Mary Balogh - Simply Magic

She looked up as he approached her group, and smiled.

“Miss Osbourne,” he said, “you must come and walk with me, if you will, and allow me to congratulate you on your victory. I was soundly defeated.”

He held out a hand for hers and helped her up.

“Thank you,” she said, brushing the creases from her dress. “Yes, indeed you were.”

She laughed as she took his offered arm.

And suddenly, it seemed to him, the pleasure of the afternoon was complete. The sky seemed bluer, the sun brighter, the air warmer.

It was too bad-it really was-that a friendship between a man and a woman could not be conducted at long distance. They would not be able to correspond with each other after they both left here-it would not be at all the thing. And there were only five days of the two weeks left. It was very unlikely they would ever see each other again after that.

Dash it, but he would be sorry to say good-bye to her.

However, five days were still five days and not four-had he not described himself to her as a man with a half-full-glass attitude to life? And there was the rest of this afternoon too. He did not believe anyone would remark too pointedly upon his spending half an hour alone with the woman who had beaten him at the boat race.

Yes, he would allow himself the luxury of half an hour today.

He led her off in the direction of the bridge.

Susanna had thoroughly enjoyed the picnic, especially the final boat race. She realized, of course, that Viscount Whitleaf could have reached the finish line long before she had even turned at the pavilion if he had chosen, though she knew too that he had had no intention of allowing her to win. The satisfaction of actually doing so had been immense.

She had enjoyed every moment of the afternoon, but, oh, she had to admit as she walked in the direction of the bridge, her hand drawn through the viscount’s arm, that now her pleasure was complete. Finally she was to spend a short while alone with her new friend.

And she did indeed like him. There was always laughter and gaiety wherever he happened to be. And yet when he and she were together there was almost always more than just laughter and gaiety. She felt that she was getting to know him as a person and discovering that he was not nearly as shallow or self-centered as she had thought at first. And she felt that he was interested in her as a person and not just as another woman with a reasonably passable face.

There was magic, she thought, in discovering a new friendship in an utterly unexpected place.

“I suppose,” she said, “this afternoon was not the first time you have rowed a boat.”

“It was not,” he admitted.

“Though I do not suppose,” she said, “you were allowed to do it as a boy.”

“How did you guess?” He grinned down at her. “Not when I was at home, at least. I did all sorts of things at school and university that had never been allowed at home, on the theory that what my mother and sisters did not see would not cause them grief.”

She remembered how one of his sisters had pulled him away from the bank of the lake where he had been trying to fish with her line, horrified that he might fall in and die. An eager, active little boy had not even been allowed to sit at the water’s edge with a fishing line in his hand.

“I cannot remember the last time I was vanquished in a boat race,” he said as they stepped onto the bridge. “Accept my most heartfelt congratulations!”

She laughed. “Someone has to keep you humble.”

“Unkind,” he said. “I did admit to having lost a curricle race, if you will remember.”

“By a long nose,” she said. “I wonder how long. An elephant’s trunk stretched on the rack, perhaps?”

“Sometimes,” he said, “I believe that your tongue must be sharp enough to slice through a slab of tough beef.”

She laughed again.

“And had you rowed before this afternoon?” he asked her. “Please say yes. My humiliation will be complete if the answer is no.”

“A few times long ago, when I was a child,” she said. “But I have not tried it since.”

“And where was that?” he asked.

“Oh, where I grew up,” she said vaguely.

They stopped by unspoken consent when they reached the middle of the bridge. She had crossed it before, on her last visit to Barclay Court, but there had been no opportunity this afternoon until now. The sun beamed down upon them from a cloudless blue sky. A slight breeze cooled her face. She could hear the river rushing beneath the bridge. If she turned her head she would see the sunlight sparkling on the lake water behind them.

All her senses were sharpened. She could feel his body heat. She could smell his cologne. It was an intensely pleasurable feeling. She felt awash in contentment.

“I noticed,” he said, “when I sat inside the pavilion earlier that the reflection of the house is perfectly framed in the lake water. That particular spot was obviously chosen with great care by the landscape artist. He must have been a master of his art.”

“Oh, yes,” she agreed. “I am sure he was.”

“Do you suppose that waterfall has been as artfully positioned as the pavilion?” he asked. “Is it there in that exact spot for maximum visual effect from here?”

“Perhaps it was the bridge that was deliberately placed,” she suggested.

“Or both,” he said. “My money is upon its being both.”

“But can nature be so ordered?” she asked him.

“Assuredly so,” he told her. “Do we not often plant flowers and vegetables in ruthlessly regimented rows and beds for our own convenience and pleasure? And can we not create a waterfall if we wish? We manipulate nature all the time. In fact, we often make the mistake of believing that we are its masters. And then a storm blows in from nowhere and lifts the roofs off our houses and floods them and reminds us of how little control we have and how helpless we are in reality. Have you noticed that once-mighty structures that have been abandoned are soon taken over by nature again? Wildflowers grow in the crevices of once-impregnable castle walls, and grass grows on palace floors where kings once entertained the elite of an empire.”

“I find that thought reassuring more than frightening,” she said. “I have heard of how ugly some parts of the country are becoming with the slag heaps from coal mines and other waste products of industry. I do not suppose those activities will end anytime soon. But when they do end-if they ever do-perhaps nature will reclaim the land and erase the man-made ugliness and create beauty again.”

“I have an uneasy feeling,” he said, “that if we continue to stand here, someone or other is going to feel invited to join us. I do not wish to be joined, do you?”

“No.” She looked up at him, her cheeks warming at the admission.

“And if we walk toward the pavilion, the same thing might happen,” he said. “I can see that there is a path beside the river on the other side of the lake. My guess is that it goes as far as the waterfall.”

“It does. And beyond,” she told him. “It is part of the wilderness walk that begins close to the house and extends all about the lake. I have walked along parts of it with Frances, but I have never been to the waterfall. The path is rather rugged in that area and there had been a lot of rain just before I came here last time. The earl thought it might be unsafe.”

He looked down at her thin shoes.

“Is it too rugged,” he asked, “for someone who just won three separate boat races, including, to my eternal shame, the final one?”

“I have always thought,” she said, “that the walk must be at its wildest and loveliest by the waterfall.”

“We will walk there and back, then,” he said, “and hope that no one else is adventurous enough to follow us.”

She took his arm again, and they proceeded on their way.

Susanna wished as they walked that she could seal up every minute in a jar and take them all with her into the future. She did not believe she had ever been as happy as she was when they turned onto the river path and she could feel confident that they would be alone together for at least half an hour.

She could not think of anyone with whom she would rather share such beauty and solitude.

“Ah, magnificent!” Viscount Whitleaf said, stopping on the path when they were in the shade of a forest of tall trees and looking back to where the waters of the river bubbled and foamed beneath the bridge to join the calmer lake water, which was indeed sparkling in the sunshine.

He was genuinely admiring the scenery. It was something that just a week ago she would not have expected of him. She had judged him to be a man who could be happy only when surrounded by adoring females.

“I think Barclay Court must be one of the loveliest estates in England,” she said. “Not that I have seen many others.”

“Or any?” He turned his head and his eyes smiled at her.

“One other,” she said, stung. “The place where I grew up.”

He raised his eyebrows. “And where was that? You have never spoken of your childhood, have you-except that you missed your mother?”

“It does not matter,” she said.

She wondered what he would say if she told him and he realized that they had once been neighbors of sorts. She wondered if he would have any memory at all of that day by the lake when he had visited with his mother and sisters and they had met briefly. And she wondered if he would remember everything that had happened later.

But a painful churning in her stomach warned her not to say any more-or think any more-about that.