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—hadjustread 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 iswonderful!”
He knew that her exuberance was very close to hysteria. But there was nothing he could do for her except this—tobewith 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 wassopleased 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 notenjoybeing 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 hadthoughthe 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 youdoneed 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.”
