Page 22 of The Reckless Love of an Heir (The Marlow Family Secrets #4)

When the day of Sarah’s debut ball arrived, Susan encouraged the maid to dress her hair in a complex style that would take time. Every moment she could delay, she wished to delay. She had considered feigning a headache all day, but Alethea knew her too well and would know it was feigned.

As the maid dressed her hair, Susan heard Henry telling her how pretty her hair had looked at her parents’ ball.

She had not seen him for a week. He had called daily, to visit Alethea, but on every occasion Susan found a reason to escape the drawing room before he entered.

Even when he arrived with Harry, William or another of Harry’s cousins, she presumed to entertain her while he spoke to Alethea, she excused herself with one reason or another.

She certainly did not need Henry interfering with her life and deciding who she should converse with while he ignored her.

Yet when he and Alethea married, and her father passed away, Henry could order her life as he wished because she would rely on him for her food and the roof over her head. That thought had become unbearable. She could not live with them. Not now.

For years, she had accepted her future would be spinsterhood – a life dependent on her father then Henry. Nausea spun through her stomach. Her future had to change. She had to consider marriage. She had to find a husband.

There was a knock on the door. It opened and Alethea swept in, looking beautiful as she always did. She was wearing a pale, almost luminous, grey. It made her eyes shimmer and the colour a dozen times more striking.

Susan was wearing a lime green. It was a very unusual colour for her, that her mother had persuaded her to buy. It would make her stand out in the ballroom; she had not minded at the time, but today she did not wish to draw attention.

‘Oh.’ Alethea stopped and stared at her. ‘My goodness. You look… wonderful. I have never seen you look so well. Who would have thought such a vibrant colour would suit you, but with your brown hair and pale eyes… You look magnificent.’

‘Thank you,’ she said, though, she did not want to look magnificent today. She would rather be obscure. Yet, if she must find a husband perhaps it was a good thing.

‘But take your spectacles off. You cannot wear them with your hair dressed, they make the whole thing look silly.’

Alethea reached out, took Susan’s spectacles off and handed them to the maid, who bobbed a curtsy. Then, Alethea took Susan’s hand and led her from the room.

Downstairs, two footmen waited in the hall, with their shawls. Susan shivered as the man draped hers across her shoulders, but not because she was cold.

‘Susan.’ Her father offered his arm.

When they sat in the carriage, travelling the short distance to Uncle Robert’s town house, she shut her eyes, as if by doing so she could hide from all that might come.

How would she choose a husband? How might she find someone who would like the things she liked? Someone whom she might talk to. Someone who would make her feel comfortable.

The thought of marriage terrified her more than seeing Henry. Her heartbeat quickened the closer she came to his home.

When their carriage reached Bloomsbury Square it stopped at the end of a queue of carriages, and the patter of rainfall joined the rhythm of her heart. The shower became heavier, hammering upon the carriage roof as the other carriages deposited their guests at the door and theirs crept along.

Nausea turned Susan’s stomach over. She pulled her shawl a little tighter about her, then her fingers played with its fringe while they awaited their turn.

As they reached the house, her heartbeat leapt into a rhythm of panic she could hear pounding in her ears.

She could not do this, she wished to turn about and run – to scream take me home.

The rain continued its drum beat on the carriage roof as a footman opened the door and her father climbed out.

Her mother and Alethea alighted, and as her mother and Alethea ran up the steps and into the house, their shawls held over their heads to protect their hair, she took her father’s hand and stepped down onto the pavement. Her father quickly led her up the steps to the open front door.

When she walked into the hall, she was greeted with the sight of Henry holding Alethea’s hand and pressing it against his lips.

‘Susan!’ Sarah called across the hall and waved her forward.

It was a bizarre scene. Guests milled about everywhere, stripping off damp hats, coats and shawls, which the footmen took away by the armful.

Susan’s father lifted off her damp shawl and handed it to a footman, before Susan walked across to Sarah, avoiding Henry and Alethea. The notion of a receiving line had obviously been thwarted by the sudden rain as many women disappeared to the withdrawing room for help to redress their hair.

Sarah clasped Susan’s hands excitedly. The rain had perhaps made this more of an adventure. ‘I am so glad you are here. You look beautiful, I have not seen you without your spectacles before, and your hair…’

Susan made a tutting sound. ‘Pah! You cannot make a fuss over me. Look at you, you look magnificent. Congratulations, you must be so excited. Are you all prepared?’

‘The rain has turned everything into a shambles, but Papa said he shall tell the orchestra to begin the dancing soon, and things will settle down when the guests have all arrived.’

‘Well, you must enjoy your evening and we will not allow the rain to dampen anyone’s spirits.’

Sarah smiled.

Susan bobbed a quick, shallow curtsy towards Aunt Jane and then moved on into the ballroom, having successfully avoided a single word with Henry.

She swallowed against a dry throat as she walked across the room alone.

There were only a small number of people, and they were gathered in groups about the edges of the room.

Even through her clouded vision she managed to recognise Uncle Edward, Aunt Ellen, Helen and Jennifer, and joined them. ‘Good evening.’

‘Hello, Susan, dear,’ Aunt Ellen started. ‘I take it you are not alone?’ It was said with jest .

‘Mama and Papa, and Alethea, are in the hall drying off and greeting others.’

Aunt Ellen smiled. ‘We were here for dinner, and so we were fortunate enough not to earn ourselves a soaking.’

‘Here we are, lemonade for you, Jennifer, and Helen…’ Susan turned. The Duchess of Pembroke held out glasses towards her sisters-in-law.

Susan smiled. ‘Hello, Katherine.’

‘Hello.’

‘Mama, your champagne.’ John, the Duke of Pembroke, held out a glass to his mother.

Susan smiled at him too. ‘Hello, Your Grace.’ She curtsied.

He smiled. ‘Susan. Would you like me to return to the refreshment table for you?’

‘No, I am not thirsty, but thank you.’ He was much older than her, yet she had known John, Henry’s eldest cousin, since she was an infant in the nursery.

He had a very officious manner at times, and there were too many years between them for her to have ever called him a friend, yet she had seen the man he was within his home when he shut the world outside and she was not cowed by his title.

He and Katherine and their children were charming.

The orchestra began to play the notes of a waltz.

Susan turned. Her mother and father were some of the first people to enter the room, drawn in by the introduction to a dance.

Alethea followed, she was speaking with another of Henry’s cousins, Mary, Aunt Ellen’s and Uncle Edward’s eldest daughter, who was already married too.

‘Drew and Mary have arrived. I was not sure they would be here, they always leave it so late to come to events,’ Aunt Ellen said, as though she had genuinely not expected them to come.

‘They prefer to be by themselves at home, Mama, that is all, and it is easy enough for them to travel up to town in a day,’ John replied.

‘Katherine, shall we join Henry and Sarah?’ John held out a hand to his wife.

Susan looked across the room. Henry stood in the middle of the floor holding Sarah’s hand.

He bowed to her before he formed the frame of a waltz.

There was a slight, dull applause which rippled around the room when they began dancing, as the gloved hands of the numerous friends, family and acquaintances within the room clapped.

John and Katherine began to dance too, then Aunt Ellen and Uncle Edward, and Susan saw her parents join others on the floor as the number of couples swelled.

She recognised many of them as friends of her parents, and others as people she had been introduced to for the first time at her parents’ ball.

‘Hello, Susan, shall we dance?’

She turned to face Peter Sparks, the son of another of her parents’ friends. She had also known Peter since childhood. Though, she had not seen Peter for a couple of years. He looked at her expectantly and lifted his hand higher. ‘Will you dance with me, then?’

She nodded. ‘Yes, thank you, Peter.’ She was more than glad to move away from the wall and let the music flow through her.

She held his offered hand.

When they began to dance, he said, ‘Susan, you are all grown up, and very beautiful. I did not even recognise you. William told me who you were when I asked. Will you let me claim the supper dance too?’

She nodded. A strange sensation was clogging up her throat.

Henry had passed behind them, his gaze fully focused on Sarah.

He had not looked at her, yet the sight of his hand on Sarah’s back reminded her of the sensation of his thumb brushing the curve of her spine.

Peter’s hand did not feel the same, and his eyes were blue, when they ought to be brown.

Yet if she was to find a husband she must give herself a wide choice; it was a man’s manner that was important, not his looks or his height.