by Jane Lark
Her smile held and her eyes sent him a mischievous look. “You are forgiven. But I expect you to be attentive when I come to London, and I will not deter the advances of other men. So you will have to be very attentive if you wish to keep me to yourself.”
He laughed. “Very well I shall be attentive. I shall have Sarah to escort anyway so it will be no hardship, Alethea.”
Her smile fell and her gaze left his eyes and passed across his shoulder, to look about the room while he turned her. “That is a poor answer, Henry. I expect you to wish to be attentive. You should desire it, and look forward to it, not think it will not be a hardship.”
“I do wish it. Did I not invite you?”
She looked back at him, with one of her pretty pouts.
She was genuinely vexed with him.
“I am sorry. I wish you there very much, and I shall be attentive because I feel as though we ought to become closer before we make any decision that is final.” He turned her steadily as he continued talking. “You did not answer my question the other night, and I assume from that your heart is not deeply involved. Do you not think that it should be?”
“I cannot allow it to be when you are so indifferent to me as to make me wait, and to live miles away from me in town.”
“Precisely, and so this year I shall amend that. Let us see if we can find finer feelings within us. I think you attractive. You are very beautiful, and we have always been friends. Your company amuses me. With more time I am sure my emotions will grow and I shall work hard to ignite greater emotions within you.”
She gave him the brightest of her smiles. “You shall have to work very hard then, and pay me a great deal of attention.”
“I shall and I will. I promise. I shall even come home, here, regularly throughout the year, to see you.”
“I shall be spoilt, then.”
“Indeed. I shall spoil you. From the moment you come to London for the season.” Without speaking the words which actually committed him, he had become committed regardless. But it was for the best. He could not put her off forever and he was willing to go ahead with the match, he had no objection to Alethea. Perhaps his responsibilities were catching up with him whether he willed it or not.
When the dance came to its conclusion he brought her hand to his lips and kissed the back of her fingers. She gave him another broad smile, which lit up her eyes. Her beauty caught him with a firm strike in the stomach. Yes, he had feelings for her, it ought not to be too much of a step for them to become finer.
Their parents still stood together, in conversation, and there was a young man with them. The young man looked directly at Alethea as they neared, and his gaze made it very obvious that he found her attractive too.
“Miss Forth.” The young man stepped forward. Alethea’s fingers slipped off Henry’s arm and instead she offered her hand to the other gentleman. He bowed low over it, then straightened up. “May I have the honour of this dance?”
“Of course, Mr Graham.”
Annoyance rattled up Henry’s spine, and yet what had he thought Alethea had been doing while he’d been leading a merry dissipated life in town—sitting quietly at home—no of course she had not. She had been attending assemblies and meeting local, perfectly eligible, men.
She looked back at Henry. “Lord Marlow, this is Mr Graham, Mr Graham, Lord Henry Marlow.” The introduction completed to a minimum, providing Henry with no information about his rival, Alethea then let Mr Graham lead her away, leaving Henry with their parents.
He turned to his aunt. “Where is Susan? Did she not come?”
“She was dancing, Henry. I’m not sure where she is now. Oh, she is in another set, there, look.” He glanced back, following the direction of his aunt’s pointed finger.
Susan stood opposite a gentleman who was dressed in the uniform of the local militia and she was smiling brightly. She laughed then, at something the man had said.
She was wearing a deep blue muslin and her hair was dressed with great skill, two ringlets had been crafted to fall either side of her face. When the dance began the ringlets bobbed and swayed with her movements as she skipped through the steps.
He had never seen her dancing, at least not that he could recall.
She smiled as she danced, and her colour was high. Even with the distance between them he could see that her eyes glittered as she held the gentleman’s gaze through the lens of her spectacles.
She obviously did enjoy dancing.
She glowed when she danced.
The other night he had wondered what she would be like if she let down her guard—like this.
He was at a disadvantage here. Clearly Alethea and Susan were well known and popular in this local society he’d paid little attention to. But of course Alethea and Susan had been out for years. Perhaps that had been an error on his part. He’d not thought these people important. And when he was the earl…
Self-centered. Perhaps Susan had had a stronger point than he’d thought.
“Henry, may I introduce…” His father brought another couple towards him.
Whether he liked it or not this was as much his debut in society here as it was Sarah’s.
“Hello…” He shook the hands of the men who approached, while the dancing continued; with the tune of the fiddle and pipe jigging in the air, as the feet of six dozen couples beat out the steps on the parquet floor.
When the dance ended, Alethea and Susan returned, on the arms of their partners. Henry was then introduced to Captain Morgan, Susan’s companion. The man bowed to Henry then turned to ask Alethea to dance. Henry sensed that Mr Graham might also swap to the other sister. Henry held out his hand and pre-empted the man’s chance. “May I have this dance, Susan?”
Her eyes spun to look at him with… shock.
They had never danced before, but he did not think he made such an awful option.
“I… Yes, of course.” Colour flooded into her cheeks. She had truly not expected him to ask.
He supposed the only reason he had never considered dancing with her was because they had never been at a ball together—only at family gatherings when everyone retained their partners. Who had she danced with then? No one. It was why he had never seen her dance.
Damn it. Had she watched them dancing and felt left out?
Self-centered. Her accusation had hovered in his thoughts since it had been made, but tonight it was growing in its intensity.
She did not lay her hand on his arm but gripped his arm when they walked across the room.
The notes of a waltz began.
When he turned to face her, her pale grey eyes looked into his as he raised her hand and formed the hold. Her hair did look very pretty. She was pretty—simply in a different way to her sister. Alethea had a beauty that punched a man in the gut, Susan had qualities which whispered instead. “I have not seen you dance before.”
“You have not attended an assembly or a local ball before.”
“No.” Her fingers clasped about his right hand, as his left hand settled on her back.
Holding her made him aware that she was a little thinner than her sister, her waist was narrower, it lacked the curve of Alethea’s.
Her hand rested on his good shoulder. “How are your arm and your shoulder? They must be tiring. Do not dance too much. Your arm was only released from the sling three days ago.”
“My shoulder is weak still, so you must therefore forgive me if my hold is limp by the end of the dance, and we end up being the most maligned couple.”
She laughed, yet it was not as she had laughed with Captain Morgan. The laughter she saved for him was a polite response.
“Why have you never danced during family occasions?”
“Perhaps because no one ever asked me.”
Was that said to make him feel guilty? No. Because she would expect him to dance with Alethea. “Were you hiding in corners there, so no one saw you sitting the dances out? You are not hiding here…”
The dance began
and he turned her sharply, she moved beautifully, she was in fact lighter on her feet than Alethea, and yet her fingers held his hand and held his shoulder gently in a way no other woman he’d danced with had.
“I have no need to hide here, here I am asked to dance. There I refuse to play the wallflower and sit and watch.”
“So you let your rebellious side free and go elsewhere. I presume to the library.”
She laughed more genuinely. “Or the music room.”
“I would favour the music room. A good pounding of a pianoforte can do wonders for the soul.”
“You can play?”
“I keep it quiet. I am rebellious too, remember. I dread being asked to perform for others. I play for myself.”
She smiled at him. “I would like to hear you.”
“You would like to hear me so you might mock me. Which is precisely why I do not play for others. I do not care to know your opinion of my skill, or lack of it. The only ears I wish to please with my playing are my own.”
“I would still like to hear you, because I would like to hear what you play for yourself. I think it would reveal some secrets of your character.”
“So you can study me as you do the images of orchids in that book. No thank you. I’d rather not become your specimen.” When they grew older, in their later years, he had always imagined that Susan would share his and Alethea’s home, if she did not marry. He had never before thought that she would. But this evening…
She was more vibrant, more engaging… more beautiful. Her eyes spoke to him with lively enjoyment and emotion, as they turned.
“I think you make a rather good specimen to study. You have made Alethea smile again tonight. What did you say?”
“We have been discussing her going to London for the season and I have promised to be attentive and adoring.”
“She told us you had suggested us coming to London. Mama intends to host a ball for us.” Susan sounded as pleased by the idea as Alethea.
“I had never imagined you as a woman who would like a season in London, with all its fuss and parties, and balls.”
“Why not, because I love to paint and enjoy studying your father’s books? I can like dancing, art and books.”
He laughed, because obviously it had been a bizarre assumption. “Yes.”
She made a scolding face at him.
Yet, she was right, why should either thing mean she would not enjoy dancing. He’d called her rebellious, he’d sensed a trapped energy within her, dancing would quite obviously be one way for her to express that. “I apologise.”
“I suppose it is no different from believing you deserved your injuries and refusing to feel sorry for you. I apologise too.”
He smiled broadly at her. Touché. She was very sharp. “Yet you know when I gave up using my sling and Alethea did not, and so I know that you cared. So you have nothing to apologise for.”
Her eyebrows, which were plucked into pretty narrow lines lifted above the brass wire frames of her spectacles. “Alethea did not know?”
He shook his head slightly. “She commented tonight on the lack of my sling.”
“Oh. She was probably simply still too vexed with you. You pushed away her sympathy when you asked her to wait a year.”
He laughed again. If Susan had talked this openly and honestly with the Captain he could understand the man’s enjoyment of Susan’s company, a soldier would appreciate a woman without airs.
“Your eyes are very unusual. Has anyone told you that?” It suddenly struck him. They were very bright when they looked at him so directly, full of joy. The grey was extremely pale, and in the light from the hundred or more candles burning in the chandeliers above them, her eyes had the quality of quick-silver.
Colour filled her cheeks. “Unusual…”
She was shocked. It was in her eyes once more.
“No… No one has said so. In what way?”
He’d never known a woman challenge a compliment before, and her voice expressed doubt, as though she expected him to say something awful in answer.
He smiled, broadly. He’d not even really known why he’d said it; it was just the way she had looked at him for a moment and her deep blue dress made the pale grey such a contrast, and against her dark eyelashes… He’d never looked into her eyes so closely before, that was all. “They are a very light grey. It was a compliment.”
“To call my eyes grey is not a compliment.”
“They are pretty, Susan.”
She seemed to have no answer then, but coloured up once more and looked beyond his shoulder.
His gaze fell to the little flicker of her pulse in her neck. He had embarrassed her.
“When do you return to town?” she asked as they continued turning, typical Susan, not sulking and waiting for him to resolve the discomfort he’d created, but storming in to smash the ice away herself.
“Tomorrow.”
She looked back at him—into his eyes. “Alethea will miss you.”
“It is only a few weeks until the season, and then she will come to London, and she has chosen to avoid me for the last few days in any case.”
“Not because she has not wished to see you, she is still a fully signed up member of the Henry Marlow Appreciation Society.”
He stumbled in the turn and his arm lowered a little as the pain in his shoulder jarred. “The what?”
“The Henry Marlow Appreciation Society,” she said it with a smile that teased him. “The group of people who are so thoroughly charmed by you they let you get away with anything you wish.”
“We are back to the charge of me being self-centered then.”
Her smile agreed and continued to mock him.
“Well I have promised your sister I shall court her in London so you may watch me laying on the charm to her in spades and breaking every notion you have created about me. I shall establish a new society, the Alethea Forth Appreciation Society and prove to you I can be selfless when I wish.”
She laughed at him, in a carefree way, that he’d never heard before. Dancing changed her. It broke her out of her shell and what he’d known was within her shone out. When they had been in each other’s’ company as children she’d rarely laughed, she had more frequently simply disappeared, or squatted down to study some insect crawling through the grass.
When the waltz ended her hand slipped free from his, and lifted from his shoulder, his lingered at her back. “Shall we dance the next?”
“I did not know you were so keen a dancer?”
“I am keener to avoid the numerous introductions people wish my father to make.”
“You coward.”
“How many of these people do you know?”
“More than half,” Susan replied as they followed others, crossing the room to form a set for a country dance. Susan glanced about her and smiled at a number of their companions.
“How often do you come to these?”
“Nearly every month.” A frown line formed between her eyebrows when he stepped away to face her.
They stood looking at one another in silence, while others joined the line of their set. Then the dance began. It was a dance that was stepped more than skipped, Henry was glad that it was not so energetic; the pain in his shoulder was rising from an ache to bloody agony, consequently he did not lift it so high when they joined hands and made the first turn.
“Your shoulder is hurting…” she whispered.
“It is bearable.”
“Why did you ask how regularly we come here?”
“For no particular reason.”
“Did you think Alethea sits at home while you entertain yourself in town?”
She was mocking him once more—for his self-centered nature. He smiled as the dance separated them. No, he had not imagined Alethea sitting at home, he’d simply, carelessly, never thought about what she might be doing at all. He would think of it now.
When the dance came to its conclusion he offered his left arm to Susan, not his rig
ht, his shoulder ached too damn much.
Everyone turned to leave the floor, then, and the music did not progress.
She looked at him as she held his arm. Her touch twisted something in his stomach and something below it, that his future sister-in-law really ought not to stir.
“You ought not to dance anymore, even if it means facing introductions.”
He’d known that, but it pleased him that she was concerned.
When he looked about the room everyone was walking from the floor towards the open doors at the end of the ballroom. “Where are they going?”
“To supper, that was the supper dance.”
Oh, that meant he was obliged to join her for supper, but they could sit with Alethea. “Do you think Alethea will have saved us seats?”
There was another smile for him, of the ilk she had shared with Captain Morgan. “I am sure she will have, if only to ensure you may watch her flirt with her last dance partner.”
“I am to appreciate Captain Morgan’s company then.” The man had retained Alethea’s hand for a second dance, as Henry had retained Susan’s. “But that will carry little weight if it is meant to prod my jealousy, he danced with you first, so you must be his preference.”
She had been looking forward; her head turned, her gaze spinning to him. Her eyes said she did not think herself capable of being anyone’s preference.
That was just foolish.
“Alethea was already engaged to dance, I am her sister. He asked me for exactly the same reason you did, to be polite.”
That was not why he had asked her.
“Susan!” Alethea called across the room. Alethea had saved two seats at her table.
Susan lifted her hand from Henry’s arm.
~
“Susan…” Her mother tapped on the open door of Susan’s bedchamber. Susan was sitting on the window seat, reading. She looked up as her mother came in.
“Henry has called to say his farewell.”
The book she held dropped against her knees. “He will not wish to see me.”
“He has agreed to stay to luncheon, and you must come down it would seem rude if you did not.”
And one day you will have to play supplicant and never anger him because he will be keeping you out of charity, as the spinster sister of his wife.
