The Reckless Love of an Heir: An epic historical romance perfect for fans of period drama Victoria. Jane Lark
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she is not your choice, Henry, she is not. It is only—”
“That it would be such a perfect union, to join our families, when Uncle Casper has no son. I know.”
His father smiled again. “As you say, for all those reasons, and yet I do not wish either of you unhappy.” His father drank some of his brandy.
“We shall suit. We do. It is merely that I do not wish to marry anyone yet. You did not marry Mama until you were much older, you cannot expect me to hurry into the shackles.”
“You should not think of marriage as shackles if you wish to marry. I was desperate for your mother to marry me when I was younger than you. It did not happen and then I was even more desperate for her to accept me when I met her again.” His father sipped his brandy, then gave Henry another direct, enquiring look, which could be either anger or humour. “What do you feel for Alethea?”
Bloody hell. “That is the question I asked of her outside, what does she feel for me?”
“What did she say?”
“She did not answer.”
“As you have not answered me.”
“I will answer you. I care for Alethea. I am attracted to her. I am not sure if that is what you would define as love.”
His father sighed. “If it was love you would know.” He looked down at his glass and then sipped more of the brandy.
Henry drank the rest of his, then set his empty glass aside, on a table. “I do not believe it is love. But we ramble along well together, you know we do, and I think she feels as much for me as I feel for her. Perhaps while she is in town it will become love. You should not give up on your dream yet, but it shall not be fulfilled this year.”
His father drank the last of his brandy. Then picked up Henry’s empty glass. “Would you like another, and a game of backgammon, as I am unlikely to have your company for much longer?”
“Yes, thank you.” Henry turned and went over to the table to set up the game.
“It has been nice to have you home, and a novelty to have you at home and not to be angered by you on a daily basis.” His father was speaking as he poured the brandy. “When do you take off the sling? When will you leave?”
He told his father what he had told Susan.
“And then…”
“I shall accompany you, Mama and Sarah to the assembly in York. I know that will please Sarah. Then I shall return to town.”
“To sow more oats in furrows I disapprove of.”
“You may hardly talk I am constantly told about your former reputation, even though I would rather not know it.”
“I did not entertain myself in brothels and consort with whores.”
“No, you entertained yourself in ballrooms and bedchambers, and consorted with adulteresses and cuckolded a couple of hundred men in society, I think that worse.” Henry placed the counters on the board with his good hand. Then looked at his father.
His father’s eyebrows lifted again.
Henry laughed. “They are not facts I wish to know about my father, but in town they are facts that everyone wishes to tell me.”
His father set their refreshed glasses down on the table beside the board. “You know if Alethea discovered how you live… or even if Casper, or God forbid Julie—”
“Papa, I live as all young men live before they are wed. You cannot expect better of me than you did of yourself.”
His father huffed out a breath as he sat. “Except that I regret that I lived that way. It brought me no happiness, as your mother will tell you. Given a chance to turn back time she and I would have married when we were young and I would have accepted the responsibility of supporting my father. I shall always consider my wild years, years that I lost or threw away.”
“Well I am in my wild years, and I consider them precious. I am not you, and I am not throwing them away.”
The carriage drew to a halt before the Palladian frontage of the assembly rooms in Blake Street. A footman opened the carriage door. Henry climbed out first, and stood beneath the giant portico, then offered his hand to Sarah to help her descend. It felt very freeing to have his right arm back, and yet the muscle had wasted a little, and his shoulder was still stiff and sore.
“Nervous?” he whispered when her foot touched the pavement.
“Excited,” she answered, with a broad smile.
He smiled too. He’d not imagined that accompanying Sarah to her first dance would move him at all, but he had been moved. He was proud of his oldest sister.
She had walked downstairs into the hall with the brightest smile, looking full grown, and beautiful. She had their mother’s unusual emerald green eyes and dark brown hair, and with it styled in such a grown up manner… She had become a woman, and somehow he had missed it until this evening.
He offered his arm to Sarah as his parents descended. “Allow me to be the one who walks you in.”
She smiled at him again.
Emotion clutched tight in his chest. He was the eldest; one day he would be the head of their family like his cousin John, the Duke of Pembroke, was of his. He’d never considered the idea before. Yet his father was healthy, he hoped it would be years before he must take on the earldom. He would rather his father alive and he the heir, who had the time and the money to live a care free life.
They walked into the large assembly rooms. He’d never attended before. It was a long, rectangular room, surrounded with pilasters of beige marble and full of people, music and conversation. Henry could see no one he knew. It was not London.
There was a country dance in progress. He leant towards his sister. “As we cannot join this dance let me take you to find the refreshments.”
People bowed and curtsied as they walked past. Of course amongst these people they stood out because of their father’s title.
Pride burned with a roaring flame in his chest. It must be the first time Sarah had experienced such recognition and it would be the first time she would dance outside their home, or a member of their family’s home. When the season began she would come to London and dance too. His sister, all grown up, and there was Christine to follow her.
A different sensation clasped in his chest, one that was more brutal and aggressively masculine. A need to protect her. He knew too much of London. Too much of what occurred outside the ballrooms. When she came to London he would need to watch her. There would be rakes and scoundrels all about her; men like him and his father.
The thought stabbed him with embarrassment. From that perspective perhaps he could appreciate his father’s view. He would not care for Sarah to know anything of his life in town.
“Wine?” he offered when they neared the refreshment table. When she nodded, he picked up a glass and handed it to her.
“Thank you, Henry.”
Their mother and father approached. “Mama?” He picked up another glass for her.
Several people in the room stared at them yet others came forward, and then the introductions began. “This is my eldest daughter, Sarah… This is my son, Lord Henry…”
The people Henry was introduced to were mostly the merchants and businessmen of York, though there were a small number of untitled relations of aristocratic families. Of course the businessmen and merchants benefited from his father’s patronage and so they were very keen to be introduced to his heir and compliment Sarah.