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“Why?” He had reached the sofa but before he sat, he turned and looked at her, challenging her for the answer with his gaze as well as the question.
His good hand lifted and rested on his bad arm—as though he was in pain.
She smiled, trying to mimic the mocking smiles he regularly gave her. “Because you are hardly responsible. Only a fool would drive a curricle in a race on the roads, you might have broken your neck not sprained your wrist.”
He sat down, looking away from her. Samson sat too. “Believe me, I am well aware. I nearly broke my neck and in the process dislocated my shoulder, not merely twisted my wrist. Now if you’ll excuse me, Susan, I am bloody exhausted and in agony, I have just dosed myself up with laudanum and I am in no mood for you to chastise me. Let me rest.”
He was much paler than normal.
He lay down without looking at her again and sprawled out flat on the long leather sofa, laying on his back with his bad arm on his chest and one foot on the floor while the other turned so his leg lay bent across the seat, as his foot hung off the edge.
Samson rested his head by Henry’s side, as though asking to come up and sleep beside him.
Perhaps that was why Samson was so loyal to him, if Henry had allowed Samson such liberties when he was younger.
His good arm lifted and then lay above his head as he shut his eyes.
“I shan’t make any noise,” she said, to annoy him.
He opened his eyes a little, his dark eyelashes cloaking his gaze as he looked at her. Samson looked at her too. “I did not doubt it, painting is hardly a noisy activity. Let me sleep if you please, Susan.”
She smiled and looked back down at the orchid she was recreating.
There were very fine green lines on each pale cream petal, and that was what she was seeking to capture, only the lines in the book seemed to give the petals depth, and she had not succeeded in mastering that. Perhaps she needed to use more than one shade of green? But the lines then would have to be very, very narrow and far more cautiously done. She needed to develop a steadier hand.
She leant forward and looked closer at the image. The artist had done them so well she could not even see a different shade.
Henry’s breathing became deeper and slower.
When she heard him move she looked up. Samson now lay on the floor beside him. Henry’s bent leg lifted and his foot settled on the sofa so his knee could rest against the back of the seat. He sighed out. The arm which had lain above his head fell down and hung over the edge of the low sofa so that his hand was placed slackly on Samson’s head.
She looked down at her work and carried on adding detail to the petal she was working on.
The slightly different shade of green did add depth, though the variance of colours in her image was very visible to the eye. She leant a little closer to the book and looked at the shape of the petals. There were different shades of cream too. The artist must have mixed the colours with a tiny amount of black to obtain the deeper shade. It would be hard to mix without making the cream too dark.
Henry was quiet. She looked up. He had definitely fallen asleep. The sunshine from the window stretched across his leg and stomach. Perhaps that was why he’d come in here, to sleep in the sunshine.
Susan, mixed a little of the green with more white to make the colour paler still and attempted another narrow line, trying to make the difference in shading less obvious. She used the paler colour on the lower edge of the lines across the petal. It was better than her first attempt, but not good enough.
Rather than progress to the shading of the cream, she began another petal. She would conquer this skill before she sought to learn another.
While she painted she intermittently glanced across the room to check Henry had not woken and was surreptitiously watching her. The sunshine travelled across his lean body as the afternoon progressed. He did not wake.
If she had more natural talent he would have made a perfect model, Young gentleman in repose.
She smiled as she looked back at her work. Asleep, she would admit how handsome he was—when his personality was not added into the mix. When he was silent, like this, she could appreciate his company. She studied him as she worked, with the same eye that she studied the flower. The waves in his dark brown hair were a little chaotic but he had a very classical handsomeness, with his long dark eyelashes resting against the pale skin of his cheeks…
She carefully painted another flower head, then looked back, he must have slept for more than hour, perhaps even two, she had not looked at the clock. He had appeared exhausted, though, and he was still paler than normal. The sunshine was rapidly advancing towards his face. It would disturb him if it shone on to his eyes.
A huff of sound left her throat as she set down her brush, while her inner voice complained over the need to leave her painting as she rose and walked across the room to the window, to close the shutters. Of course it would affect the light she had to work by, but he had looked exhausted.
Samson woke and his head lifted, slipping away from Henry’s fingers, as he watched her cross the room. She walked over to him, rather than to the window. He did not rise, so she leant to stroke his head. “You foolish, dog,” she whispered. “To save your loyalty for such a man.” Yet animals were like that, they had no judgement of one’s character, if you treated them well, they treated you well.
The cuff of the loose shirt sleeve covering Henry’s good arm had been caught up when he’d moved his arm from above his head, and it had slipped upwards. She noticed dark and vivid, vicious looking bruises that she had not seen from across the room. His shirt had also fallen open into a wide v at his chest, without a neckcloth to hold the collar closed. She could see the little dent at the base of his throat and the first shape of his chest and a sprinkling of dark hair and more nasty bruises.
Her mouth was suddenly dry, and an odd cramp gently tightened the muscles in her stomach. She had always been pulled to the protection of injured things, the sight of something in pain always caught her hard in the middle with a feeling of sickness. Yet this was Henry. Guilt washed across her thoughts. She had been rude to him. She had not cared about his injuries. She had thought that he’d been exaggerating, yet now she could see he had not been.
Her stomach twisted as she looked at his face, with regret. Samson rose and sat beside her, so that she would stroke his head again.
But it was more than a feeling of nausea over the sight of his injuries. Just as she admired the flowers, or the detail in the wings of a butterfly, she admired Henry’s face.
She turned away.
It was definitely not a good thing to look at Henry and feel any sort of liking. She did not want to think him attractive. When he was awake she had no liking for him at all and it was better for things to be like that, he was to be her brother-in-law, and as no one thought her beautiful it was very likely that she would live here in her later life, dependent upon him, as Alethea’s spinster sister. Her father’s property was entailed so when her father passed away her home would be given to a cousin and she would have no choice but to rely upon Henry’s generosity.
He moved behind her.
She stopped and looked back.
His bad arm shifted across his chest moving the sling, as a sound of discomfort escaped his lips. His shirt opened wider, sliding off his bad shoulder. There was a large, much darker, almost entirely black bruise covering his shoulder, with yellow and redness at its edges. He’d said he’d dislocated his shoulder; it must hurt considerably. He had definitely not merely come home to act the invalid, then; he had been seriously injured. The pull of sympathy clasped her.
It annoyed her. She did not wish to feel it for Henry. He did not deserve it. He had done this to himself.
She turned away, went to the window and closed the lower shutters, with Samson watching her. He had not moved away from Henry. The shade half covered Henry to the top of his chest. She walked to the next window and closed the lower shutters over that too so that the shade covered all of him, then turned to go back to her painting.
Henry’s body suddenly jolted and a sound of discomfort escaped his throat. “Damn it!” he shouted on a breath, but his eyes did not open. “Bloody hell! The horses! What of the horses!” Another sound of pain escaped his throat as he moved as though to rise.
She walked over, unsure whether to leave him to his nightmare or wake him.
“Fuck! The…” His eyes opened and he sat up.
She turned away but he grasped her wrist.
“Were you staring at me?”
He was breathing heavily, and his blood raced in a fast pace through the vein she could see pulsing beside the little dent next to his clavicle at the base of his throat.
“No. I closed the shutters so the sunlight would not wake you, then you started dreaming and woke up anyway.”
He let her wrist go, sighed and then twisted around to sit upright with both feet on the floor, Samson moved out of his way. His good elbow rested on his knee and his hand held his forehead as his bad arm lay in its sling on his thigh.
“Are you unwell?”
He glanced up at her, and gave her a bitter, wry smile, very slightly lifting his poorly arm. “Do I look well?”
“Did you dream of your accident?”
“Yes.” It was said with a sigh and a pained look. He gave her a more real smile. “I thought my time had run out.”
Heat touched her cheeks as she felt Henry’s particular method of charm deployed. It was still enchanting even when it was mocking. He was too handsome when he smiled. She turned away from him to go back to her painting, and avoid the sense of empathy which clawed at her. “It was your own fault, though, and I would guess you have still not learned the lesson and will race again.”
“Probably,” he answered, clearly not in a mood to go into verbal battle.
She sat down behind the desk and picked up her paint brush.
He stood up and his good arm stretched out, as he yawned. He was standing in the sunlight which shone through the windows above the lower shutters that she’d closed. Again she had the perfect silhouette of his body beneath his shirt.
Embarrassment warmed her skin as she remembered all the bruises on him.
She washed out her brush in the small bowl of water, then wiped it on the rag beside her, before dipping it in the paint to begin another petal. “Must you wear no waistcoat and morning coat? I’d prefer it if you wore more clothes if you are coming in here to sleep while I am working.”
He laughed. “Much as I would love to oblige you, as it is bloody agony to put either on, while I am at home I intend to make free of my comfort and abstain. You are lucky I have bothered to put a shirt on so that I am decent at all.” He walked across the room. “And it is only because Alethea was coming that I endured that feat.” He stopped on the other side of the desk and looked down at her work. “That is a reasonable copy.”
She met his gaze. “Reasonable? I am proud of it. It is much better than I thought I could achieve. I have been studying how the illustrator has captured the shades to give the flower its life-like depth. I know I shall never be—”
The ignorant oaf laughed.
Susan’s eyebrows lifted. He could be so arrogant!
“Sorry, you are just such a ridiculous anomaly. You amuse me.”
“If you are going to ridicule me, leave me in peace?”
“I was not ridiculing you. I was admiring your efforts.”
“By laughing at them?”
“Never mind, Susan. I am too tired and in too much pain to fence words with you.” He turned away. “Enjoy the rest of your afternoon painting.”
“I shall!” she called after him sarcastically, as he walked away. She smiled to herself. She preferred him awake. She felt better with things as normal between them no matter how nice Henry looked when he was asleep, and she refused to be swayed by her sympathy for the rogue, even though she knew he was lucky to be alive—it was his own fault.
She and Alethea dined at Farnborough, and Aunt Jane invited them to stay rather than travel back and forth each day, but Alethea denied the offer because their mother would most likely prefer it if they did not entirely desert her.
Although it was as if they were; they had left home at ten o’clock and would most likely only return in time to retire to bed. The days were not yet long.
Henry remained in dishabille for dinner.
He had a sickly pallor.
Susan watched as Alethea took his plate to cut up his food so that he could eat with one hand. His expression became awkward, and there was no glint in his eyes for her kindness and attention—not even a smile. Perhaps he did not feel at all well?
Yet whether he did or not, it was not Susan’s concern.
She looked at Christine who was sitting beside her and opened a conversation. Yet Susan’s gaze was repeatedly drawn back to Henry as he spoke to Alethea, and she could not stop noticing the small indent at the base of his throat and the dark hairs visible on his chest due to the v formed by his open shirt as she recalled the bruises his shirt hid.
Chapter Four (#u85edf0f1-b597-5902-be2a-9425be8678f3)
Susan walked down the stairs, carrying her bonnet, with her cloak hanging over her forearm. Her bonnet bounced against the skirt of her dress with the pace of her steps as she held it by the ribbons.
Alethea stood in the hall below, already wearing her bonnet, but she was not looking up to chase Susan into hurrying, but looking down at a letter.
“What is it?” Susan called.
“It is from Sarah,” Alethea looked up and met Susan’s gaze. “We cannot go. She says Henry intends to remain in his rooms and so he said it would be a waste of time for me to come.”
“Why?”
“He is feeling too ill, he does not wish to dress, but merely lay abed and rest his shoulder.”
“He did look pale yesterday.”
“I know. I felt so sorry for him. I would sit by his bed and keep him company but I suppose it is not the thing is it?”
“And if he has taken laudanum he will probably wish to sleep.”
“I suppose.”
But Susan had been looking forward to going over to Farnborough to continue her painting and the carriage had already been called.
“Mama!” Alethea called across the hall when their mother appeared from the drawing room. “We cannot go. Henry is feeling too unwell.”
“But I would like to go to paint, Mama.” Susan said as she stepped from the bottom stair. “Do you think I might? I was looking forward to painting again today and Uncle Robert said he did not mind my using the library at all for a whole fortnight.”
Her mother smiled. “If you wish to go, Susan, there will be no harm in it I am sure.”
Susan looked at Alethea, awaiting an offer to accompany her… There was still Sarah and Christine to visit, and after all Susan had only begun her painting project to accompany Alethea.
Alethea turned away and walked towards the drawing room, with Sarah’s letter held tightly in her hand.
Susan looked at her mother. Her mother was very like Alethea in temperament and she always gravitated towards her most exuberant daughter. She turned to Alethea, lifting a comforting arm to offer reassurance. “Alethea. Dear. I am sure he will be well enough to see you again soon.”
Susan loved her mother dearly but they had never understood one another particularly. Susan was more like her father in nature.
She turned to their butler. “Dodds, do not send the carriage away, I will be going but will you call for a maid.”
Dodds bowed slightly. “Shall I help you with your cloak, Miss.” He held out a hand.
She passed it over as her mother’s and Alethea’s conversation grew more distant.
She put on her bonnet and tied the ribbons, then turned so that he could set her cloak across her shoulders. She secured it herself while Dodds opened the door for her.
“Susan…” Her father entered the hall from a door leading out to the rear of the house and the stables. “Where is Alethea, is she not ready? I would have thought she’d be galloping with excitement to call on Henry.”
“He is too unwell for callers. I am going so I may continue to paint.”
His bushy white, eyebrows lifted, and the ends of his waxed moustache twitched. “Alone?”
“It is only to Uncle Robert’s. It is only a couple of miles and I am taking a maid.”
