Page 52 of The Reckless Love of an Heir
‘Come, Susan.’ John lifted his arm. ‘I do not believe you have been introduced to my cousins on my father’s side.’
‘What will you do?’ her father asked of Uncle Robert, as Susan accepted John’s arm.
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Henry leaned back in his chair and tossed his cards onto the table, in anger and frustration. ‘I am done. I give up. I am having horrible luck, so why play?’
Harry laughed and squeezed the waist of the woman who sat on his knee. ‘And I am having great luck. Show me your cards, Fred, I’m calling you.’ Harry’s speech had become slurred but so had Henry’s. They were all three, or perhaps four, sheets to the wind, and the sheets were dancing on a strong breeze.
Fred lay down his hand of cards face up. Harry leaned forward, pulling the woman with him, and set down his cards.
‘You damned well win again!’ Fred declared, in a voice that resounded with annoyance as he picked up his glass. He drained it in one quick swallow, then stood up, swaying a little. ‘Fuck you,’ he grumbled, reaching into his pocket, then tossed his promised bets onto the table.
Harry leaned over and picked up the money Fred had dropped, and the money left by the others who had bowed out earlier in the game. Harry gave Henry a broad smile, then pulledthe woman he held more fully onto his lap and pressed a kiss on her lips before saying against her mouth, ‘Are you ready to celebrate with me, darling?’
Henry looked away and lifted a hand to obtain the attention of a woman on the far side of the room. When she looked at him he pointed at the empty bottle on the table and lifted his glass. Her smile suggested she would give him far more than another bottle of brandy.
Today he just wanted the brandy. His stomach turned over at the thought of her offer.
What the hell was wrong with him?
When the woman set the bottle on the table, she leaned forward so the top of her breasts spilled out from the loose bodice of her dress.
Henry leaned back as revulsion sailed through his blood. These were new emotions. He had never turned a woman away through lack of interest before. Perhaps when he had been too drunk and incapable, or too tired, or not in the right mood, but never out of a lack of desire.
But his ailment was not about a lack of desire.
The woman ran her fingers down his cheek and trailed them lower as she leaned further forward to whisper in his ear.
Henry caught a hold of her wrist and pulled her hand away before it could descend to his groin. ‘No, thank you.’
‘Oh, come on, my lord, play with me…’
He turned his head away as she tried to kiss his lips. ‘I said no.’
He was not interested in any of these women. He was interested in one woman, one he ought not to have any interest in.
When the woman walked away, he leaned forward and filled his glass with brandy. He immediately drank it all down. He’d come to Brighton to escape the emotions which kept kicking himin the gut. But the unbidden feelings and thoughts would not stop. All he could recall was what it felt like to look into Susan’s eyes, those glorious pale grey eyes he had once dismissed… and to kiss her.
He should not have kissed her.
He poured another glass of brandy as Harry laughed when the woman sitting on his lap stood up. Harry slapped her backside in a careless gesture, then held his hand out for her to pull him up and lead him to a room upstairs.
He threw Henry a smile. Henry smirked in return. He was not jealous. He was merely… in pain.
Lord, he longed for that life of carelessness that Harry still lived. Nothing had worried him. Nothing had disturbed his thoughts. That was why he had lain with these women, because there had been no need to consider past or future.
Now he could not stop his thoughts from racing ahead, and the emotions… To care came at a cost. A burden of bitter-tasting feelings that were ripping him apart.
‘I seek Lord Henry Marlow. I was told he is here. Have you seen him?’
Bloody hell!Henry immediately stood. He swayed and lay a palm on the edge of the table to hold himself up as he looked across the room. The room swayed too.
His father! He stood at the entrance to the room.
‘And Harry Marlow, is he here?’ Uncle Edward was here too, and Peter’s father.
What was wrong? His mother… Someone in the family…
