Simply Magic

“Ah,” Claudia said with a sigh, “it is my thought too. Let us hope we are right and not just a couple of hopeless romantics. Ah, A

Lila Walton was a junior teacher, promoted at the end of the summer term from the ranks of the senior girls. Like Susa

“She shows great promise, as I knew she would,” Susa

But they were to see A

“There is to be a surprise wedding breakfast for A

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 Susa

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, Susa

She stood ramrod straight and spoke as if she were inviting Susa

“I will come and hold your hand,” Susa

Claudia snorted and then laughed.

“I do not suppose,” she said, “that either one of them will even recognize me or care if they do. Though Lady Hallmere did come here a few years ago to look down her nose at me and my school and ask if there was anything I needed. The nerve of the woman! But, Susa

“Yes.” Susa

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 was very tender to the touch.

14

The Duchess of Bewcastle had reserved the ballroom as well as the tearoom 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 Susa

And yet it struck Peter even as he entertained these troubled thoughts that the chance to meet Susa

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 out now, 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.