Simply Magic by Mary Balogh Read Free Book Online

ever since, far from the world of men and potential courtships.”
    â€œIt is
not
unfair,” Susanna said firmly, pulling her hands free. “Except perhaps to the hundreds and thousands of other girls who were not so privileged. And you know how much I love the school and all the girls and Claudia and Anne and even Mr. Keeble and the other teachers.”
    Mr. Keeble was the elderly school porter.
    â€œI do know it,” Frances said with a sigh. “Just as I loved teaching until Lucius forced me to admit how much more I wanted to sing—and how very much more I wanted him. Well, I will say nothing else on the subject. And here comes the tea.”
    They were quiet while the tray was brought in and set down and while Frances poured the tea and handed Susanna her cup.
    â€œAnd so there is to be an assembly in the village the week after next,” Frances said. “We arrived home at the perfect time.”
    â€œAn assembly will be wonderfully exciting,” Susanna said. “Even a little frightening. I have never been to any such thing.”
    â€œOh.” Frances looked at her with sudden realization. “Of course you have not. But you have danced at the school forever, Susanna, demonstrating steps for the girls. Now at last you will be able to put your skills to work at a real dance. And you need not be afraid that you will make a cake of yourself and everyone will notice. This is a country assembly with country people who will go to enjoy themselves, not to observe one another critically. And if that suddenly wary look has anything to do with the fact that Viscount Whitleaf will be there too, you silly goose, I will be wishing that he were to take himself off back home to Sidley Park before the fateful night. You must not allow yourself to be intimidated by him.”
    Sidley Park.
Susanna’s heart sank again at the name.
Why
did Viscount Whitleaf have to be a friend of Mr. Raycroft? And
why
did he have to be staying with him at Hareford House now of all times? For so many years—eleven, in fact—there had been no real reminders of her childhood and its abrupt, ghastly ending. She had been able to convince herself that she had forgotten.
    â€œOh,” Frances continued, “and Lucius has bullied the vicar into seeing to it that there will be at least one waltz at the assembly. Have I ever told you about our first waltz together—in a dusty assembly room above a deserted inn with no one else present, no heat though it was the dead of winter, and no music?”
    â€œNo music?” Susanna laughed.
    â€œI hummed it,” Frances said. “It was the most glorious waltz ever waltzed, Susanna. Believe me it was.”
    They lapsed into a companionable silence while Frances’s dreamy expression and slightly flushed cheeks indicated that she was reliving that waltz and Susanna wondered if anyone would dance with her at the assembly. Oh, how she
hoped
so! She would not even think about the waltz. Just one set—
any
set.
    She knew the steps of the waltz, though. It was a dance Mr. Huckerby, the dancing master, always taught the girls at school. He was not, however, allowed to dance it with any of them, but only with any teacher who was willing to oblige for demonstration purposes. That had used to be Frances. Now Susanna and Anne and sometimes Mademoiselle Étienne, the French teacher, took turns.
    Susanna loved the waltz more than any other dance. Not that there was anything even faintly romantic about performing the steps with Mr. Huckerby, it was true, especially when an audience of girls, many of them stifling giggles, looked on. But she had always dreamed of waltzing in a glittering, candlelit ballroom in the arms of a tall, handsome gentleman who smiled down into her eyes as if no one else existed in the world but the two of them.
    I am not a romantic,
she had said earlier to Viscount Whitleaf. What an absolute bouncer of a fib! She lived a busy,