“Yes, Miss Cunningham, ma’am,” Owen said.
“I asked for that,” she said, laughing. “Sometimes I get very dogmatic in my opinions.”
“If I were you, Winifred,” Stephanie said, “I would talk to your parents and suggest that one of you ask Sid. The worst that could happen would be for him to say no. But I believe he and his dancers would be flattered.”
“Amen,” Nicholas said, turning toward them.
Winifred raised her eyes to his and flushed a deep crimson before looking back toward the maypole to watch the dancing lesson.
—
The morning was almost over. After weeks of preparations and eager anticipation, time was flying by. But there was still a luncheon snack to enjoy on the grass of the green or at the tables that had been set up outside the inn. The food, most notably the meat pasties for which Mrs. Berry was famous, had been lovingly and lavishly prepared in the kitchen of the inn. Lemonade and ale flowed freely. The coffee and tea urns were kept filled. It was going to be a day of feasting, with a picnic tea on the lawns and terrace ofRavenswood during the afternoon and refreshments and supper to be served at the ball. In addition, there were the sweetmeats on sale at one of the booths, which had done a roaring trade all morning.
And there was the choir concert and organ recital to be enjoyed over the noon hour, after which most of the action would move up to the house for an afternoon packed with activities.
A largish number of people attended the concert. Many of them had a relative or neighbor or friend in the choir. And Sir Ifor was generally revered as a man of extraordinary talent. When he had inherited his title and property years ago as a young man and moved from Wales, barely able to speak English, he had been hugely disappointed that there was no organ in the church at Boscombe or indeed in any church within miles. He promptly bought a pipe organ at huge personal expense and installed both it and himself as organist in the Boscombe church. Then he discovered to his horror that there was no church choir and no congregational singing beyond a few low growls to the music pounded out on an ancient pianoforte. He soon set about putting that lack to rights. The vicar at the time had been astounded to discover his congregation growing every Sunday. He had set about paying more attention to the preparation of his sermons.
All the family and guests from Ravenswood attended. Stephanie was in the choir and had a solo part in one of their pieces. And it was the countess’s father playing the organ. Even without that connection, though, Sir Ifor and Lady Rhys were openhearted neighbors and friends.
Nicholas sat at the back of the church so he could see everyone as well as savor the music. He felt a welling of love for all these people, most of whom were part of his roots and would always figure largely in his memories. He had deliberately opened up his memory today.He had thought about that last fete before he left home. He had thought about his father, who had played such havoc with the lives of his wife and children and caused years of bitterness afterward. But Nicholas had let it go today. Holding grudges, retaining resentment, ultimately hurt the person doing it and put a certain blight on his life. He had come perilously close during the past week to making a loveless marriage because he had lost faith in love. It had been blind of him. He had only to look about at his own family and circle of friends to know that love was very much alive and life-giving.
The choir was in fine form. So was Steph, who looked, as she sang her solo part, almost ethereal in the dimness of the church, lit by the multicolored rays of the sun filtering through the stained glass windows. The bulk of the blond braids wound twice about her head looked like a halo. Her face shone with the joy of singing.
Sir Ifor filled the church with music by Bach, making it feel for the moment like a cathedral.
And all the time Nicholas was aware of Winifred, sitting in the midst of her family several pews in front of him, Emma on her lap, while Susan sat on Mrs. Cunningham’s beside her. Andrew, sitting next to his father and unable to hear the music, gazed about at the architecture and the windows. Robbie was being watched and whispered over by a trio of young girls in the pew behind him. Sarah too had been attracting her share of admiration from the boys of the neighborhood.
She hated London. Winifred, that was. She far preferred the hills around Bath. She had a horror of the military with its ranks of killers, himself included. She was realistic about the shortcomings of out-and-out peace loving but was as close to being against all violence as she reasonably could be. She was a nameless orphan, who had been abandoned in a basket on the steps of an orphanagewhen she was about one month old. She was, from any objective standpoint, neither beautiful nor pretty. She had no figure to speak of. She was thirteen years his junior.Thirteen.She was Owen’s friend.Close friend.She was very attached to her family and to the family enterprise in Bath, in which she was fully involved.
All of these facts, which had been churning in his head since yesterday, spelled just one word when added together.Impossible.
Not just unlikely or improbable.
Impossible.
Except that he was in love with her.
His daisy in a garden of elaborate, exotic blooms.
The recital was not a long one. It had been planned so in order not to cut into all the afternoon activities. The choir sang one encore when the audience demanded it of them, and that was it.
—
Stephanie accepted all the praises that were heaped upon her singing after the concert was over with her customary comment that it was the whole choir that had made the song so memorable. The last person to congratulate her was having nothing to do with such modesty, however.
“Rather, I would say it was you who made the choir memorable during that song, Stephanie,” Bertrand Lamarr, Viscount Watley, said.
Stephanie smiled fleetingly as she thanked him and turned away. Fortunately, she had recovered from the terrible infatuation she had once felt for him and the feeling of inadequacy that had plagued her the last time he was here at Ravenswood, and in London during that horrid come-out Season. She had far more self-confidence these days, as she ought to at the age of twenty-five. Shehad not lied to Winifred a few days ago when she had said she was quite happy despite her single state. She rather enjoyed being single. And she did have prospects, amiable relationships with eligible gentlemen that might or might not blossom into definite courtship. She was certainly not desperate. However, she would be happier without the reminder of her former self in the form of Viscount Watley. She wished he would go away.
“May I walk back to Ravenswood with you?” he asked.
It was impossible to say no without being unpardonably rude. The choir had dispersed. Sir Ifor was leaving the church with Lady Rhys. She sighed inwardly.
“Thank you,” she said.
He was smiling and looking thoroughly amiable. Did he evernotlook amiable?
“Tell me about your sister’s baby,” she said as they walked. “David, I believe? This must be a very exciting time for her and her husband. And for you.”
