Page 8 of The Reckless Love of an Heir (The Marlow Family Secrets #4)

When the clock in the room chimed once, there was a gentle knock on the door.

Susan jumped. She’d been entirely absorbed. Her teacup was still full and the tea within it chilled.

‘Susan.’ Aunt Jane stood in the doorway. ‘You must come and eat luncheon with us. You cannot hide yourself away in here all day and starve.’

Susan smiled. ‘Thank you. I will be there in a moment.’

She dipped her brush in the water, then dabbed it on the rag to dry. She looked down at her painting. It was slow work today because there were so many tiny details on the bee petals, but she thought she was progressing well. She seemed to be improving.

The family at the table were Aunt Jane, Sarah and Christine.

Uncle Robert was still out undertaking whatever business he was about.

‘Is Henry not coming down, Mama?’ Christine asked.

‘He is not. He is not dressed. ’

‘But we are only family, it would hardly matter if he did not have his shirt on.’

Aunt Jane looked apologetically at Susan.

‘Susan is like family,’ Christine declared, disregarding the subtle reprimand.

Guilt pierced Susan’s side. She had not come here to prevent Henry enjoying the freedom of his home. ‘I am sorry. I did not realise. I should not have come?—’

‘Nonsense,’ Aunt Jane chided. ‘It will do Henry no harm to remain upstairs. He has been sick most of the morning so I do not think he will attempt luncheon regardless of his state of dress.’

Susan’s guilt cut deeper. ‘Has he a fever? Uncle Robert said he was only in too much pain to dress.’ She had thought Henry in a lazy, sullen mood. Her instinctive sense of empathy pulled within her.

‘It is not a fever; he took too much laudanum without eating and is suffering for it. I think he also took a bottle of his father’s brandy to his room last night to help further numb the pain, and of course laudanum and brandy do not mix.’

Christine and Sarah laughed.

Laughter gathered in Susan’s throat too, but for the first time in her life she felt wholly in charity with Henry.

She could no longer deny her instinct to feel sorry for him, and wish to help.

He had been in a lot of pain when he’d come to the library yesterday, she did not think less of him for seeking to free himself from it.

She would not stay long after luncheon, then if he wished to come down and take tea with his family, shirtless, he might. An image formed unbeckoned in her mind of him lying asleep in the library, shirtless, an artwork of bruises.

Once Susan had eaten she returned to the library. She would finish the detail on the flower she was working on then ask Aunt Jane if she might travel home in their carriage.

A maid came into the room at three. ‘Miss Susan, Lady Barrington sent me to ask if you wished for tea?’

She had forgotten the time. ‘No, thank you, but is my aunt in the drawing room?’

‘She is, Miss Susan.’

‘And has Lord Henry come down?’

‘No, miss, he is taking tea in his room.’

He must have risen from his bed at least then.

‘Susan.’ Christine walked about the maid, entering the room with a quick stride.

‘Sarah and I are going to take the dogs out as far as the meadow. Would you like to come? It is one of those lovely fresh days, with a breeze to sweep away the fidgets and a pleasant sky without the sun pounding down upon you.’

Susan looked out of the window. It would be refreshing to go for a walk before she returned home. ‘Thank you, I would love to join you.’

Susan tidied up her things and thought of Samson upstairs with Henry, the guilt she felt at luncheon skipping around her, taunting her with a pointed finger of accusation.

She shut her paints away in their box, and closed the book. She would not come back until Henry sent for Alethea.

She had maligned Henry in her thoughts too much. He did deserve some sympathy. Perhaps she could offer to walk Samson, as Henry could not take the dog out. Henry would most likely appreciate the gesture, and there was little else her sense of empathy might do to be quietened.

She decided to go up to his sitting room before meeting Sarah and Christine in the hall. She knew where his suite of rooms were. They had still been playmates at the point he’d moved into his current rooms .

She left the library and instead of making her way to the family room, walked past it and on to the main hall, where the dark, square, wooden stairs climbed upward about the walls. No one was there. The footman had probably gone to fetch her outdoor things.

Her hand slipped over the waxed wood of the bannister as she hurried up the stairs to Henry’s rooms on the second floor.

She remembered his huge bedchamber, and beside that a dressing room and a large sitting room, with a desk and about half a dozen chairs in it. He had been allocated the rooms because he was the eldest, the heir – and the most spoilt.

When she reached the second floor she turned to the right, walked to the end of the hall and tapped on the door she knew was his sitting room. If he was out of bed and taking tea, he would be in there. If he did not answer she would presume him undressed and still in bed and go away.

‘Come!’

Her heart pounded foolishly as she opened the door. She could not see him. But one of the high-backed chairs had been turned to face the window and she could see the footstool before it and a tray containing tea things and a small plate of cakes on a low table beside it.

‘Henry?’ she said as she walked across the room. ‘I?—’

‘Susan…’ His pitch carried incredulity as he stood up and turned to face her.

He was not clothed! Who took tea in a sitting room unclothed?

Or rather he was clothed but only in a loose dressing gown that covered one shoulder and was left hanging beneath his bad arm before being held together by a sash at his waist.

He held his damaged arm across his middle.

It drew her eyes to his stomach. She had thought him muscular yesterday but today she could see all the lines of the muscle beneath his tarnished skin on the exposed half of his body.

He sported a variety of shades of blue, black, dark red, bright red and gruesome yellow, and his shoulder was entirely black as she had guessed yesterday.

The bruising ran not only down his chest but also covered his arm.

‘What are you doing here? Being rebellious again? What do you wish for?’ His initial tone may have been incredulous, but now his voice mocked her as it always had.

Her gaze lifted to his face. ‘I thought you were taking tea?’

His eyes laughed at her. ‘I am taking tea, alone, here, in my private rooms.’

‘But who drinks tea in…’

‘In what?’

Embarrassment engulfed her. She had been about to accuse him of being naked, although he was not quite.

‘You are truly lucky you did not do yourself more harm,’ she said, without looking at him again.

‘As I said yesterday, believe me, I know what I risked far more than you. I was there. Why did you come up here?’ The amusement in his voice had been replaced with impertinence.

‘We are taking the other dogs out to the meadow. I came to offer to take Samson too. I thought you had risen.’

‘I have, but only as far as my private sitting room so I did not need to strain my damned arm by putting on clothes.’ She glanced up when he swore, in response to the un-Henry-like bolshiness in voice, a note that came from pain.

‘And pray do not look horrified at me for using a bad word. You made the choice to come up here and this is my private room, I will speak as I please.’

‘I’m sorry. I’ll go. ’

He sat down again, almost deflated, his good hand holding his bad arm.

‘It must be very painful.’ She took two steps further into the room.

‘It is, thank you for the recognition. Now you ought to go, before Mama catches you here and then tells your mama and then you will earn yourself a scold and some penalty…’

‘We are not children anymore, I would not?—’

‘No, precisely, Susan.’ His eyes looked hard into hers. ‘We are not children. You cannot run around doing anything you wish.’

‘Perhaps you should listen to yourself.’ Her ire rose and snapped in answer, before she turned away.

Because was that not exactly why he was in this state?

He had no right to chastise her for anything she did when he hurtled about the roads racing his curricle with no regard for others.

‘I will not come back until you send for Alethea,’ she said, as she walked back across the room.

‘So you may run about shirtless all over the house without fear!’

A sharp bark of laughter caught on the air behind her. She did not look back.

‘You know you are as bad as me! Admit it or not! You cast your judgements, and yet you are just as rebellious, in your way.’

Rebellious? She turned back. She could not see him. He had sat down in the chair, facing the window, invisible behind it. ‘I am not rebellious!’ she shouted.

‘No? Then why are you here, disturbing me?’

‘I came to offer to take Samson out and also to see how you are. You looked unwell yesterday.’

‘Rebellious with good intent then; but to my room, Susan? Even Alethea would not have come here.’

‘I would not have walked into your bedroom. I only came to your sitting room!’

There was a low eruption of amusement in his throat that was not quite a laugh, perhaps more like a growl of frustration, or pain. Even as angry as she was with him, that sense of empathy had embedded its claws in her.

‘Believe me, no other well-bred woman I know would have done this! No matter that it is only my sitting room!’

She let out a soft sound of amusement as she turned away again. ‘Good day, Henry! I hope you feel a little better in the morning.’

‘Good day, Susan! Thank you. You may take Samson with you, I am sure he will appreciate a run in the meadow with the others, and in the meantime, I shall run around downstairs shirtless and terrify all the maids.’

She laughed involuntarily then lifted a hand to Samson. ‘Come along, boy, would you like a walk?’ The dog’s tail wagged, in answer, but he looked to Henry for permission.

Henry had many faults, and yet the dog adored him. ‘Go, you foolish hound,’ Henry said, affectionately.

Susan’s smile broadened.

‘Samson!’ she called again. When he came to her side she petted his ear exactly as she had watched Henry do, and walked from the room.

The empathy in her stomach had become a different sort of feeling.

In the last three days she had probably shared as many words with Henry as she would have normally shared with him in a month during his stays at home, and she’d found him funny, as well as annoying, and frustrating.

Susan caught her reflection in a mirror on the landing. She was deep pink and Henry must have seen her embarrassment, yet he had not teased her.

She hurried downstairs to find Aunt Jane, Christine and Sarah, her heart thumping .

The sight of Henry’s bruises and the outlines of the muscle beneath his stained skin hovered in her mind.

She had never seen a man shirtless before.

But she refused to let herself be unsettled.

Christine was right, she was a part of their family, it was not odd for her to see Henry half clothed. He was like a brother or a cousin.

As she walked downstairs, Samson trailing in a disciplined, graceful manner behind her, Christine and Sarah awaited her in the hall.

‘Where have you been?’ Christine asked, holding out Susan’s bonnet.

Susan accepted it. ‘Collecting Samson from Henry’s rooms, so he might join us.’

Neither Sarah nor Christine queried her statement. Yet at the very idea of them realising her error, Susan’s fingers trembled as she tied the bow of her bonnet beneath her chin, and the footman had to take over and secure the buttons on her cloak.

She had seen Henry in nothing but a dressing gown, with half his torso exposed. She kept her wits about her in his room but she knew the moment he stood up she should not have gone there.

When Susan retired for the night, Alethea came to her room in her nightdress, dispelling the darkness with a single candle that made her shadow dance behind her.

Alethea set down the candle on the bedside chest and lay down next to Susan. Susan threw the covers over them both as Alethea turned and blew out the candle. The smell of wax and the burnt wick caught in the air. The pillow dipped and Alethea’s breath touched Susan’s cheek .

‘Did you see Henry?’

‘Yes.’ She had seen too much of Henry. ‘He seemed to be in a lot of pain. I actually felt sorry for him, and you know how rare that is.’

‘He told me he was very badly injured. He thought in one moment he might die.’

‘He said that to be dramatic, Alethea, you know he did. He loves being the centre of attention.’ Yet Susan had seen the bruising on his body.

If he struck his head as hard, he would be dead.

He had not been exaggerating. She had said the words, though, because she did not want to think of Henry any differently than she normally would.

Alethea sighed. ‘I do not think he has any intent to propose marriage when he is here. He still speaks to me as though I am his friend. Do you think he will ever propose?’

‘Of course he will.’

‘He has not been home for nearly a year. He cannot think of me when he is away, and he says nothing about our engagement. Why do you think he is taking so long to propose? I hoped this time…’

‘I suppose he loves his curricle racing too much,’ and he is selfish, arrogant and mean – and funny – and in pain.

Instead of Alethea’s usual bright tone, a bitter sigh rang out. ‘I will become an old maid… What if he never asks? Perhaps I should consider others.’

Alethea had never spoken of others before. ‘But you love Henry…’

‘I do. Yet I am nearly three and twenty. I cannot wait forever.’

‘That is not old.’

‘It is almost upon the shelf. I wish to leave home and begin my own family. ’

‘I am not going there tomorrow. I said I would wait until he is well and writes to ask for your company.’

‘I am not sure he really wants my company.’

‘Of course he does. Every time I look up, you two are speaking exclusively and earnestly.’

Alethea sighed again. ‘May I sleep here?’

‘Yes, of course.’

‘Thank you.’ Alethea’s breath and her hair brushed Susan’s cheek a moment before Alethea’s lips pressed there, bestowing a kiss. The pillow dipped again as Alethea lay back down. ‘What did you think of the dress which Maud Bentley wore to church last week?’

The conversation slipped into whispered gossip. They discussed fashions, material they wished for and the assembly which would take place this month in York, until their words were claimed by tiredness.

‘Goodnight,’ Susan whispered.

‘Sleep well,’ Alethea whispered back.