“Were you?” He looked more closely at her. “In my experience people count blessings only when they are feeling sad. Are you sad?”

“No,” she said. “How could I be?”

He heaved a deep sigh, which he did not immediately explain.

“It beats me,” he said after a short silence. “But I feel melancholy too.”

Mr. Dannen and Mr. Raycroft were coming across the bridge to meet them with Miss Moss, Miss Krebbs, and Miss Jane Calvert. Soon the two groups came together, and a great deal of chatter and laughter ensued.

By the time they reached the picnic side of the bridge, Mr. Dannen had taken Susanna on his arm, and Viscount Whitleaf had offered one of his to Miss Krebbs and the other to Miss Jane Calvert. Mr. Raycroft was walking beside them.

The viscount was telling them that he had thought it was the late afternoon sunlight that was dazzling his eyes at the center of the bridge until he realized that it was their presence there that had been doing it.

The rogue!

But of course they were not taken in by such flatteries for a single moment. The tone of their laughter told Susanna that.

He was being kind to them, bringing happiness and gaiety to their day.

He had also donned a mask of frivolity. Or maybe it was not a mask at all. Maybe he had a gift for spreading joy. And yet he had said just moments ago that he felt melancholy. Could he feel both?

Yes, perhaps so. She was feeling both. She was living through one of the most joyful afternoons of her entire life. And yet…

And yet soon they would go separately back into their own very separate universes.


8


The mood of slight melancholy that had oppressed Susanna after the picnic had disappeared without a trace by the time she arrived with Frances and the Earl of Edgecombe at the assembly rooms above the village inn the following evening.

She doubted she had ever been more excited in her life, though she tried very hard not to show it-without a great deal of success, it seemed.

“Well, Susanna,” the earl said as he handed her down from the carriage, “you are fairly sparkling, I must say. Jewels would be superfluous.”

She was wearing none, of course. But then neither was Frances. Susanna suspected that despite the fact that her friend wore a gorgeous royal-blue satin gown, which was clearly expensive and made by the most skilled of seamstresses, Frances was actually making a deliberate effort not to outshine either Susanna or her less affluent neighbors.

Frances linked her arm through Susanna’s as they stepped inside the inn, leaving the earl to follow them in.

“I know just how you must be feeling,” she said. “I remember how I felt that night in Bath when Lucius’s grandfather and sister had invited me to a ball in the Upper Assembly Rooms. I was half frightened to death and half elated to death. Do you remember?”

“Claudia, Anne, and I noticed at the last moment that part of your hem was down,” Susanna said, “and we were all involved in stitching it up again with you inside it-in the school hallway of all places-when Mr. Keeble let the Earl of Edgecombe in, or Viscount Sinclair, as he was then.”

They both laughed at the memory and there was a low chuckle from behind them to indicate that the earl appreciated the joke too.

The room where the dancing was to take place would probably appear small and plainly decorated in comparison with any London ballroom, Susanna guessed when they entered it. It was certainly smaller and plainer than the Upper Assembly Rooms in Bath, to which she had taken a party of girls from the school on a sightseeing walk one afternoon. But these rooms were full of people she knew and felt comfortable with, and everyone was dressed smartly for the evening. The noise level was high with the excited voices of ladies and young girls and the hearty, booming voices of men trying to talk above them. There was a great deal of laughter everywhere. And the orchestra members were making their own contribution to the noise as they tuned their instruments on a small dais at one end of the room.

It all appeared splendidly dazzling to Susanna.

She was at her first ball-in her mind she called it that even if strictly speaking it was but an assembly. And she was going to dance.

The earl had asked her to reserve at least one set for him, though he had not spoken for any one in particular. Mr. Dannen, at the end of yesterday’s picnic, had solicited her hand for the all-important opening set.

And Viscount Whitleaf had asked her for the first waltz.

She could hardly wait for that particular set-there was to be only one. And yet even as the impatient thought entered her mind she chastised herself. This was sure to be the most exciting evening of her life. She would not wish the first half of it away. She wanted to live every moment of it, from first to last.

Mrs. Raycroft and her daughter came to meet them as soon as they appeared in the doorway, and Miss Raycroft exclaimed with awe over Frances’s gown and admired Susanna’s hair, which Frances had insisted her own maid dress for the evening.

“And is that the ribbon you bought in the village shop?” she asked, surveying the hem of Susanna’s pale green gown, about which the darker green ribbon had been sewn in two rows. “It gleams in the candlelight, does it not? It looks very smart. Viscount Whitleaf told us you had purchased it.”

“My gown needed to be made more festive for the occasion,” Susanna explained. “I have never worn it to a ball before.”

After that all was a whirlwind of activity and excitement as neighbors greeted neighbors and gentlemen searched out their partners for the opening set.

Susanna had been forced to admit in the privacy of her own heart that she found Mr. Dannen something of a bore. They had spent several hours in each other’s company during the past two weeks, but she doubted he knew anything about her except that she was a schoolteacher from Bath. She, on the other hand, knew surely all there was to know about his Scottish ancestors and heritage.

But her lack of romantic interest in him really did not matter at all as he led her out onto the floor and placed her in the line of ladies while he took his place opposite her among the gentlemen for the opening set of country dances. There had surely never been a happier moment. The eldest Miss Calvert stood to her left, opposite Mr. Raycroft, and Rosamond Raycroft stood next to Miss Calvert. Viscount Whitleaf, across from her, smiled indulgently and said something that had her laughing merrily. Briefly he caught Susanna’s eye, but he was too polite to withdraw his attention from his partner for longer than a moment or two.

Just feeling him close filled Susanna with an even warmer glow of happiness.

But soon she had thoughts for nothing except the dance as the orchestra struck up with the music and the line of gentlemen bowed while the line of ladies curtsied.

Music filled her ears as the floor vibrated to the rhythmic thumping of many feet and dancers twirled and promenaded and circled about one another. The air grew warmer and heavier with the mingled scents of perfumes and colognes and flowers. The very candles in the candelabrum and wall sconces seemed to move with a lilting rhythm in time to the music.

And she was a part of it all.

Ah, she was a part of it all.

She would perhaps have felt some disappointment when the set came to an end except that Mr. Raycroft had already asked her before it began if she would dance the second with him. And the earl claimed the third set.

By the end of that she was feeling flushed and warm and breathless-and wanted the evening never to end. Mr. Finn approached and asked for the fourth set, but when he came she was seated beside Miss Honeydew, who was fanning herself and looking rather faint and admitted when Susanna asked that she had not eaten anything since luncheon. Susanna thanked Mr. Finn and asked if he would excuse her and then took Miss Honeydew into the refreshment room, fetched her a cup of tea and a plate of food, and sat with her while she ate, her foot tapping out the rhythm of the dance music coming from the other room.

But she did not mind missing the dance. Mr. Crossley had already asked for the next, and the one after that was to be the waltz.

Viscount Whitleaf was looking extremely handsome tonight in a brown tailed evening coat with ivory satin breeches, a dull gold embroidered waistcoat, and white, crisp linen. He was also, Susanna had noticed, a graceful dancer and one who looked as if he were enjoying himself. Whenever she glanced at him, he was smiling, his eyes on his partner. His partners, of course, were ecstatic.

Mr. Crossley led Susanna toward Mrs. Raycroft at the end of the next set and stood conversing with them there while Viscount Whitleaf and Frances, who had been dancing together, approached across the floor. Susanna fanned her hot cheeks and watched him come. How very much she liked him.

“Goodness,” Frances said, “that was a vigorous dance. I am quite robbed of breath. Thank you, Lord Whitleaf.”

“Ma’am?” He bowed. “It was entirely my pleasure.”

“But I simply must recover my breath quickly,” she said. “The waltz is next and I have been looking forward to it for longer than a week. So has Lucius.”

The Earl of Edgecombe was striding across the floor toward them, his eyes on Frances.

Viscount Whitleaf made Susanna a slight bow.

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