Page 2 of The Reckless Love of an Heir
The expectation placed upon him had been talked about as far back as he could remember. He’d never disagreed, nor disliked the idea, it was simply that he had not yet gone along with the plot and said the words to seal the agreement. He had no intention of doing so during this visit home either. His marriage could wait. He was currently very much enjoying his bachelorhood and he was only three and twenty, it was too bloody young to betroth himself.
‘I am sure you need to sit down,’ his mother said. ‘You must be tired. Is it painful still? It must be. Have you taken laudanum?’
‘I took some when I last stopped, but it is not intolerable, you need not fuss.’ Yet he had come home because he knew they would fuss and he was in a self-indulgent mood. It did hurt, and his mother’s concern was the best balm – for a spoilt son.
He smiled at his rumination and allowed Christine to take hold of his good hand and pull him over the threshold of the house.
The square hall welcomed him, with its wide oak staircase that wrapped itself about the walls, leading, seemingly, forever upward in an angular ascent. He loved the house. It smelled the same – of polished wood, candle wax and his mother’s perfume.
Christine tugged his hand and pulled him on, not to his father’s stately drawing room in one of the more recently built wings of the house, but to their smaller family drawing room. The dark oak panelling and the window full of Elizabethan lead-lined diamonds made it seem austere, yet to Henry it induced that final sense of being home more than any other place in the house.
He sat down on a sofa upholstered in a gold velvet. The room brought back numerous happy memories of his childhood. This was where he spent his days when he was young, playing and laughing, and many evenings too when he’d returned from school for the holidays?—
‘Must your arm remain in the sling always?’ Christine asked.
‘Always, for a few weeks.’
She made a face at him. ‘You knew what I meant.’
‘You should see my shoulder and my arm, then you would have cause to make a disgusted face. I am black and every shade of red and yellow.’ His hip was black too, and half his leg, and elsewhere there were other bruises. He had truly shaken himselfup. He nearly broke his arm, but he had also nearly broken his neck. It was the thought he might not have survived that shook him up. He had been living carelessly, but the fall had made him consider what he had done with his life. If he had died, he would have left no legacy. He had spent his years recklessly so far, and now he had been given a second chance at life, he supposed.
‘Do you wish for tea and cake? You must be hungry…’ His mother did not await his answer but turned and pulled the cord to call for a maid. ‘And if you need to rest,’ she said when she turned back, ‘you are in your old rooms.’
It would be as though he never left home. He smiled. He had needed a sanctuary, and comfort, and he knew his mother and sisters were ready to offer both. ‘Thank you, Mama.’
He moved to London to escape her mollycoddling, yet now he had received a hard dose of fate’s medicine he realised at times it had a value. His low spirit craved it.
‘Here.’ Sarah picked up a cushion from another chair, as Samson settled down at Henry’s feet and rested his head on Henry’s boot as he’d always done. His tail thumped on the floor as it continued to wag. The other dogs lay down on the hearth rug, their eyes on the returned prodigal son. ‘Sit back, Henry. Rest against this.’
Christine picked up a cushion too. ‘You may rest your arm on here.’
They arranged the cushions about him so he might sit more comfortably. Then Christine fetched a footstool for him.
He was being truly pampered. It had been a very good decision to return.
‘Mama! Mama!’
Susan looked at her sister as Alethea hurried into the drawing room, waving a letter.
‘He’s here! At Farnborough! Henry is home!’ Alethea turned to the footman. ‘Please have the grooms prepare the carriage.’ Then she looked back at their mother. ‘We must go. If he is in pain…’
‘If he is in pain he deserves to be in pain,’ Susan said quietly towards the book which lay open in her lap. She was sensitive of all wounded animals and concerned for those in need, but she did not waste her sympathies on young irresponsible men.
Alethea scowled at her.
She had not intended Alethea to hear.
‘How can you be so cruel? It was a terrible accident. He has been injured and you are wishing more harm on him.’
Susan set the book aside. ‘He was in an accident because he was driving his curricle foolishly. He only has himself to blame and it was only his arm that was injured. He is hardly in a state that requires extreme sympathy.’ And even if he were in a worse state, Susan would not feel in the least sympathetic as he brought it upon himself. It was his family who ought to receive sympathy for having such a careless, reckless son who constantly treated their concern with no regard.
‘Then do not come to visit him with me. Stay here if you intend to be irritable and rude to him. I have not seen him for months. I will not have the moment ruined.’
Susan had no desire to see Henry. In her view he was a spoilt brat who had grown into a spoilt, insensitive, selfish man. She lifted her eyebrows so they arched above the rim of her spectacles, making an I-do-not-care expression at her sister.
‘Mama, will you come with me? I cannot go if you do not. Please?’
‘I cannot. I am busy. You two will have to settle this argument.Susan must accompany you. Your father will be returning in an hour and expect me to be here to receive Mr Dennison.’
