Page 13 of The Reckless Love of an Heir (The Marlow Family Secrets #4)

‘What did Henry speak to you about outside?’ their father asked Alethea as soon as the carriage door closed.

A tension had lingered throughout the evening because they had assumed Henry intended to propose and he had not.

Susan’s father had grumbled about that boy during their journey here, and now it seemed he would continue the same theme of conversation all the way home.

‘He asked me to wait a year, and then he said he will propose.’

‘Indeed,’ their father snorted.

‘It is the most direct he has been, is it not?’ Susan tried to instil a sense of progression.

‘It is, and we agreed I might go to town for the season. He suggested it. May we go, Papa?’

Their father nodded. ‘Well, that is at least something.’ His fingers twisted the end of his curled moustache, as they always did when he was mulling over some thought.

‘The season is only a few weeks away,’ Susan’s mother responded.

‘We will have to prepare. I shall send word to the housekeeper to remove the dust sheets in the town house. We must hold a ball. You must have a presentation to gather introductions. You will not be invited anywhere without introductions.’

Neither Alethea nor Susan had been brought out into London society; it had seemed unnecessary because Alethea had an agreement with Henry, and Susan had never requested to go because she did not want to search for a husband.

But if her family were to go to London then she supposed she must go, and therefore also face introductions.

When Susan and Alethea were alone later, lying in bed beside one another, whispering through the darkness, Alethea told Susan more of the conversation she had shared with Henry.

‘You were right, though, it is the most direct he has been with me, and yet I feel as though he manipulates me. I told him I would not play his game any more. He said it is all to do with his feelings.’

‘I have always said he is selfish.’

‘I know, and I told him you have convinced me of it.’

‘What did he say?’

‘That you have always had very little tolerance for him and I should not allow your opinion to sway mine. But it is not your opinion that is changing mine, it is him. I have told him I will go to town, but if another man courts me I will let him. I have not promised to wait a year.’

Susan smiled into the darkness. ‘Was he suitably sent into a terror at the thought of losing you?’

‘I am not sure he even cares. He asked me if I love him, but he did not say he loves me.’

‘ What is the level of Alethea’s attachment to me? ’ He had asked Susan that too. ‘Did you say you loved him?’

‘No. That would have been utter folly when he is dangling me like this. ’

‘Do you love him?’

‘I do not know. I admire him greatly, he is very handsome, and I like his manner, but I am not sure how deep being in love feels… I am not sure if I would even know. How do people know?’

Susan had no answer.

When the girls and his mother retired, his father asked Henry to sit with him in the library. Henry knew immediately what would come next. As soon as the library door closed, Henry’s father asked, ‘What did you say to Alethea outside?’

He was too old for this. ‘Is it any of your business, Papa?’

‘I am hoping it might be. Would you like a glass of brandy?’

‘Yes.’ If he must endure this.

His father turned to pour it. Henry leaned on the back of a leather chair, gripping its top with his good hand.

‘So what did you say? When is this proposal coming? It was clear tonight, that Casper had expected it today. I think he is becoming as impatient with you as I am. Is Alethea?’

His father turned, holding two full glasses, walked over and handed one to Henry.

‘Thank you.’

‘Well?’ His father looked him in the eye, and his eyebrows lifted, in the way he had of reprimanding while smiling. His father was hard to read at times.

He waited for Henry to speak.

Henry was not inclined to, yet his father continued to wait.

Henry had borne numerous interviews such as this over his years both at Eton, and then Oxford.

He had regularly been in trouble as a boy, and then as a young man.

His father’s way had never been to shout but merely to unnerve Henry, to make him feel guilty and accept the responsibility for his actions – it usually worked well enough.

Until he had returned to Eton or Oxford and then the interview and the guilt slipped from Henry’s mind.

Self-centred.

He refused to feel guilty now. ‘Alethea is ready to marry. I am not. I asked her to wait another year. She told me she may or may not wait. But she is to come to town for the season where she will consider my request, and other men.’

His father laughed, then smiled and shook his head. ‘She is a good woman for you, Henry. It is not that we wish to force you, it is just she is?—’

‘Eminently suitable and conveniently close. I know. And charming, sweet and pretty?—’

‘That was not what I was saying.’

Henry sipped his brandy.

‘If she is not your choice, Henry, she is not. It is only?—’

‘It would be such a perfect union, to join our families, when Uncle Casper has no son, and his land, on the border of ours, would pass to Alethea. I know.’

His father smiled again. ‘As you say, for all those reasons, and yet I do not wish either of you unhappy.’ His father took a sip of his brandy.

‘We shall suit. We do. It is merely that I do not wish to marry anyone yet. You did not marry Mama until you were much older, you cannot expect me to hurry into the shackles.’

‘You should not think of marriage as shackles if you wish to marry. I was desperate for your mother to marry me when I was younger than you. It did not happen and then I was even more desperate for her to accept me when I met her again.’ He gave Henry another direct, enquiring look, which could have been either anger or humour. ‘What do you feel for Alethea? ’

Bloody hell. ‘That is the question I asked her outside, what does she feel for me?’

‘What did she say?’

‘She did not answer.’

‘As you have not answered me.’

‘I will answer you. I care for Alethea. I am attracted to her. I am not sure if that is what you would define as love.’

His father sighed. ‘If it was love you would know.’ He looked down at his glass.

Henry drank the rest of his brandy, then put his empty glass on a table.

‘I do not believe it is love. But we ramble along well together, you know we do, and I think she feels as much for me as I feel for her. Perhaps while she is in town it will become love. You should not give up on your dream yet, but it shall not be fulfilled this year.’

His father drank the last of his brandy. Then picked up Henry’s empty glass. ‘Would you like another, and a game of backgammon, as I am unlikely to have your company for much longer?’

‘Yes, thank you.’ Henry turned and went over to the table to set up the game.

‘It has been nice to have you home, and a novelty to have you at home and not to be angered by you on a daily basis,’ his father said as he poured the brandy. ‘When do you take off the sling?’

He told his father.

‘And then… When will you leave?’

‘I will accompany you, Mama and Sarah to the assembly in York. I know that will please Sarah. Then return to town.’

‘To sow more oats in furrows I disapprove of.’

‘You can hardly judge. I am constantly hearing about your former reputation, even though I would rather not know it. ’

‘I did not entertain myself in brothels and consort with whores.’

‘No, you entertained yourself in bedchambers, and consorted with adulteresses and cuckolded a couple of hundred men in society. I think that is worse.’ Henry placed the counters on the board with his good hand. Then looked at his father.

His father’s eyebrows lifted again.

Henry laughed. ‘They are not facts I wish to know about my father, but in town they are facts everyone wishes to tell me.’

His father set their refilled glasses down on the table beside the board. ‘You know if Alethea discovered how you live… or even if Casper, or, God forbid, Julie?—’

‘Papa, I live as all young men live before they are wed. You cannot expect better of me than you did of yourself.’

His father huffed out a breath as he sat.

‘Except that I regret the way I lived. It brought me no happiness, as your mother will tell you. Given a chance to turn back time she and I would have married when we were young and I would have accepted the responsibility of supporting my father. I shall always consider my wild years as years I lost or threw away.’

‘Well, I am in my wild years, and I consider them precious. I am not you, and I am not throwing them away.’