The Reckless Love of an Heir

by Jane Lark

  “May I?” he whispered.

  She did not say yes, she merely nodded. He pressed inside her. Damn. It was heaven. Warm. Tight. Slick. Heaven. He moved gently at first, and then more swiftly, his pace becoming firm as well as quick as he dropped heavily against her.

  ~

  Susan’s hands clawed into the material of Henry’s black morning coat, her body rocking in a resonance of his movement. What was she doing? This was madness. They were in the garden. Anyone might walk past and see. Her heart raced—ached. This was a thing for a marriage bed. They had not even taken off their clothes. But why would they, when they were so exposed. She tilted her head back, to look at the house, she could see some of the upper windows, which meant if anyone looked out of those they would see them.

  Yet he’d needed this. She knew the moment he’d begun kissing her that he was seeking this comfort. No words would have helped him, but this. She had wanted to hold and help him.

  She was insane.

  Reckless. As he was being reckless. Only this time he was being reckless with her. His upper body lowered, and his cheek pressed against hers, his hair tickling her skin, as his hips continued to lift and fall.

  One of her hands lifted and clasped in his hair.

  She had not been able to fight the pleasure his fingers had created, the sensations still danced through her nerves and pulsed in her blood. But this was sore.

  The scent of the crushed grass beneath her lifted on the air, joining with the perfume from the roses and the smell of brandy on his breath.

  He breathed hard near her ear and at last the soreness began to ease. The emotions she’d known before swept up again. Her legs lifted so her thighs could press against the side of his as he moved.

  The sensations teased and tormented as he withdrew and pressed back in, in a swift pattern.

  His body lifted again. “Open your eyes.” His voice was husky and deep. She had not even realised she’d shut her eyes, but she opened them then.

  He withdrew a little and played a game of short sharp little pulses of invasion near her entrance where she was more sensitive. Her fingers clawed more firmly into the material of his coat, as her thighs lifted higher and clasped about his hips. “Oh.” A ripple of deeper sensation spun in her middle and down to the place where he invaded. Then he thrust in deeply again striking his pelvis against hers.

  Her gaze clung to his as she tried not to cry out. She would break apart. “Ah.” The breaking came as an even stronger sudden flow of sensations.

  “There,” he leant near her ear and said, as he pumped even faster into her body.

  She swallowed the pleasure down from the back of her throat as after three more pulses, he sighed into the air with an animalistic gravelly note, pressing his hips against hers. She felt him throb inside her.

  His head hung down, and he breathed heavily near her ear.

  What had they just done?

  It had been stupid to do this.

  What about Alethea?

  He withdrew from her body and tumbled on to his back beside her, his legs still tangled up with hers, and sighed.

  She lay there for a moment as he did, looking up at the blue and orange streaked sky.

  Yet what about Henry? She’d been so desperate not to hurt her sister, and yet what about him? She did not wish to see Henry upset either. Her longing to protect and not wound had led her into this mess. With either step she would hurt someone.

  Birdsong swelled around them, a loud chorus of sound as the birds sang out in the last moments of sunlight. Perhaps it had been building all the time they’d been here. But it meant the sun was about to go down. Her parents would be leaving, and looking for her.

  “I suppose we ought to go back in,” he said towards the air.

  She sat up brushing down her dress, then stood up as he buttoned his flap. She brushed the grass off her skirt.

  He leaned over and brushed the back of her skirt, still sitting on the ground.

  “Is it stained?”

  “No. No one will know.”

  But she knew and she must ride home in the carriage with Alethea knowing how disloyal she had been.

  He stood up then and before she could turn to go back to the house, his hand curved about her nape and then his lips pressed over hers for a long moment. “Thank you,” he said when he broke the kiss. Then he lifted his hand. “Your spectacles.”

  He turned and picked them up.

  Her hands shook when she accepted them and put them on. It felt as though she had stepped back into herself. All the nice, enchanting sensations his caresses had engendered had gone, leaving her standing on a barren island. What had she done?

  “You should go back in first. I’ll follow in a few moments.”

  She nodded.

  He seemed so matter of fact. How many women had he done this with?

  Warmth flooded her cheeks when she turned away, she did not even say goodbye to him, her mind was too muddled.

  When she walked back into the drawing room she was certain she must be bright pink, and that everyone in the room must know that she’d changed. She looked at the clock. She had been out of the room for less than an hour—her life had changed entirely in less than an hour. No. It had not. She would leave just as she’d planned she had to find employment, only now she must find it quicker.

  Henry arrived back in the drawing room just as the carriages began pulling around to take away his family’s guests. He shook hands with people, nodding his head in recognition and shared a masculine embrace with Harry and Uncle Edward. He looked as though nothing had happened in the rose garden.

  Yet he did not look at her, and if he had, she would have looked away. If she caught his gaze she would blush the colour of a ripe strawberry.

  She hugged Aunt Jane when she said goodbye, and held Uncle Robert’s hand for a moment, his eyes looked so empty. Then she turned and hugged Christine and Sarah, and said goodbye to Mary, Aunt Ellen and her daughters, then Harry and the Duchess of Arundel… The number of people to say goodbye to seemed endless. Yet in all her goodbying she managed to avoid Henry entirely.

  When she sat down in the carriage beside Alethea, it was with a heavy heart, and her hands still shook. She gripped her shawl and pulled it tighter about her shoulders as she shivered.

  What had she done? What had they done? He had never been more reckless, and nor had she.

  Her journey home was silent. Probably because it had been an emotional day for all of them—yet for her… Such a day.

  As soon as they reached home Susan retired to her room and her bed. When she lay in the dark she smelt the perfume from the numerous roses that had surrounded them and the scent of the crushed grass in her hair.

  She would never forget those smells.

  Her fingers touched where Henry had invaded her body. She was sore still. Yet her senses seemed to hum the tune of his rhythm.

  A slight knock struck the bedchamber door, then Susan heard it open.

  “Hello.” Alethea became a dark shadow in the unlit room. “May I sleep with you, I feel miserable.”

  Guilt was no longer a little sharp thrust of pain but a spearhead wedged in Susan’s side that twisted about fiercely. “Yes, of course.” She moved the covers back and felt the mattress dip when Alethea lay beside her.

  “I told Henry after dinner that I understand.”

  “Understand what?” Had he told her that he did not intend to marry her?

  “That he cannot propose to me while he is in mourning, and therefore we will have to wait until next year before our courtship can progress.”

  Tears gathered in Susan’s eyes, and she bit her lip to stop herself from speaking.

  “He was so quiet I think he would have liked to speak with me in more depth but we were surrounded by people in the drawing room and so he could not. He is so upset, though.”

  “Yes.” Susan breathed. The image of Henry’s eyes and the emotion they’d held displayed in her mind’s eye. He had look
ed lost outside in the rose garden.

  Her heart spread a soft ache through her chest, it felt the same as the soft ache in her thighs.

  “I wish I could do something for him,” Alethea said.

  Something. The word struck Susan. That was what she had said to Henry, and then they had done something to comfort him.

  Nausea turned over in her stomach. What would Alethea say if she knew?

  Alethea carried on whispering, talking about Henry and his family, and the others who had attended today.

  Susan whispered acknowledgements in return, but did not really talk, her mind and her body were too full of Henry. What was he thinking? Was he upset still? Did he regret what they’d done?

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Lord. Henry rolled on to his back. His head had a hammer bloody hitting it. He’d drunk himself into oblivion last evening. Once everyone had left he’d brought a fresh decanter to his room because he wished to drink alone, and not risk Percy or his father joining him and he’d drunk until he was too drunk to lift a glass.

  God what had he done? He could feel himself pressing into Susan’s body, the warmth of her, the softness of her receipt. He could smell the damned roses mingling with the scent of sex.

  He shut his eyes as he felt himself kissing her mouth, and his fingers invading her.

  Why had she let him do it for God sake? Because she loved him in return. There was no doubt of it, she would not have allowed if she did not.

  Damn.

  His hand was on Samson’s ear; his fingers began idly stroking the dog as the thoughts span around in his head.

  She had been mad.

  He had been mad—and intoxicated.

  And the foolish woman had allowed it when she had denied their future. He’d forced her hand now.

  Damn.

  What a bastard. You utter bastard.

  He opened his eyes, pushed Samson, so the dog jumped off the bed, then threw back the covers and walked across the room to open the shutters and let the daylight in. The sun was high. It was probably already midday. Samson yawned behind him, then began to whimper in a need to be let out.

  Damn. What must she be thinking?

  She’d be cursing him.

  He turned away and walked over to a chest of drawers, then pulled out fresh clothes and found out his riding boots. There was clarity in his mind, certainty.

  None of his family were in the halls he walked through, with Samson at his heel, and he did not go in search of them he imagined today they would mostly keep to themselves. Percy would look after the boys, and the girls had each other.

  All would be quiet now the funeral was over. They could live here in peace for a week or so, wallowing in their sorrow. Then the boys would go back to school and normal life would begin again, although the family would remain in their blacks.

  He lifted a hand to a footman who had passed him and stopped to bow. “Here,” he pointed at the dog, “Take Samson outside, and then to the kitchens.” The man gripped Samson’s collar and held him as Henry walked on, to the tune of Samson’s barked complaints.

  He should have complained to Susan like that, barking his sorrow and disagreement. To hell with sacrifice.

  He did not walk out through the front door but made his way to the door that led out to the stables.

  “The stallion!” he called to a groom in the courtyard. The man turned around and walked ahead of Henry to fetch the animal Henry had been riding during his stay.

  Henry lifted off his hat and tapped it against his leg as he waited in the middle of the busy area. The carriage they’d used yesterday were being cleaned and polished. He could not look at it, he did not want any memory of yesterday.

  His gloved fingers ran over his hair as he watched the activity about him, as a couple of the grooms returned riding his sisters’ horses that had been taken out for exercise.

  The stallion was led out from its stall, saddled and ready for Henry to ride. He walked over to the groom, took the reins, then led the horse to the mounting block, climbed the steps there, then swung his leg over and sat astride the saddle. His feet settled into the stirrups.

  “Thank you,” he said to the groom, then to the horse he said, “Go on.” He struck his heels against its flanks and rocked his hips forward encouraging it to walk until they were out of the stable yard. Then he lifted up setting the horse into a trot with his rise and fall movement as he steered it on to the drive and past the house. He pressed his weight into the stirrups and his knees against the horse, and lifted off the saddle to set the animal into a canter along the avenue of tall horse-chestnut trees.

  To reach the Forths’ the best way to go was along the road. He did not try to gallop, but cantered the horse all of the way to the Forths’, finally turning off the road and along the drive which passed the fields where the stud horses grazed. Some of the mares whinnied as the stallion trotted past but Henry held its head hard to stop any nonsense in reply.

  When he reached the house a groom appeared and came to hold the horse as Henry dismounted. “Thank you.”

  The gravel crunched beneath his boots as he walked to the door and a cuckoo called from somewhere in the trees behind the house.

  Apt.

  Henry lifted off his hat as he walked the last few paces. His other hand ruffled his hair.

  When he reached the door it opened before he could knock.

  He looked at the footman, it was not a man he knew, and probably therefore not a servant who knew him. “Is Lord Forth at home. I am Lord Henry Marlow.”

  “Yes, my Lord,” the man bowed. “Would you wait here a moment.”

  “I wish to speak with him privately,” Henry said before the man turned away.

  “Yes, my Lord.”

  He stepped inside. Whenever he’d called at the Forths it had been to a welcome of Alethea running downstairs, or Aunt Julie rushing into the hall to embrace him, but he’d never arrived when he’d not been expected before.

  “Henry!”

  He looked up to see Susan leaning over the bannister of the landing above him. Then she was hurrying down the stairs. She wore dark blue, a colour which set off the fascinating quality of her eyes. Her beauty gripped tightly about his heart as it had done every time he’d looked at her yesterday. This had become a rushed thing, but he was not going to feel guilt for it, nor regret, it was right for them.

  She stopped before him, her gaze questioning and a blush colouring her skin. “What are you doing here?”

  He would have held her hands but he still had a hold of his hat and wore his riding gloves. “I have come to speak to your father.”

  “About wha… Oh no. No, Henry.”

  “There is no choice now, Susan.” He did grip her hand then, before it could lift and lay against her bosom in a gesture of shock, he held it firmly too. “You cannot complain nor disagree I am fixed on this, after yesterday there is no other choice. You think of Alethea, you think of me, you worry over all of us, trying to stop us all from feeling pain, but in that commitment to concern, you forget yourself.”

  “But Alethea…”

  “Damn Alethea. She will manage well enough. It is you I care for. There might be consequences, and if there are no physical consequences then there will be sadness regardless. I will not allow it. I had thought I was hurting you less by letting you walk away but that is hurting you too, and me. Let us have each other. Let us be happy. Alethea will find her happiness too in another way. Please…”

  “I do not—”

  “My Lord.” The footman reappeared and interrupted her outcry.

  Henry let go of Susan’s hand and turned.

  “Lord Forth asked me to bring you to the library.”

  “Thank you.” He looked back at Susan only for an instant, then followed the footman, as though he did not know where the library was. When they reached the open door the man stepped out of his way. Henry walked past then shut the door.

  “Uncle Casper,” he said in greeting when he tur
ned and looked across the room.

  “Henry… What might I do for you? Can I be of some help?”

  “I have not come to ask for help, but to ask for something else, Uncle.” Henry set his upturned hat down on a side table, then stripped off his gloves and threw them into his hat. His hands were damned well shaking, but whether it was nerves or a hang-over from yesterday’s liquor he did not know.

  “What is it you need?”

  Henry walked across the room, Uncle Casper was still sitting behind his desk. “I wish to ask for the hand—”

  “Now, Henry?” Uncle Casper stood up, the surprise twitching his pale moustache and distorting his brow. “I am sure Alethea is willing to wait, if—”

  Henry swallowed hard against what felt like cowardice in his throat. “Not Alethea’s. I wish to ask you for Susan’s hand.”

  “Susan…” Uncle Casper walked about the desk, his expression now declaring that he was entirely perplexed.

  “Yes, sir. Susan.” He did not think it necessary to explain, it was just a fact. He loved one sister and not the other. Not the one they had tried to force upon him.

  “Is she aware of this?” Uncle Casper’s eyebrows lifted in punctuation of his shock.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Good Lord,” he leant back against the desk. “And Alethea?”

  “She is not aware. I have not had opportunity to discuss my feelings with her.”

  “Well, this is going to be a to do then is it not?”

  “I know, I am sorry for that, but I cannot help what I feel for Susan.” Henry’s voice was deep and his throat dry, as the emotion stacked so tightly beneath his skin that if he let himself yield to it he might go literally mad. The snake would be back about him soon.

  Uncle Casper nodded, his gaze looking into nowhere as though he was thinking about the consequences.

  It would mean a lot of upset, both in Susan’s family and his, but there was nothing to be done to avoid it, he had been reckless again and they both had to face the consequence of that. But he refused to regret it. He had wanted this, and so had Susan, even though she had not admitted it. She had admitted it on the grass in the rose garden through her silence.