Page 30 of The Reckless Love of an Heir (The Marlow Family Secrets #4)

While Alethea was introduced to Baron Stokes and his young wife, Susan looked beyond them into the ballroom.

It was full of people. Alethea had told her she did not think many of Henry’s friends were expected, they had remained in Brighton.

Her father had said the Duke of Pembroke was hosting a family dinner and so Uncle Robert, Aunt Jane, and most of her mother’s and father’s friends would not be in attendance.

She hoped the family dinner would keep Henry away too.

Her stomach rolled over in trepidation.

‘And this is my youngest daughter, Susan.’ Her father introduced her.

Susan curtsied as the Baron said, ‘Good evening.’ She curtsied again to his wife.

Her father touched Susan’s elbow and turned her away.

She faced the Earl of Stourton greeting Alethea.

He bowed deeply as he kissed the back of Alethea’s gloved fingers.

The invitation to this ball had only been accepted because the Earl of Stourton had encouraged it.

The Baron was his friend and the occupants of the ballroom those within his social circle.

Susan assumed their invitation had been sent on the Earl’s request.

It gave her more hope that Henry would not be here, perhaps he did not have an invitation.

Stourton led Alethea away. He was avidly courting her. There had been three posies from the Earl this morning, in different colours. As well as the one from Henry, which he seemed to have forgotten he was sending.

Oh, she had to stop thinking about him. She had been unable to do anything else but think of him since their carriage ride – no, since their kiss.

It was only that now the memories of their conversation outweighed the memories of his kisses.

She did not wish to think of him. Nothing might come of her thoughts or any feelings she had for him no matter what he said. She would not betray Alethea.

Yet you did! The accusation charged through her as it did each time any thoughts of Henry began circulating in her head. The kiss was a betrayal.

‘Lord Henry Marlow, my lord.’

Susan turned and looked back as she heard Henry announced to the Baron.

He was here.

Her heart leapt, skipping into a sharp beat – pleasure.

Happiness. It lanced through her, no matter that she knew she should not be happy to see him.

The emotions he stirred inside her would not be silenced.

It was the reason she had dreaded him coming, because she knew she would feel like this, and she was ashamed of it.

He bowed to the Baron and his wife, then turned in the direction of Susan’s father and mother with a smile. Her father smiled stiffly back. He was still angry with Henry.

Susan turned her back and watched the couples gathering for the next dance. If Henry spoke to her she would not know what to say.

Alethea’s gaze focused upon the Earl. They were not dancing, but standing together on the far side of the room. She had not noticed Henry’s arrival.

‘Uncle.’ Even his voice, as he acknowledged her father, sent tremors of emotion through Susan. It was a voice belonging to the man her heart craved, and when he spoke it called her to respond. She could not.

‘Have you come alone?’ her mother asked.

‘I have. Papa, Mama and the others are at John’s.’

He was alone. Had he come to battle Stourton for Alethea? Or to court her…

‘ I will tell Alethea tonight, I have decided against a match between her and I. ’

‘Good evening, Susan.’

She had no choice but to turn and answer Henry.

‘Henry.’ She nodded her head slightly in acknowledgement and gave him a very shallow curtsy, her gaze on his polished shoes, then she straightened and looked up into his brown eyes.

His eyes asked her a hundred questions, and they made it very clear he had not come to court Alethea. He had come to see her.

Heat bloomed in her cheeks as she looked at her father, guilt pointing its finger, as her thoughts betrayed Alethea.

‘Will you dance with me?’ Henry asked.

No . The word snapped through her mind because she could not trust herself. There was too much longing to dance with him in her heart. ‘Yes.’ She could not say no before her mother and father. There was no reason for her to refuse to dance with him.

He lifted his hand and she accepted it. Normally a man would have offered his arm, but they were only a few steps from the dance floor, and the dance was a waltz .

He held her hand in a way that seemed to say, I have you now , and when his arm came about her and his palm rested against her back, his embrace was protective.

The music began in full, flooding the air in the room. They had not spoken beyond their greeting and his request to dance with her. But what was there to say?

She looked across his shoulder as he turned her, and saw her parents enter the refreshment room.

Henry was looking at her, as she did all she could not to look at him.

Her stomach was a twisted knot of tangled threads.

There was nothing to be done. She was in love and there was nothing to be done.

She could not let things continue. There was no place in their situation for any feelings between them.

Did love die? Did it come to an end? Would her heart stop feeling as though someone had squeezed it so hard it was bruised and sore?

‘Susan…’ he said quietly as he continued to spin her about the floor.

She looked at him. The magnetic tug that had begun forming as a sympathetic pull was now a thick rope of longing coiling around her.

His eyes said everything that should not be said between them. She had called him self-centred and she had thought him shallow in his interests and his enthusiasm reckless and fleeting. The look in his eyes denied every one of those things. It promised forever.

She could not look away.

But she must walk away.

She would not dance with him again. But she would hold on to this memory and when she was old and her heart had become a dried-out, shrivelled thing, she would look back and remember this moment of happiness .

When the dance came to its conclusion and everyone spun to a halt, Henry’s hands let her go. She stepped back, falling out of a dream.

His hand cupped her elbow. ‘Shall we walk outside?’

That would be the most foolish thing to do. But Henry was reckless and she was heart-sore. She nodded. It was easier to admit in an action that she would betray Alethea again than to speak the word, yes .

They were only a few steps away from the doors. If it took more steps she might have come to her senses.

He opened the door, and the cool night air swept in.

It was still light; it was not even twilight yet.

Later, when the ballroom had been warmed by the exuberance of hours of dancing, all the French doors would be wide open and the terrace area would be full of people seeking fresh air, but this early there was no one else.

‘I do not know the Baron well and so I know his garden not at all,’ Henry whispered as the pressure of his grip on her elbow urged her on.

She glanced back at the windows behind them as they walked down a few steps and onto the lawn. She had not even looked to see if Alethea would notice them leave.

Henry did not allow her time to think, or change her mind. He kept her walking. ‘There must be somewhere private here.’

Where we might kiss… The thought whispered through her mind.

She was numb, she could not believe she was allowing this to happen a second time.

Yet she had dreamed of his kiss, thought about it every night when she had gone to bed – and if this was the last time she would let herself see him…

What would one more kiss that she might keep in her memory matter?

She’d al ready crossed this boundary. The betrayal was complete, repeating it would add nothing to her guilt.

‘There is a path here.’ His touch turned her towards an opening in the high yew hedge. It led onto a path which then turned to the left and ran between hedges, progressing further away from the house.

The sound of the music grew more distant as their steps crunched on the fine gravel.

‘Here.’ At the end of the path there was a stone arbour, with pillars and a stone seat. He did not sit down, but stood facing her.

His hand braced her nape and drew her closer.

She lifted her mouth, entirely compliant.

She had no urge to fight this, her heart was full with longing.

I love you . The words whispered through her soul when his lips hovered above hers. He breathed out. Then his lips pressed onto hers gently, without any sign of recklessness. She held his upper arms as she pressed her lips back against his tentatively. She knew nothing of how to do this.

With one hand still embracing her nape, his other came about her and rested against the curve of her lower back.

Her hands slid upwards and gripped his shoulders.

His tongue slipped through her lips. She caught it between her teeth softly then engaged in a circling dance, and when his tongue retreated, she chased it into his mouth. Then he sucked her tongue.

She was used to studying nature’s tiniest details, and now she felt every detail of her body’s response.

It ran into her blood and it made her muscles ache with a sweet pain as her body pressed against him of its own accord.

This was a physical choice, not a decision.

He had told her the truth if he felt the same.

Her arms wrapped about his neck as the skirt of her dress crushed against his thighs and her breasts brushed against his chest .

His hand slid from the small of her back to her bottom and pulled her tighter against him.

She was breathless and thirsty.

His other hand fell to clasp her bottom too and then she was leaning back against the cold stone wall of the arbour; the pressure of his fingers bracing her through her skirts and petticoats, squeezing her bottom as his kiss left her mouth and touched the skin along her jaw.