The Reckless Love of an Heir

by Jane Lark

  Christine smiled. “I am going to fetch my bonnet and a cloak.” She looked at the maid. “Will you have someone bring Miss Forth’s to the hall?”

  The maid curtsied in acknowledgement and left them. Christine looked at Susan. “I shall meet you in the hall, then.” Then she was gone too.

  Susan tidied up her things and thought of Samson upstairs with Henry, while the guilt she had felt at luncheon skipped around her, taunting her with a pointed finger of accusation.

  She shut her paints away in their box, and closed the book. She would not come back until Henry sent for Alethea.

  She had maligned Henry in her thoughts too much. He did deserve some sympathy. Perhaps she could offer to walk Samson, as Henry could not take the dog out. Perhaps she should prize Samson free from his precious idol and give him some fresh air too. Henry would most likely appreciate the gesture, and there was little else her sense of empathy might do to be quietened.

  She decided to go up to his sitting room before meeting Sarah and Christine in the hall. She knew where his suite of rooms were. She did not need a servant to show her up. They had still been playmates at the point he’d moved into his current rooms.

  She left the library and instead of making her way to the family room walked past it and on to the main hall, where the dark, square, wooden stairs climbed upward about the walls. No one was there, the footman had probably gone to fetch her outdoor things.

  Her hand slipped over the waxed wood of the bannister as she hurried up the stairs to Henry’s rooms on the second floor.

  She remembered his huge bedchamber, and beside that a dressing room and a large sitting room, with a desk and about half a dozen chairs in it. He had been allocated the rooms because he was the eldest, the heir—and the most spoilt.

  When she reached the second floor she turned to the right. His rooms were at the end. He’d moved into them one summer when he’d been home from Eton, in his last year there, and he’d made Susan and Alethea go upstairs to look at the space he’d been given solely to show-off.

  She walked to the end of the hall and tapped on the door she knew was his sitting room. If he was out of bed and taking tea, he would be in there. If he did not answer she would presume him undressed and still in bed and go away.

  “Come!”

  Her heart pounded foolishly as she opened the door. She could not see him. But one of the high backed chairs had been turned to face the window and she could see the footstool before it and a tray containing a teapot, cup and saucer, and a small plate of cakes, was on a low table beside it.

  “Henry?” she said as she walked across the room. “I—”

  “Susan…” His pitch carried incredulity as he stood up before her.

  He was not clothed! Who took tea in a sitting room unclothed?

  Or rather he was clothed but only in a loose dressing gown that covered one shoulder and was left hanging beneath his bad arm before being held together by a sash at his waist.

  He held his damaged arm across his middle. It drew her eyes to his stomach. She had thought him muscular yesterday but today she could see all the lines of the muscle beneath his tarnished skin on the exposed half of his body. He sported a variety of shades of blue, black, dark red, bright red and gruesome yellow, and his shoulder was entirely black as she had guessed yesterday, and the bruising ran not only down his chest but also covered his arm.

  “What are you doing here? Being rebellious again? What do you wish for?” His initial tone may have been incredulous, but now his voice mocked her as it always had.

  Her gaze lifted to his face. “I thought you were taking tea?”

  His eyes laughed at her. “I am taking tea, alone, here, in my private rooms.”

  “But, who drinks tea, in…”

  “In what?”

  Embarrassment engulfed her. She had been about to accuse him of being naked, although he was not quite. She looked at Samson, who had risen when Henry had, like Henry’s shadow. He had been on the far side of the chair.

  “You are truly lucky you did not do yourself more harm,” she said without looking at him again.

  “As I said yesterday, believe me, I know what I risked far more than you. I was there. Why did you come up here?” His pitch now lacked amusement and had instead become dismissing.

  “We are taking the other dogs out to the meadow. I came to offer to take Samson too. I thought you had risen.”

  “I have risen, but only as far as my private sitting room so I did not need to strain my damned arm by putting on clothes.” She glanced up when he swore, in response to the un-Henry-like bolshiness in voice, a note that came from pain. “And pray do not look your horror at me for using a bad word. You made the choice to come up here and this is my private room, I will speak as I please.”

  “I’m sorry. I’ll go.”

  He sat down in the chair, almost deflating. His good hand holding his bad arm.

  “It must be very painful.” She took two steps farther into the room.

  He looked at her with unamused eyes. “It is, thank you for the recognition? Now you ought to go, before Mama catches you here and then tells your Mama and then you will earn yourself a scold and some penalty…”

  “We are not children anymore, I am—”

  His eyes suddenly looked hard into hers. “No, precisely, Susan. We are not children anymore. You cannot run around doing anything you wish.”

  “Perhaps you should listen to yourself.” Her ire rose and snapped in answer, before she turned away. Because, was that not exactly why he was in this state? He had no right to chastise her for anything she did when he hurtled about the roads racing his curricle with no regard for others. “I will not come back until you send for Alethea,” she said, as she walked back across the room. “So you may run about shirtless all over the house without fear!”

  A sharp bark of laughter caught on the air behind her, she did not look back.

  “You know you are as bad as me! Admit it or not! You cast your judgements, and yet you are just as rebellious, in your way.”

  Rebellious? She turned back. She could not see him. He was in the chair, facing the window, invisible behind it, although she could see Samson, who looked back and forth between her and Henry, his tail swaying. “I am not rebellious.”

  “No? Then why are you here, disturbing me?”

  “I came to offer to take Samson out and also to see how you are. You looked unwell yesterday.”

  “Rebellious with good intent then; but to my room, Susan? Even Alethea would not have come to my room.”

  “I would not have walked into your bedroom. I only came to your sitting room!”

  There was the low sound of an eruption of amusement in his throat that was not quite a laugh, perhaps more like a growl of frustration, or pain. Even as she was angry with him that sense of empathy had its claws in her.

  “Believe me, no other well-bred woman I know would have done this! No matter that it is only my sitting room!”

  She let a soft sound of amusement escape her throat as she turned away again. The sound deliberately defied her sympathy, she wanted to annoy him for his skill in disturbing her. “Good day, Henry! I hope you feel a little better in the morning!”

  “Good day, Susan! Thank you! You may take Samson with you, I am sure he shall appreciate the opportunity of a run in the meadow with the others, and in the meantime, I shall run around downstairs shirtless and terrify all the maids.”

  She laughed involuntarily. Then she lifted a hand to Samson. “Come along, Samson, would you like a walk?” The dog’s tail wagged, in answer, but he looked to Henry for permission.

  Henry had many faults, and yet the dog adored him. “Go you foolish, hound,” Henry dismissed him with an affectionate pitch.

  Susan’s smile broadened.

  “Samson,” she called again. When he came to her side she petted his ear exactly as she knew Henry did, and walked from the room. She closed the door behind her.

  The empathy in
her stomach had become a different sort of feeling.

  In the last three days she had probably shared as many words with Henry as she would have normally shared with him in a month during his stays at home, and she’d found him funny, as well as annoying, and frustrating.

  Susan caught her reflection in a mirror on the landing, she was deep pink and Henry would have seen her embarrassment, and yet he had not teased her for that.

  She hurried back downstairs to find Aunt Jane, Christine and Sarah, her heart thumping.

  The sight of Henry’s bruises and the outlines of the muscle beneath his stained skin hovered in her mind. She had never seen a man shirtless before. But she refused to let herself be unsettled. Christine was right, she was a part of their family, it was not odd for her to see Henry half clothed. He was like a brother or a cousin.

  When she walked downstairs, Samson trailing in a disciplined, graceful manner behind her, Christine and Sarah awaited her in the hall.

  “Where have you been?” Christine asked, holding out Susan’s bonnet.

  Susan accepted it. “Collecting Samson from Henry’s rooms, so he might join us.”

  Neither Sarah nor Christine queried her statement, or asked how Samson had been acquired. Yet at the very idea, Susan’s fingers trembled as she tied the bow of her bonnet beneath her chin, and the footman had to take over and secure the buttons on her cloak, because her hands shook too much.

  I am embarrassed. She had seen Henry in nothing but a dressing gown, with half his torso exposed. She had held her wits together in his room but she’d known the moment he stood up she should not have been there.

  “Are you sure you will not stay for dinner? I do not see why you should go home, only because you have come alone,” Sarah said as they turned to leave the house, the dogs padding about them.

  “No, I need to return home. I told Mama I would be back.”

  Sarah offered her arm, and Susan wrapped her arm about it, grateful of the gesture as her legs felt wobbly too.

  ~

  When Susan retired for the night, Alethea came to her room in her nightdress. Her bare feet brushed across the floorboards as she walked towards the bed, dispelling the darkness with a single candle that made her shadow dance behind her.

  Susan lifted the covers. Alethea set down the candle on a bedside chest and laid down next to Susan. Susan threw the covers back over them both as Alethea turned and blew out the candle. The smell of wax and the burnt wick caught in the air, and the mattress moved as Alethea lay back down in the darkness. The pillow dipped and Alethea’s breath touched Susan’s cheek.

  “Did you see Henry?”

  “Yes.” She had seen too much of Henry. “I said goodbye to him. He looked in a lot of pain. I actually felt sorry for him, and you know how rare that is.”

  “He told me he was very badly injured. He said he’d thought in one moment he might die.”

  “He said that to be dramatic, Alethea, you know he did. You know what he is like. He loves being the centre of attention.” Yet Susan had seen the bruising on his body—if he had struck his head as hard? He had not been exaggerating on this occasion. She had said the words, though, because she did not want to think of Henry any differently than she normally would.

  Alethea sighed. “I do not think he has any intent to propose when he is here. He still speaks to me as though I am his friend. Do you think he will ever propose?”

  “Of course he will.”

  “He has not been home for nearly a year. He cannot think of me when he is away, and he’s said nothing about our engagement. Why do you think he is taking so long to propose? I thought this time…”

  “I suppose he loves his curricle racing too much,” and he is selfish, arrogant and mean—and funny—and in pain.

  Instead of Alethea’s usual bright tone, a bitter sigh rang out in the darkness. “I will be an old maid… And then what if he never asks? Perhaps I should consider others.”

  Alethea had never spoken of others before. “But you love Henry…”

  “I do love Henry. Yet I am nearly three and twenty. I cannot wait forever.”

  “That is not old.”

  “It is almost upon the shelf, and I wish to leave home and begin my own family.”

  “I am not going to go tomorrow. I said I would wait until he is well and writes to ask for your company.”

  “I am not sure he really wishes for my company.”

  “Of course he does. Every time I look up you two are speaking exclusively and earnestly. Of course he wishes you there.”

  Alethea sighed again. She really was not sure. “May I sleep here?”

  “Yes.”

  “Thank you.” The mattress dented near Susan’s shoulder and then Alethea’s breath and her hair brushed Susan’s cheek a moment before Alethea’s lips pressed there, bestowing a kiss. The pillow dipped again as Alethea lay back down. “What did you think of the dress which Maud Bentley wore to church last week?”

  The conversation slipped into whispered gossip. They talked about fashions, material they wished for, the assembly which would take place this month in York, until their words were claimed by tiredness.

  “Good night,” Susan whispered last.

  “Sleep well,” Alethea whispered back.

  Chapter Five

  While they were eating breakfast, each time a footman walked in, Alethea looked towards the door, but none of the footmen entered carrying a letter.

  Once the pot of chocolate had been emptied for the second time, Alethea looked at their mother and proposed a trip into York to look for the ribbons, material and bonnet dressings she and Susan had spoken of the night before.

  Susan’s mother agreed and joined them, and indulged herself too. It was a pleasant day, but all the time at the back of Susan’s mind there was an image of Henry standing beside the chair in his dressing gown, with half his upper body bared and covered in dark bruising. She was worried about him. She had never felt sorry for him before. She did feel sorry for him now, and the feeling was her constant companion no matter how she sought to distract herself from it. If he was no longer taking laudanum, as Aunt Jane had said, then he would be in considerable pain.

  When they ate breakfast the following morning the awaited letter from Farnborough arrived, addressed to Alethea. Once she had read it, she looked at Susan. “Henry says that he is feeling a little better, and that we might visit tomorrow if we wish.” Alethea looked at their father. “Aunt Jane and Uncle Robert have also extended an invitation for us to join them as a family for dinner in four days.”

  “I shall write back, accepting the invitation,” their mother said. “Will you go tomorrow?”

  “Of course,” Alethea answered.

  She had not given up on Henry yet, then, and perhaps the invitation for them to dine as a family might be to celebrate a happy occasion and Alethea would not need to give up on Henry.

  When the carriage turned into Farnborough’s courtyard the next day, Henry walked out from the doorway to greet them, with Samson beside him. He must have been waiting and watching for the carriage.

  If he had been awaiting the carriage it implied the sentiment that Alethea had feared lacking was there.

  His arm was once more in its sling but he was still not wearing his morning coat, nor his waistcoat, yet a short black, stock, neckcloth held his shirt closed. His good hand idly played with Samson’s ear as the carriage drew to a halt.

  He stepped forward and opened the carriage door. “Hello, ladies.”

  Alethea took his offered hand and climbed down. “Hello. How are you, truly?”

  “Well enough. I promise. I think the journey here just took it out of me, and I did not give my shoulder time to recover. All that it needs is rest and time.”

  “And he was consuming too much laudanum to kill the pain combined with brandy. Aunt Jane said it made a sickly cocktail,” Susan added as she gripped the side of the carriage and climbed down.

  Alethea still held Henry’s ha
nd. He had not had chance to turn and help Susan. His gaze caught hold of hers and the hard directness in his brown eyes said—rebellious, anomaly—when she did not allow him the time to help her.

  She turned towards the house, turning away from the memories in her mind’s eye, of Henry lying on the sofa in the library and standing in only his dressing gown covered in mottled, awful, bruising. Hateful empathy. “I will leave you two to gossip and recover from your days of separation. I am going to paint.” She did not look back nor await an answer but walked briskly on into the house, seeking the sanctuary of the library. If he intended to propose he would not wish for an audience.

  The clock chimed twelve times, and almost immediately afterwards there was a hard knock on the library door.

  “Come in!”

  Henry opened it, and Samson, his shadow, walked into the room. “I have come to see if you wish to take luncheon with us. You are like a mole buried away in here, Susan.”

  Rebellious… A mole was far more like the names she expected him to call her.

  She rested her brush in the bowl of water and straightened. Her hand lifted so that her fingers could push her spectacles farther up the bridge of her nose.

  Henry smiled and walked towards her.

  At least on this occasion he’d left the door ajar.

  “The other day you called me rebellious, I cannot think of two greater extremes. I cannot imagine a rebellious mole.” She picked up the rag and took the brush out of the water to wipe it.

  “You have been considering that haven’t you? I mean you have been thinking about the word rebellious.” His voice mocked, but then he smiled at her. “I said it because you like to hide in corners and pretend compliance when really you will walk away from what is expected of you at every chance and hole up somewhere. You always have. So you see the two are very compatible when they are combined in you.”

  She had never thought walking away rebellious. She looked back down at her painting. “I will eat luncheon with you, yes.”

  She expected him to acknowledge her answer and turn away, but instead when he reached the desk he leant over, as Samson nudged at her hip for some Henry-style attention. “Very pretty.” The crisp, masculine scent of his cologne hung in the air between them.