Mary Balogh - Simply Magic

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, Susanna. But tell me the truth.”

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 connection between you and me somewhat distasteful. But we cannot do anything to change the past. It is as it is. Are we willing to give up the present and the future because of it? Life is not perfect, Susanna. We can only live the reality of what is. It would not be possible without love. I know it is something of a cliché to say that love makes all things possible, but I believe it does. It is not a magic wand that can be waved over life to make it all sweet and lovely and trouble-free, but it can give the energy to fight the odds and win.”

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, Susanna, which would sacrifice your own happiness if necessary and carry on with life without bitterness. And I have learned a great deal about it in the last little while. I love my family and my home. And I love you.”

“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 announcement tonight?”

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

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

“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, Susanna, but there is no doubt in my mind that she loves both my sisters and me totally. She will love my wife rather than lose me. I cannot promise you an easy relationship with her, but I believe I can assure you that it will not be impossible-unless it is to you.”

She gazed at him. Was this really possible after all, then? Or was she listening with her heart rather than with her common sense?

Was it with one’s heart that one ought to listen?

And then he took away all her power to listen with anything but her heart. He closed the distance between them, possessed himself of her gloved hand in both his own, and went down on one knee before her.

“Another horrible cliché,” he said with a grin. But the grin faded almost immediately. “Susanna, will you please, please marry me? If you cannot truthfully tell me that you do not love me, will you tell me instead that you will marry me?”

And the only protest she could think of making was an utter absurdity.

“Peter,” she said, leaning a little closer to him, “I am a teacher. I have obligations to my girls and to Claudia Martin. I cannot simply walk out in the middle of a school year.”

“When does it finish?” he asked her.

“July,” she said.

“Then we will marry in August,” he said. “The month we met. That particular dragon, you see, was not even worthy of the name. A mere worm. Any others?”

“Oh,” she said helplessly, “there must be dozens.”

“Then you had better name them quickly,” he said, “or it will be too late. I am going to kiss you very thoroughly and then bear you off in triumph to the ballroom. Supper follows the waltz-the perfect time for announcements. I arranged it that way.”

“You are very confident, then, Lord Whitleaf,” she said.

“I am not,” he said. “Heaven help me, I am not, Susanna. Put me out of my misery. Tell me that you love me-or do not. Tell me you will marry me-or will not. Please, my love. I am not confident.”

She supposed the dozen reasons for saying no would rush at her long before the night was out. She supposed equally well that she would vanquish them one at a time by the simple expedient of remembering how he looked at this precise moment-anxious, his eyes full of uncertainty and love, down on one knee. And by remembering how she felt at this moment-overwhelmed by love.

She drew her hand free of his, cupped his face with both hands, and leaned forward to kiss him softly on the lips.

“I do,” she said softly, “and I will.”

“I knew, ” he said, “that I should have done this in the drawing room rather than in here. There is a kissing bough there. I suppose, though, I will manage well enough without one.”

And suddenly he was on his feet, bringing her to hers at the same time and drawing her into an embrace that proved his supposition quite correct.

And the strange thing was, Susanna thought-when she could think at all-that it was not in any way a lascivious kiss that they shared, lengthy as it was. It was one of joy, of hope, of commitment, of love.

Ah, yes, those dozen reasons were not going to stand even a moment’s chance of being allowed a hearing.

“My love,” he said against her lips. “My love.”

“Peter,” she said.

And they kissed again before he placed her hand very formally on his arm and led her back in the direction of the ballroom.

The music had stopped.

Everyone was already at supper.

Her betrothal was about to be announced. Her betrothal.

The wedding of Susanna Osbourne to Viscount Whitleaf was solemnized at the church near Alvesley Park in Wiltshire on a perfect day in August.

Alvesley had been chosen from among a number of contending places-for a number of reasons. Although Susanna’s grandparents had been eager to host the event in Gloucestershire, even they admitted that their homes and the village inn could not possibly accommodate all the distinguished guests who would be invited and that the assembly rooms above the inn would be a shabby location for the wedding breakfast even if they had been large enough.

Sidley was a serious contender, but how could Susanna’s fellow teachers travel so far when there were charity girls to look after? And the viscount would not hear of marrying his lady without her friends in attendance.

For a while only Bath seemed a viable option-and one that was perfectly acceptable to both the bride and the groom-until Lauren, Viscountess Ravensberg, and the Duchess of Bewcastle again took it upon themselves to organize wedding celebrations. Though actually it was Eleanor Thompson who set the plans in motion when she informed her sister in her weekly letter of the predicament concerning the charity girls and commented upon the vast size of Lindsey Hall.

No one ever knew-or asked-how the duchess persuaded the very toplofty Duke of Bewcastle to take in twelve schoolgirls for a whole week surrounding the wedding of one of their teachers, but she did, and his grace was even seen to smile upon her during the wedding itself, a rare enough public display of affection.

Alvesley it was, then, and guests came from every corner of England, it seemed, and even from Scotland and Wales-the viscount’s sister and her husband from the former, Mr. and Mrs. Sydnam Butler with David and their four-month-old daughter from the latter. The viscountess came from London, where she had enjoyed a gratifyingly successful Season, having drawn the admiring attentions of two distinguished widowers. She came despite the fact that she had not seen Lauren, her niece, since the latter was a baby. The viscount’s sisters and their families came, as did some of his friends, most notably Theo Markham and John Raycroft with his new bride.

Susanna’s grandparents came with two of her aunts and their husbands, whom she had met during a visit at Easter. And all her closest friends were there-Claudia Martin, Anne Butler with Mr. Butler, and the Countess of Edgecombe with her husband, newly returned from a singing engagement in Paris. Eleanor Thompson was there and Lila Walton and Cecile Pierre, the French and music teacher, and even Mr. Huckerby had made the journey from Bath. And of course, the twelve charity pupils attended the wedding too, supervised by Miss Thompson and Miss Walton, though they were so thoroughly awed by the occasion and the company that no supervision was really necessary. Even Agnes Ryde was mute and wide-eyed.