Page 80 of The Reckless Love of an Heir
Susan looked from one to the other. She knew what she wished to do, to go to Farnborough, she could do nothing to comfort and help them from here.
‘Your mother and I plan to call on Robert and Jane this afternoon. I shall write now to check we will be welcome. Shall I ask if they are happy for you to join us?’
‘Yes, please.’ Susan had to do something other than sit idly with hours to think and let the emotions of empathy overwhelm her. She needed to help them actively, in some regard.
‘Yes, I wish to see Henry,’ Alethea said.
Oh. Alethea’s words sliced through Susan. This was why shemust leave her family; she could not live here when he would be spoken of as though he belonged to other people.
She did not want Alethea to speak to him, she wanted a private moment to hold him and ask how he was.
Susan’s mother looked at Dodds, who had also just arrived. ‘Will you have tea brought to the drawing room?’
He caught Susan’s eye and smiled, then bowed. He had guessed Susan’s return was due to some upset in town, then. He had probably worried over her. He would quell the gossip here.
‘Susan.’
She turned to her father and he caught hold of her hand.
‘Stay with me a moment. I wish to speak with you.’
She glanced at her mother, who smiled then turned Alethea to guide her towards the drawing room.
‘Come along.’
Susan was led by her father to the library. Once there, he let her go. ‘Do you mind if I write to Robert first? It will only take a moment.’
When she nodded, he turned away from her, sat down at the desk, then took out a sheet of paper from a drawer, before reaching for a quill and ink. He wrote only four lines, then blotted them, folding and sealing the letter. The scent of the melted wax hovered in the air as he stood.
Susan waited by one of the windows as he carried the letter to the door and leaned out into the hall. ‘Dodds! Have a groom deliver this to Farnborough immediately, please, and ask him to await a response! Thank you.’
‘Yes, my lord.’
Her father shut the door, and frowned as he turned back, his lips twisting with a look of concern, making his waxed moustache slant at an odd angle. ‘Susan,’ he said on a sigh as hecrossed the room then took hold of her hands. ‘What happened in town?’
This again. She was in no mood to manage his concerns. ‘Nothing for you to be worried over, I promise.’ Tears gathered in her eyes. She swallowed, trying to hold them back, but she was sure her eyes must be sparkling behind her spectacles.
‘You admit there was something then?’
The news of William’s death was too great a sorrow to allow her father any concern over her. ‘It does not matter. I was not harmed in any way, Papa.’
‘You promise.’
‘Yes.’
‘So I may focus my attention on Robert and Jane and need not fear for you?’
‘Yes.’
‘I have been lying awake worrying over you, Susan.’
‘You need not have been.’
He leaned forward and kissed her cheek, his moustache tickling her like it used to when she was a child.
‘I hated leaving you,’ he said, quietly.
‘I have been well enough, and happy on my own.’ She had spent hours crying, making such a fuss over a broken heart, which seemed so pathetic now.
