by Jane Lark
She looked into his eyes—searching for answers—perhaps to understand his feelings. What were hers? Did she think more of him than he thought of her? That thought was a little petrifying.
“But I am getting older too, Henry,” she said quietly. “It is different for a woman. If I wait much longer I shall become too old to be considered. What if you change your mind then? Then I will not have another chance.”
They had always known there was this obligation upon them and neither of them had expressed any disagreement, and yet this was the first time they had spoken about their marriage openly.
“When will you ask me? I will not wait for you for years. I wish to be married and settled.”
There, his speaking openly had led her to do so too. This was the sentiment she had been hinting at ever since he’d returned—that she would not continue to wait.
“I cannot say, or rather I will not, I suppose, because I do not know; someday in the future. You will have to choose whether or not you wait.”
Uncertainty shone in the blackness at the heart of her eyes. “I do not know if I can wait.” Her hand slipped off his arm and she walked ahead.
Touché. He laughed internally, and followed.
When Henry entered the formal drawing room his father was already offering Alethea a glass of wine. The footman poured it as his father turned and asked Susan if she would like a glass.
Susan had removed her shawl. The dove grey colour of her dress suited both her hair and her eyes, and oddly her light grey eyes seemed more striking than Alethea’s blue as she looked at his father and accepted the glass he had taken from the footman to give to her.
Henry walked forwards as the footman poured another glass.
When Henry took the glass, his father’s gaze caught Henry’s and his eyebrows lifted.
His father had picked up upon the atmosphere too and deciphered it. Henry was in for a hard debate when the Forths had gone. His father would be of the same opinion as Alethea. Why are you waiting?
Wonderful. It had been on his initiation that the two families had come together. This meal had been his suggestion, and now he would not be able to bloody digest it. Perhaps he should have spelled his perspective out more clearly when he had written to Alethea from London. Yet it was nonsense for them to grasp at this gesture with such silly hope. In undertaking one rare act of thoughtfulness, which his father had been remarkably pleased by, he had knocked open a hornets’ nest.
Lord, though, he hoped his father had not thought the same. Had that been why he’d been so happy with the idea? Damn. This was not meant to be an enactment of the prodigal son parable. He had not intended the fatted calf to be slaughtered and a toast raised to the fact he had returned home and would remain forever. The intent had only been to see his aunt and uncle before he returned to London.
He sipped from his glass. Alethea had turned her back on him and walked across the room to speak with Sarah.
Wonderful!
Yet to be fair, if she fell out with him and married someone else, he would not grieve over it. His heart was not involved; it would not be broken. It would make no difference to him, other than that when the time came for him to take a wife he would have to look for one.
He looked at the back of her head. Her blonde hair was beautifully and perfectly styled, and then there was the curve of her narrow neck. She bowed her head a little as she spoke to Sarah and it presented the area of skin just above the neckline of her dress. He sighed. His heart may not care but other parts of him would very willingly become involved in a relationship with her.
He breathed in, what were her sentiments? Was it merely compliance with their families’ wishes or did she have some greater affection for him? Perhaps at some point he should ask her that, and that too should become open between them.
“Henry. You are quiet and brooding, neither of which are terms I would use to describe you. Is your arm hurting?”
He turned to face Susan.
It was uncharacteristic for her to approach him and speak to him voluntarily.
Those pale grey eyes were intensely grey tonight, thanks to her dress, which exaggerated the colour just as Alethea’s dress made her eyes bluer. But Susan’s spectacles also seemed to make her grey eyes shine with a vibrancy that had more depth than Alethea’s blue eyes ever did.
Susan had recklessness within her, she might deny it as many times as she wished, but she did, and a dash of rebellion that her sister never displayed.
Alethea may have just told him she was willing to marry someone else if he did not hurry up and place a ring on her finger, but that had not been rebellion, she had merely hoped to gee him up.
“My arm always hurts since I fell from my curricle,” he answered.
“I am sorry.”
He smiled, bless her, she did look genuinely sorry for him, too. Since their truce she had become far more tolerant of him, and he might keep teasing her over her rebellious nature but it was no more than a pale shadow compared to his, while her caring side… She out won him a thousand to one on her ability to care for things.
“I am not complaining, I am only stating a fact, not asking for your pity.”
She started to smile but her teeth pressed into her lip, to prevent it.
He leant a little forward and said near her ear, in a quieter conspiratorial voice. “You have no need to be sorry for me remember, I did it to myself.”
She laughed suddenly, only for a moment, but then she smiled fully. God, had she ever smiled at him before? If she had perhaps he had not seen it up close, but the vibrancy in her smile was quite striking. Alethea had always been the bright, exuberant one. But there was exuberance in Susan, too, it was simply hidden.
“How long before you may take off the sling?”
“Another week or so.”
“You will be well enough to attend the assembly in York then. Alethea will be pleased. You will go?” The last was half question half statement.
Alethea will be pleased…
Of course there was another way to glean the level of Alethea’s attachment to him, he could ask her sister. They were close, they must share confidences. “I am not so sure she will be pleased, she may prefer to use the occasion to flirt with others and throw me off. We have just fallen out because I believe your family had an expectation that I would have proposed prior to this evening, and I have just assured Alethea that she should not expect it during my current stay or indeed in the months following.”
The brightness in Susan’s expression extinguished. “Why?”
“Why will I not propose? Because I am not ready. Is it not better for me to wait until I am happy to settle? I am too young. I like my life in town.”
“You are so self-centered.”
Her words struck him, and spurred him into biting back. “And you are always direct.” He swallowed back his temper. “Will she be very hurt do you think?” That was not really the question he was asking.
“Of course she will. She will be cut by it. How can she not be?”
Cut in what way? Cut through the heart? “I have not told her I will never propose merely that she should not expect it yet.”
“Then that is even crueller. She is not young and you wish to keep her dangling on a line of hope, like a caught fish you are trying to tire.”
Susan was far too quick. “It is not like that. I am not doing it deliberately to vex Alethea or delay—”
“Merely thinking of yourself.”
Damn her. “I am being wise. I am thinking of us both. I do not wish her to be unhappy with me, and I would be unhappy if I married her now. Would that not make her unhappy?”
“You are as self-centered as ever, Henry.”
“And you judge me as poorly as always, Susan.”
“Because you have always been arrogant and only interested in the things which benefit you. You were spoiled as a child, Uncle Robert freely admits it, and you have grown up idle and irresponsible.”
Oh Lord. I
dle and irresponsible.
He laughed internally. “And there was I thinking we had shaken hands upon a truce.” He could not defend himself, her accusations were true. He drew an income from his father’s estate and lived in town amusing himself with his friends, and women.
It was doubly amusing, though, that considering all the years he’d known Susan, he did not really know her. That also served to prove her point—he was self-centered. He smiled more broadly. “You are probably right, I was and am. But regardless that does not make it right for me to rush into marriage with Alethea, no matter my motives or lack of them.”
She huffed out a sigh. “And you are probably right.” It sounded as though she was cross that she was forced to agree with him and she looked at the others across his shoulder as though she had had enough of the conversation.
“What is the level of Alethea’s attachment to me?”
Her eyes turned back to stare into his. “You should ask Alethea.”
“I know, but I believe it might set the vipers upon me. At the current time, it is better to ask you.”
“What is the level of your attachment?”
Touché again. “I think I ought to only tell Alethea that.”
“Well there you are then.”
“Dinner is ready, my Lord!” Davis stated to the room in general.
As Susan stood beside Henry, he offered his arm to her. As she’d done the other day, when he’d only worn his shirt, she did not merely lay her fingers on his arm but held it with a gentle grip that did things to his body he ought not to feel stir when this was potentially his future sister-in-law.
He sat between Aunt Julie and Alethea at the table. The latter turned her head away from him throughout the meal, avoiding conversation, and also left a footman to cut up his food.
Instead of speaking to him Alethea talked animatedly to Susan and Sarah, the conversation flowing across the table. They spoke of the assembly Susan had mentioned earlier. It was to be held in a couple of weeks’ time. He would probably be well enough to return to town before the assembly occurred, and yet it was to be Sarah’s first, apparently, so he really ought to stay and show his support and dance with her, as her eldest brother.
Self-centered… The accusation pricked.
He would stay. He did not wish Susan to have further grounds for that charge against him. He could act out some part of the story of the prodigal son: returned to become the responsible heir.
When they had finished eating his mother rose and led the other women from the room. It left him in the company of his father and Uncle Casper. When the doors closed Henry’s muscles stiffened instinctively. It jarred his damned shoulder. But he sensed a need to defend himself.
Davis poured each of them a glass of port while Henry awaited the onslaught.
It did not come, neither man mentioned Alethea, or their hopes that he would propose to her, instead they asked about his life in town.
Once they had finished their port and conversation, they joined the women in the formal drawing room. When Henry walked in, it was Susan who caught his eye first. She was not sitting with the others but was on the far side of the room searching through the music in the chest there, presumably because she intended to play the pianoforte.
She was being different from the others again. But she very rarely sat and joined in conversation.
As she leant over searching through the sheets of music her bottom was beautifully outlined within the thin muslin material of her dress and layered petticoats. He’d never thought about her figure before, Susan was the sort of woman whose personality absorbed attention too much for any thought beyond it… but now he looked… and thought… She had a very handsome figure.
He looked away. Alethea was sitting with Christine who would be excluded from the assembly in York as she was the youngest and not yet out, as it were. But she was gathering information about it as though that information were precious jewels to be held up to the candlelight and admired with reverence.
He smiled at the thought, it was charming to see Sarah and Christine growing up. There, see, he was not entirely self-centered.
He sat beside Aunt Julie, as Susan took a seat at the pianoforte and raised the lid.
She played the instrument extremely well. He could not ever remember hearing her play before. She also sang beautifully, her voice had an enchanting lilt that was very individual, and as she played she shut her eyes and let the music take her somewhere out of the room. She was rebelling again, in her own quiet way, no longer hiding in a corner, or the library, but hiding herself within the music.
If she felt confident enough to simply be whoever she was when she hid away, he wondered how she would act.
Alethea rose and crossed the room, to collect a cup of tea from Sarah. Henry stood.
Now was his moment. He ought to rectify the situation between them.
He crossed the room as Sarah poured out Alethea’s tea.
As Alethea accepted the cup he leant to her ear and said quietly, “Will you walk outside with me? The night is reasonably warm.” Hopefully she would not misconstrue the invitation after their earlier talk.
She looked at him with eyes that judged him with condemnation.
His lips twisted in a half-smile, probably in a mocking expression—he’d always been thick skinned—he’d never really been touched by others’ ill-opinion. He came from a large family and had attended a boys boarding school, such things made a person less vulnerable. “I think we need to continue our earlier conversation and I would rather not do so in here.”
“Oh, very well.” Her answer was impatient but forbearing. “Lead on.”
He’d always known Alethea had a rigid strength of character, it would be a valuable quality for a countess. In London life, there was a need to be stalwart and to cling to one’s morals. Although where people set their bar on morals varied, and he knew his bar was far beneath Alethea’s—but that too was a positive. He preferred it that way about.
He lifted a hand, encouraging her to walk before him, towards the French doors which led out on to the terrace. If they stood within sight of the windows there would be no issue with propriety.
A footman opened the door for them to pass through.
Alethea crossed the stone paving, the china cup wobbling on the saucer she held. When she reached the balustrade she set the saucer and cup down on the stone top and looked out over the formal gardens which were etched in bright moonlight. All this would be his one day, and therefore hers too, between them they would care for it and cherish it as his parents did now.
“Sulking does not become you…” he said quietly.
She turned and glared at him. “I am not sulking. I am angry.”
“Why?”
“Because I cannot keep waiting! My life revolves about your whims, whether or not you care to come home, and then when you do come I am left to hover waiting to see if you will ask… It is like this is a game to you!”
Self-centered! The accusation shouted in his head in Susan’s tone. “I do not treat you as part of a game. This is about my feelings that is all.” But damn it, he wanted to know what hers were. “What do you feel for me? Am I breaking your heart by asking you to wait, then?”
She glared at him, her emotion striking him through her eyes. “Is that what you wish for, for me to be here pining for you while you lead a jolly life in town? Susan constantly complains that I see too much good in you. I always thought you better. You are proving her right!”
Susan… He should tell her to mind her own business. “Susan has always had very little tolerance for me; we both know it. Do not let her opinion sway yours. What if all I ask is for another year?” Of freedom, to live life as a bachelor and get the recklessness out of his blood. “At the end of that year then I will propose and we will settle here.”
“I am three and twenty next month and in a year I shall be four and twenty, perhaps I do not wish to wait a year…”
He breathed in. The net
was closing in on him. He could not run from it forever, he’d always known that, and yet he did not feel ready to settle, he felt a trap closing about him. But what she said was true, three and twenty was late for a woman to marry. He sighed out. “Why not come to town then this summer and spend time with me there? I still wish to wait a year, but then we may become better acquainted and you shall not feel so excluded.” There, he was not entirely selfish or irresponsible, he could think of her happiness too.
She stared at him, with her lips slightly parted. Her eyes caught the moonlight and shone silver. He had an urge to lean and kiss her but it was hardly in the manner of the moment and he would guess they were being watched.
“Very well,” she answered. Her lips pursed for a moment before she then added, “When should I come?”
“I intend to stay here as long as the assembly and then return to town. You may come anytime you wish. I shall write to you when I am there, and you may let me know when it is convenient for you to come in the company of your father and mother.”
“I should not have asked you that, should I? You do not own London. Of course I may go there whenever I wish, and when I am there I may dance with whomever I wish. I might allow any man who desires it to court me. You may wait a year, Henry. But I may decide not to.” She turned away leaving her cup of tea on the balustrade undrunk, and went back inside.
He smiled. Then laughed.
She had not answered his question, but he did not think her heart involved. He thought her feelings the same as his. There was attraction between them; but the rest was only common-sense; they suited one another and it was what their parents hoped for.
Chapter Seven
“What did Henry speak to you about outside?” their father asked Alethea as soon as the carriage door closed.
A tension had lingered throughout the evening because they had all assumed that Henry had intended to propose before tonight, and he had not.
Susan’s father had grumbled about, that boy, during their journey here, and now it seemed that he would continue the same theme of conversation on the way home.
“He asked me to wait a year, and then he said he will propose.”
