The Reckless Love of an Heir

by Jane Lark

  “I’ll come with you.” Gerard joined his brother and then both boys left the room barely moments after they had entered it.

  “Susan.” Percy bowed his head in greeting. She nodded too, then returned to her seat.

  “How were they?” Henry asked Percy as he sat again too when Percy occupied a seat near him.

  “They rode hard, mad for constant races.”

  Henry turned his back on Alethea and faced Percy. “I have no idea what to do to help them.”

  Alethea talked to Sarah and Christine, no one else was listening to Henry and Percy.

  “We are doing what we can.”

  Henry nodded, but she could see he did not believe it.

  “What do you think, Susan?” Sarah asked.

  Susan turned to look at her, unable to answer because she had not been listening to what was said. Her thoughts and her heart sat beside Henry and took hold of his hand again.

  ~

  “Henry said the funeral is to be in four days, on the Thursday, in York Minster,” Alethea announced in the carriage on the way home, as if their father would not know it.

  “I shall be going,” Papa stated.

  “I wish that I could,” Alethea answered.

  “It is unseemly for a woman to attend,” Mama answered “and it is hardly appropriate for you when William’s mother and sisters would not.”

  “I only said I wish, not that I would,” Alethea complained.

  But Susan knew where Alethea’s complaint came from, she wished she might be there too. She longed to stand beside Henry.

  “We will go to Farnborough to support Jane and the girls instead,” Mama answered. “We will be there when the men return.”

  The house would be full. William’s family would come and they would fill the local hotels and inns or stay at his cousin Rob’s. There would be no chance for Susan to speak to Henry alone even then.

  She sighed and looked out of the window. Her heart so heavy.

  She had not changed her mind, she had to leave. Yet… It did not mean that she could bear to watch Henry in pain and not offer comfort. I love him.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  When Henry stripped off his black evening coat his gaze caught on his reflection in the mirror in his bedchamber. He turned and stared at his image in the flickering candlelight. He’d become so used to seeing himself dressed in black his white shirt glowed like a beacon in the shadow filled room.

  He untied the black neckcloth from about his throat as Samson watched from his prostrate position on Henry’s bed.

  Henry had never felt so heavy and tired in his life.

  It was as though he’d always lived in mourning, he could not even remember how it was not to grieve. He wished William back with them. He’d spent barely anytime with his youngest brother and yet he could see William smiling and laughing, playing some game with the younger ones. Henry had lorded it about his parents’ home ignoring them mostly, acting as though, because he was the heir, he was in some way better than the others. He now savoured every precious hour he had in which he could recall a memory of William. They’d been dropped like gem stones into a haystack, lost in the thick of his life, before. But now he saw them.

  He pulled off the neckcloth and threw it on to the back of the chair. Then began unbuttoning his black waistcoat.

  Susan had given him a new lens to observe his life through, scarce weeks ago, and he’d seen her accusations of carelessness and self-centered behaviour, but he had seen them far too late. Too late to know his youngest brother well.

  Yet he was not the only one who was suffering and he would not be self-centered in this. His father had been virtually silent since Henry had returned home with William’s body, and his mother could do little without tears flooding her eyes. And his sisters were as silent as his father and as tearful as his mother.

  He took his waistcoat off and threw it on to the chair.

  The boys’ method of coping with their grief, and the silence and tears of the others, was to avoid the others and therefore the house. They rode, they walked outside, they played chess and cards in their rooms and kept away from the drawing room.

  Henry pulled his shirt off over his head and threw that on to the chair beside the mirror too. He was not in a mood to be tidy.

  The strength within him crumbled. He turned and sat in the chair containing his discarded clothing and gripped his head in his hands as his elbows rested on his knees.

  Damn.

  He sighed out then breathed in. “Damn.”

  He’d been the linchpin holding the family together since he’d returned. He’d taken on all his father’s responsibilities and duties because his father ignored them, and his brothers looked to him because their father was withdrawn and their mother too upset.

  He’d even been the one to travel into York and arrange the funeral, and he’d had his sisters write to all those who needed to know and might wish to come.

  Yet he was in pain too.

  He stood again because he could not give in to it. But it was screaming in his head. Samson lifted his head. “No, stay,” he ordered as he looked at the dog. “There is no point in both of us losing sleep.”

  He walked out of the room, then, without bothering to put his shirt back on, and headed downstairs, towards the family drawing room. He could not sit alone in his room and listen to the screaming inside him, it would overwhelm him. Brandy was what he needed. That would drown out his thoughts and deaden the pain—then perhaps he would sleep.

  When he pushed the door open the room was lit, not just by the moonlight stretching through the windows, but by a single candle too. “Percy.”

  His brother stood in his dressing gown, doing exactly what Henry wished to do, pouring himself a brandy. “Would you fill a glass for me?”

  “You cannot sleep either…” Percy looked back, a bitter half smile pulling at his lips.

  “No.” Henry shook his head as he walked across the room to join Percy by the decanters.

  His brother handed him a glass. Henry lifted it a little and tapped the base against the rim of Percy’s, then he drank its contents in one swallow and held his glass out for a refill. Percy drank his too then filled the glasses again.

  “I am exhausted I should be able to sleep,” Percy stated, “Stephen and Gerard never rest, they keep me busy all day, and yet my mind has no inclination to allow me to shut my eyes.”

  “I feel the same.” Henry drained his second glass of brandy, then picked up the decanter by its neck. “Shall we sit?” He nodded towards the chairs as the heat of the liquor burned the back of his throat, in a satisfying way.

  Percy followed Henry. Henry sat at one end of a sofa. Percy occupied a chair. Henry refilled his glass then leant and set the decanter down on the floor between them. He leant back and his free hand gripped the arm of the sofa.

  “Papa is falling to pieces,” Percy said quietly as he leant to pick up the decanter and fill his glass.

  Henry sighed, the muscle in his stomach tightening. “I know.”

  “He ignores Stephen and Gerard.”

  “I know.” Henry sipped from his glass. It was why he had begun fulfilling his father’s duties, because someone had to stop William’s death destroying their family. The family Henry had previously carelessly taken for granted and now could not bear to see fall apart. “When Uncle Edward arrives tomorrow I will ask him to speak with Papa.”

  “He is going to stay with Rob,”

  “And he will come here to see Papa, you know he will.”

  Percy leant to fill his glass again, then sat back and slung one leg over the arm of the chair facing Henry a little. They had not been confidants in the past, and yet this was just how Henry had imagined it might be in the future when all his brothers were grown. It would have been the five of them talking. Now they were only four.

  He sighed out a breath then sipped from his drink.

  “Do you miss him?” Percy said.

  “Yes, I miss Willi
am.” Henry would not allow William’s name to become a dead word.

  “You never really spoke to him, you never spoke much to any of us, but you have talked to me most because we were at school together. You virtually ignored William, though, Henry.”

  Henry took a large swig of his brandy, then looked at Percy, the void William had left inside him burned with guilt. “That is why I cannot sleep. I wish that I had. I miss him even though I barely knew him. I miss the man he would have become. The man I would have known well, had William had the chance to grow.”

  “He—”

  “Say William’s name, Percy, for God sake. Do not let him be unmentionable. He—was our brother, William.”

  Percy coughed and swallowed back a rough sound of emotion in his throat, then sipped some of his brandy before continuing. “William was the one who always made me laugh the most, he teased me and played tricks, he was the ringleader of trouble even though he was the youngest…” Percy smiled looking into the liquid in his glass, then he looked up at Henry. “He was the most like you.”

  The words slashed Henry across his naked stomach, and cut into the new fragility he’d discovered in his heart. His heart had turned from hardened rough flesh to weak, soft tissue in the last few weeks.

  He looked down at his drink, then drained the glass again, to wash away the bitter taste in his throat. If William had modelled himself on his eldest, reckless, careless, self-centered brother, then Henry was definitely to blame for the trick he had played which had made William fall and ultimately die.

  “I wish I had known him better. I would have talked sense into him and persuaded him not to be like me. I was a reckless idiot.” Henry stood, and walked back over to the tray of decanters, to hide the emotion he warred with.

  Percy laughed, although it had a heavy sound. “You are no idiot and you would not have said a word to William about being sensible. You are reckless, you would never have been William’s voice of reason.”

  The statement was true. No he had been the devil on his brother’s shoulder, whispering without even being near him—do bad things.

  Susan had been far more right than even she had known, and now he had to carry a burden far worse than the trauma his death would have wrought on his family. He had to live and know he’d caused his brother’s death and watch his family suffer in response.

  “I am going back to my room to try and sleep,” Henry answered without looking back. He set his glass down on the silver tray on which the decanters stood.

  “I shall come too.”

  Henry turned and watched Percy drain his glass then pick up the decanter and stand.

  When Percy came across the room to put the decanter back and his glass down, an urge to embrace Percy ran through Henry. He’d promised to himself that he would show his affection now. He did not obey the urge, though, Percy would think it odd. Yet Henry would seek more close conversations like this, building this closeness with the brothers he had left was the only way he knew how to ease the pain and compensate for William’s loss. He had to put things right.

  But for now, he simply needed to be alone to manage the pain swelling inside him and threatening to tear him in half.

  And Susan…

  He was trying not to think of Susan.

  But an image of her face as she had held his hand, before Sarah had drawn her attention, hovered in his mind.

  His spirit wanted to renege on their agreement. But that would hurt her, and he could not do that.

  ~

  Henry had managed to sleep for a couple of hours, thanks to the brandy, but when that wore off he lay awake looking into the dark seeing William’s lifeless body as he’d seen him the day he’d carried his brother downstairs.

  He got up as soon as the sun rose, dressed quickly and walked down to the stables. The grooms were busy cleaning out the stalls and so he saddled the stallion he wanted to ride himself, then, purely through the strength in his arms pulled himself up to the height of the saddle, and swung his leg over the horse.

  It was a reckless thing to do. He knew it immediately he’d begun the action. The horse could have rejected his movement and made him fall. He should have walked the animal to the mounting block. So many new rules that he ought to start living by if he was going to be the responsible son his father needed.

  But he was just as reckless when he had the stallion out in the meadows; he kicked his heels hard and set the beast off into a gallop, jumping hedges and walls. The horse’s hooves thundered over the grass, kicking aside the low early morning mist and crushing the heads of the clover. Then he raced on to the paths through the woods, bending low to the saddle to avoid the branches. He was simply riding, he had no aim or direction. But the pace and the physical exertion gave no solace to his battered soul. He did not think anything would.

  When the sun rose higher he rode off his father’s land and on to the land that his exemplary cousin Rob rented. It was time to see if some practical support might be found to give his emotions a crutch.

  Rob’s house was close and Henry rode hard, it would not take him long to reach it and Henry did not pull on the reins and slow the stallion to a canter until he reached the gravel drive, and he only then set the animal into a trot for the last few yards.

  A groom came about from the side of the house to meet him.

  The man held the horse’s head steady as Henry dismounted. He’d never called here alone before. He’d never been particularly close to Rob. Rob had not joined the family’s male friendship group, although he was of an age with Henry. Even at school and university they had only spoken in passing. But he had not come to speak to Rob, he’d come in the hope that his uncle had arrived. Knowing the timings of the journey, it was most likely Uncle Edward would have arrived last evening.

  Henry thanked the groom but he did not ask the man if Lord Marlow had arrived, he would knock on the door now he was here whether his uncle was here or not, and if he was not then he would have to spend a few moments with Rob. Perhaps he should have spoken more to Rob when he was younger; Rob had always been responsible. Henry had taunted him with the word dull then. It was not a nice version of himself that he saw in the recollection of his past anymore.

  He sighed as he walked towards the front door. It opened before he reached it. A footman stood there. “My Lord.” He bowed.

  “Is my uncle, Lord Marlow, here?”

  “He is, my Lord.”

  “Please ask if I might speak with him?” A fist thumped out the pace of his heart against his ribs. He hoped for someone to share his burden, though his uncle could never take the guilt away he might take on a portion of the responsibility.

  The footman disappeared through a door as Henry waited in the hall. He took off his hat and gripped the rim in both hands.

  It was not the footman who returned but Harry. “Come in you fool!” he shouted as he walked out from the dining room. “What are you doing loitering in the hall?”

  Swallowing my pride. “Kicking my heels. I wished to speak with your father about mine.”

  “Well he is breaking his fast with us. Is that what dragged you out of bed so early? Come in and eat.” Harry was wearing his scarlet jacket, and the brightness of it compared to Henry’s blacks glared at Henry. Yet the black armband cutting across the scarlet clawed at Henry’s chest more.

  He breathed in, to keep his breath steady, as he walked towards Harry. It was so strange to see Harry. Harry was a figure from yesterday, part of the Henry he had been considering in his recollections moments ago… He was not the same now. Life was not the same. It would never be the same again.

  “I am sorry about the news.” Harry gripped Henry’s shoulder for a moment, as he turned to walk beside him. “It is a tragedy.”

  God, it felt so much more than that. It was an irreparable tear ripped open in life. Henry did not answer. There were no words to respond with.

  The solemnity which hung over his own family was not in this dining room, they were not in black
nor whispering, they were talking busily and yet when they saw him the air filled with pity. The women stood immediately. Rob’s wife, Caroline, Henry’s aunt Ellen and his female cousins.

  Mary, the eldest of his female cousins, who was here with her husband, and Helen, Jennifer, Georgiana and even the youngest Jemima, who was twelve, were all drawn across the room to him, to offer condolences and comfort. Bees coming to his flowering misery. Women were like that. Alethea had been like it yesterday. Revelling in the opportunity to commiserate and show their capacity for compassion.

  The reaction was shallow when moments ago they had been speaking as though the world was unchanged.

  It had changed entirely for him.

  After he’d been relieved of his hat and endured their kisses on his cheek, and their kind words, and accepted a chair at the table and then a dainty china cup filled with tea from Rob’s wife, he looked about the room. Edward, Rob, Harry, and Drew, who was Mary’s husband, sat together at the table. They all looked at him with eyes that carried the pity the women had shown.

  The younger boys must have remained in school, at Eton, where William had died—but they would be like Gerard and Stephen, continuing life and denying that anything had happened to disrupt it. But they had been close to William.

  An urge shot through Henry, to stand up and walk out. He could not abide this; the pain of facing others still leading a normal life. He sipped the warm tea to dispel the tight sensation in his throat and let its sweetness take charge of his senses.

  “You wished to speak with me…” His uncle said in a compassionate pitch.

  “Yes, but alone.”

  “Very well, we will talk once you have finished your tea.”

  Henry could see the next question on his uncle’s lips. How are you? He could not answer it now. He looked at Harry to stop his uncle asking. “I am surprised to see you, I thought you were with your regiment.”

  “I have a leave of absence to attend the funeral.”

  Henry looked at Rob, fighting to deflect the conversation from himself. “I am sorry if this has meant you are descended upon by visitors you did not expect.”