Page 34 of The Reckless Love of an Heir (The Marlow Family Secrets #4)

She left her paintbrush un-rinsed on the side, and the painting half complete, and took the letter to her room, where she put it in a drawer out of sight.

She would not write back. It would be utter folly to begin an exchange which could lead them to nothing other than more pain.

Ever since this foolishness had begun, her heart had gone out with a sense of pity to her sister, because she had taken what Alethea wanted – now it reached out to Henry. He sounded as though he hurt as much as she did.

Life was cruel. If only her father and his had not made their stupid agreement .

When she retired to bed later the letter whispered to her. Before she blew out her candle, she got up and re-read it. Then she fell asleep with it in her hand.

In the morning, she watched herself in the mirror as a maid helped her dress. The letter was back in hiding – just like her feelings.

But it had made her realise she could no more stay here than she’d been able to stay in London. Henry would return and their paths would cross again and again. And what then? She would be cut down with embarrassment, longing and guilt for the rest of her life.

Her only option was to find a teaching position in a school, or to become a governess.

After breakfast she wrote to her father and proposed the idea that she might find a position. It was better she did so with his consent.

Then after luncheon another letter arrived from London, from Alethea.

Dearest Susan,

I miss you so. I have no one to share my confidences with and Henry is being his usual distracting self.

He dances with me but he never sends me flowers now and he has become melancholy.

I call him miserable to his face. He merely gives me annoying pretend smiles.

I told him I shall choose the Earl of Stourton. He said he did not care.

I think he has changed, but he wrote to me yesterday and asked if I would ride out with him today because we needed to talk.

If it is to propose after his behaviour the last few nights I am of a mind to refuse him.

It is what he deserves. But in truth I still favour him over Lord Stourton.

I shall write more tomorrow before I post this, and tell you what Henry has said .

Susan looked up from the page and glanced out of the window into the distance, to the woodland on the border of her father’s land.

That woodland would one day be Henry’s.

A sharp blade pierced through her heart. She took a breath and looked back down. She had to learn to face her guilt, she would not estrange herself from her sister, or her sister’s words, because of her love for Henry. She could not lose her sister as well as him.

It is the next afternoon but I cannot tell you what Henry has said.

He cried off. But I will allow him that it was for a good reason, poor William has a fever and Uncle Robert was busy so Henry drove his mother to Eton.

They are to bring William home to recover.

Of course Henry was not at the ball last night either and so I danced with Lord Stourton, and do not tell Mama, for she was not counting, we danced thrice.

I may well come to favour him over Henry yet!

My blessings, dearest sister, I hope you feel better now you are home.

Alethea

Susan’s heart became a dead weight in her chest as she dropped the letter.

She looked through the window. It was a cool middling day, the sky was grey and the branches and leaves on the trees were being tossed about on a breeze.

Even so, she wished to be outside – to feel nature.

She needed a greater distraction from thought.

She went upstairs with the intention of fetching her cloak and going for a walk, but when she reached her room and looked out of the window the open grass meadows beckoned her.

She turned and pulled the cord to ring for a maid, and when the maid arrived she asked for help to dress in her riding habit.

She did not send word to the stables, but walked there, her legs kicking out the skirt of her habit as she hurried.

‘Where is my mare? Where is Copper?’ she asked as she walked into the stable yard.

‘In her stall, miss.’ One of the grooms pointed across the yard.

Copper’s chestnut head appeared over the lower gate of a stall in the far corner.

There was one wonderful thing about being the daughter of a horse breeder: she had a fabulous horse.

Papa had given Copper to her three years ago, and Susan was the only one who rode her, beyond the grooms.

Susan walked up to the stall and petted her. Copper was all sleek, muscular lines. She was beautiful.

Like Henry , Susan’s heart whispered.

‘Shall I ready her for you, miss?’

‘Yes, please.’

The groom walked about her and opened the stall, then walked in as Copper backed up a couple of steps.

Susan followed him in. He took Copper’s bridle from a hook on the side of the stall.

Susan patted the mare’s neck, then she took the bridle from the groom and slipped it on.

‘Hello, girl.’ She’d ridden since she was four, and she felt entirely at home around horses.

Her father treated them like children, the horses on the stud farm were a part of their family.

Perhaps it was why she’d become attached to all animals.

She thought of Samson, at Farnborough, and wondered if he was still sitting near the door in the hall, waiting for Henry.

The groom set Susan’s saddle on Copper’s back, and leaned to buckle the girth strap as Susan patted Copper’s neck.

The scent of the horse, the straw and leather had always reassured her, but today it failed to settle the pain or ease her loss .

‘There you are, miss.’ The groom slapped Copper’s rump gently.

‘Thank you.’

He bowed and lifted his cap.

Susan led Copper out into the yard and walked her to a mounting block, as the grooms carried on about their business.

She usually rode out with Alethea. They were both confident riders, but her mother still preferred them to be accompanied by a groom.

They preferred to ride alone, so unless their mother knew, they did.

She hooked her knee over the pommel of the side-saddle, then settled the skirt of her habit about her. The sharp beat of her heart was now from the expectation of a gallop over the meadows.

Copper sidestepped, sensing Susan’s energy.

She gripped the reins tighter, so they held against the bit in Copper’s mouth, then she tapped her heel to urge Copper into a trot.

‘Have a good ride, miss!’ one of the grooms called out as she rode out of the yard.

As soon as she was away from the house she set Copper into a canter, and then into a gallop as she leaned low against the mare’s neck.

The wind blew at her face and whipped the loose strands of her hair from beneath her hat.

Energy filled her up, capturing her senses.

She would conquer her feelings and she would make a life for herself somewhere away from Alethea and Henry.

The walls of the abbey ruins became visible above a hedgerow when Copper jumped a narrow stream.

She rode on, with an urge to stand among the tall walls and feel the passage of time, and her own smallness within it.

When she reached the ruins, she slowed Copper to a trot, then ducked down and rode beneath a low arch into what had once been the nave of the abbey.

She looked up. The walls were still as high as the ceiling must have been in this part, but there was no roof now.

The sky had become almost as dark a grey as the stone, the clouds swirling about in an argument with the wind.

Everything here spoke of time, of how quickly it passed, of how tiny her own perspective of it was.

The walls of this building were constructed hundreds of years ago.

Life did not centre and revolve around her or Henry.

The world was much larger than the two of them and their insensitive infatuation.

Love… There were a hundred books on love being won and lost, and hearts warmed and broken.

The arches of an old passageway ran along near the top of the wall. A passage to nowhere… Her life led to know where.

She dismounted, sliding off the saddle.

She let go of Copper’s reins, leaving the mare to graze on the grass that was wet from an earlier rain shower. Once the floor was ornamental tiles, but now it was a meadow of buttercups.

She passed beneath a giant arch which had retained some of its ornate decoration and faced the remnants of the stone altar.

She should set her love for Henry there as a sacrifice. She had given up the thing she wanted most in her life. She missed him. There was a hole within her that ached as though she had been shot through with a bullet. How did such feelings pass? How did anyone survive a broken heart?

She walked on, not really knowing in which direction she was walking. Her fingers clasped the skirt of her dress, lifting it away from the damp grass.

There was a low wall before her.

Many of the stones from the walls in the ruins had been taken to build houses, and so there were some walls as low as her hip, and some she could step over.

When Susan reached the wall she could see over the top. This was the border between her father’s land and what would become Henry’s one day. There was a view of his father’s woodland. The ruins were his too.

Jealousy, bitterness and… loss, whirled through her. Someone would marry him. He was the heir, he must choose someone, if not her or Alethea, someone else.

Tears made the view of the valley a shimmering mass of green.

She sobbed as the tears ran onto her cheeks, crying noisily with a childlike release of pain.

The sounds echoed. But there was no one to hear.

‘I love him!’ She shouted out the words that their father’s plans had forced her to keep silent, yelling them at the walls.

‘I want him! I want to be cruel and selfish! I want to keep you, Henry!’