by Jane Lark
“And there is this for you, ma’am.” He held out a letter. She looked at the words written across the front, Miss Susan Forth. It was written in Henry’s hand.
“Thank you.” She took it.
When the footman left her alone, she rose from the table and went into the hall, then climbed the stairs to her room, her heart racing wildly.
As soon as she closed the door of her bedchamber she leant back against the wood and broke the seal. Henry hadn’t used a crest, but if Alethea had seen the letter she would have known his writing. Why had he written?
Dear Susan,
I wish to see you today. Will you escape the house? Say you are shopping for books so Alethea will not want to join you. I will wait in Bond Street outside Faulder’s bookstore, at No. 42, from one o’clock until two, if we meet there people will assume it was only chance. But please come without Alethea, so we may talk.
H
H… Henry.
What had he said on Alethea’s card? Susan wished to run downstairs and open it, but that would break every rule of everything that was right. She had already done enough wrong.
She should not meet him.
But her heart longed to see his face, to hear him speak—to understand…
He must know that she would have seen the flowers. Why would he send Alethea flowers and ask to meet her? Because he was reckless, careless and self-centered, and…
Then the answer was certainly no. She should not go to Bond Street. She could not lie to her sister or her mother. She could not continue this deceit.
Oh. Why did the thought cause so much pain in her chest?
A part of her hated Henry again.
Chapter Thirteen
Henry had taken off his gloves, out of agitation. He slapped them into the palm of his other hand, ran them across his fingers and then repeated the motion. He was standing on the corner, so he might easily see along the street in either direction, and on to the other road that he expected Susan to walk along.
It was two.
He’d been standing waiting here for an hour like a fool. If Susan came now it would no longer appear an accidental meeting.
Although only a few people must have noticed how long he’d been here, as the human traffic continuously moved from shop to shop.
But she was not coming. It was two.
Damn her!
Henry turned and walked away from Bond Street.
His fingers lifted and removed his hat, then his other hand lifted and his fingers ran through his hair. They shook a little. He put his hat back on, his hand still clasping his gloves, and walked on, quickly, anger and agitation burning in his blood—and doubt, and guilt, and confusion and… Lord… So many things.
He’d not been able to find a single word to explain or express his emotions last night, and so his body had resorted to actions, responses he knew well, responses that could speak a thousand words, and yet… even those responses had not explained a thing. He’d never kissed a woman like Susan before.
His heart beat on in a steady hard rhythm with the pace of his strides. Madness. Insanity. Something had touched his mind and overtaken him.
She had worn lime green. She had been visible at every moment within that room. Shining. Her spirit, normally so measured, had been… Lord, how to describe Susan in a ballroom? Animated yet genuine. It was so absorbing. He had been envious of his friends who’d sat with her while she’d eaten supper and of every man who’d had the opportunity to touch her when she’d danced.
Even when he’d danced with Sarah, his awareness had been drawn to Susan.
He’d tried to act responsibly. To remember why Susan was in London. To fulfil his duty at the ball and focus on Sarah and Alethea—but recklessness was in his blood. He’d thought himself beginning to reform, but clearly he had not reformed at all. He had been right in what he’d said to Alethea. He was too young to marry her. Incapable of loyalty.
Yet to be disloyal with her sister. What the hell had come over him? Susan.
She had come over him. It was nothing to do with a general desire for a woman. It was just Susan.
He’d not slept. Restlessness had kept him turning in his bed, he could not cease thinking of her. Of her lips against his. Of the curve of her neck. Of how her hair had been styled. Of the fit of that dress.
Dash it all, and he was certain it had been her first kiss. Her hesitance had told him. His lips had been the first to touch hers. The thought clasped at his groin even as he walked.
He’d kissed Alethea, yes, but she was not like her sister. She had kissed other men, or probably boys, before him. She had pressed her lips back against his with confidence from the very first time he’d leant forward to lead such an exchange.
Damn it, he’d been awake for all the hours of the night, thinking about Susan.
Yet there was Alethea… But he could not think of Alethea, his mind was too flooded with Susan.
Her bloody sister.
Of all the women to engage his heart—her damned sister.
Hell! He’d known Susan all his life, why had this only happened now? Why not when they were younger? Why at the point that he’d been about to commit to Alethea? He’d made things a dozen times worse.
His strides were long and swift as he walked to his rooms, but he did not go to his apartment, he went to the mews and asked them to prepare his curricle while he waited. Then he drove to White’s where he hoped to find William, or if not him, one of the others.
Three of his friends were sitting at a table together. “Who wishes to race me, London to Brighton, now?”
They all stood. “I thought you had given up racing.” Fred laughed.
“Not today.” Today he needed to burn off his energy and explode with recklessness, today he needed to do something wild to help him forgot the even wilder—wrong—thing he had done last night. He needed to feel careless. He needed to not care about Susan.
But damn it, he did not wish to forget, he wished to repeat it. If he had last night to live again, he would do the same.
Dusk descended on the world when he neared Brighton. Henry whipped up his horses, encouraging them on, flicking the straps against their rumps. It was a breezy day, and the wind sailed past his ears, ruffling his hair. He’d removed his hat long ago. This was freedom. This was why he had not wished to be married yet, because he would need to tame his appetite for recklessness if he settled.
He was not ready to settle.
~
“More flowers from Henry…” Susan’s mother said when Alethea walked into the room, bearing another vase to fill up the occasional table near the window in the drawing room.
“Yes, but his notes are just rhymes, there is nothing personal in them, he does not even sign them. I think he set up an agreement with a florist to send them daily on his behalf. I do not take them at all seriously anymore. They have been arriving from the day we arrived, and they are still arriving even though he has left London without a word.”
Heat rose in Susan’s skin. He’d gone the day after Sarah’s debut ball. The day he had asked to meet Susan in Bond Street and she had not gone. Nothing had been heard from him since. They only knew that he had gone away because Uncle Robert had told Papa that Henry had left town, but even Uncle Robert did not know why, or even where Henry had gone and it had been a week…
Yet still the flowers came.
Alethea was probably right, they had been ordered prior to Sarah’s ball. It hurt less to think that at least.
Susan’s gaze turned to the window and she disappeared into daydreams, imagining what might have been said if she had gone to Bond Street.
But what could have been said? Nothing! She would not hurt her sister.
Yet I kissed Henry!
That thought had twisted around in her head for days and it had sharp, vicious edges. It was more like a dream now than truth. A dream? No. A nightmare. She could not believe it had happened.
But it had and now Henry had disappeared and
there was a ball this evening.
Alethea had complained all of yesterday. Henry had promised to escort her and he was letting her down.
Susan was partly glad. Which was a cruel thought, and made guilt flick its whip at her even harder, tearing slashes open within her. She bled with the constant pain of having betrayed her sister.
Was that why he’d gone away? Because he did not want to face Alethea…
Had he run away from the guilt that surely—if he was capable of any emotion beyond recklessness and selfishness—he must feel? She wanted to know.
Not knowing where Henry was, or what he thought, was becoming as unbearable as the guilt.
There had been emotions in his eyes beyond recklessness—she would swear it.
She would know if she had gone to Bond Street…
But even if he declared love for her, it could change nothing, he was Alethea’s.
Echoes of the sensations generated by his lips and his tongue, and his hand at her nape played through her body.
Yet he had deserted Alethea. He had been reckless and self-centered… and…
Where was he?
~
When Susan faced the receiving line at the Brookes’ ball, her heart pulsed with the quick beat of fear. It would be extremely unlikely for Henry to attend and yet she hoped, and yet she should not hope, and yet she feared. Her heart skimmed skipping stones across her emotions, dotting ripples of excitement into a lake of anxiety. Those sharp sudden moments of longing wished to know what would happen next time she met Henry—because of course she would meet him again, his parents lived beside hers, they were close friends. He was supposed to be courting her sister!
The other part of her was terrified—because she did not know what would happen next.
The Martins’ butler introduced her. She accepted Lord Brooke’s offered hand and curtsied. When he let her hand go Susan turned to his wife. The couple were still quite young and it was only the two of them welcoming their guests.
When the cordialities were done Alethea slipped her arm through Susan’s, and drew Susan on into the ballroom as their parents’ followed. It was such a crush it was hard to see from one side of the room to the other, she could not see whether Henry was there.
“I can see Robert and Jane over there,” her father lifted a hand in the direction. “Shall we will join them? Perhaps he might have discovered a cause for Henry’s silence, although he had still heard nothing when we spoke yesterday.”
Henry would not be here then. Susan’s heartbeat slowed, but the sense of risk hovered—not a fear of seeing him, but a longing for it. If he came tonight and asked her to talk privately with him again, she would go. The magnetic pull in her stomach made her wish to cleave to him. She would betray her sister again.
When they neared Uncle Robert he lifted a hand to acknowledge them. The group he stood amongst contained Uncle Edward, Aunt Ellen and some of Aunt Ellen’s family and John and his wife Katherine, and Mary and Drew.
Uncle Robert took Alethea’s hand and kissed her cheek. “I am sorry on behalf of my vagabond of a son,” he said as he drew back and released her hand. “I am ashamed of him. I have no idea why he has left. But it is par for the course with Henry.”
Alethea smiled, but when she turned away Susan saw a look of doubt cross her sister’s face. It was heartless of Henry to leave her…
To leave us both! Yet she had left him alone, waiting for her in Bond Street. This was all her fault.
The Earl of Stourton approached before anyone else had had chance to welcome them. “Miss Forth,” he said to Alethea, with a bow. “May I have the honour of this dance?”
Alethea smiled at him. He’d sent her a posy of flowers after Sarah’s ball, too. “Of course.”
He offered his arm. Alethea lay her fingers upon it and then they walked away.
“Susan.”
She turned to face John.
He smiled. She did not know him even a quarter as well as his half-brothers Harry or Rob.
She curtsied, deeply.
He bowed slightly, in acknowledgement of the gesture as she rose. “How are you?”
“Well. I thank you.”
“How are you enjoying the London season?”
“It is a little hectic.”
He smiled.
“—I have no idea where my son is…” Uncle Robert’s pitch expressed annoyance, and his voice carried through the family group.
“Peter the same,” Lord Sparks responded, “and so they must be together, wherever they are.”
Susan’s heart pounded once more.
John looked away from her. “Why do you not know where they’ve gone?”
Uncle Robert rolled his eyes in a jovial, mocking manner. “Must I say it again? Because that is my son, John. Have we not covered this ground a hundred times?”
A note of humour escaped John’s throat before he answered. “We have, but on this occasion I happen to know exactly where he is. I would have thought you—”
“Where?” Uncle Robert and Lord Sparks interrupted and asked together.
John smiled at them, in a wry manner, as though he thought them foolish for not knowing. All the men looked at him expectantly, including Susan’s father. “Henry went into White’s a week ago and challenged William and Frederick to race him to Brighton, and Peter accompanied them.”
“Bloody hell!” Uncle Robert barked, then looked at Susan. “I apologise. I should not have used that language.”
“Where are they now?” Uncle Edward asked
“In Brighton still, I believe. I have not seen them in the clubs in London nor heard of them visiting…” He glanced at Susan for an instant before continuing. “…since then. They are probably at this moment drunk and losing money over a hand of cards somewhere there. I am surprised you did not know?”
“How are we to know when no one has told us?” Uncle Robert growled in a low voice.
“Perhaps people are too scared of what you might do to them if they tell you these things when you snap like that, Robert.” John turned and looked at Uncle Edward. “Of course Harry’s regiment is there.”
“I do not need to be reminded, and he would need little temptation to leave his post in the evenings and join them.”
“That is probably why they have stayed there.” John laughed.
“I do not find it amusing, John, and you do not wish to know what I will do to my damned son—” Uncle Robert stopped and looked at Susan. “Sorry. Forgive me again for my language. Is there no one to dance with you?”
“So he may swear as much as he wishes,” her father leant to whisper near her ear.
“Come, Susan.” John lifted his arm. “I do not believe you have ever been introduced to my cousins on my father’s side.”
“What will you do?” Her father asked of Uncle Robert, when Susan accepted John’s arm.
Chapter Fourteen
Henry leant back in his chair and tossed his cards on to the table, in anger and frustration. “I am done. I give up. I am having horrible luck, so why play.”
Harry laughed and squeezed the waist of the woman who occupied his knee. “And I am having great luck. Show me your cards, Fred, I’m calling you?” Harry’s speech had become slurred, but so had Henry’s. They were all four, or perhaps five, sheets to the wind, and the sheets were dancing on a strong breeze.
Fred lay down his hand of cards face up. Harry leaned forward, drawing the woman forward too and set down his cards.
“You damned well win again!” Fred declared, in a voice that resounded with annoyance as he picked up his glass. He drained it in one quick swallow, then stood up, swaying a little. “Fuck you,” he grumbled, reaching into his pocket, then tossed his promised bets on to the table.
Harry leant over and picked up the money Fred had dropped, and the money left by the others who had bowed out earlier in the game. They’d left a significant sum for the poorest of them to claim. Harry gave Henry a broad smile, then pulled the woman he he
ld more fully on to his lap and pressed a kiss on her lips before saying against her mouth, “Are you ready to celebrate with me, darling?”
Henry looked away and lifted a hand to obtain the attention of a woman on the far side of the room. When she looked at him he pointed at the empty bottle on the table then lifted his glass. She smiled in way that implied she’d give him far more than a new bottle of brandy.
He just wanted the brandy. A bitter disgust turned over in his stomach even at the thought of the offer of anything else.
What the hell was wrong with him?
When the woman brought the bottle she leant forward so the top of her breasts spilled out from the loose bodice of her dress as she set the bottle on the table before him.
Henry leant back as revulsion sailed through his blood. These were new emotions. He had never turned a woman away through lack of interest before. Perhaps when he’d been too drunk and incapable, or too tired, or not in the right mood, but never out of a lack of interest in a woman.
But his ailment was not about a lack of interest in all women.
The woman ran her fingers down his cheek and leant farther forward to whisper in his ear.
Henry caught a hold of her wrist and pulled her hand away before it could descend to his groin. “No thank you.”
“Oh come on, my Lord, play with me…”
He turned his head away as she tried to kiss his lips. “I said no.”
He was not interested in any of these women.
His ailment was an interest in just one woman. A woman he ought not to be interested by.
When the woman walked away, he leant forward and filled his glass with brandy. He immediately drank it all down. He’d come to Brighton to escape the emotions which kept kicking him in the gut, with the sharp punch of a horse’s hoof. But the unbidden feelings and thoughts would not stop. All he could recall was what it had felt like to look Susan in the eyes, those pale grey eyes that he had once ignored as though they had been mundane in colour and yet now he had looked he knew them to be enchanting, glorious eyes… and to kiss her.
He should not have kissed her.
