Simply Magic

drifted to the afternoon and to Viscount Whitleaf and the waltz they had danced together. And to the cheerful way in which they had taken their leave of each other afterward. She had refused to feel tragic at the time, and she refused to feel it now.

It had after all been good to see him again and to know that it was concern for her-and his possible responsibility toward her-that had brought him.

But now there was an inevitable ache of emptiness inside that was very difficult to ignore.

“I am very sensitive to undercurrents,” Claudia said. “It is another asset for a teacher, I firmly believe. I can sometimes sense things that are brewing long before they bubble to the surface and cause trouble or even disaster.”

Susanna sipped her tea. She did not know quite where this observation was leading.

“You met Viscount Whitleaf when you were staying at Barclay Court this summer,” Claudia said.

“Yes,” Susanna said warily. “He was staying at Hareford House. The younger Mr. Raycroft is his friend. You have met him and his family, I believe.”

Claudia nodded. She had spent a few days at Barclay Court earlier in the year, before Frances left for Europe.

“My first impression of the viscount,” Claudia said, “was that he was conceited-as well as wondrously handsome, of course. Both the Earl of Edgecombe and Miss Thompson assured me that I was mistaken. Neither you nor Frances expressed any opinion, however. And then you proceeded to eat half a cucumber sandwich and perhaps a third of a currant cake and maintain an uncharacteristic near-silence throughout tea. And Frances did not do much better. She was watching you almost the whole time, a look of troubled concern in her eyes. Indeed, I am not even sure it was undercurrents I felt. It was something altogether more overt than that.”

It would be pointless, Susanna decided, to pretend she did not know what Claudia was talking about. They had known each other a long time. They had been friends for a number of years since she grew up. They had been even closer since Anne left.

“It is not quite what you think,” she said.

“And what is it that I think?” Claudia asked, her look keen.

“Viscount Whitleaf and I became friends,” Susanna explained. “I had no illusions that we were more than that, and absolutely no wish that we be more. He is amiable, Claudia, and very kind-he showed his kindness in all sorts of ways. It was sad to have to say good-bye to him at the end of the holiday. Frances feared I had fallen in love with him. Perhaps she still fears it. But she is wrong. It was lovely to see him again today and dance with him again, but…Well, but nothing. I will never see him again, and I am content that it be so. I will not lose any sleep over him.”

She smiled-and sloshed her tea into her saucer. She set the cup down in haste until such time as her hands had stopped shaking.

Good heavens! Oh, gracious heavens. She would be weeping next-as she had the night after the assembly when Frances came to her room. How utterly mortifying.

“Is it not a shame,” Claudia said with a sigh after a short silence, “that we cannot just turn off our woman’s need to love and nurture and be loved in return, or at least draw enough satisfaction from lavishing those instincts upon our pupils and fellow teachers and women friends? One ought not to have to feel the need for a man and all he can offer by way of physical as well as emotional satisfaction when the chances of finding a suitable mate and making a satisfactory marriage are slim to none.”

Susanna had never before heard Claudia talk about her need for a man-her physical need. It was all too easy to assume that she did not feel such needs. She was over thirty years old. She had been an adult when Susanna first came to the school. And all that time she had been without a man.

“I was able to offer you the relative security of a teaching position when you grew up,” Claudia said. “I was not, alas, able to find you a husband despite your beauty and vitality and intelligence.”

“Oh, Claudia,” Susanna said, setting her cup and saucer down on the table beside her, “you have done so very much for me. And I am not in love with Viscount Whitleaf-or anyone else.”

Claudia sighed again.

“Of course you are not,” she said briskly. “Come, it is time we went to bed even though it is still not very late, is it? It has been a long and busy and emotional day, though, and I feel like a limp rag. And I have promised to take study hall tomorrow evening on top of everything else.”

“I will be conducting a rehearsal for the Christmas play,” Susanna said, “or I would do it for you.”

Life would go on, she told herself a few minutes later as she shut her bedroom door behind her. She had survived the end of August. She would survive today.

At least there would be much to occupy her mind tomorrow and in the coming days.

And at least there were pleasant memories of today to add to the ones from the summer. She was glad he had come to ask her if she was with child. He would not have abandoned her to her fate if she had been. She knew that as clearly as if he had said so.

He was still a man she could like and even…

Well, yes, of course she still loved him too.

It would be foolish to deny it.

She would survive the admission. She had survived it in August, and she would survive it now. But she did wonder wistfully when an unfed love died. It did not last forever, surely? She fervently hoped not.

She looked forward to the day when she could bring out the memories and derive only a sort of nostalgic pleasure from them.

That day had not yet come.

Not by a long way.

Peter did not go with Lauren and Kit when they left for Alvesley Park the following morning even though both of them assured him that he would be very welcome and their children begged him to come. He was going to set out for London a little later in the day, he told them-he had some business to attend to there. The business consisted of keeping his eye out for a new team of horses to buy, though, truth to tell, there was nothing wrong with his chestnuts. He also needed to visit his clubs, notably White’s, to discover who was still in town and who was new in town and what the latest news and gossip might be-though those particular pursuits could hardly be described as business.

Really, of course, he had no pressing reason for going anywhere in the world, except home. But there was still a while before Christmas, and he had decided not to go before then.

His mother was going to transform his dining room into a lavender monstrosity- she had mentioned the color in her last letter-as a complement to the drawing room. But she was going to leave it until after Christmas since they were expecting guests-she had used the plural pronoun. Christmas would be soon enough, then, to stop such a disaster from happening. A lavender dining room, for God’s sake!

Would she start on the library next?

She had invited the Flynn-Posys for Christmas, Lady Flynn-Posy being one of her dearest friends from their come-out year. Peter might recall the name, she had written. He did not. They were going to bring with them their son, a delightful young man who was up at Oxford, and-inevitably-their daughter, an accomplished young lady of considerable beauty, who was to make her official come-out in the spring.

Miss Flynn-Posy and her arsenal would have to be faced, he had decided. He would hide from his mother’s loving interference in his life no longer.

He would not go home yet, though.