Simply 03 - Simply Magic.rtf by Mary Balogh

Author:Mary Balogh [Balogh, Mary]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2011-02-18T20:15:04.218000+00:00

"Yes, thank you," she said with perfect composure and a polite smile on her face—as if they had never lain together on a secluded hill above the river at Barclay Court. "And you, my lord?"

"Quite well," he said, "thank you."

Good Lord, where was his arsenal of small talk when he most needed it? But perhaps it was as well it had deserted him utterly, or he might have found himself saying something totally asinine like great beauty having to be a prerequisite for a teaching position at Miss Martin's School for Girls. He had the feeling that present company would not be at all amused by such a compliment.

"My lord," Susanna said before he could make his escape to his own table, "may I present Miss Martin, owner of the school where I teach? This is Viscount Whitleaf, Claudia. He was staying not far from Barclay Court

while I was a guest there."

The severe-looking stranger whose identity he had guessed earlier inclined her head while he bowed and favored her with his most charming smile.

"Ma'am," he said. "This is a pleasure I have long desired."

They were only mildly extravagant words, but looking into her unsmiling gray eyes, he felt suddenly stripped naked. Not in any physical way, it was true, but he felt as if every layer of artifice were being stripped away and she was recognizing him for the shallow fribble that he was. He wondered if Susanna had told her anything about him.

"How do you do, Lord Whitleaf," she said.

He retreated in reasonably good order after that and sat with his back to their table while he took tea and conversed with all around him and listened to the few speeches and toasts that followed it. He would have enjoyed the afternoon, he knew, if there had not been those few minutes of uncharacteristic gaucherie to bother him. And if he could have convinced himself that he had any business being here.

He knew she was not pleased to see him.

"You may all expect," Sydnam Butler was saying to the whole gathering after commenting on the surprise of finding so many guests awaiting them here, "that Anne and I will put our heads together over the winter when there is nothing else to do and devise a suitable revenge."

Peter joined in the general laughter.

And then, soon after the speeches and toasts were at an end, his ears sharpened to something Hallmere was saying at the next table.

"It was just here that we waltzed for the first time, Freyja," he said. "Do you remember?"

Peter had been wondering how Susanna felt to be in the same room with Lady Hallmere, who had once refused to give her employment as her maid and who had perhaps been responsible for sending her to Bath as a charity pupil in Miss Martin's school. And he had been wondering if Lady Hallmere remembered her.

But the lady was speaking.

"How could I forget?" she said. "It was while we waltzed that you begged me to enter into a

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