Mary Balogh: Simply Magic

Dash it all, why had he let his mother know that he intended coming this year? Why had he not simply turned up there unannounced?

He sighed, but almost instantly recovered his spirits when he brought his attention back to the present.

Miss Calvert was a handsome young lady even if she did not have the enticing dimples of her younger sister, Miss Jane Calvert, or the very blue eyes of her youngest sister, Miss Mary Calvert. All three sisters were, in fact, renowned in the neighborhood for their beauty. They would turn heads in a place like London too-and would probably make decent matches even without dowries.

“You simply must consider staying for two more weeks, Lord Whitleaf,” Miss Mary Calvert urged, turning to look at him and taking little backward running steps in order to keep ahead of him and the two ladies on his arms. “There is to be a dance at the assembly rooms-did you know?-and we so much want you to be there.”

The blue ribbons under her chin and those beneath her bosom-they exactly matched the color of her eyes-fluttered to her movements, and her fair curls bobbed beneath the brim of her bonnet. Trim ankles were visible beneath the swaying hem of her cotton dress. She looked very pretty indeed.

“Must I?” he said with an exaggerated sigh. He smiled at each of the ladies in turn and thought how very pleasant a morning this was and how fortunate a fellow he was to have such company with which to share it-even if he would have preferred to be getting ready to go home tomorrow. “The temptation is well nigh irresistible, I must say.”

But Miss Raycroft was not to be deprived of making the grand announcement herself.

“Viscount Whitleaf decided this very morning that he will stay,” she cried. “And he has reserved the first set of dances with me.”

“No coercion was necessary, you see,” Peter assured them all as the Misses Jane and Mary Calvert clapped their hands and the eldest Miss Calvert’s hand tightened about his arm. All three of them beamed happily at him. “How could I possibly not stay when there are four such lovely ladies with whom it will be my pleasure to dance- if ,that is, they can be persuaded to dance with me?”

But though he was flirting-and they all knew it very well-he spoke the truth too. He had seen a great deal of Raycroft’s neighbors during the past two weeks, and he genuinely liked them all, especially the young ladies.

A chorus of amused laughter greeted his final words.

“Perhaps Miss Calvert will honor me by reserving the second set for me,” he said, “and Miss Jane Calvert the third and Miss Mary Calvert the fourth. If, that is, I am not too late and every set has not already been spoken for by all the gentlemen hereabouts. It would not surprise me in the least if that were the case.”

Another burst of merriment greeted his words and then an assurance from all three sisters that the relevant sets would indeed be reserved and not forgotten.

“As if that would be possible,” Miss Mary Calvert added ingenuously.

“You had better dance the opening set with me, Gertrude,” John Raycroft said cheerfully and without any tactful gallantry whatsoever. “I understand that the alternative is Finn, and Ros assures me that that would be a fate akin to death.”

The ladies all laughed again.

“That is very obliging of you, John,” Miss Calvert said. “Thank you. Mr. Finn is kind and earnest and I like him exceedingly well. But I must confess that he is no dancer.”

It had been obvious to Peter that she did indeed like Finn and that Finn had every intention of working up his nerve within the next year or ten to make her an offer.

“I have it on excellent authority,” he said, smiling down at her, “that Finn is a good farmer. And I have had more than one conversation with him myself on the subject of crops and livestock and drainage and such and have found him a most knowledgeable fellow.”

She beamed happily back at him.

They proceeded on their way between green fields just beginning to turn to gold and thick hedgerows in which wildflowers were entangled, their collective perfumes lying heavy on the air, all the ladies chattering merrily about the coming assembly.

Before the subject had been exhausted they approached a fork in the lane and John interrupted, pointing with his cane to the branch on the right and explaining to Peter that it would take them back to the village by another route whereas the one on the left led to Barclay Court, to which the Earl and Countess of Edgecombe had still not returned. But even as he spoke, Miss Calvert exclaimed with pleased surprise, and her sisters turned their heads to look and then went skipping off to meet two ladies who were proceeding toward them on foot from the latter direction.

“It is the countess,” Miss Calvert explained. “They are back home, John. How delightful!”

Peter recognized the Countess of Edgecombe-the earl was an acquaintance of his. He had always admired the lady, who was tall and dark and strikingly beautiful-and who had the most lovely soprano voice he had ever heard. She enjoyed considerable fame in the musical world and traveled all over Europe performing before large audiences.

“So it would seem,” John Raycroft said cheerfully. “Famous!”

But Peter’s eyes had come to rest upon the countess’s companion. She was a young woman, small and shapely. Beneath her green bonnet, which was a shade darker than her dress, he could see that her hair was a bright and interesting shade of auburn. She had a smiling, pretty face that did the hair full justice.

She was, in fact, a notable beauty, and he gazed at her with considerable admiration.

But even as he looked a strange thought verbalized itself with crystal clarity in his mind.

There she is ,he thought.

What his mind meant by those three innocent-sounding but somehow ominous words he did not pause to ponder. He was always admiring the pretty young ladies he met. He was always eager to make their acquaintance. He was always preparing to be obliging and charming. He was always preparing to flirt. But his heart was well guarded against any deeper feeling-had been for five years.

It was an unguarded thought he had just had, though.

There she is.

As if she were some long-misplaced part of his soul, for God’s sake.

He might have felt a little foolish-not to mention uneasy-at the almost theatrical extravagance of his reaction to the unknown beauty had he been at leisure to ponder it.

But he was not.

There was a flurry of exuberant greetings as the two parties came together at the fork in the lane. Everyone, it seemed, had an acquaintance with everyone else except for Peter and the lady whose name, he soon learned, was Miss Osbourne. He waited for someone to make the introductions. She had sea green eyes, he could see now that he stood within a few feet of her. They formed a marvelous combination with her hair. Her clothes had been well chosen to complement her coloring.

Lord, but she was a beauty. Why had he not met her before? Who the devil was she, apart from Miss Osbourne?

“Lord Whitleaf,” the countess said, “may I present my friend, Miss Osbourne? She teaches at Miss Martin’s School for Girls in Bath, where I was also a teacher before I married Lucius. This is Viscount Whitleaf, Susanna.”

Susanna Osbourne. The name suited her. And her eyes were large and long-lashed and surely her finest feature, though in truth he could not discern the smallest imperfection in any of the others.

She curtsied. Unencumbered by Miss Raycroft and Miss Calvert, who had released their hold on his arms while greeting the ladies from Barclay Court, he made her an elegant bow and fixed upon her his warmest, most charming smile.