by Jane Lark
It was a bizarre scene. Guests milled about everywhere in the hall, stripping off dampened outdoor clothing, while the footmen took the umbrellas back outside to walk the next guests in. Susan’s father helped remove her shawl and handed it to a footman.
Susan walked forward, desperately not looking at Henry and Alethea, but looking at Sarah. The notion of a receiving line had obviously been thwarted by the sudden rain.
Sarah clasped Susan’s hands excitedly. The rain had perhaps made this more of an adventure. “I am so glad you are here. You look beautiful, I have not seen you without your spectacles before, and your hair…”
Susan made a tutting sound. “Pa, you cannot make a fuss over me. Look at you, you look magnificent. Congratulations, you must be so excited. Are you all prepared?”
“The rain has turned everything into a shambles, but Papa said he shall tell the orchestra to begin the dancing soon, and then things shall settle when the flow of guests slows.”
“Well you must enjoy your evening, and not allow the rain to dampen your spirits.”
Sarah smiled.
Susan bobbed a quick, shallow curtsy towards Aunt Jane and then moved on into the ballroom, having successfully avoided a single word with Henry.
She swallowed against a dry throat as she walked across the quiet ballroom alone. There were only a small number of people, and they were gathered in groups about the edges of the room. But she recognised Uncle Edward and Aunt Ellen, and Helen and Jennifer through her clouded vision. Her heart pulsed quickly as she joined them. “Good evening.”
“Hello, Susan, dear,” Aunt Ellen started. “I take it you are not alone?” It was said with jest.
“Mama and Papa, and Alethea, are in the hall still drying off and greeting others.”
Aunt Ellen smiled. “I think the rain has caught everyone out. We were here for dinner, and so we were fortunate enough not to earn ourselves a soaking.”
“Here we are, lemonade for you Jennifer, and Helen…” Susan turned. The Duchess of Pembroke held out glasses towards her sisters-in-law.
Susan smiled. “Katherine.”
“Hello.”
“Mama, your champagne,” John, the Duke of Pembroke held out a glass to his mother.
Susan smiled at him too. “Hello.”
He smiled in return. “Susan. Would you like me to return to the refreshment table for you?”
“No, I am not thirsty, but thank you.” He was much older than her, yet she had known John, Henry’s eldest cousin, since she’d been an infant in the nursery. He had a very officious manner at times, and there were too many years between them for her to have ever called him a friend, yet she had seen the man he was within his home when he shut the world outside and she was not cowed by his title. He and Katherine had a close bond and their children were charming.
The orchestra began to play the notes of a waltz. Susan turned. Her mother and father were some of the first people to enter the room, drawn in by the introduction to a dance. Alethea followed, she was speaking with another of Henry’s cousins, Mary, Aunt Ellen’s and uncle Edward’s eldest daughter, who was already married too.
“Drew and Mary have arrived, I was not sure they would be here, they always leave it so late to come to events,” Aunt Ellen said, as though she had genuinely not expected them to come.
“They prefer to be by themselves at home, Mama, that is all, and it is easy enough to travel up to town in a day.”
Aunt Ellen looked at John and shook her head. Mary and Drew owned a property on the edge of John’s estate.
“Katherine, shall we join Henry and Sarah?” John held out a hand to his wife.
Susan looked across the room. Henry stood in the middle of the floor holding Sarah’s hand, he bowed to her before he formed the frame of a waltz. There was a slight, dull, applause which rippled around the room when they began dancing, as the gloved hands of the numerous friends, family and acquaintances within the room clapped.
John and Katherine began to dance too, then Aunt Ellen and Uncle Edward, and Susan saw her parents join others on the floor as the number of couples swelled. She recognised many of them as friends of her parents, and others as people she had been introduced to for the first time at her parents’ ball.
“Susan, shall we dance?”
She turned to face Peter, the son of another of her parents’ friends. She had known Peter since childhood too. His parents, Lord and Lady Sparks, were also dancing.
Susan had not seen Peter for a couple of years, though. He was a little shorter than Henry, but only a little, yet he was entirely different in appearance. He had blonde hair and turquoise blue eyes. He looked at her expectantly and lifted his hand higher. “Will you dance with me, then?”
She nodded. “Yes, thank you, Peter.” She was more than glad to move away from the wall and let the music flow through her.
She held his offered hand.
When they began to dance, he said, “Susan, you are all grown up, and very beautiful. I did not even recognise you. William told me who you were when I asked. Will you let me claim the supper dance too?”
She nodded. A strange sensation was clogging up her throat. Henry had passed behind them, his gaze fully focused on Sarah. He had not looked at her, yet the sight of his hand on Sarah’s back had reminded her of the sensation of his hand at her back and his thumb brushing against the curve of her spine. Having Peter’s hand there did not feel the same, and his eyes were too blue, when they ought to be brown.
Yet if she was to find a husband she must give herself a wide choice; it was a man’s manner that was important, not his looks or his height.
After she had danced with Peter, she danced with William, and then Fred, and Greg, and all of Harry’s cousins who had come. Although Harry was not there to dance with her, he had returned to his regiment.
She was then introduced to their friends and acquired an expanding group of dance partners, who clustered about her, as gentlemen normally clustered about Alethea. Yet Henry did not approach her.
When the supper dance began it was one after midnight, and her feet were sore from dancing. She was ready for a rest but there was one more dance. She accepted Peter’s offered arm for the country dance with a smile, and skipped through it, enjoying it regardless of her aching feet.
After the dance he walked her through to the dining room to collect a plate of food for their supper. Then they found a spot amongst his friends. She was the only woman and at moments it was intimidating to be amongst such a group of vibrant men, as they debated with each other in loud voices and laughed. But she refused her sense of reservation—she had known most of them from childhood—and if she was to find a husband…
She also refused to look about the room for Henry, or even Alethea, as she assumed they would be together. He had not come near her and she did not wish to be near him. It would do her no good.
When the supper break was over, and the music began again, she walked back into the ballroom on the arm of one of Peter’s friends, for the next dance. She could not help but look at Henry, though, as they passed him. He was sitting at a table beside Alethea, and Sarah too, and her dance partner who Susan did not know, and John and Katherine, and Mary and Drew sat with them. Couples.
Henry glanced at her, as though he sensed her watching.
She looked away.
Her heart pulsed in a steady beat while she danced the next country dance, as she fought not to recall the instant of communication she had shared with Henry before the dance began.
How could he invade her thoughts and senses so easily, and fully? Others did not.
“Susan.”
She turned and faced Henry. The dance had only just drawn to its end; they had barely stopped moving. Heat flared in her skin.
Her breath stuck in her throat when he caught hold of her hand, taking it from beside her, even though she had not offered it.
There was a frown of determination marking his brow, and his lips were pursed with inte
nt. “I would ask you to allow me to dance the next with you but I would guess your feet are aching, and so instead I shall ask, would you care to sit the next dance out beside me?”
“What of Alethea?“ she asked as her previous partner turned away.
“She has a partner. She will be dancing.”
“Henry—”
“Do not deny me, you have spent a week avoiding me, you cannot do so forever.”
Avoiding him… He’d known…
“Susan.” His voice urged her to agree.
She nodded. She ought to feel pleased, jubilant, instead tears gathered at the back of her throat and pressed behind her eyes as they fought to be free. But she could not walk from the floor beside him crying. She blinked and swallowed.
Henry led her away from those forming sets for the next dance. “You have been playing your rebellious hiding games again. I’m tired of it.” His voice was low and gruff.
She did not answer.
Did he know how deeply she felt?
He did not stop walking when they approached the edge of the ballroom but walked about others, drawing her onwards, and then out into the hall.
“Henry…” She pulled against the hand that held hers. No one was in the hall, but this was wrong. They should surely not leave the ballroom.
His grip on her hand refused to let her stop him.
“What will people say? Take me back.”
“If they say anything I shall tell them you felt faint and needed a moment to rest.”
“I have never felt faint in my life—”
“There is a first time for everything.”
Her breathing fractured as he opened the door to a room she had never entered before. It was a study, not a large room, and clearly not a room for guests, which is why she would never have been invited into it before.
The sound of her heartbeat filled her ears.
“We need to talk,” he said, when he pulled her in. He let go of her hand then shut the door.
He was right they must talk, to dispel the thick, humid, air flowing between them, she could barely breathe, and yet what was to be said? Not the truth, she could not tell him the truth. So there was nothing to be said. How could she speak? He is Alethea’s!
He stood still before her, his eyes seeming to say all the words her lips had not. Then he stepped forward.
“Susan. I swear to God you are the most beautiful woman in that room this evening.” His hands lifted and embraced either side of her face, then he brought her forward as he leant down. His lips pressed on to hers as her fingers clasped about his wrists holding on to stop herself from falling. Perhaps she would faint.
His lips were warm and soft and they pressed over hers again and again. It was not a quick gentle meeting of lips, as he’d kissed Alethea outside the house at home. He kissed Susan’s lips and then the skin beside her lips, and the skin across her cheek. “Susan,” he breathed her name against her temple, then wrapped his arms about her.
She lay her head against his shoulder, and wrapped her arms about his middle allowing this to happen for a moment, allowing herself to live out everything that she felt and had dreamt of.
His fingers touched beneath her chin and lifted her face again, and his lips were once more on hers.
He feels what I do. The words cried out within her. She had not imagined the connection that had pulled at her. It was real and mutual.
She opened her mouth to take a breath, with her eyes shut as her fingers closed, gripping the material of his evening coat at his shoulder and sleeve.
His tongue dipped into her mouth reaching to touch hers.
Oh.
Her mouth opened wider as his hand came to the back of her neck, with great gentleness as though not to disturb her hair, while his other hand rested at her waist. She pressed against him as his tongue slid into her mouth, then withdrew and slipped in again.
Pleasant, pleasurable sensations skimmed through her nerves and danced in her blood as she clung to his coat, and his tongue wove a caress around hers. Was this what love felt like?
But she could not fall in love.
They should not be kissing. He is Alethea’s!
Yet nothing within her wished to stop.
He sighed out a breath into her mouth, then broke the kiss and rested his forehead against hers. He breathed heavily as his finger moved gently at the back of her neck stroking her skin.
She was breathing heavily too.
He’d brought her here to talk, but he’d not spoken bar saying her name, and telling her she was beautiful.
If she said anything it ought to be to tell him to stop.
This was wrong.
She continued to say nothing. She did not want their moment together to end.
“We should go back. The dance will have ended. We will be missed.”
She nodded—dazed and shocked by the submission and intensity of her response.
He held her arm gently and led her back out into the hall, silent. They had kissed, they had not spoken. And what they should have spoken of was why they should not have kissed.
“Henry…” She stopped beside the stairs and turned to face him.
“Not tonight. Not now, Susan. We will talk tomorrow.”
Had he dragged her out here only to kiss her? A million questions began spinning in her head as two women walked out from the ballroom.
She glanced across her shoulder. She did not know them, and if Henry did, he did not talk to them.
Now she had words to speak, she had no time to say them.
She looked into his brown eyes, there was a depth in them she had never seen before.
“Tomorrow, Susan. Take my arm.”
Her fingers wrapped about his forearm, and she held on as he began to walk back into the ballroom. What if someone had noticed them leave? What if Alethea had seen? Where would she say she had been? What would she say they had done?
“Shall I take you to Uncle Casper and Aunt Julie?”
“Yes,” the word was spoken on an out breath. Every muscle seemed to tremble as she held his arm and walked back into the ballroom. What if he were asked where they had been and said something different from her?
He led her towards the corner of the room where her parents stood, yet… it was not only her parents there but his, and as she neared them Alethea reached them on the arm of the Earl of Stourton.
“Forgive me. Excuse me. I need the retiring room…” She let go of Henry’s arm and turned away, not waiting for his acknowledgement.
When she walked across the ballroom back towards the hall, she felt as though everyone must know what had happened between her and Henry—what she had allowed to happen. She felt as though there were lines of bold black ink all across her face, telling people that she was a heartless, cruel, disloyal cheat…
She wove a path through the crowd at the edge of the floor, turning from side to side as couples moved to join the next dance. Then in the hall, her heart racing, and breaths hurried, she walked quickly to the stairs and climbed them as fast as she was able, terrified that someone, Henry, or Alethea, might have followed her.
When she reached the busy retiring room, she dropped down into a seat before a mirror on a dressing table. The maids fussed over other women in the room pinning up their fallen hair and mending torn hems.
Susan sat and stared at herself. She should look different. There should be some sign… But there was none. Except perhaps her lips were a little redder and fuller. Her fingertips touched them.
She had kissed Henry.
She had not imagined it.
It was reckless. Madness…
Why had he done it?
Why had she? She wished to scream at herself. There was no justification for her behaviour.
Rebellious. He had called her that weeks ago… She had never believed what he’d said until tonight. She was cruel. Wicked. A horrible person. She should go home to Yorkshire—banish herself.
Tears pressed at the back of
her eyes, and gathered again as a lump in her throat, she swallowed them away, then used a little powder on her face to bring down her colour before adding some rouge on her lips and cheeks, if her redness looked false it would at least hide the guilt cutting her in half.
When she walked back into the ballroom she forced her lips into a smile as she walked towards her parents—and his parents. Alethea was dancing. Susan’s gaze instinctively searched for Henry as she sat down in a chair near her mother.
He was dancing with his sister, Sarah.
I have kissed him. The words repeated within her head a dozen times.
“Here,” Her father held out a glass of punch for her.
She looked up. “Thank you.”
“You look unwell…”
“I am well, Papa, it is only that it is getting late and I am tired.”
“Then we will not wait until the breakfast refreshments but leave soon.”
“I would not wish to drag Alethea away…” She could not speak Alethea’s name without her heart screaming her shame and guilt—
“She has had three quarters of the night to enjoy herself, the loss of an hour or two of dancing will not harm her, and there will be two dozen more balls to attend before we return home.”
“Thank you, Papa.”
Why did Henry kiss me?
When Susan lay in bed later and shut her eyes she saw Henry’s eyes looking into hers with a depth she’d never known in anyone else’s. She felt the pressure of his lips, and her lips pressing back and opening then their tongues dancing. She did not sleep.
She was tired when she rose the next morning at eleven. Alethea was still in bed, as was their mother, but their father had risen and gone out riding, he would probably not return until much later, he’d probably then go to his club to meet friends.
Susan ate breakfast alone, but she merely nibbled on dry toast, her stomach was too busy dancing waltzes to eat, as she thought of Henry.
At eleven thirty, a bouquet of roses arrived for Alethea, with a card. The footman brought them to Susan as Alethea had not yet woken. The handwriting on the address declared the flowers as from Henry. “Put them in a vase in the hall for now, then take them up to Miss Alethea’s room once she’s woken.”
