by Jane Lark
Her lips twisted in the same annoyed look she’d always given him. “I enjoyed it very much, thank you.” She looked away from him, at his father, baring the nape of her neck. None of her brown hair had escaped its knot.
It was a very vulnerable curve, it expressed a side of Susan she never showed.
“Uncle Robert, would you mind if I used your book of orchids and copied the paintings in it? I wish to learn how to paint as well as the illustrator and it occurred to me that if I copied the images, it might help me understand how to build that level of detail.”
Henry shook his head as his fork lifted another mouthful. He was truly home. Nothing had changed here. His mother and father were the same, Alethea was the same, and Susan was the same—as bookish, dogged and independent as ever.
“You may borrow it of course. Take it home with you if you wish?”
“Thank you. But may I paint here? Alethea will want to visit Henry and I will need to accompany her.”
“I am in accordance with whatever arrangement suits you, Susan. I shall be out of the house visiting the farms this week and next, or with Rob the majority of the days, so you may have the freedom of the library.”
“Thank you.”
Susan’s thank you resounded with heart felt pleasure. Over painting bloody orchids… He smiled in the same moment his father looked at him.
“Rob is looking for a new ram. We are going to the market together. You might wish to join us?”
“My shoulder is not really up to it.” And he had no interest in competing with his cousin. Rob rented a property from his father and all Henry heard every time he came home was Rob has done this or is planning to do that. His cousin had become the son his father had always wanted and every comment was made with an intent to incite Henry into an interest and a desire to compete. It was one competition he’d not been drawn towards, land management… One day, when he inherited the land it would come with the package of such responsibilities but until then he was happy to avoid it. His father managed it all well enough without his help.
Sarah asked Susan something about the book she’d asked to borrow. Susan responded with animation, the pitch of her voice lifting and a light of excitement catching in her eyes.
She was an odd woman.
The voice in his head laughed. He’d met a hundred women like Alethea in town, but not a single one like Susan. Perhaps because that type of woman did not go to balls, nor mix with men like him. Clearly Susan would not mix with him by choice; she had withdrawn to the library rather than join in the conversation in the drawing room earlier, even though she had not seen him for almost a year.
She was rebellious—not distinguished. The impression her spectacles gave was a lie. He doubted anyone else would call her rebellious, though, that was the side of her nature she saved solely for him.
Her head turned and her gaze caught on his, as though she’d sensed him watching her. She did not immediately look away. Perhaps she saw the laughter in his eyes because her mouth formed a firm line, expressing annoyance. She looked down at her plate and focused on eating.
A little sound of the humour that he tried to catch in his throat escaped his lips as he turned to Alethea again. He coughed, choking on his silent laughter, then smiled. “Now Susan has decreed you will visit me, so that she may paint orchids, you must visit me often.”
Alethea gave him one of her brightest, prettiest smiles. “Susan knows me well enough to be certain I would come. She did not force my hand. You are injured. So she was not being presumptuous if that is what you are hinting at, merely kind enough to understand how much I want to be with you.”
Prettily said, and very commendably done. The sisters were close. Whenever he and Susan sparred verbally in Alethea’s hearing she would step in to defend her sister. Not that Susan had need of a defender, she was perfectly capable of defending herself.
When he answered Alethea his voice turned sickly sweet for the sake of Susan’s hearing it across the table. “Then thank you. I will look forward to your visits.”
But he was truly melancholy and feeling selfishly sorry for himself since his accident, and he would, without any jesting, appreciate Alethea’s presence; she would jump at his every breath to please him. There was much to be said for being at home when he was ill.
Alethea’s bright turquoise eyes, shone with the strength of her happiness. Her moods were as open to a person’s view as one of the books in the library which Susan loved, while Susan, the book lover, held all her pages firmly closed.
“So tell me, then, how are we to fill our time while I recover?” The less joyous part of his return was that he was fully prepared to be bored to death as there was so little he was capable of doing.
“I shall call every day if you wish, and we can play cards or chess. Or I can read to you…” Alethea reassured.
Chapter Three
The door to the library opened. Susan looked up. She was sitting at Uncle Robert’s desk. Her fingertips tightened their hold on the thin paint brush. “Henry…” What are you doing here? The last words did not erupt from her mouth but sounded in the use of his name.
If she had spoken the words it would have been too rude; it was his home. But having let the tone of them slip into the pitch of her voice she sensed herself colouring when he looked at her with a questioning gaze. She had not meant to be rude, she had merely been engrossed in her work, and caught by surprise. She had not seen him yet today, she had come directly to the library.
He was in dishabille, informal, wearing trousers, a shirt and his sling, he had no black neckcloth or waistcoat or morning coat on. It was unseemly really, but she supposed it was due to his injury, and this was his home—if he could not be comfortable here then where?
He hesitated, the door still open in his hand. Samson stood beside him, awaiting Henry’s next movement.
Some decision passed across Henry’s eyes and he turned and shut the door.
They should not be in a room together with the door shut no matter that they had been raised almost as closely as a brother and sister. Alethea had been treated like his sister too and she was to marry him.
“Sorry,” he uttered in a low tone as he crossed the room, with Samson following, “I forgot you were in here.”
He was not his normal bold, brash self. He looked from her to the leather sofa which stood side-on to the hearth, facing the tall windows. He had an odd expression. He walked past the desk where she worked, towards the sofa.
When he passed one of the windows, the bright spring sunlight shone through the fine cotton of his shirt outlining his torso in silhouette. He was very lean, yet not thin, muscular, in the way the grooms were in her father’s stables. They were the only other men she had seen in their shirts, when they had been birthing the mares.
An odd sensation twisted around in Susan’s stomach. “Where is Alethea?”
“Taking the other dogs for a turn about the garden with Christine and Sarah. I told her I wished to sleep.”
“Then why are you not upstairs?”
“Because I prefer to sleep in here. It is more comforting. I like the smell. It reminds me of my youth.”
“When did you spend any time in this library as a child?” Her retort was swift and sharp, and again her pitch carried a rude note. She could not help herself where Henry was concerned. Heat flared in her cheeks. She never really intended to be rude, he just seemed to prick her ire.
“I spent hours in here, Susan.” His voice did not rise to match her boorishness but purely denied her accusation. “They were just not the hours I spent with you and Alethea. Papa used to bring me in here and we would sit together and go through the books all the time. He taught me to appreciate such things and hold the responsibility for—”
“He must be so disappointed.” She really could not help herself with Henry.
“Why?” He had reached the sofa but before he sat, he turned and looked at her, challenging her for the answer with his gaze as well as the qu
estion.
His good hand lifted and rested on his bad arm—as though he was in pain.
She smiled, trying to mimic the mocking smiles he regularly gave her. “Because you are hardly responsible. Only a fool would drive a curricle in a race on the roads, you might have broken your neck not sprained your wrist.”
He sat down, looking away from her. Samson sat too. “Believe me, I am well aware. I nearly broke my neck and in the process dislocated my shoulder, not merely twisted my wrist. Now if you’ll excuse me, Susan, I am bloody exhausted and in agony, I have just dosed myself up with laudanum and I am in no mood for you to chastise me. Let me rest.”
He was much paler than normal.
He lay down without looking at her again and sprawled out flat on the long leather sofa, laying on his back with his bad arm on his chest and one foot on the floor while the other turned so his leg lay bent across the seat, as his foot hung off the edge.
Samson rested his head by Henry’s side, as though asking to come up and sleep beside him.
Perhaps that was why Samson was so loyal to him, if Henry had allowed Samson such liberties when he was younger.
His good arm lifted and then lay above his head as he shut his eyes.
“I shan’t make any noise,” she said, to annoy him.
He opened his eyes a little, his dark eyelashes cloaking his gaze as he looked at her. Samson looked at her too. “I did not doubt it, painting is hardly a noisy activity. Let me sleep if you please, Susan.”
She smiled and looked back down at the orchid she was recreating.
There were very fine green lines on each pale cream petal, and that was what she was seeking to capture, only the lines in the book seemed to give the petals depth, and she had not succeeded in mastering that. Perhaps she needed to use more than one shade of green? But the lines then would have to be very, very narrow and far more cautiously done. She needed to develop a steadier hand.
She leant forward and looked closer at the image. The artist had done them so well she could not even see a different shade.
Henry’s breathing became deeper and slower.
When she heard him move she looked up. Samson now lay on the floor beside him. Henry’s bent leg lifted and his foot settled on the sofa so his knee could rest against the back of the seat. He sighed out. The arm which had lain above his head fell down and hung over the edge of the low sofa so that his hand was placed slackly on Samson’s head.
She looked down at her work and carried on adding detail to the petal she was working on.
The slightly different shade of green did add depth, though the variance of colours in her image was very visible to the eye. She leant a little closer to the book and looked at the shape of the petals. There were different shades of cream too. The artist must have mixed the colours with a tiny amount of black to obtain the deeper shade. It would be hard to mix without making the cream too dark.
Henry was quiet. She looked up. He had definitely fallen asleep. The sunshine from the window stretched across his leg and stomach. Perhaps that was why he’d come in here, to sleep in the sunshine.
Susan, mixed a little of the green with more white to make the colour paler still and attempted another narrow line, trying to make the difference in shading less obvious. She used the paler colour on the lower edge of the lines across the petal. It was better than her first attempt, but not good enough.
Rather than progress to the shading of the cream, she began another petal. She would conquer this skill before she sought to learn another.
While she painted she intermittently glanced across the room to check Henry had not woken and was surreptitiously watching her. The sunshine travelled across his lean body as the afternoon progressed. He did not wake.
If she had more natural talent he would have made a perfect model, Young gentleman in repose.
She smiled as she looked back at her work. Asleep, she would admit how handsome he was—when his personality was not added into the mix. When he was silent, like this, she could appreciate his company. She studied him as she worked, with the same eye that she studied the flower. The waves in his dark brown hair were a little chaotic but he had a very classical handsomeness, with his long dark eyelashes resting against the pale skin of his cheeks…
She carefully painted another flower head, then looked back, he must have slept for more than hour, perhaps even two, she had not looked at the clock. He had appeared exhausted, though, and he was still paler than normal. The sunshine was rapidly advancing towards his face. It would disturb him if it shone on to his eyes.
A huff of sound left her throat as she set down her brush, while her inner voice complained over the need to leave her painting as she rose and walked across the room to the window, to close the shutters. Of course it would affect the light she had to work by, but he had looked exhausted.
Samson woke and his head lifted, slipping away from Henry’s fingers, as he watched her cross the room. She walked over to him, rather than to the window. He did not rise, so she leant to stroke his head. “You foolish, dog,” she whispered. “To save your loyalty for such a man.” Yet animals were like that, they had no judgement of one’s character, if you treated them well, they treated you well.
The cuff of the loose shirt sleeve covering Henry’s good arm had been caught up when he’d moved his arm from above his head, and it had slipped upwards. She noticed dark and vivid, vicious looking bruises that she had not seen from across the room. His shirt had also fallen open into a wide v at his chest, without a neckcloth to hold the collar closed. She could see the little dent at the base of his throat and the first shape of his chest and a sprinkling of dark hair and more nasty bruises.
Her mouth was suddenly dry, and an odd cramp gently tightened the muscles in her stomach. She had always been pulled to the protection of injured things, the sight of something in pain always caught her hard in the middle with a feeling of sickness. Yet this was Henry. Guilt washed across her thoughts. She had been rude to him. She had not cared about his injuries. She had thought that he’d been exaggerating, yet now she could see he had not been.
Her stomach twisted as she looked at his face, with regret. Samson rose and sat beside her, so that she would stroke his head again.
But it was more than a feeling of nausea over the sight of his injuries. Just as she admired the flowers, or the detail in the wings of a butterfly, she admired Henry’s face.
She turned away.
It was definitely not a good thing to look at Henry and feel any sort of liking. She did not want to think him attractive. When he was awake she had no liking for him at all and it was better for things to be like that, he was to be her brother-in-law, and as no one thought her beautiful it was very likely that she would live here in her later life, dependent upon him, as Alethea’s spinster sister. Her father’s property was entailed so when her father passed away her home would be given to a cousin and she would have no choice but to rely upon Henry’s generosity.
He moved behind her.
She stopped and looked back.
His bad arm shifted across his chest moving the sling, as a sound of discomfort escaped his lips. His shirt opened wider, sliding off his bad shoulder. There was a large, much darker, almost entirely black bruise covering his shoulder, with yellow and redness at its edges. He’d said he’d dislocated his shoulder; it must hurt considerably. He had definitely not merely come home to act the invalid, then; he had been seriously injured. The pull of sympathy clasped her.
It annoyed her. She did not wish to feel it for Henry. He did not deserve it. He had done this to himself.
She turned away, went to the window and closed the lower shutters, with Samson watching her. He had not moved away from Henry. The shade half covered Henry to the top of his chest. She walked to the next window and closed the lower shutters over that too so that the shade covered all of him, then turned to go back to her painting.
Henry’s body suddenly jolted and a sound of discomfort escaped
his throat. “Damn it!” he shouted on a breath, but his eyes did not open. “Bloody hell! The horses! What of the horses!” Another sound of pain escaped his throat as he moved as though to rise.
She walked over, unsure whether to leave him to his nightmare or wake him.
“Fuck! The…” His eyes opened and he sat up.
She turned away but he grasped her wrist.
“Were you staring at me?”
He was breathing heavily, and his blood raced in a fast pace through the vein she could see pulsing beside the little dent next to his clavicle at the base of his throat.
“No. I closed the shutters so the sunlight would not wake you, then you started dreaming and woke up anyway.”
He let her wrist go, sighed and then twisted around to sit upright with both feet on the floor, Samson moved out of his way. His good elbow rested on his knee and his hand held his forehead as his bad arm lay in its sling on his thigh.
“Are you unwell?”
He glanced up at her, and gave her a bitter, wry smile, very slightly lifting his poorly arm. “Do I look well?”
“Did you dream of your accident?”
“Yes.” It was said with a sigh and a pained look. He gave her a more real smile. “I thought my time had run out.”
Heat touched her cheeks as she felt Henry’s particular method of charm deployed. It was still enchanting even when it was mocking. He was too handsome when he smiled. She turned away from him to go back to her painting, and avoid the sense of empathy which clawed at her. “It was your own fault, though, and I would guess you have still not learned the lesson and will race again.”
“Probably,” he answered, clearly not in a mood to go into verbal battle.
She sat down behind the desk and picked up her paint brush.
He stood up and his good arm stretched out, as he yawned. He was standing in the sunlight which shone through the windows above the lower shutters that she’d closed. Again she had the perfect silhouette of his body beneath his shirt.
Embarrassment warmed her skin as she remembered all the bruises on him.
