The Reckless Love of an Heir

by Jane Lark

  Susan stood on the pavement beside his curricle. Her back to him.

  She had nowhere farther to run. She could no longer avoid him. Now they might talk.

  When he reached her side, he lifted his hand, without a word. She gripped it, silent too, without looking at him as her other hand grasped the metal bar beside the seat, then she climbed the steps up. Yet the awareness of the simple contact they shared, the first since the moment of their kiss, clasped within in his stomach. Need. He needed her, with a sense of desperation he’d never felt for another woman.

  What to do?

  When she let go of his hand, he left her to settle herself in the seat and walked about the curricle in front of his horses. He stroked their heads as he passed in an idle manner, but within he was not calm. His heart raced. He had returned to London to speak with her. Yet, he ought to speak with her sister first. Damn, this was a mess.

  He gripped the rail by the seat and climbed the steps on the driver’s side, then slid into his seat beside Susan. She was his captive audience now. She could not escape.

  Yet what did he say?

  He leant down and took the leather straps for the horses from the groom who had held them. Then looked ahead.

  The Earl of Stourton flicked his reins and his carriage pulled away.

  Henry followed, setting his horses into motion too.

  Susan looked at the houses on the edge of the street, presenting him with the back of her bonnet. She could not hide from his voice, though. He looked ahead as he spoke. “I take it you did not come to meet me because you do not wish to talk to me, you have made that very plain today. But that will not change what happened. It cannot be undone nor forgotten simply because we have not spoken of it.”

  Her head turned and he glanced at her, but she was not looking at him, only straight ahead, at Alethea and Stourton. “It must be forgotten.”

  “Why?”

  “How can you say any different? Alethea is my sister. I am ashamed of myself.”

  Her colour had heightened. Shame… It was not a word any woman had used to him before. “Do not feel ashamed. Attraction is natural. We like each other and you—”

  “And I am angry with you!”

  He glanced at her as she looked at him at last, but she looked at him with an accusing glare. He looked ahead once more, to steer his horses, but he felt her stare boring into him.

  “You should not have kissed me.”

  “Then you should have slapped me and not kissed me back.”

  “You are dreadful, and Alethea does not know it!”

  So all the blame was on him. He’d be damned if he would accept it all. She had kissed him back. He wished to pull up his curricle and speak with her properly. Alethea chose the moment to turn to look over her shoulder and wave at her sister.

  His head turned and he barked at Susan. “Alethea does not give a fig for me. Look at her. This is nothing to do with she and I. This is only about us.”

  “You should care for her!”

  He would not. He could not anymore. This, his feelings for Susan, was no meagre partiality, it would not be set aside.

  He glanced over at her again, then looked ahead as they were in a busy street. He would have rather had this conversation when he was not also trying to drive. “There is nothing fixed between Alethea and I. I invited her to town to see if we would be compatible and to discover if a greater measure of feelings grew, but it is not Alethea who is inspiring finer feelings in me, it is you.” He neared a crossroads in the street, that required all of his attention.

  A large black enclosed carriage had turned into the road and so Alethea and Stourton were now a carriage ahead of them.

  “But you cannot have feelings for me.”

  It was as though she begged him not to have any interest in her, but he’d discovered in Brighton—such things would not be ordered away. “I cannot help how I feel. I have not chosen to be attracted to you, it is an emotion that has gathered of its own accord.”

  “Why?” She sounded as though she could not believe that anyone would be attracted to her.

  He looked at her, for a moment only. “Because you are beautiful, strong-willed, more independent of mind than your sister, and intelligent, you spar with me… I like your wit.”

  “While you are reckless, proud, spoiled and everything I dislike.”

  That was arguing against herself, not him. She was battling her feelings as strongly as he’d wrestled his in Brighton.

  But like him, she had not won.

  He glanced at her. “Do you like me as I like you? Perhaps there is no accounting for it but why should we deny it—”

  “Because you are meant for Alethea, my sister!”

  He looked back at the street. “You would have me make her unhappy then? Because if I offered for her now I would spend every day looking at you and wanting to be with you.”

  “Then I will move away. Far away.”

  “To where? You have no income.”

  “To anywhere, I can find a husband or a position.”

  He glanced at her again. A husband. Another man. “I know you have kissed no one else. You cannot have felt this for anyone else.” He looked ahead at the rear of the black carriage. “It probably scares you. Hell and the devil, Susan, it scares me. But how do we deny it?” He took a breath. Perhaps it was too soon to try tell her the full depth of it on his part. “I raced to Brighton to out run it. I could not. It is like an itch inside me. I have not ceased thinking of you. Please,” he looked at her again, as they turned into another street and neared Wellington Arch and the entrance to Hyde Park, “let us explore it at least. It is the same for you, I know.” He steered the horses beneath the arch and on towards the gates of Hyde Park, past Apsley House, the Wellington’s residence.

  He flicked the straps as they turned off the road. They were once more directly behind Alethea and Stourton.

  He encouraged the horses to progress from a trot to a canter as they moved on to the green grass, heading towards the ring on the far side of the park.

  “You cannot pretend you feel nothing; I saw it in your eyes before we kissed.”

  She did not answer.

  He looked over. Her colour had heightened again, but at least she had ceased denying that what he’d said was true.

  Stourton’s carriage slowed before them and Alethea turned to beckon him forward, with an intent for him to draw up beside Stourton’s carriage.

  Henry obeyed the summons. He could hardly not, and besides, he had no idea where his conversation with Susan was leading.

  He and Stourton kept their horses to a walk as they rode on, side by side, so the sisters were able to talk. Henry participated intermittently, as did Stourton, when Alethea drew them into the conversation. Stourton contributed with a beguiled smile. He was interested in Alethea whether she was taunting Henry or not.

  Good luck to the man then.

  Henry glanced at Susan. She had leant a little forward to look around him so she might see Alethea, he straightened his back and sat back against the seat so she need not lean so far. She glanced up at him with a look of surprise before focusing back on her sister.

  Of course, she thought him self-centered and careless.

  He sighed. Perhaps her sentiments had been applied to his behaviour towards her too? Perhaps she believed he’d acted rashly, and only thought of this from a personal view—perhaps he had? Alethea was her sister…

  Perhaps he should declare the depth of his emotion, so at least she would know this was not a shallow thing?

  But he ought to speak to Alethea first. She should know that he was withdrawing from any interest in matrimony before he told Susan.

  His next steps confirmed in his mind, Henry tried to relax and behave as he normally would by joining in the conversation and talking to Stourton. When he became more engaged, though, Alethea focused more of her enthusiastic discussions on him, Stourton looked from one to the other and Susan ceased to speak.

&nbs
p; It was the first time that he’d noticed Alethea subtly cut Susan out, but that was what had been done. She had called him forward to drive his curricle closer to speak with him, she had used Susan to draw him into conversation, and that done… Susan was then ignored.

  He glanced at Susan after he’d said something, in a moment when Stourton responded to Alethea. Susan was looking ahead, watching others in the park. Hiding in full sight.

  He sighed as he thought back. He could not remember how things had been when they were young, but certainly, when he’d been injured at home, on the rare occasions the sisters were together in a room Susan was silent and Alethea talkative. Yet Susan had not been uncommunicative when he’d been with her alone.

  Perhaps that was why Susan had learned to hide herself in corners and in libraries—to escape her sister’s silent cuts? Self-centered and careless… Susan had very good reason to think of him thus. She had endured such cuts in his presence and he’d done nothing certainly, and even possibly played his part.

  Damn.

  His change of heart towards Alethea was a blessing, then, he may be self-centered but he had never been cruel, he would loathe that in a wife. Although he doubted Alethea realised she was doing it, it seemed a habit rather than an intent, and verbally she had always protected Susan. It was selfishness. The characteristic Susan abhorred in him.

  When they left the park to return to the Forths’, as they pulled out of the gates of Hyde Park, he looked at Susan in the moment when he flicked his reins to lift the horses pace into a trot. “I will tell Alethea tonight that I have made up my mind and that I have decided against a match between her and I.”

  Susan’s head spun and an expression of horror faced him. “No! You cannot! It would break her heart, Henry!”

  “Her heart is not involved any more than mine is.”

  “But she is set on you. No.”

  “We are all of us to suffer then? Is that the way you would have it? She and I to marry for the sake of a foolish promise, probably made when our fathers were deep in their cups, and you… You would choose to suffer too, because you would have to stand outside this marriage and watch us learn to hate each other. And besides, Alethea is not set on me, did you not see her flirting with Stourton?”

  “She is only flirting with him because you left her and went to Brighton!”

  He glanced at Susan as a spike of anger pierced through his side. “What would you have had me do then? Call at your house and act as though nothing had occurred between us.”

  She looked at him, her grey eyes stark with confused emotion. “Nothing should have happened.” He voice broke with the pain that she had spent the last hour and a half hiding. “And… I do not know what to do.” Fear. She had been upset, afraid and full of guilt. “I am miserable,” she stated in entire honesty when she looked ahead at the busy street.

  “I shall be more miserable, Susan, if you do not agree to explore this.” He spoke with honesty too.

  She did not respond.

  He would kiss her again, that would be how he would manage this. She would not be able to deny another kiss. He did not then attempt to talk to her, and so they travelled the rest of the journey in silence, behind Alethea and Stourton, as Alethea continually glanced back, as though to check that he was watching her.

  When they reached Uncle Casper’s, Susan claimed a headache and ran away to her room, leaving him to act the damned fool in the middle of Alethea’s flirting with Stourton. It annoyed him, but not for the reasons she hoped.

  Chapter Sixteen

  While Alethea was introduced to Baron Stokes and his young wife, Susan looked beyond them into the ballroom.

  It was full of people. Alethea had told her she did not think many of Henry’s friends were expected as most of them had remained in Brighton. Also her father had said that the Duke of Pembroke was hosting a family dinner and so Uncle Robert, Aunt Jane, and most of John’s relatives and Susan’s mother’s and father’s friends, would not be in attendance.

  She hoped and prayed, that the family dinner would keep Henry away too.

  Her stomach rolled over in trepidation.

  But without Henry and his friends, the room was full of people she did not know well.

  “And this is my youngest daughter, Susan.” Her father introduced her.

  Susan curtsied as the Baron said, “Good evening.” She curtsied again to his wife.

  Her father touched Susan’s elbow and turned her away.

  She faced the Earl of Stourton greeting Alethea. He bowed deeply as he kissed the back of Alethea’s gloved fingers. The invitation to this ball had only been accepted because the Earl of Stourton had encouraged it. The Baron was his friend and the occupants of the ballroom those within his social circle.

  Susan’s assumption was that the invitation had been sent to her father on the Earl’s request. It gave her another reason to hope that Henry would not be here, if he had not received an invitation.

  Stourton led Alethea away. He was avidly courting her. There had been three posies from the Earl this morning, in different colours.

  And none from Henry.

  Stourton had called today too.

  Henry had not.

  Oh but she had to stop thinking of him, she had been unable to do anything else but think of him since their carriage ride—no, since their kiss. It was only that now the memories of their conversation outweighed the memories of his kisses. She did not wish to think of him. Nothing might become of her thoughts or any feelings she had for him no matter what he’d said. She would not betray Alethea.

  Yet you did! The accusation charged through her as it did each time any thoughts of Henry began circulating in her head.

  “Lord Henry Marlow, my Lord.”

  Susan turned and looked back as she heard Henry announced to the Baron.

  He was here.

  Her heart leapt, skipping into a sharp beat—pleasure. Happiness. It lanced through her, no matter that she knew she should not be happy to see him. The emotions he stirred inside her would not be silenced. It was the reason she had dreaded him coming because she had known she would feel like this, and she was ashamed of it.

  He bowed to the Baron and his wife, then turned in the direction of Susan’s father and mother with a smile. Her father smiled stiffly back. He was still angry with Henry.

  Susan turned her back and watched the couples gathering for the next dance. If Henry spoke to her she would not know what to say.

  Alethea’s gaze focused upon the Earl, they were not dancing, but standing together on the far side of the room. She had not noticed that Henry had come.

  “Uncle.” Even his voice, as he acknowledged her father, sent tremors of emotion through Susan. It was a voice that belonged to the man her body craved, and when he spoke it called her to respond. She could not.

  “Have you come alone?” Her mother asked.

  “I have. Papa, Mama and the others are at John’s.”

  He was alone. Had he come to battle Stourton for Alethea? Or to court her? I will tell Alethea tonight that I have decided against a match between her and I. He had not told Alethea, he’d left without speaking and not returned.

  Susan had begged him to say nothing. Perhaps he’d listened? Perhaps he’d changed his mind once more?

  “Good evening, Susan.” The words were very directly spoken to her, so she had to turn and answer.

  “Henry.” She nodded her head slightly in acknowledgement and gave him a very shallow curtsy her gaze on his polished shoes, then she straightened and looked up into his brown eyes; his eyes asked her a hundred questions, and they made it very clear he had not come to court Alethea. He had come to see her.

  Heat flared in her cheeks and she looked at her father, guilt flicking its whip, because her thoughts were not loyal to her sister.

  “Will you dance with me?”

  No. The word snapped through her mind because she could not trust herself, there was too much longing to dance with him in her he
art. “Yes.” She could not say no before her mother and father, there was no reason for her to refuse to dance with him.

  He lifted his hand and she accepted it. Normally a man would have offered his arm, but they were only a few steps from the dance floor, and the dance was a waltz. Her heart began following the steps.

  He held her hand in a way that seemed to say, I have you now, and when his arm came about her and his palm rested against her back, his embrace was protective.

  The music began in full, flooding the air in the room. They’d not spoken beyond their greeting and his request to dance with her.

  But what was there to say?

  She looked about the room as he turned her. Her parents left the room, passing through a door which appeared to lead into the refreshment rooms.

  Her stomach was all twisted, tangled threads and her arms and legs trembled.

  Henry was looking at her, as she did all she could not to look at him.

  There was nothing to be done. She was in love and there was nothing to be done. She could not let things continue. There was no place in their situation for any feelings between them. Did love die? Did it come to an end? Would her heart stop feeling as though someone had squeezed it so hard it was bruised and sore?

  “Susan…” he said quietly as he continued to spin her about the floor.

  She looked at him. She could not help it. The magnetic tug, that had begun forming as a sympathetic pull was now a thick rope of longing coiling around her.

  His eyes said everything that should not be said between them. She had called him self-centered and she had thought him shallow in his interests and his enthusiasm reckless and fleeting. The look in his eyes denied every one of those things. It promised forever.

  The warmth in his eyes reflected back the sparkling light from the chandeliers above them.

  She could not look away.

  But soon she must walk away. She would not dance with him again. But she’d hold on to this memory and when she was old and her heart a dried out, shrivelled thing, she’d look back and remember this moment of happiness.