by Jane Lark
A note of humour rumbled in the back of his father’s throat.
His father may frequently express his anger and annoyance, whenever he and Henry were in a room together, and yet, despite it, they were still very tolerably close. He liked, nay, loved, his father. Love. The emotion stirred inside him, topping all the others. The intensity of his feelings for Susan resembled the clasp of love.
Chapter Fifteen
A swift knock on Susan’s door gave her a moment’s warning of Alethea thrusting it open.
Susan turned
“Henry has come,” she breathed excitedly. “He is in the drawing room, you must come down and give me some solidarity. I cannot stand up to him alone. He must understand that his disappearance was unacceptable, and Mama will not let me be mean to him as I wish to be.”
Susan had been tidying her drawers, merely to have something to occupy her mind, it would not be occupied by reading, Henry interrupted her thoughts too regularly. “As he deserves for you to be,” Susan answered when she crossed the room. As I deserve for you to be.
Yes, she would go down with Alethea to see his expression when they walked into the room—and she would not admit that her heart had leapt at the news that he was here, nor that she wanted to be in the room to know what he said to Alethea.
Susan’s heart whipped up into a hearty gallop when she walked along the landing with Alethea. Alethea threaded her arm through Susan’s as Susan tried to hide the pace of her breaths.
Susan’s hand lifted. She pushed her spectacles up the bridge of her nose. They barely moved; the action was merely a nervous habit.
Alethea let go of Susan’s arm and ran down the last few steps of the stairs, hurrying ahead.
Nausea clasped tight in Susan’s stomach.
“Henry! So you have finally crawled out from whatever stone you have been hiding under!” Alethea cried as she entered the drawing room.
Susan followed her in. Henry was sitting beside their mother, who had a tea tray in front of her. He stood. His eyes were on Alethea as she walked briskly towards him.
“Alethea.” her mother reprimanded as Henry took Alethea’s hands when she offered them.
He’d have kissed her fingers, but she pointedly turned her cheek to him, and so he kissed that.
If they had been in private, if Alethea had offered her lips, would he have kissed them… The thought lanced through Susan with a sharp pain as jealousy whipped out its dagger.
He had kissed her only days ago. The knife turned back upon herself and stabbed at her heart. Guilt.
Alethea pulled her hands free from Henry’s and turned to collect a cup. Henry looked at Susan. He blushed.
So he was capable of feeling guilt too then, and embarrassment, and so he should.
Her urge was to walk over and rain her fists down upon his head. Hate sliced at her suddenly. She hated him for destroying her happiness. She had been content with her life. She had known who she was, and the woman she would become. Then he had upset everything. It was his fault she could not cease thinking of him. It was his fault she could not sleep. It was his fault she had betrayed her sister.
And what now? What did she do now?
Her skin heated too, with embarrassment and anger, and she turned to her mother, who was in the process of pouring a cup of tea for her.
Susan took it from her mother’s hand, very deliberately preventing Henry from making any gesture of welcome.
Where had he been?
Oh she should not care. But she was so muddled. As much as she wished to hit him, she longed to hold and be held by him—for his embrace to take away all of the pain inside her.
Alethea sat on the sofa next to Henry and twisted sideways a little to speak. Her knee touched his. It spoke a whole volume without needing a single word. She still liked Henry, perhaps even loved Henry. He may have deserted her without a word, but she still had feelings for him.
Susan sat down on a chair opposite them and looked at Henry, he was looking at Alethea. Pain tore at her heart with sharp fingernails. She wished to set down her cup and leave now—to escape, not to rebel.
If she could do neither thing she wished, to either scream at him or hold him, then let her just go.
His head turned, as though he knew she was looking at him and he smiled at her, but the smile lacked his usual confidence, and he blushed again.
Susan did not smile, or show any sign that she welcomed his shallow attentions.
He faced Alethea once more. His Adam’s apple tried to stretch his neckcloth as he swallowed.
Susan’s mother led the conversation from then on, as they drank their tea, avoiding the potentially dangerous topic of, where were you, Henry? While Susan stared at her cup to equally avoid looking at him.
But once the teapot was empty, Susan’s mother stood. “I shall leave you young people to talk. I have duties to attend to. Susan will you remain with Alethea and Henry, please?”
Lord. As their chaperone? That was cruel beyond belief. This was a modern day torture chamber. How much more was she expected to tolerate?
She wanted to run… Rebelliously or not.
~
Embarrassment heated Henry’s skin. Susan had not spoken yet, not one word, and apart from when she’d first come into the room, she had hardly looked at him—and he could barely bring himself to look at her. Shame. He’d suffered many emotions in Brighton, but this was the first moment that Shame had spun into the mixture.
This was insanity. To sit with one sister, when he had kissed the other but days before, and all of his awareness sat beside Susan as he faced Alethea. He’d forced his eyes to remain on Alethea and her mother as they’d talked, while all he wished to do was look at Susan.
He wanted to look into her eyes and see what she thought of him? He wanted to see the awe-struck look that had been in her eyes the night of Sarah’s ball, when she had looked up at him expecting him to speak—to say all the things they both knew they ought not to voice.
He wanted to shout the words. He favoured her. His heart felt tied to her, not her sister.
His stomach had turned to aspic from the moment she’d walked into the room, and his heartbeat had doubled its pace, while the pain of need flooding through his chest swelled with the force of a tidal boar.
His mind fell empty of words when Aunt Julie stood and walked out of the room, and his conversation ran dry. He looked from Alethea to Susan. She was sitting still and silent, staring at her cup, holding in whatever she thought. She must be longing to scream at him—or to simply rebel and leave him in this room to suffer the fate he had created.
He’d never lacked confidence in his life, but now he had no idea how to act or what to say. This was the knot that caring had tied about him. Carelessness was such an easier choice—but this was not about choice. He had no choice in this. The emotion within him had seeded and grown of its own accord.
Susan turned red, set her empty cup down on a low table beside her chair, then looked at her hands in her lap as they clasped together, as though running from the room with her eyes as she could not use her feet.
Alethea turned a little more sideways on the sofa, her knee brushing against his thigh. He was about to be held to account, her eyes said so, and yet her body told him his desertion had already been forgiven.
“Where did you go, Henry?” It was the question that had been hanging in the air for the last half hour.
“To Brighton, I thought you knew.” He looked at and spoke to Alethea, fighting his desire to look at Susan once more. She sat only three yards from them.
“Well, only the day before yesterday. But I did not mean to which town. I meant to where in Brighton?”
Henry swallowed. “To a gentleman’s club, with my friends. We had a curricle race—”
“When you nearly killed yourself doing so before!” Susan had sat forward in her chair, grasping each arm.
Their gazes met and melded. Her feelings towards him had not changed. The knowledge yell
ed out within his senses. Now he wanted Alethea to go; so he could speak to Susan and dispel the agony within him, and her. Susan was in turmoil too; he could see it in her eyes.
“You should not be so reckless, Henry.” Alethea gripped his hand, drawing his attention back to her.
Alethea’s eyes shone with a desire to please and amuse him, but there was no fire, no heart, or… who knew what it was between Susan and he, but the same emotions were not engendered when he looked at Alethea. “Well, I am back now.” he looked at Susan, speaking for her benefit. “And I survived and am healthy as you see, regardless of the risk.”
Susan made a face at him, then got up out of her chair. Damn was she going to run and leave him with Alethea. No. His urge was to stand up, to stop her—
“I have not thanked you for the flowers yet,” Alethea stated.
“Flowers?”
He glanced at Alethea then back at Susan as Susan stopped on the far side of the room and looked out of the window.
Susan’s short flight had obviously been made to avoid the need to look at him.
“The flowers you sent me,” Alethea prodded in a voice now full of annoyance.
He looked at Alethea, who widened her eyes in a look that said, you do not even remember.
Oh. Damn. The flowers. He had set up an arrangement with a florist for the whole period Alethea was to be in town.
Good Lord, what must Susan have thought.
She was looking out of the window not at them. She did not even appear to be listening to them any longer. But perhaps that was pretend.
Her hand lifted and her fingers pushed her spectacles higher up her nose. He wanted to take off her spectacles and kiss her, with his fingers about her nape and in her hair.
“Why did you go, though?” Alethea asked, her fingers squeezing his hand.
He looked back at her. “To race, I told you.”
“But why leave me?”
He’d insulted her. But she would be a hundred times more insulted if she knew the truth. At least Susan had not bowed to the pull of honesty. He was certain that she would have had need to fight it. The guilt within her must be leagues deeper than his. He swallowed back his own battle with the truth.
“It was a lark, Alethea. An amusement. I fancied a distraction. Life can become monotonous in town, and things do not always go as one wishes.” He’d raised his voice and used the last words for Susan’s benefit, he wanted her to know he’d been hurt too—when she had not come to Bond St.
“So if we are married, would you disappear on a whim like that?”
His mouth dried. He would never marry her.
But… He looked at Susan. “When I marry I will live a very different life, but until then…”
Susan made a scoffing sound as she turned from her observation of the street and looked at him.
What was she thinking? Was she wishing him to Hades? Would she be snarling fire at him if Alethea walked out—or kissing him breathless.
He looked at Alethea, desperate to find a way to speak to Susan. “Where will you be this evening? May I escort you?” If he joined them, then there must come a moment when he might converse with Susan in private. A moment she would not be able to avoid.
Alethea laughed in a teasing way, it echoed with flirtation. She had always flirted with him, but there was an edge to this that had not been there before. Her sculpted pale eyebrows lifted “The Earl of Stourton has already offered to take us there, in his carriage. He is also calling any moment to take me for a drive about Hyde Park.”
She had been waiting ever since Henry had arrived to deliver that coup de grâce, it was in her eyes as she lunged with the fine tip of her fencing sword pointed at his heart. Her eyes said, it is your own fault, Henry, you were not here. She wished him to be jealous. He was not, he was glad.
What he ought to do, though, before seeking privacy with Susan was to find a moment to tell Alethea that his intent had changed.
But then… The opportunity of Alethea’s arrangement registered. “I have my curricle. I’d intended to ask you, Alethea, but, Susan?” He looked at her. She had been looking out of the window again. She turned, the colour in her skin increasing. “As Alethea is already engaged, we could make a party of four. What do you say? It is a lovely afternoon…”
Alethea let go of his hand and stood up, physically protesting against his lack of reaction to her endeavour to stir his envy, and yet… “Oh, that is a wonderful idea. I may ride with the Earl and you with Henry. Susan, you must come. We may parade about the park together.” Alethea was a master at social engagement. She knew how to turn things to her advantage. In her mind she had her beaux escorting her in the park. But it was her social ease that would have made her a good countess.
Susan looked at her sister and her lips parted a little. Given a choice she would refuse. Why? Through guilt, or anger?
Alethea crossed the room and clasped her sister’s hands, holding them together. “You cannot say, no. It would be so unfair on Henry.” And me. Alethea’s unspoken words echoed about the room. He’d never thought Alethea selfish before, but— “Go up and fetch our bonnets…”
Henry stood. “I’ll ring for a maid to fetch them.” He did not like the way Alethea had manipulated and employed Susan. Had she always done that? Had he carelessly disregarded that too?
Yet he was glad she had persuaded Susan to join him. He walked over to the bell pull.
When the maid came, he said, “The ladies require their bonnets, please.”
“And my shawl!” Susan called before the maid could disappear.
Susan had accepted the finality of this then.
He turned about and caught her gaze before she looked towards Alethea. He sighed. She would not be able to avoid talking to him soon; yet his head was empty of words now. What was there to say.
Love…
The word whispered through his thoughts.
He shoved it away—and yet emotion grasped about his heart and held firm as something also clutched in his stomach. Was it love? To feel half alive and desperate with need for a woman. That was not the love he knew for his family, there was no pain in that.
A footman appeared at the door. “The Earl of Stourton has arrived, Miss Forth.”
Henry turned and swallowed against a sudden sense of anger in his throat. But why anger?
Jealousy. It was the emotion Alethea had wanted him to feel.
He had no reason to be jealous of Alethea, though, and yet… He had always thought of Alethea as his. Like a damned possession… Who was he?
Who had he been?
An arrogant, careless, reckless fool.
Susan walked past him as a maid entered the room holding two bonnets, in the wake of an older man.
Henry’s gaze followed Susan, she had seen his emotion. Her posture had stiffened. He wanted to grasp her arm, to stop her and tell her it was no more than habit, a familiarity. It was not because he cared more for Alethea. But Susan took her bonnet and shawl and walked out into the hall.
“Lord Stourton, this is Lord Henry Marlow,” Henry turned as Alethea looked from the man to him. Henry had seen him before but never been introduced. “My Lord,” she said to Henry, “have you met the Earl of Stourton?” Her voice dripped with a snide sort of pride as she waved her trophy at him. Look what I might achieve without you, Henry—was the message in her eyes.
So what? He was not jealous. He was glad, if she had another choice it would ease the upset when he told her the truth. He looked at Stourton and held out his hand then bent his head a little, as Stourton did the same. “Good-day, sir. It is a pleasure to meet you, and a fair day for a ride out. Myself and Susan are to follow you in my carriage.”
Stourton’s eyes narrowed ever so slightly, it was barely notable, and the muscle at the edge of his lips twitched on one side in the moment before he spoke. “Lord Marlow. That will make the drive more entertaining.” Disdain hissed through the pitch of the man’s voice.
“I shall g
o and ensure Susan is ready.” Henry turned and left the room.
What had Alethea said to him? Did he think Henry a rival? Did he know of their supposed engagement? Or had he heard rumours of Henry’s reputation?
Whatever the man knew, he did not like Henry, just as Henry was starting to dislike himself.
When Henry walked into the hall Susan was looking at the drawing room door. She had probably listened to their conversation. Her head turned away, hiding her face behind the broad rim of her bonnet, as her body was now hidden beneath a large loose shawl.
Alethea followed him out, on the arm of her new beau, and she smiled as she passed Henry with another look that sought to ignite his jealousy. He hoped she had not seen his first reaction. If she had it must have misled her. His heart hovered across the room, amidst the air another woman breathed.
“Are you ready, Susan?” He asked as Alethea put on her bonnet.
Susan glanced at him, her grey eyes looking very directly into his. “Yes.” She was scared of this—scared of speaking to him.
The rhythm of his heart lifted in pace. He was suddenly scared too. Scared of what was happening to him, the emotion that was gathering.
As soon as Alethea had tied the ribbons of her bonnet, the front door was opened by a footman. Susan walked forward, as though she was avoiding the chance that he might offer her his arm.
He wished to yell at her. You did not refuse my kiss!
She was acting as though this madness was solely his. It was not, she had responded. She had kissed him with passion. Yet that argument could wait until they were in his curricle.
Before he could follow, Alethea walked ahead of Susan, probably to ensure that Henry had a good view of her with Stourton.
Susan let her sister pass.
He would have lifted his arm to Susan in that moment, but out of sight of her sister she made a bitter face at him, before turning to walk outside.
Yet—she had kissed him.
Susan walked down the steps ahead of him.
Alethea laughed exuberantly as her earl clasped her hand and held on to it while she climbed up into his carriage.
