Читать книгу The Reckless Love of an Heir: An epic historical romance perfect for fans of period drama Victoria - Jane Lark - Страница 10

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 hand. 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.

His presence and proximity sent discomfort spinning out into her nerves. The awkwardness it engendered pressured her to continue talking. “It is not rebellious to walk away or leave a room, though I admit to having little patience with conversations that do not interest me or—”

“People,” he inserted as he straightened up.

She met his gaze, still wiping her brush although it must be clean. “People?”

“Or people who do not interest you.” One eyebrow rose, and his implication said, people like me…

Warmth touched her cheeks.

She turned away to put her paint brush back into the paint box and tidy up her paints.

He leant over once more. “This is actually rather good.”

She glanced at him. “Thank you for such exuberant praise.”

His lips split into a smile. “There, see, you are a secret hellion. You taunt me horrendously.”

She made an intolerant, impatient face and shook her head at him. “I am painting orchids, not racing curricles. I am hardly a hellion. You are speaking of yourself.” She closed her paints.

“I have never bothered hiding my nature. But you… You and I have more in common than you think. I would gamble high odds on the fact that Uncle Casper despairs of you as much as my father despairs of me. You do not behave in the ways expected of a woman. The only reason you do not race curricles is that a woman is not given one to be able to race, if you were a man you would race—”

“I am not like you. I would not race. Because there is a vast chasm of difference between us, I think of others not just myself. I would not race because I would not wish to harm another traveller on the road.”

He huffed at her, dismissing her argument. It riled her more. “And I do not behave in unacceptable ways—”

“You are not sitting in the drawing room, sewing and talking with the others.”

“I like doing different things to the others, that is all.”

She turned to walk past him.

“Rebellious.” He leant near her and taunted.

She could not win the argument. Her hand lifted instinctively and swiped out at him as her frustration became anger. She struck his poorly arm. “Oh, Henry!” She regretted it immediately as he winced with pain.

“Bloody hell!” He covered his arm and pulled away. Then said more calmly, “You damned hellion.” Even in pain he was mocking her.

“I am sorry.”

He smiled and shook his head. “I do not think I am.”

She did not understand the jest. “Stop teasing me, Henry!”

He laughed. “It is quite inspiring to see you in a temper.”

Her hand lifted once more. He stepped back with his good hand still protecting his injured arm. “Did I say you might be a match to a man with verbal fencing? I might be persuaded to include physical fencing. Please, no more violence, Miss Forth. You will have people think my bruises were delivered by your hand, and God forbid my friends heard such a rumour.”

He stepped forward again and looked down at her work and at the book to compare it. “You are certainly capturing it. It is a charming flower… Which is something I cannot say for the painter.”

He straightened again then, and threw her another smile.

She stuck her tongue out at him as she would have done as a child. He was infuriating, it was no wonder she’d lost her temper and struck him.

His eyes opened wider and his smile lifted, expressing mocked shock, and then suddenly the smile seemed to illuminate the brown in his eyes.

When her tongue slipped back into her mouth, the glint in his eyes became a glow with a greater depth, making his brown eyes as rich in colour as polished mahogany.

Awkwardness pricked. She looked down at her painting. She could not walk away at this moment. “I hope you are feeling better.”

“I am feeling better than I was the day you came to my room, thank you.” His voice held a dry note that sought to highlight again how inappropriate her behaviour had been in daring to go to his sitting room.

Rebellious. She heard the word in his voice, as it had been said a moment ago when he’d leant to her ear. Perhaps she was a little.

Susan looked up. He was very close, she could see every detail of his eyelashes and every shade within his brown eyes. “You could have said do not come in, you know?” The scent of his expensive London cologne enveloped her.

“I thought it was the footman come to take away the tea-tray.”

“You knew it was me when I entered.”

“And perhaps then it was more amusing to not yell at you and make you go away.” His voice had lost its mocking edge and dropped into a low pitch. “…The lesson was better taught by leaving you to discover what your rebellious nature had led you into.”

“Sayeth Lord Henry Marlow, the prodigal son, he who has just been thrown from his curricle in a race and nearly broken his neck and admitted he has probably learned no lessons at all.” Her voice had dropped in pitch too.

His eyes seemed full of questions as he looked at her. Then his gaze travelled across her face, studying her as he’d studied her painting. When his gaze came back to hers, he said, “Quite.” Then he turned away and began walking back across the room, with Samson in his wake.

“I truly am sorry that you were so badly hurt, Henry!” Susan called after him, her awkwardness and her empathy for his pain, pushing her into more words. “But I do not think that anything I do compares!” She had not known what to say, but she had needed to say something to turn whatever had just happened back into something tangible that she could understand.

He turned and walked a couple of steps backwards, with his free hand cradling his poorly arm. “I am truly sorry…Your voice rings with guilt, Susan, as it did yesterday when you saw my bruises. Did you think I had been acting out my pain, and wearing a sling for my pleasure? You… The rescuer of every wounded thing, wild or tame…”

“No.” Her instinctive denial cut through the air, and stopped him moving.

He smiled in that hideous mocking way, that said, I know I am right.

Oh be honest with him, he would be honest with her. “I thought you deserved to be injured. You are the reckless one. It is you who needed to be taught a lesson. But I would not have wished your life endangered. I came to your room yesterday as much to apologise for the meanness of my thoughts as to fetch Samson.”

The rogue looked up at the ceiling and laughed for an instant before looking back at her. The amusement had brightened his eyes. “Think as meanly as you wish, Susan, it will not do me any greater harm than I have done myself. I dare say, on this occasion, I may have finally learned the lesson you wished me taught.” He turned away once more.

“Where are we eating?” She called before he left the room.

“In the formal dining room, Papa is home.”

When they ate, she had intended to sit beside Sarah, but Alethea drew Susan’s attention, and so she could not then walk around the table to sit with Christine and Sarah. She ended up taking a seat on the opposite side of Henry to her sister.

Alethea spoke to Aunt Jane as Henry silently fought to eat his food one handed.

Susan swallowed, she wished to make conversation, to stop herself from suffering with the awkwardness that hung over her. “How are your bruises today, are they improving?” she said lamely.

“Turning from almost black to a lighter purple, but perhaps I have a new one since you struck me.”

She looked at him. “Sorry.”

He smiled. “If we are on the grounds of apologies, then I owe you one too. I am sorry I did not tell you to go away the other day. I should have done. I did not mean my teasing to discompose you earlier, but I can see it has done because every time you look at me you turn a greater shade of pink.”

Oh, she wished to smack him again.

“You are forgiven for striking me, if I am forgiven,” he concluded.

“You are forgiven only if you agree never to mention that I went to your room again.”

A half laugh rumbled from his chest.

Alethea turned and said something to him. But before he turned to reply, he said to Susan, “Are we friends again then?”

“Henry! Alethea asked for your opinion.” his father interrupted before Susan could answer. There must have been some greater conversation about the table they had lost track of. Henry turned away.

Once they had finished eating, Susan rose to return to the library. Every one else stood at the same time. She would have walked on ahead but Henry touched her arm.

“Wait a moment. I have not yet secured your agreement on our pact.”

He had not forgotten his desire for a truce, then.

Alethea walked on with Aunt Jane, and his father walked with Christine and Sarah.

“May we call ourselves friends? I do not think we have really been friends for years. I would like to think of you as my friend, Susan.”

She hated the way he said her name, his enunciation made her stomach twist about with a strange sensation.

He held out his left, good, hand, which was gloveless. She accepted the gesture.

She wore no glove either. The warmth and the softness of his skin surprised her as his hand surrounded hers. Yet he had not held her hand in the way he held Alethea’s hand, he held Susan’s in a firm gesture, his whole hand gripping her whole hand, not merely pressing her fingers.

The queasy feeling in her stomach tumbled over. She had never held a man’s naked hand, except for her father’s.

He shook her hand a single time, firmly, and then let her go. “May I escort you to the library? I wouldn’t mind another look at your painting, we might even persuade Alethea to stop by…” His good arm had lifted as he spoke. He was offering it to her…

She looked at his forearm, before glancing up and then laying her fingers on his arm self-consciously.

Her fingers closed about the sinuous muscle of his arm through his thin shirt. The cotton was so fine she could feel the hairs on his skin.

The strange sensation in her tummy coiled up like an adder waiting to strike.

“So how many flowers have you attempted so far?”

Susan swallowed before answering. Her throat had dried. “I am only on my second.”

“And how many are in the book? I seem to recall about fifty. You will be here for a year.”

She smiled at him. “Or two.”

This was Henry at his most persuasive, he could turn this side of himself on and off so easily. She had always found his charm annoying before, but then it had never been solely directed at her.

Now it was directed at her…

It felt complimentary, and he was surely doing it to make her feel at ease with him again, which was kind. Although it must be embarrassing for him if she was blushing at every moment.

His charm was working, though, she did feel more at ease.

For the second time in her life, she felt wholly in charity with him.

Perhaps he would not make such a bad brother-in-law.