Page 23 of The Reckless Love of an Heir (The Marlow Family Secrets #4)

After dancing with Peter, she danced with William, then Fred, and Greg, and all of Harry’s cousins who had come.

Though, Harry was not there, he had returned to his regiment.

Introductions to their friends then expanded her group of dance partners, who clustered about her, as gentlemen normally clustered about Alethea.

When the supper dance began it was one after midnight, and her feet were sore from dancing. She was ready for a rest but there was one more dance. She accepted Peter’s offered arm for the country dance with a smile, and skipped through it, enjoying it despite her aching feet.

After the dance he walked her through to the dining room to collect a plate of food for their supper.

Then they found a spot among his friends.

She refused to look about the room for Henry, or Alethea, as she assumed they would be together.

Henry had not come near her and she did not wish to be near him. It would do her no good.

She was the only woman at her table and at moments it was intimidating to be among such a group of vibrant men, as they debated with each other in loud voices and laughed. But she ignored her sense of reservation – she knew them – and if she was to find a husband…

When the supper break ended, and the music began, she walked back into the ballroom on the arm of one of Peter’s friends, for the next dance.

As they passed the table where Henry and Alethea sat, she could not help but look.

He was sitting beside Alethea, with Sarah too, and a man Susan assumed was Sarah’s dance partner.

John and Katherine, and Mary and Drew sat with them. Couples.

Henry glanced at her, as though he sensed her watching.

She looked away.

Her heart pulsed in a steady beat while she danced the next country dance, as she fought not to recall the instant of communication she had shared with Henry before the dance began.

How could he invade her thoughts and senses so easily, and fully? Others did not.

‘Susan.’

She turned and faced Henry as the dance came to its end; she had barely stopped moving. Heat flaring in her skin, and her breath sticking in her throat, she could not reply.

There was a frown of determination marking his brow, and his lips were pursed with intent. ‘I would ask you to dance the next with me, but I would guess your feet are aching, and so instead I shall ask, would you care to sit the next dance out beside me?’

‘What of Alethea?’ she asked as her previous partner left them.

‘She has a partner. She will be dancing.’

‘Henry—’

‘Do not deny me, you have spent a week avoiding me, you cannot do so forever.’

Avoiding him… He knew…

‘Susan…’ He offered his arm.

She nodded. She ought to feel pleased, jubilant. Instead tears gathered at the back of her throat and pressed behind her eyes, fighting to be freed. But she could not walk from the floor beside him crying. She blinked and swallowed.

Henry led her away from those forming sets for the next dance. ‘You have been playing your rebellious hiding games again. I’m tired of it.’ His voice was low and gruff.

She did not answer.

Did he know how deeply she felt?

He did not stop walking when they approached the edge of the ballroom but walked about others, drawing her onwards, and then out into the hall.

‘Henry…’ She pulled against the hand that held hers. No one was in the hall, but this was wrong. They should surely not leave the ballroom.

She pulled his arm, but he laid his hand over hers and refused to let her stop him.

‘What will people say? Take me back.’

‘If they say anything I shall tell them you felt faint and needed a moment to rest.’

‘I have never felt faint in my life?—’

‘There is a first time for everything.’

Her breathing fractured as he opened the door to a room she had never entered before. It was a study, not a large room, and clearly not a room for guests, which is why she would never have been invited into it before.

The sound of her heartbeat filled her ears.

‘We need to talk,’ he said, when he pulled her in. He let go of her hand then shut the door.

He was right, they must talk, to dispel the humid air flowing between them. She could barely breathe, and yet what was to be said? Not the truth, she could not tell him the truth. So there was nothing to be said. How could she speak? He is Alethea’s!

He stood still before her, his eyes seeming to say all the words her lips had not. Then he stepped forward.

‘Susan. I swear to God you are the most beautiful woman in that room this evening.’ His hands lifted and embraced either side of her face, then he brought her forward as he leaned down.

His lips pressed onto hers as her fingers clasped about his wrists, holding on to stop herself from falling. Perhaps she would faint.

His lips were warm and soft and they pressed over hers again and again.

It was not a quick gentle meeting of lips, as he’d kissed Alethea outside the house at home.

He kissed Susan’s lips and then the skin beside her lips, and the skin across her cheek.

‘Susan.’ He breathed her name against her temple, then wrapped his arms about her.

She lay her head against his shoulder, and wrapped her arms about his middle, allowing this to happen for a moment, allowing herself to live out everything she felt and had dreamed of.

His fingers touched beneath her chin and lifted her face again, and his lips were once more on hers.

He feels as I do. The words cried out within her. She had not imagined the connection pulling at her. It was real and mutual.

She opened her mouth to take a breath, with her eyes shut as her fingers closed, holding the material of his evening coat at his shoulder and sleeve.

His tongue dipped into her mouth, reaching to touch hers.

‘Oh.’

Her mouth opened wider. His palm braced the back of her neck, with great care and gentleness, as though not to disturb her hair, while his other hand rested at her waist. She pressed against him as his tongue slid into her mouth then withdrew and slipped deeper again.

Pleasant, pleasurable sensations skimmed through her nerves and danced in her blood as she clung to his evening coat, and his tongue wove a caress around hers.

Is this what love feels like?

But she could not fall in love with him.

Yet nothing within her wished to stop .

He sighed out a breath into her mouth, then broke the kiss and rested his forehead against hers. He breathed heavily as his fingers gently stroked the back of her neck.

He had brought her here to talk, but not spoken bar saying her name, and telling her she was beautiful.

If she said anything it ought to be to tell him to stop.

This was wrong.

She said nothing. She did not want their moment together to end.

‘We should go back. The dance will have ended,’ he said. ‘We will be missed.’

She nodded – dazed and shocked by her submission, and the intensity of her response.

He held her arm gently and led her out into the hall, still silent. They had kissed, they had not spoken.

‘Henry…’ She stopped beside the stairs and turned to face him.

‘Not tonight. Not now, Susan. We will talk tomorrow.’

Had he dragged her out here only to kiss her? A million questions began forming in her head as two women walked out from the ballroom.

She glanced across her shoulder. She did not know them, and if Henry did, he did not acknowledge them. But their presence meant she could not ask the questions she needed answers to.

She looked into his brown eyes and saw a depth in them she had never seen before.

‘Tomorrow, Susan. Take my arm.’

Her fingers wrapped about his forearm, and they walked back into the ballroom. What if someone had noticed them leave? What if Alethea had seen? Where would she say she had been? What would she say they had done?

‘Shall I take you to Uncle Casper and Aunt Julie? ’

‘Yes,’ she said, as she exhaled. Every muscle seemed to tremble as they crossed the ballroom. What if someone asked him where they had been and he said something different from her?

He led her towards the corner of the room where her parents stood. It was not only her parents there but his, and as they she neared them, Alethea joined them on the arm of the Earl of Stourton.

‘Forgive me. Excuse me. I need the retiring room…’ She let go of Henry’s arm and turned away, not waiting for his acknowledgement.

When she walked back across the ballroom to the hall, she felt as though everyone watched and knew what she had allowed to happen.

She wove a path through the crowd at the edge of the floor, turning from side to side as couples moved to join the next dance.

Then in the hall, her heart racing, and breaths hurried, she walked quickly to the stairs and climbed them as fast as she could, terrified someone, Henry, or Alethea, might have followed her.

When she reached the busy retiring room, she dropped down into a seat before a mirror on a dressing table. The maids fussed over other women in the room, pinning up fallen hair and mending torn hems.

Susan stared at her reflection. She should look different. There should be some sign… But there was none. Except perhaps her lips were a little redder and fuller. Her fingertips touched them.

She had kissed Henry.

It was reckless. Madness…

Why had he done it? Why had she? She wished to scream at herself. There was no justification for her behaviour .

Rebellious . He had called her that weeks ago… She had not believed what he said – until tonight. She was cruel. Wicked. A horrible person. She should go home to Yorkshire – banish herself.

Tears pressed at the back of her eyes, and gathered again as a lump in her throat.

She swallowed them away, then used a little powder on her face to bring down her colour before adding some rouge on her lips and cheeks.

If her redness looked false it would at least hide the guilt cutting her in half.

When she returned to the ballroom she forced her lips into a smile as she walked towards her parents – and his parents. Alethea was dancing. Susan’s gaze instinctively searched for Henry as she sat down in a chair near her mother.

He was dancing with Sarah.

I have kissed him . The words repeated within her head a dozen times.

‘Here.’ Her father held out a glass of punch for her.

She looked up. ‘Thank you.’

‘You look unwell…’

‘I am well, Papa, it is only that it is getting late and I am tired.’

‘Then we will not wait until the breakfast refreshments but leave soon.’

‘I cannot drag Alethea away…’ She could not speak Alethea’s name without her heart screaming her shame and guilt.

‘She has had three quarters of the night to enjoy herself, the loss of an hour or two of dancing will not harm her, and there will be two dozen more balls to attend before we return home.’

‘Thank you, Papa.’

When Susan lay in bed later and shut her eyes she felt the pressure of Henry’s lips, and her lips pressing back and opening then their tongues dancing. She did not sleep.

The next morning she rose at eleven, tired, with dark circles beneath her eyes.

Alethea was still in bed, as was their mother, but their father had risen and gone out riding.

He would probably not return until much later, and probably then go to his club.

So, Susan ate breakfast alone, but she merely nibbled on dry toast, her stomach was too busy dancing waltzes to eat, as she thought of Henry.

At eleven thirty, a bouquet of roses arrived for Alethea, with a card. The footman brought them to Susan as Alethea had not yet woken. The handwriting on the card declared the flowers were from Henry.

‘Put them in a vase in the hall for now,’ she said. ‘Then take them to Miss Alethea’s room when she wakes.’

‘And there is this for you, ma’am.’ He held out a letter. She took it and looked at the words written across the front.

Miss Susan Forth.

That too was written in Henry’s hand.

‘Thank you.’ She dismissed the footman, rose from the table, went into the hall and climbed the stairs, her heart racing wildly.

As soon as she closed the door of her bedchamber she leaned back against the wood and broke the seal. Henry hadn’t used a crest, but if Alethea had seen the letter she would have recognised his writing.

Dear Susan,

I wish to see you today. Will you escape the house?

Say you are shopping for books so Alethea will not want to join you.

I will wait in Bond Street outside Faulder’s bookstore, at No.

42, from one o’clock until two. If we meet there, if anyone sees us, they will assume it is only chance.

But please come without Alethea so we may talk.

H

H… Henry.

What had he said on Alethea’s card? Susan wished to run downstairs and open it, but that would break every rule of everything that was right. She had already broken enough rules. She should not meet him.

But her heart longed to see his face, to hear him speak – to understand.

He must know she would have seen the flowers. Why would he send Alethea flowers and ask to meet her?

Because he was reckless, careless and self-centred, and…

Then the answer was certainly no. She should not go to Bond Street. She must not lie to her sister or her mother. She could not continue this deceit.

Oh. Why did that decision cause so much pain in her heart?

A part of her hated Henry again.