Читать книгу The Reckless Love of an Heir: An epic historical romance perfect for fans of period drama Victoria - Jane Lark - Страница 9

Susan walked down the stairs, carrying her bonnet, with her cloak hanging over her forearm. Her bonnet bounced against the skirt of her dress with the pace of her steps as she held it by the ribbons.

Alethea stood in the hall below, already wearing her bonnet, but she was not looking up to chase Susan into hurrying, but looking down at a letter.

“What is it?” Susan called.

“It is from Sarah,” Alethea looked up and met Susan’s gaze. “We cannot go. She says Henry intends to remain in his rooms and so he said it would be a waste of time for me to come.”

“Why?”

“He is feeling too ill, he does not wish to dress, but merely lay abed and rest his shoulder.”

“He did look pale yesterday.”

“I know. I felt so sorry for him. I would sit by his bed and keep him company but I suppose it is not the thing is it?”

“And if he has taken laudanum he will probably wish to sleep.”

“I suppose.”

But Susan had been looking forward to going over to Farnborough to continue her painting and the carriage had already been called.

“Mama!” Alethea called across the hall when their mother appeared from the drawing room. “We cannot go. Henry is feeling too unwell.”

“But I would like to go to paint, Mama.” Susan said as she stepped from the bottom stair. “Do you think I might? I was looking forward to painting again today and Uncle Robert said he did not mind my using the library at all for a whole fortnight.”

Her mother smiled. “If you wish to go, Susan, there will be no harm in it I am sure.”

Susan looked at Alethea, awaiting an offer to accompany her… There was still Sarah and Christine to visit, and after all Susan had only begun her painting project to accompany Alethea.

Alethea turned away and walked towards the drawing room, with Sarah’s letter held tightly in her hand.

Susan looked at her mother. Her mother was very like Alethea in temperament and she always gravitated towards her most exuberant daughter. She turned to Alethea, lifting a comforting arm to offer reassurance. “Alethea. Dear. I am sure he will be well enough to see you again soon.”

Susan loved her mother dearly but they had never understood one another particularly. Susan was more like her father in nature.

She turned to their butler. “Dodds, do not send the carriage away, I will be going but will you call for a maid.”

Dodds bowed slightly. “Shall I help you with your cloak, Miss.” He held out a hand.

She passed it over as her mother’s and Alethea’s conversation grew more distant.

She put on her bonnet and tied the ribbons, then turned so that he could set her cloak across her shoulders. She secured it herself while Dodds opened the door for her.

“Susan…” Her father entered the hall from a door leading out to the rear of the house and the stables. “Where is Alethea, is she not ready? I would have thought she’d be galloping with excitement to call on Henry.”

“He is too unwell for callers. I am going so I may continue to paint.”

His bushy white, eyebrows lifted, and the ends of his waxed moustache twitched. “Alone?”

“It is only to Uncle Robert’s. It is only a couple of miles and I am taking a maid.”

His forehead furrowed while he considered the idea.

Susan held her breath.

“And Susan is responsible enough to manage herself, Casper, let her go it will do no harm.” Susan looked at her mother who had come back out of the drawing room and stood just before the open door.

Only days before her mother had been afraid of highway men, obviously Susan’s responsible nature would frighten them away. Or perhaps it was the ridiculous anomaly she presented. She heard the words in Henry’s voice.

Her hand lifted and her fingers slid her spectacles farther up her nose.

Her father looked at her. “Very well, you may go.”

“Thank you, Papa.” She walked over and wrapped her arms about his neck.

His arms came about her, knocking her bonnet loose, so it tumbled off her head and rolled down to hang from the ribbons about her neck.

“Enjoy your day,” he said into her ear.

“I shall immensely.” They let each other go. “And at the end of the fortnight I shall show you my endeavours. I am quite pleased with myself.”

“Bless you.” His fingertips touched her cheek.

She turned away, without putting her bonnet back on, and walked out through the open door. Dodds was standing outside, speaking with one of the footmen. She had a sense that he had bestowed a warning for the men escorting her to take greater care as she travelled alone with only a maid to guard her reputation. The maid had already taken her place on the seat beside the coachman.

She smiled at Dodds when he opened the door of the carriage, accepted his hand and climbed up.

Within the carriage she righted her bonnet as Dodds shut the door. Then they were away.

She had not travelled in the carriage alone before.

Her heart pulsed quickly as she stared out of the window watching the passing view around the brim of her bonnet.

The tall remains of the walls of the ruined abbey in Farnborough’s grounds peaked above the trees in the distance. The Abbey marked the border of Uncle Robert’s land and Henry’s cousin’s, Rob’s, property. She had known Rob since her childhood too, his father was also a friend of her father’s.

She had always liked Rob. He was quieter than Henry and he’d never been self-obsessed. She liked Rob’s wife too. Caro was also quiet, and friendly, though, she shied away from crowds and strangers. They therefore never attended the local balls but Susan saw them frequently at her parents’ and Aunt Jane’s dinner parties.

The road followed a wall which surrounded Uncle Robert’s estate. The wall stretched for miles, but they were not following it all. It broke at the main gateway and the carriage turned to pass between the open iron gates and the giant lion statues guarding the entrance.

The carriage slowed when the gatekeeper came out of his lodge, but he looked at her father’s emblem on the side and waved them on.

The drive to the house from the gate seemed nearly as long as the journey had been from her home. But it was pretty this time of year, with the huge horse chestnut trees covered in white flowers.

Excitement gathered inside her when she neared the house.

Her new project was stimulating, she had never been very good at idleness, and embroidery and sewing were really not her calling. As the carriage passed beneath the arch into the courtyard, she smiled at herself when her reflection appeared in the glass for a moment. Perhaps she was like Alethea in some ways; she had just admitted she was no good at being idle. Perhaps in her, her mother’s and Alethea’s enthusiasm and constant hurrying and need for activity, was exposed in a desire for an active mind.

Uncle Robert walked out of the house surrounded by three of the dogs. Not Samson.

He stopped and stood still as the carriage turned and drew to a halt then he came forward and opened the door. “I thought Henry had sent word to say do not come.” He looked beyond Susan, clearly seeking Alethea, but then he held out his hand to Susan to aid her descent as the dogs barked their greeting. Once he’d let go of Susan, Uncle Robert silenced them with a lifted hand. They continued to wave their tails.

“He did, but I was ready and I wished to come over and paint anyway. You do not mind?”

“Of course I do not mind, Susan, you know you are welcome. Come I shall escort you in before I go about my business.”

The large dogs walked beside them, tails swishing at the air. If Samson had been among them he would have surreptitiously, out of sight of Uncle Robert’s discipline, nudged Susan’s hip for some particular attention. Perhaps that was another bad habit that Henry had encouraged, and another reason why Samson was so attached to the heir of the family.

She did not see Aunt Jane, Sarah or Christine when they walked through the house. He opened the library door. “There.” He stepped back and let her pass. “You’ll not be disturbed, Sarah and Christine have returned to their lessons now that the excitement over Henry’s return has settled down, and Jane is with Henry, I believe.”

Susan looked at him as she undid the ribbons of her bonnet. “Is he suffering very badly?”

“I believe so, but it is what he deserves, and it may yet teach him the lesson he has kept refusing to learn from me. But today I think he is simply feeling sorry for himself. He has refused to dress because it is too painful, he has said he merely wishes to remain in his room so he might rest without the need for a sling. I am sure he will be up and about again in a couple of days and Alethea may call to fuss over him once more.” Uncle Robert’s pitch seemed to laugh at the idea.

Susan did laugh—at his jocular manner—not at the fact that Alethea would fuss or that Henry was in pain.

As Uncle Robert’s eldest son, and his heir, Henry had been spoilt horridly.

Uncle Robert had often admitted it too and mocked himself for the error of it, although perhaps never in Henry’s hearing. It was usually when he was speaking with her father. Perhaps she was not meant to have heard…

“Shall I have a maid bring you some tea?”

“Yes, please. Thank you.”

“I will have Davis tell Jane you are here, and that you are not to be disturbed.”

She was not always sure with Uncle Robert when he was speaking seriously and when he was making fun. His tone of voice always held a lilt which had a measure of amusement and unless he chose to reveal the humour in his words, sometimes it skipped past her. His manner of mocking life, and himself, made him extremely likeable, though. She supposed it was where Henry had inherited his charm from.

“Good day, Susan.” He bowed his head in parting then turned away. “Come!” he called at the dogs, rallying them. “Susan shall not want you disturbing her, you may go down to the kitchens.”

“Good day, Uncle Robert!” She called as he shut the door.

She took off her bonnet and cloak and set them down on a chair. The maid could take them when she brought the tea.

Her parchment, the box of water paints, her brushes and the book she’d been using were left where she’d used them on the desk yesterday. She opened the giant book and sought a new orchid to copy. Ophrys apifera. It had a petal which looked as though a bee was sitting on the flower. It would be hard to capture correctly and yet she wished to challenge herself, and at least on this there were only three small flowers, others had dozens of flowers on a stem.

Her hand lifted and her fingers pushed her spectacles a little farther up her nose. She bit her top lip as she chose a charcoal to sketch the picture with first.

The room seemed darker today, there was not as much light on the desk. She looked up and realised the shutters were still closed over the windows before the sofa.

When she opened them, her mind’s eye saw Henry lying on the sofa, asleep, a patchwork of ghastly colours.

A slight knock tapped the door. “Come!” The maid who had brought the tea entered. “Set it there please. Thank you.”

The maid bobbed a curtsy and left with Susan’s cloak and bonnet.

Susan poured herself a cup of tea and carried it over to the desk, then concentrated on copying the shape of the orchid correctly.

When the clock in the room chimed once, there was a gentle knock on the door.

Susan jumped. She’d been entirely absorbed in her painting. Her tea cup was still full and the tea within it chilled.

The door opened. “Susan.” Aunt Jane stood with the door handle in her hand. “You must come and eat luncheon with us. You cannot hide yourself away in here all day and starve.”

Susan straightened up and smiled. “Thank you. I will be there in a moment.”

“Very well.” Aunt Jane turned away. Susan dipped her brush in the water to clean it, then dabbed it on the rag to dry it. She looked down at her painting, it was slow work today because there were so many tiny details on the bee petals, but she thought she was progressing well, she seemed to be improving.

The family at the table were Aunt Jane, Sarah and Christine.

Uncle Robert was still out undertaking whatever business he was about.

“Is Henry not coming down, Mama,” Christine asked as Susan sat down.

“He is not. He is not dressed.”

“But we are only family, it would hardly matter if he did not have his shirt on.”

Aunt Jane looked apologetically at Susan.

“Susan is like family,” Christine declared, disregarding the subtle reprimand.

Guilt pierced Susan’s side, she had not come here to prevent Henry having the freedom of his home. “I am sorry. I did not realise. I should not have come—”

“Nonsense. Do not be silly,” Aunt Jane chided. “It will do Henry no harm to remain upstairs, and he has been sick most of the morning so I do not think he will attempt luncheon regardless of his state of dress.”

Susan’s guilt cut deeper. “Has he a fever? Uncle Robert said he was only in too much pain to dress.” She had thought Henry in a lazy, sullen mood. Her instinctive sense of empathy, that she had fought yesterday evening, pulled within her.

“It is not a fever; he took too much laudanum without eating and is suffering for it. I think he also took a bottle of his father’s brandy to his room last night to help further numb the pain, and of course nor do laudanum and brandy mix. I think now he has had enough of laudanum.”

Christine and Sarah laughed.

Laughter gathered in Susan’s throat too, but for the first time in her life she felt wholly in charity with Henry. She could no longer deny her instinct to feel sorry for him, and wish to help. He had been in a lot of pain when he’d come to the library yesterday she did not think less of him for seeking to free himself from it.

She would not stay long after luncheon, then if he wished to come down and take tea with his family, shirtless, he might. An image formed un-beckoned in her mind of him lying asleep on the sofa in the library, shirtless, an artwork of bruises.

Once Susan had eaten she returned to the library. She would finish the detail on the flower she was working on and then she would ask Aunt Jane if she might travel home in their carriage.

A maid came into the room at three. “Miss Susan, Lady Barrington sent me to ask if you wished for tea?”

She had worked on and on and forgotten the time. “No, thank you, but is my aunt in the drawing room.”

“She is, Miss Susan.”

“And has Lord Henry come down?”

“No, miss, he is taking tea in his room.”

He must have risen from his bed at least then.

“Susan.” Christine walked about the maid, entering the room with a quick stride. “Sarah and I are going to take the dogs out as far as the meadow, would you like to come? It is one of those lovely fresh days, with a breeze to sweep away the fidgets and a pleasant sky without the sun pounding down upon you.”

Susan looked out of the window. It was a middling day, with a light grey sky, and she could see the breeze was strong as the clouds whisked across it. It would be refreshing to go for a walk before she returned home. She looked back at Christine. “Thank you, I would love to join you.”

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.