Simply Magic

And then Peter was there again, bowing and smiling and charming her grandmother, and finally turning to her and holding out one hand.

“This is my waltz, I believe, Miss Osbourne,” he said.

And then once more they were waltzing. Except that this time, though she smiled into his eyes and smelled his cologne and felt the exhilaration of every step they took, she did not lose herself in the dance. This time she was aware of his home about them and his family and neighbors. She was aware of her own family and almost wept at the novelty of the thought. She was aware of her friends-and the Markhams and Morleys were her friends and always had been. She did not know what Lady Markham had meant in that long-ago snippet of conversation she had overheard outside the nursery, and she had not asked, but she knew now that Lady Markham had always cared for her and would have somehow continued to do so. It really must have been a burden to be left so suddenly with an orphan child and not to know what to do with her.

And she was aware of Christmas, that season of love and family and peace and generosity.

It was all, she thought, simply magical.

“A pe

“You do belong here,” she said. “I am so glad I have seen you here in your own proper milieu. I think your dream is within your grasp.”

He smiled as he twirled her again-and somehow they ended up outside the ballroom doors, and he was taking her by the hand and striding purposefully off with her in the direction of the hallway. Except that they did not go all the way there, but stopped outside a closed door, which he opened, and then proceeded inside before he closed the door firmly behind them.

It was a library, she could see, a beautiful, cozy room dimly lit by a fire burning in the hearth and a single branch of candles on the mantel.

“Peter?” she said. “The waltz? My grandparents…”

“…know that I am bringing you here,” he said. “At least, your grandfathers do, and I suppose your grandmother does too. She smiled very sweetly at me in the receiving line.”

He released her hand and strode over to the fire and busied himself with poking it into fresh life.

Susa

Her grandparents knew?

But they did not know…

He straightened up and stood gazing into the fire, his back to her. She waited for him to speak. And she ached with love for him. And with a knowledge of his kindness, his tenderness, his passion, his very essence.

“My mother drove your father to his death,” he said.

Ah, so he knew? But surely he had not known two days ago.

“He killed himself, ” she said. “He might have made a different choice.”

“She has lived with remorse ever since,” he said, “a fact that does not, of course, excuse what she did. I love her, Susa

“My mother and my father did dreadful things,” she said. “Among other things they broke the hearts of my grandparents. They caused the death of my uncle. But I have always loved them both though I never knew my mother.”

“What I mean,” he said, resting one hand on the high mantel and dipping his head forward, “is that I will never renounce her, Susa

She swallowed.

“Peter,” she said, “you do not have to make a choice. I am going back to school in a few days’ time. My grandparents want me to go and live with them, but I have said no. I will gladly spend holidays with them. I will write to them constantly, but I will not live with them. Or with you.”

His head dipped even farther forward, and there was a lengthy silence between them while she listened to the waltz music coming from the ballroom. Then he straightened up and turned to look at her.

“Tell me you do not love me,” he said.

She shook her head slowly.

“ Tell me.”

“Love does not have anything to do with anything,” she said.

“I beg to disagree,” he said. “Love has everything to do with everything. Tell me you do not love me and I will take you back to the ballroom and we will not see each other again after this evening. Tell me, Susa

She had never seen him so serious. His face looked drawn and pale in the candlelight. His eyes were intense on hers.

“Peter,” she said, looking sharply down at her hands, “it would be distasteful, even sordid, when your mother and my father…”

“…were lovers,” he said. “Did it seem sordid at Barclay Court? Did it seem sordid at the dower house two days ago? It is an ugly fact, and it should make any co

She raised her eyes to his.

“And love is something we have in abundance,” he said. “Tell me if I am wrong.”

She said nothing.

“Not just a sweet, sentimental, romantic kind of love,” he said, “though there is that too. You have the gritty kind of love, Susa

“Peter,” she said, but she shook her head and could say no more. She bit her lower lip.

“Are you going to destroy our love,” he said, “just because I am wealthy and titled and you are a schoolteacher-though you are something of an heiress too, I was informed yesterday. And just because I am Whitleaf? Just because I will always honor my mother? Just because she and your father once sought comfort for their loneliness with each other?”

She closed her eyes.

“Or are you going to marry me?” he asked her. “Are you going to make three elderly people in the ballroom very happy by allowing me to make an a

“Oh, Peter!” She looked up sharply. “That is grossly unfair.”

He stared grimly back at her. And then he smiled. And then gri

“It is rather, is it not?” he said. “But will you? Make them happy, that is?”

She had simply despised all those girls in Somerset who had melted beneath his every smile-until, that was, she had realized that it was his sheer likability they had responded to. But even so…

Was she to become one of them?

“What does your mother have to say about this?” she asked him. “Have you told her?”

“I have,” he said. “My mother has been possessive, a little domineering, even selfish, in her dealings with me during my lifetime, Susa