Read Online Simply Magic by Mary Balogh - Free Book Online Page A

do about it. And she had thought two days ago when they were walking back to Barclay Court from Hareford House that she had never felt more uncomfortable in her life! She had known nothing then about discomfort.
    He gave the horses the signal to start, the curricle swung into motion, and her hand took a death grip on the rail beside it. For a few moments she could think of nothing but her own safety—or lack thereof.
    â€œI will not let you fall,” he said as they moved from the terrace onto the lane. “And I will not spring the horses—unless you ask me to do so, that is.”
    Ask him to…
    She laughed and turned her head toward him. He looked back, and she felt all the shock of discovering that their faces were only inches apart.
    â€œLaughter, Miss Osbourne?” he said, raising his eyebrows. “You are not
enjoying
the ride by any chance, are you?”
    She was
terrified
. Her toes were curled up inside her shoes, her hand was still gripping the rail hard enough—or so it seemed—to put five dents in the metal, and every muscle in her body was clenched. The hedgerows rushed past them somewhere below her line of vision, the little clouds dashed by overhead, the horses trotted eagerly down the lane, their chestnut coats gleaming in the sunshine, the seat swung effortlessly on its springs. She was…
    She laughed again.
    â€œThis is
wonderful
!” she cried.
    Then, of course, she felt terribly foolish. How gauche of her! She was behaving like a child being given a rare treat. And yet she did not
feel
like a child as she became aware again of his thigh and shoulder brushing against hers.
    His laughter mingled with her own.
    He had caused her a largely sleepless night, she recalled. She had dreaded this afternoon and the thought of being alone with him again. What would she talk about? She had no wish to talk with Viscount Whitleaf of all people. Even apart from the name he bore she had decided on her first acquaintance with him—on her first
sight
of him—that he was shallow and frivolous. And yet she had not been able to forget that he had been sitting with Miss Honeydew when most of the other young people had avoided her all evening whenever they could do so without appearing ill-mannered. And that he had made her laugh with that foolish but surely kindly-meant flattery about an old lady. And he had voluntarily doomed himself to the tedium of an afternoon at Miss Honeydew’s cottage. He had not—as Susanna had led Frances to believe—been trapped into offering her a ride in his curricle. He might easily have avoided doing so.
    â€œYou certainly enjoyed yourself with all the young ladies last evening” she said. “They would have been perfectly happy if there had been no other gentlemen present.”
    â€œI did,” he admitted, turning the curricle onto the fork of the lane that led directly to the village with hands that looked very skilled indeed on the ribbons. “Enjoy myself, that is. It is a pleasure, you know, to listen to young ladies chatter and to turn the pages of their music when one knows that doing so makes them happy. But your barbed tongue was at work again, was it not?
Would
they have been happy with only me? I doubt it. Miss Calvert would not have been happy if Finn had not been there. Perhaps you did not notice that she spent some time in his company? And Miss Krebbs was very happy indeed when Moss asked her to reserve a set for him at the assembly—so happy that she allowed him to fill a plate for her at supper and sit beside her. Miss Jane Calvert would have spent a less enjoyable evening if she had not had the Reverend Birney in her sights for most of the time. And you would have sat all alone for an hour if Dannen had not been there.”
    â€œMr. Dannen was the
host,
” she protested. “Besides, I was not talking of myself.”
    â€œAnd as a final word in my defense,” he said, “it might