely I wanted a father’s love. Did your father love you?”
“Oh, yes,” she said, “but I ached for my mother. I used to weave dreams about her. I could always picture her arms reaching out to me, and I could always hear her voice and smell roses when she was near. But I never could see her face. Is that not strange? Sometimes even the imagination lets one down. How foolish!”
She looked away and fell silent, and it seemed to him that she was suddenly as embarrassed as he had been a couple of minutes ago at making such an admission about the child she had been.
Neither of them said any more on the subject—they were approaching Barclay Court, and Edgecombe and the countess were walking across the lawn before the house to meet them.
But something subtle had changed between them, he sensed.
Perhaps everything.
They had shared something of themselves with each other and he would never be able to return to a relationship of simple banter with her. They had, in other words, taken a step toward friendship with each other—as he had wanted. And yet the realization was slightly unsettling. Banter was safer. So was flirtation.
“Miss Osbourne,” he said as he drew the curricle to a halt just before the others came up to them, “isit possible for us to be friends, do you think?”
“But we are to be here for only twelve more days,” she said.
“You brought her back in one piece, I see, Whitleaf,” Edgecombe said, striding up to the vehicle and reaching up a hand to help her down. “Congratulations. Frances would have been upset with you if you had not.”
“And you are not looking nearly as frightened as you were when you left here, Susanna,” the countess said. “Did you enjoy the ride? And your visit?”
Peter declined their invitation to go inside the house for refreshments. He would be expected back at Hareford House, he told them, and left after bidding them all a collective farewell.
This time, he noticed, Susanna Osbourne did not hurry into the house without a backward glance. She stood with the other two to watch him on his way.
He had also noticed she had not said that it was impossible for them to be friends.
Or that it would be possible either.
It struck him as he drove away that perhaps it would be better if shehadprotested. He was not at all sure that friendship was safe.
It was a surprise to Susanna to discover that she had actually enjoyed the afternoon—not just the part of it she had spent with Miss Honeydew, but all of it.
She was even more surprised to discover that she actually rather liked Viscount Whitleaf. He might be a basically shallow man who liked nothing better than to flirt with every woman he set eyes upon, but he also had a good sense of humor. More important, he was definitely a kind man—and not totally indolent either. He had actually mended Miss Honeydew’s fence and cleaned out her old stable. He had taken her bad-tempered little dog for a walk. He had been careful not to embarrass her when he had discovered her asleep in her chair while Susanna was still reading to her. And then, at her urging, he had eaten three of the cakes she called her housekeeper’s specialty even though it must have been clear to him after the first bite that they were undercooked and doughy at the center.
