“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.

“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 preparations-and who were now dashing about in transports of delight at the prospect of a Sidley ball.

His mother had been the last to be told.

Well, no, not quite the last.

He still had not been to Fincham Manor when he told her. It really would be too bad if the Markhams were unable or unwilling to attend the ball since he would quite readily admit in the privacy of his own mind that the whole thing had been arranged for them. Well, not them precisely.

The ball was for Susanna.

Love did not die very quickly, he had discovered during the intervening weeks. It did not even fade quickly-or at all. And it was a deuced depressing thing if the truth were known. His only hope, he had tried to tell himself since learning that she was indeed to come to Fincham, was to stay away from her and trust they did not inadvertently run into each other over the holiday.

So what had he done to put that very sensible decision into effect? He had arranged his first-ever ball at Sidley for her, that was what. And now he had driven himself over to Fincham to extend the invitation-in person, of course, because he knew she must have arrived by now.

And now here he was a mere few minutes later, hurrying out of the house faster than he had hurried in out of the cold, his invitation having been mentioned to Theo but not-as was right and proper-delivered formally to Lady Markham and to Edith. But that could wait. So could warming his hands and his feet and the rest of his person.

Susanna needed him-or so he told himself.

She had changed in the course of a few weeks. Her face looked pinched and pale, her eyes dark-shadowed in contrast. And it seemed to him that the changes went beyond what the distress of the morning must have brought her.

He caught up to her on the terrace outside and took her firmly by the arm. She was looking about as if she did not quite know in which direction she wanted to walk.

“Come to the stables,” he said. “With any luck my curricle will still not be unhitched. Let me take you for a drive.”

“Yes,” she said without looking at him. “Oh, yes, please.”

This was not quite how he had visualized the morning, he thought as they walked in silence to the stable block and into the cobbled yard, where indeed his horses were still hitched to his curricle. But she had already read her letter-had just read it, apparently.

He helped her up to the high seat and took his place beside her. He took the ribbons from the groom’s hands and gave the horses the signal to start. He could not help remembering the last time she had ridden beside him thus when they had gone to Miss Honeydew’s cottage together. He glanced down into her face, shaded by the brim of her bonnet, but she was staring ahead.

As soon as they were on the driveway he took his horses to a faster pace. He had the distinct feeling that she needed to leave Fincham behind, at least for a while.

She looked up at him, her cheeks already slightly rosy from the cold, and laughed quite unexpectedly.

He urged his horses to an even faster pace.

“Anyone for a race to Brighton and back?” he asked.

This time when she laughed there was a somewhat reckless gleam in her eyes, and he kept up the pace for several minutes, concentrating upon what he was doing. He had not exactly sprung his horses, but he had also never traveled at this speed with a lady passenger beside him.

“Oh, Peter,” she cried, “this is wonderful!”

He knew that her exuberance was very close to hysteria. But there was nothing he could do for her except this-to be with her, to give her the illusion of escape, however brief.

But eventually he slowed down. They had the wind behind them, but even so it was a cold winter’s day, and speed did not do anything to keep one warm in an open conveyance. Besides which, these lanes had not exactly been designed for reckless driving.

“Tell me about your Christmas concert,” he said.

“Oh, it went very well,” she told him. “It always does, of course, but every year we fear the worst. There were no disasters and only a few very minor crises, none of which were obvious to the audience, I daresay. Not that the audiences at such events are ever very critical. They come fully intending to be pleased. It was a large audience-I was so pleased for the girls.”