Page 1 of The Reckless Love of an Heir (The Marlow Family Secrets #4)

The carriage passed between the large stone lions that held the shields engraved with the Barrington coat of arms and entered the Farnborough Estate through the open wrought-iron gates.

Henry sighed heavily and removed his foot from the opposite seat of his father’s carriage.

The carriage had been sent to town to collect him, on his request.

Pain shot from his right shoulder down to the elbow that was held bent within a sling. His left hand lifted and braced the shoulder.

The damn thing killed. He would be glad to get out of this carriage. Each rut in the road had jolted his arm.

He’d dislocated the shoulder in a fall from his curricle and sprained his wrist. Besides acquiring several bruises, the bloody thing made it impossible to dress or shave himself and he was equally unable to ride a horse, or drive his curricle.

He’d been told by the surgeon in London he must wear the sling for a month while his shoulder healed, and so he had chosen to come home; at least there he would have his father’s valet and his mother and sisters to look after him .

He picked up his hat from the far seat, using his good hand, and put it on as the carriage passed the gate house then began its journey along the winding avenue. The tall horse-chestnut trees on either side were covered in pillars of white spring blossom.

Henry looked into the distance, between the trees, trying to catch the first glimpse of the house.

Home. He felt a pull from it, a tug at the far end of what had once been a leading rein.

The land and property that would one day be his had a place in his heart that inspired pride and affection.

Yet, he was equally happy when he was away from it.

Since he resided in London, life had opened doors and windows he’d not seen through before.

He did not regret moving there at all. Once he’d finished at Oxford, it would have been hideous here.

The restrictions his father and mother would have set over his life if he’d returned to Farnborough would have been unbearable, he would have reverted to their coddled child.

In London he could do as he wished, without judgement.

There.

He saw the house.

Farnborough House was caught in a ray of sunlight that broke through the grey clouds which dulled the carriage throughout his journey.

The modernised medieval property had a particular charm, and it did tug at his heart, regardless of his lack of regret over leaving it and the childhood he’d known here behind.

That tug became an overwhelming sense of coming home when the carriage passed through the archway beneath the ancient portcullis of the original castle.

This was the oldest part of the house. In the courtyard, the sounds of the horses’ hooves and the iron-rimmed carriage wheels rang on the cobble with metallic echoes bouncing from the walls of the house, spurring more emotions.

The sounds were not the same in the Georgian terraces of London.

Before the carriage even drew to a halt, the aged oak front door opened and his sisters spilled out, surrounded by his father’s giant grey deerhounds and followed by his mother – there was another pull in his chest. Love.

He loved his family, no matter that he had left them behind.

It had been easier to leave them because he always knew when he needed them, they were here.

The dogs’ tails waved in the air like flags of welcome, as they surrounded the carriage.

A footman moved before the women to open the carriage door. Henry climbed down, gripping the carriage frame with his left hand, trying not to move his right arm, because the thing still hurt like the devil from all the damned jolts it had endured on the journey.

The noise of the fountain running in the centre of the courtyard became the overwhelming sound of home.

Samson, his favourite among his father’s dogs, slipped his head beneath Henry’s good hand, urging Henry to pet him. He stroked behind Samson’s ear in an idle gesture, recalling the years spent with his father’s dogs.

His mother came forward, her arms lifting to embrace him.

‘Mama,’ he acknowledged as she gently wrapped her arms about him.

He gritted his teeth, trying not to wince, as she held him too tightly. He pulled away. ‘My shoulder.’ The pain was sharp and twisted nausea through his stomach as well as shooting pain down his arm and across his back.

‘Oh, I am sorry. Are you so badly hurt? You have had your father and I worried beyond measure.’

‘How far did you fall?’ Christine, his youngest sister, asked.

She was not the youngest of his siblings, though.

He had two sisters but his brothers outnumbered them two to one.

Fortunately the younger ones were away at school and not here to disturb him.

The eldest, Percy, the next to Henry in age was twenty and at university in Oxford. Christine was seventeen.

‘Too far,’ Henry said.

‘Were you winning the race?’

His good arm settled about Christine’s shoulders, in brotherly comradery, as they walked towards the house, the dogs with them. ‘Of course. Do you not remember? I always win.’

Sarah, who was eighteen, and due to have her come out in London in a few weeks, was walking ahead of him. She looked over her shoulder and smiled. ‘I sent a groom over to the Forths’s to tell Alethea you are home. She wished to know as soon as you arrived so she might call and see you at once.’

Henry smiled. God bless Alethea… He would be required to feel guilty within the hour then.

They were not officially engaged, yet that outcome was an unspoken agreement cooked up almost from their births.

A plan formed between his father and hers.

Uncle Casper, Lord Forth, owned a neighbouring estate.

After Henry’s birth Lord and Lady Forth had been blessed with a daughter, and – probably even while wetting Alethea’s head – it became their parents’ perfect plan to match the two.

The expectation placed upon him had been talked about as far back as he could remember.

He’d never disagreed, nor disliked the idea, it was simply that he had not yet gone along with the plot and said the words to seal the agreement.

He had no intention of doing so during this visit home either.

His marriage could wait. He was currently very much enjoying his bachelorhood and he was only three and twenty, it was too bloody young to betroth himself .

‘I am sure you need to sit down,’ his mother said. ‘You must be tired. Is it painful still? It must be. Have you taken laudanum?’

‘I took some when I last stopped, but it is not intolerable, you need not fuss.’ Yet he had come home because he knew they would fuss and he was in a self-indulgent mood. It did hurt, and his mother’s concern was the best balm – for a spoilt son.

He smiled at his rumination and allowed Christine to take hold of his good hand and pull him over the threshold of the house.

The square hall welcomed him, with its wide oak staircase that wrapped itself about the walls, leading, seemingly, forever upward in an angular ascent. He loved the house. It smelled the same – of polished wood, candle wax and his mother’s perfume.

Christine tugged his hand and pulled him on, not to his father’s stately drawing room in one of the more recently built wings of the house, but to their smaller family drawing room.

The dark oak panelling and the window full of Elizabethan lead-lined diamonds made it seem austere, yet to Henry it induced that final sense of being home more than any other place in the house.

He sat down on a sofa upholstered in a gold velvet. The room brought back numerous happy memories of his childhood. This was where he spent his days when he was young, playing and laughing, and many evenings too when he’d returned from school for the holidays?—

‘Must your arm remain in the sling always?’ Christine asked.

‘Always, for a few weeks.’

She made a face at him. ‘You knew what I meant.’

‘You should see my shoulder and my arm, then you would have cause to make a disgusted face. I am black and every shade of red and yellow.’ His hip was black too, and half his leg, and elsewhere there were other bruises.

He had truly shaken himself up. He nearly broke his arm, but he had also nearly broken his neck.

It was the thought he might not have survived that shook him up.

He had been living carelessly, but the fall had made him consider what he had done with his life.

If he had died, he would have left no legacy.

He had spent his years recklessly so far, and now he had been given a second chance at life, he supposed.

‘Do you wish for tea and cake? You must be hungry…’ His mother did not await his answer but turned and pulled the cord to call for a maid. ‘And if you need to rest,’ she said when she turned back, ‘you are in your old rooms.’

It would be as though he never left home. He smiled. He had needed a sanctuary, and comfort, and he knew his mother and sisters were ready to offer both. ‘Thank you, Mama.’

He moved to London to escape her mollycoddling, yet now he had received a hard dose of fate’s medicine he realised at times it had a value. His low spirit craved it.

‘Here.’ Sarah picked up a cushion from another chair, as Samson settled down at Henry’s feet and rested his head on Henry’s boot as he’d always done.

His tail thumped on the floor as it continued to wag.

The other dogs lay down on the hearth rug, their eyes on the returned prodigal son. ‘Sit back, Henry. Rest against this.’

Christine picked up a cushion too. ‘You may rest your arm on here.’

They arranged the cushions about him so he might sit more comfortably. Then Christine fetched a footstool for him.

He was being truly pampered. It had been a very good decision to return.

‘Mama! Mama! ’

Susan looked at her sister as Alethea hurried into the drawing room, waving a letter.