Simply Magic

Susanna spread her hands, palm up, and examined them closely.

“The third letter was sent on to your grandfather,” Theodore said, “even though you could not be sent with it. I believe he implemented his own search for you, but you were lost beyond a trace until Whitleaf found you this past summer.”

“I was not lost,” she said quietly as she drank her tea, thankful for the hot liquid, “and he did not find me.”

“In a manner of speaking,” he said, smiling. “May I take you to my mother and Edith in the morning room?”

“Yes,” she said with a sigh. “Theodore, perhaps I should leave tomorrow and return to Bath so that you may have a quiet family Christmas without feeling obliged to entertain me.”

“That would break Edith’s heart,” he said, “and hurt my mother. And I would not be happy about it either. We have other guests coming later today, remember.”

“All the more reason for me to leave,” she said, frowning.

“Not so.” He stood in front of the fire, lifted onto the balls of his feet, and then rocked back on his heels again. “I am expecting Colonel and Mrs. Osbourne and the Reverend Clapton from Gloucestershire-your two grandfathers and your paternal grandmother.”

Susanna stared mutely at him.

“My mother suggested it,” he said, “as soon as you wrote back to say you would come. I wrote to them the same day and they did not hesitate. They are coming to meet you.”

She swallowed and heard a gurgle in her throat. She pushed her cup and saucer aside and curled her fingers into her palms to find them clammy.

“My grandparents?” she half whispered.

“Lord,” he said, lifting onto the balls of his feet again, “I don’t know if I have done the right thing, Susanna. But I know my father would have done all he could for you, and my mother always loved you almost as if you were her own. I thought it only right to do more or less what your father wanted mine to do- except that I am bringing your grandparents to you rather than sending you to them.”

She was not all alone in the world. She had three grandparents and perhaps other relatives. She had read it in both her father’s letters, yet somehow the knowledge had not fully lodged itself in her brain until now.

She had relatives, and they were coming here to Fincham Manor.

Today.

Susanna lurched to her feet, pushing her chair away with the backs of her knees as she did so.

“I have to get out,” she said.

“Out?” Theodore’s rather bushy eyebrows drew together until they almost met over the bridge of his nose.

“Out of doors,” she said, feeling as if she were about to suffocate.

“You don’t mean home to Bath?” he said. “You are not going to leave, Susanna? Run away again?”

What did she mean? She scarcely knew. Her mind felt as if it were close to bursting with all it had been forced to take in during the past hour or so.

She drew a deep breath and released it slowly.

“I just need to walk outside for a while, Theodore,” she said. “I need fresh air. Will you mind? Will it seem terribly rude? I do not mean to run away.”

“I’ll come with you,” he said, still frowning. “Or perhaps Edith or my mother-”

But she held up a hand.

“No,” she said. “I would rather be alone. I need to sort out my thoughts.”

“Ah,” he said. “Take all the time you need, then, Susanna. And then come back and get warm and enjoy Christmas with us. We will do all in our power to see that you do.”

“Thank you.”

She hurried upstairs to fetch her cloak and bonnet and gloves and don her warm half-boots, vastly relieved when she did not pass anyone on the way to her room. If only she could get back downstairs and outside…

But she was not so fortunate this time.

Theodore was standing in the hall as she came downstairs, probably waiting to see her on her way. A newly arrived visitor was talking with him there. For only a fraction of a second did Susanna think that perhaps this was one of the expected houseguests. But then, almost simultaneously, she realized that the visitor, broad-shouldered in his many-caped greatcoat, was a young man and that he was Viscount Whitleaf.

He looked up at the same moment and their eyes met.

She was flooded with such a powerful and unexpected longing that she only just found the strength not to dash down the remaining stairs and hurl herself into his arms.

“Miss Osbourne,” he said.

“Lord Whitleaf.”

She came slowly downward. She wondered if he had known she was coming to Fincham Manor.

“Susanna is going out for a walk,” Theodore said. “I have offered to accompany her, but she needs to be alone. She has just been reading the letter her father wrote her on the last day of his life. Do go without further ado if you wish, Susanna. I’ll take Whitleaf in to see my mother. He has an invitation to extend.”

“Later, Theo, if it is all the same to you,” the viscount said without taking his eyes off Susanna. “I will go back outside with Miss Osbourne-if she will accept my company.”

The thought of his mother-of what his mother had done-flashed through her mind, but he was not his mother. And suddenly she could not bear the thought of going out alone, of leaving him behind.

“Thank you,” she said, and turned to leave the house without looking back.

22

“One could say without too much exaggeration,” Peter had remarked just last evening to Bertie Lamb, his favorite brother-in-law, Amy’s husband, “that the house is packed to the rafters and bulging at the seams.”

The crowd was made up mostly of relatives and relatives of relatives-and of course the Flynn-Posys, who were not related to anyone else there but who obviously had hopes of rectifying that situation at some time in the foreseeable future. Arabella Flynn-Posy was seventeen years old and dark-haired and dark-eyed and remarkably pretty despite a mouth that had a tendency to turn sulky at the slightest provocation. His mother adored her-and her mother adored him. An imbecile with a pea for a brain would have understood their intentions.

“But your mother is ecstatic,” Bertie had said. “So are your sisters. And I am partial to a crowd myself, I must admit. Jolly good show about the ball, old chap-it will brighten things up around here.”

His mother was, of course, not ecstatic about that one thing, Peter knew. But he had impulsively decided that he wanted to invite all his neighbors to a grand Christmas celebration at Sidley Park, and he had gone ahead and invited them all to a ball on the evening of Christmas Day without consulting anyone except his cook and his butler and his housekeeper, who would be directly involved in the