She stuck her tongue out at him as she would have done as a child. He was infuriating, it was no wonder she’d lost her temper and struck him.
His eyes opened wider and his smile lifted, expressing mocked shock, and then suddenly the smile seemed to illuminate the brown in his eyes.
When her tongue slipped back into her mouth, the glint in his eyes became a glow with a greater depth, making his brown eyes as rich in colour as polished mahogany.
Awkwardness pricked. She looked down at her painting. She could not walk away at this moment. “I hope you are feeling better.”
“I am feeling better than I was the day you came to my room, thank you.” His voice held a dry note that sought to highlight again how inappropriate her behaviour had been in daring to go to his sitting room.
Rebellious. She heard the word in his voice, as it had been said a moment ago when he’d leant to her ear. Perhaps she was a little.
Susan looked up. He was very close, she could see every detail of his eyelashes and every shade within his brown eyes. “You could have said do not come in, you know?” The scent of his expensive London cologne enveloped her.
“I thought it was the footman come to take away the tea-tray.”
“You knew it was me when I entered.”
“And perhaps then it was more amusing to not yell at you and make you go away.” His voice had lost its mocking edge and dropped into a low pitch. “…The lesson was better taught by leaving you to discover what your rebellious nature had led you into.”
“Sayeth Lord Henry Marlow, the prodigal son, he who has just been thrown from his curricle in a race and nearly broken his neck and admitted he has probably learned no lessons at all.” Her voice had dropped in pitch too.
His eyes seemed full of questions as he looked at her. Then his gaze travelled across her face, studying her as he’d studied her painting. When his gaze came back to hers, he said, “Quite.” Then he turned away and began walking back across the room, with Samson in his wake.
“I truly am sorry that you were so badly hurt, Henry!” Susan called after him, her awkwardness and her empathy for his pain, pushing her into more words. “But I do not think that anything I do compares!” She had not known what to say, but she had needed to say something to turn whatever had just happened back into something tangible that she could understand.
He turned and walked a couple of steps backwards, with his free hand cradling his poorly arm. “I am truly sorry…Your voice rings with guilt, Susan, as it did yesterday when you saw my bruises. Did you think I had been acting out my pain, and wearing a sling for my pleasure? You… The rescuer of every wounded thing, wild or tame…”
“No.” Her instinctive denial cut through the air, and stopped him moving.
He smiled in that hideous mocking way, that said, I know I am right.
Oh be honest with him, he would be honest with her. “I thought you deserved to be injured. You are the reckless one. It is you who needed to be taught a lesson. But I would not have wished your life endangered. I came to your room yesterday as much to apologise for the meanness of my thoughts as to fetch Samson.”
The rogue looked up at the ceiling and laughed for an instant before looking back at her. The amusement had brightened his eyes. “Think as meanly as you wish, Susan, it will not do me any greater harm than I have done myself. I dare say, on this occasion, I may have finally learned the lesson you wished me taught.” He turned away once more.
“Where are we eating?” She called before he left the room.
“In the formal dining room, Papa is home.”
When they ate, she had intended to sit beside Sarah, but Alethea drew Susan’s attention, and so she could not then walk around the table to sit with Christine and Sarah. She ended up taking a seat on the opposite side of Henry to her sister.
Alethea spoke to Aunt Jane as Henry silently fought to eat his food one handed.
Susan swallowed, she wished to make conversation, to stop herself from suffering with the awkwardness that hung over her. “How are your bruises today, are they improving?” she said lamely.
“Turning from almost black to a lighter purple, but perhaps I have a new one since you struck me.”
She looked at him. “Sorry.”
He smiled. “If we are on the grounds of apologies, then I owe you one too. I am sorry I did not tell you to go away the other day. I should have done. I did not mean my teasing to discompose you earlier, but I can see it has done because every time you look at me you turn a greater shade of pink.”
Oh, she wished to smack him again.
“You are forgiven for striking me, if I am forgiven,” he concluded.
“You are forgiven only if you agree never to mention that I went to your room again.”
A half laugh rumbled from his chest.
Alethea turned and said something to him. But before he turned to reply, he said to Susan, “Are we friends again then?”
“Henry! Alethea asked for your opinion.” his father interrupted before Susan could answer. There must have been some greater conversation about the table they had lost track of. Henry turned away.
Once they had finished eating, Susan rose to return to the library. Every one else stood at the same time. She would have walked on ahead but Henry touched her arm.
“Wait a moment. I have not yet secured your agreement on our pact.”
He had not forgotten his desire for a truce, then.
Alethea walked on with Aunt Jane, and his father walked with Christine and Sarah.
“May we call ourselves friends? I do not think we have really been friends for years. I would like to think of you as my friend, Susan.”
She hated the way he said her name, his enunciation made her stomach twist about with a strange sensation.
He held out his left, good, hand, which was gloveless. She accepted the gesture.
She wore no glove either. The warmth and the softness of his skin surprised her as his hand surrounded hers. Yet he had not held her hand in the way he held Alethea’s hand, he held Susan’s in a firm gesture, his whole hand gripping her whole hand, not merely pressing her fingers.
The queasy feeling in her stomach tumbled over. She had never held a man’s naked hand, except for her father’s.
He shook her hand a single time, firmly, and then let her go. “May I escort you to the library? I wouldn’t mind another look at your painting, we might even persuade Alethea to stop by…” His good arm had lifted as he spoke. He was offering it to her…
She looked at his forearm, before glancing up and then laying her fingers on his arm self-consciously.
Her fingers closed about the sinuous muscle of his arm through his thin shirt. The cotton was so fine she could feel the hairs on his skin.
The strange sensation in her tummy coiled up like an adder waiting to strike.
“So how many flowers have you attempted so far?”
Susan swallowed before answering. Her throat had dried. “I am only on my second.”
“And how many are in the book? I seem to recall about fifty. You will be here for a year.”
She smiled at him. “Or two.”
This was Henry at his most persuasive, he could turn this side of himself on and off so easily. She had always found his charm annoying before, but then it had never been solely directed at her.
Now it was directed at her…
It