“There is to be a surprise wedding breakfast for Anne and Mr. Butler at the Upper Assembly Rooms next week,” Claudia said. “The Viscountess Ravensberg and the Duchess of Bewcastle have arranged it and have devised some sort of devious plot for luring the couple back here. We are invited, as well as Mr. Huckerby and Mr. Upton.”
They stared at each other. The strange coincidence of Mr. Butler’s being a brother-in-law of Viscountess Ravensberg, cousin to Viscount Whitleaf, had not escaped Susanna’s notice at the time of Anne’s wedding. Now she would have an unexpected opportunity to meet the lady—the very cousin, she believed, who had the same color eyes as he.
Certain wounds, healed over nicely but still tender to the touch, were going to be in danger of being ripped open again, she thought. She would just have to make very certain they were not.
Claudia was tight-lipped.
“You know what this means, Susanna, do you not?” she said, folding the letter and tapping it against her leg. “If the Duchess of Bewcastle has had a hand in organizing this breakfast, then undoubtedly thedukewill be in attendance. And since Lady Potford on Great Pulteney Street is a friend of Anne’s and grandmother to the Marquess of Hallmere, it is altogether possible that the marquess andthat womanwill come to Bath and be there too. I would rather have every fingernail on both my hands pulled out than be in company with those two people. But some things cannot be avoided. This is forAnne. I will go. You will come too?”
She stood ramrod straight and spoke as if she were inviting Susanna to accompany her to a funeral.
“I will come and hold your hand,” Susanna promised.
Claudia snorted and then laughed.
“I do not suppose,” she said, “that either one of them will even recognize me or care if theydo. Though Lady Hallmere did come here a few years ago to look down her nose at meandmy school and ask if there was anything I needed. The nerve of the woman! But, Susanna, we will see our beloved Anne again after all—and our dear David. I miss them both very much indeed.”
“Yes.” Susanna smiled. “We will see them again.”
And Viscountess Ravensberg.
How absurd to think that seeing her would somehow bring Viscount Whitleaf closer. Or that it would be a desirable thing even if it did.
Yes, that healed wound wasverytender to the touch.
14
The Duchess of Bewcastle had reserved the ballroom as well as thetearoom at the Upper Assembly Rooms in Bath in order to give the children somewhere to run and be noisy while the adults conversed in civilized fashion over tea and listened to a few speeches. But she had engaged the services of an orchestra too, Peter discovered when he arrived early on the appointed afternoon with Lauren and Kit. After all, she explained with a laugh while the duke looked on with a supercilious air and incongruously fond silver eyes resting upon his lady, it would be a tragic thing indeed if the presence of the ballroom aroused in anyone a desire to dance but there was no music to make dancing possible.
“What you mean, Christine,” Bewcastle said, his long fingers curling about the handle of his quizzing glass and raising it halfway to his eye, “is that you are quite determined to dance if only Sydnam and Mrs. Butler can be persuaded to lead the way.”
“You know me all too well, Wulfric,” the duchess said with a laugh.
Peter was looking forward to the social gathering with uncharacteristic unease. He probably ought not to have come. If he suddenly, after several months of inaction, felt it necessary to check on Susanna’s health—marvelous euphemism—then he ought to have done it by writing to her or calling at the school. He ought at the very least to have somehow let her know that he was going to be here today. He was almost certain that shewas. Lauren had told him that four teachers were coming from the school as well as the former teacher who was now married to the Earl of Edgecombe.
And yet it struck Peter even as he entertained these troubled thoughts that the chance to meet Susanna again this afternoonoughtto have been a cause of pleasure to both of them. They really had been friends—until the very end. How he kicked himself now for not having stayed in the drawing room with her that last afternoon—or for not taking Edgecombe up on his suggestion that he and the countess accompany them on their walk. Then they would have been meeting today with shared pleasure as friends who had not expected to see each other again so soon.
Other guests began to arrive. Peter was introduced to Mrs. Butler’s parents and siblings and their spouses from Gloucestershire and to Lord and Lady Aidan Bedwyn, whom he had not met before. He hailed Lord and Lady Alleyne Bedwyn and a number of Kit and Sydnam’s cousins, whom he had met on various occasions at Alvesley.
Normally he would have been in his element.
But his uneasiness was growing by the minute, and he found himself glancing at the door every few seconds instead of concentrating upon making himself agreeable to those with whom he conversed. A dozen or more times he thought about making his escape before it was too late, but escape might well be impossible, he realized as time went on. Even if he dashed outnow,he had a long hall to traverse and a largish courtyard outside to cross before he could hope to slink out of sight of someone who would surely be arriving at any moment.
He wandered in the direction of the ballroom and forgot his woes for a while after Andrew and Sophia, two of Lauren’s children, grabbed a hand each, dragged him triumphantly inside the large room, and demanded that he play with them. A whole host of other children gathered hopefully about him, and he proceeded to play Blind Man’s Buff with them with a great deal of noise and energy and good humor.
It was only when he heard a loud burst of applause and even cheering coming from the tearoom that he realized the guests of honor must have arrived and that therefore all the other guests must now be gathered there too.
Even then he was tempted to slip out and hope no one would notice his absence.
But he would not add arrant cowardice to his other shortcomings, which were legion. He extricated himself from the children’s game and went to stand in the shadowed half of the doorway into the tearoom so that he could peer cautiously about him.
Like a thief in the night, he thought with some disgust.
Sydnam Butler and a lady dressed in rose pink, who was presumably his bride, stood in a pool of red rose petals inside the door at the far side of the room, looking startled and bewildered. The Duchess of Bewcastle was clapping her hands for silence.
“Well, Mr. and Mrs. Butler,” she said, her voice warm and cheerful, “you may have thought yourselves very clever indeed when you married in great secrecy a few weeks ago. But your relatives and friends have caught up with you after all. Welcome to your wedding breakfast.”
The children, without the distraction of an adult to play with them in the ballroom, had left it and were streaming past Peter to see what all the fuss was about. They were soon adding to the cheerful mayhem that ensued for a few minutes while everyone attempted to get close to the bride and groom and pump the hand of the one and kiss the cheek of the other.
