Page 22 of The Reckless Love of an Heir
He looked at the back of her head. Her blonde hair was beautifully and perfectly styled, and then there was the curve of her narrow neck. She bowed her head a little as she spoke to Sarah and it presented the area of skin just above the neckline of her dress. He sighed. His heart may not care but other parts of him would very willingly become involved in a relationship with her.
He breathed in. What were her sentiments? Was it merely compliance with their families’ wishes or did she have some greater affection for him? Perhaps at some point he should ask her, and that too should become open between them.
‘Henry. You are quiet and brooding, neither of which are terms I would use to describe you. Is your arm hurting?’
He turned to face Susan. ‘My arm always hurts since I fell from my curricle.’
It was uncharacteristic for her to approach him and commence a conversation.
Her pale grey eyes were intensely grey tonight, thanks to her dress, which exaggerated the colour just as Alethea’s dresses made her eyes bluer. But Susan’s spectacles also seemed to make her grey eyes shine with a vibrancy that had more depth than Alethea’s blue eyes ever did.
Susan had recklessness within her, she might deny it as many times as she wished, but she did, and a dash of rebellion her sister never displayed.
Alethea may have just told him she was willing to rebel against their parents’ wishes and marry someone else if he did not hurry up and place a ring on her finger, but he would guess she had no intention of doing so and merely hoped to gee him up.
‘I am sorry you are still in pain,’ Susan said.
He smiled. Bless her, she did look genuinely sorry for him. Since their truce she had been kind to him. He may tease her over her rebellious nature but it was no more than a pale shadow compared to his, while her caring side… She outshone him like the sun to the moon in her sense of empathy.
‘I am not complaining, only stating a fact, not asking for your pity.’
She started to smile but her teeth pressed into her lip to prevent it.
He leaned a little forward and said near her ear, in a quieter conspiratorial voice, ‘You have no need to be sorry for me, remember. I did it to myself.’
She laughed suddenly, only for a moment, but then she smiled fully. God, had she ever smiled at him before? If she had, perhaps he had not seen it up close, but the vibrancy in her smile was quite striking. Alethea had always been the bright, exuberant one. But there was exuberance in Susan, too, it was simply hidden.
‘How long before you may take off the sling?’
‘Another week or so.’
‘You will be well enough to attend the assembly in York then. Alethea will be pleased. You will go?’ The last was half question half statement.
Alethea will be pleased…
Of course there was another way to glean the level of Alethea’s attachment to him, he could ask her sister. They wereclose, they must share confidences. ‘I am not so sure she will be pleased, she may prefer to use the occasion to flirt with others and throw me off. We have just fallen out because I believe your family were expecting me to propose this evening, and I have just assured Alethea that she should not expect it during my current stay or indeed in the months following.’
The brightness in Susan’s expression was extinguished. ‘Why?’
‘Why will I not propose? Because I am not ready. Is it not better for me to wait until I am happy to settle? I like my life in town.’
‘You are so self-centred.’
Her words struck and spurred him into biting back. ‘And you are always direct.’ He swallowed back his temper. ‘Will she be very hurt?’ That was not really the question he was asking.Does she think herself in love with me?
‘Of course she will. She will be cut by it. How can she not be?’
Cut in what way? Cut through the heart?‘I have not told her I will never propose, merely that she should not expect it yet.’
‘That is even crueller, if you wish to keep her dangling on a line of hope, like a caught fish you are trying to tire.’
‘It is not like that. I am not doing it deliberately to vex Alethea or delay?—’
‘No. As I say, you are merely thinking of yourself.’
Susan was far too quick.Damn her.‘I am being wise. I am thinking of us both. I do not wish her to be unhappy, and if I would be unhappy if I married her now, that would make her unhappy too?’
‘You are as self-centred as ever, Henry.’
