Page 54 of The Reckless Love of an Heir
He stepped back to lean on a table, but caught the round table at the wrong angle, lost his balance, and fell to the floor, like a heavy sack of wheat. He had become a drunkard, but he would rather liquor claimed him. It silenced the fighting going on in his head. A fight between obligation and desire.
‘Harry!’ Uncle Edward shouted. ‘Tell us which hotel Henry is staying in!’
‘The King’s! They are all there!’ Harry called.
Henry woke with a hammer thumping against the inside of his skull.The Devil.He rolled onto his side. His stomach spun, with a bilious sensation. The air stank of vomit.
He opened his eyes.
His father sat in a chair facing him. Henry was no longer at the brothel but in his bedchamber in the hotel, and on the floor beside the bed was a soiled chamber pot. He had no idea how he had got back here.
‘Have you any idea what a mess you appear?’ his father stated.
Henry did not particularly care, except it did not feel good to think his father had been taking care of him in this state.
‘May we not be rid of that chamber pot, if you do not wish me to be ill again?’ Henry groaned.
‘I have a mind to leave it there, to make you ill again. It may teach you a lesson. You have never learned anything from me, neither from what I have said, nor what I have done.’
Henry rolled onto his back, and his arm lifted, so the back of his hand lay on his brow. He felt like death.
His father stood, crossed the room and pulled a cord. ‘When the maid comes, I will ask her to bring you something to eat. Food will settle your stomach.’
Henry doubted it.
‘There is water beside you.’
Henry looked across to see a clear glass jug, with an empty glass beside it. He sat up, his brain rolling forward in his skull and his stomach lurching.
His father came back and poured water from the jug into the glass. ‘Here.’ He handed it to Henry. His father may be helping him but he was still angry; his movements were stiff and his voice low and bitter. There was a stern conversation to come. A conversation Henry did not care to have.
Henry took a gulp of the water. His stomach lurched again.
‘Sip it,’ his father ordered, before turning away.
Heat flooded Henry’s face; embarrassment. He was ashamed his father had needed to look after him, it made him feel like a child.
A knock struck the door. ‘Lord Marlow?’
‘Come in!’ his father called.
‘Oh. I’m sorry, sir.’ The maid stepped back, startled. She had obviously not realised Henry had been joined by his father. She had been giving Henry the eye his entire stay and probably hoped he had rung to ask her to share his bed. The thought kicked him sharply in the gut and set the nausea spinning once more. He sipped the water.
‘Please take the chamber pot.’ His father pointed to it. ‘Then bring up some bread and cheese.’
She bobbed a curtsy at his father, picked up the soiled chamber pot, and threw a smile at Henry, out of sight of his father, before bobbing another curtsy and leaving the room.
His father walked to the window, with his back to Henry, as Henry turned to sit on the edge of the bed, his brain thumping.
His father rested his hands on the windowsill and his head bowed in an expression of defeat. ‘You invited Alethea to town,’ he said, without lifting his head. ‘Then deserted her. Do you know how bad that looks? Do you realise how that impacts me?’ His father straightened suddenly and turned. ‘And damn it, this sounds like a conversation my father had with me when I was younger than you, and in pain because your mother had rejected me. But I do not wish to push you away, I only wish you to see sense. When will you grow out of this recklessness? When will you care what others think and feel?’
Self-centred…Henry cared what Susan thought. He feared what Susan thought. ‘I care.’
‘Then you show it poorly. The way you act bears no impression of it.’
Henry grimaced. He was not in the right temper for this.
‘Do not make a face at me. You are an embarrassment. You must know it. Casper has made some bitter comments to me in these last days. You are destroying my friendship when I am naught to do with your foolish acts and self-centred nature. Ihave tried, Henry, by God, I have tried to make you see sense. I thought when you invited Alethea to town, your accident had encouraged you to change your ways; then I hear you have challenged others to a race again, on a whim. Why?’
