Sarah, who was eighteen, and to have her come out in London in a few weeks, was walking ahead of him. She looked over her shoulder and smiled. “I have sent a groom over to the Forths’ to tell Alethea you are home. She wished to know as soon as you arrived so she might call and see you at once.”
Henry smiled. God bless Alethea… He would be required to feel guilty within the hour then. Yet they were not officially engaged. It had been an unspoken agreement cooked up almost from their births. A plan formed between his father and his father’s friend, Uncle Casper, Lord Forth, who owned a neighbouring estate.
After Henry’s birth Lord and Lady Forth had been blessed with a daughter—and probably even while wetting Alethea’s head—it had become the perfect plan, to match the two.
The expectation placed upon him had been talked about as far back as he could remember. He’d never disagreed, nor disliked the idea, it was simply that he had not yet gone along with the plot and said the words that would seal the agreement and he had no intention of doing so during this visit home either. His marriage could wait, he was currently very much enjoying his bachelorhood and he was only twenty-three, it was too bloody young to betroth himself.
“I am sure you need to sit down,” his mother said. “You must be tired. Is it painful still? It must be. Have you taken laudanum?”
“I took some when I last stopped, but it is not intolerable, you need not fuss.” Yet he had come home because he’d known they would fuss and he was in a self-indulgent mood; a mood which appreciated their fussing. It did hurt, and his mother’s concern was the best balm—for a spoilt son.
He smiled at his rumination and allowed Christine to take hold of his good hand and pull him over the threshold of the house.
The square hall welcomed him, with its dark, wide, oak staircase, that wrapped itself about the walls, leading, seemingly, forever upward in an angular ascent. He loved the house. It smelled the same—of polished wood, candle wax and his mother’s perfume.
Christine tugged his hand and pulled him on, not to his father’s stately drawing room in one of the more recently built wings of the house, but to their smaller family drawing room. The dark oak panelling and the window full of Elizabethan lead-lined diamonds, made it seem austere, yet to Henry it induced that final sense of being home more than any other place in the house.
He sat down on an old sofa that his mother had had reupholstered in a gold velvet. The room brought back numerous happy memories of his childhood. This was where they had spent their days when he was young, playing and laughing, and many evenings too when he’d returned from school for the holidays—
“Must your arm remain in the sling always?” Christine asked.
“Always, for a few weeks.”
She made a face at him. “You knew what I meant.”
“You should see my shoulder and my arm, then you would have cause to make a disgusted face, I am black and every shade of red and yellow.” His hip was black too, and half his leg, and elsewhere there were other bruises. He’d truly shaken himself up. He’d lived carelessly his entire life, but his fall had made him realise more than just that he’d nearly broken his arm, he had nearly broken his neck, and the thought of that, that he might not have survived was the thing that had shaken him up. He had been given a second chance at life, he supposed. A chance to consider what he had done with his life. If he had died, he would have left no legacy. He’d spent his years carelessly and recklessly.
“Do you wish for tea and cake? You must be hungry…” His mother did not await his answer but turned to pull the cord to call for a maid. “And if you need to rest,” she said when she turned around, “you are in your old rooms.”
It would be as though he had never left home then. He smiled. He’d needed a sanctuary, and comforting, and as he’d known his mother and sisters were here and ready to offer both. “Thank you, Mama.”
He had at first moved to London to avoid her mollycoddling, and yet now he’d received a hard dose of fate’s medicine he’d realised that at times it had a value. His low spirit craved it.
“Here.” Sarah picked up a cushion from another chair, as Samson settled down, laying beside Henry’s feet and resting his head on Henry’s boot as he’d always done. His tail thumped on the floor as it continued to wave. The other dogs lay down on the hearth rug, their eyes on the returned prodigal son. “Sit back, Henry. Rest against this.”
Christine picked up a cushion too. “You may rest your arm on here.”
They arranged the cushions about him so he might sit more comfortably. Then Christine fetched a footstool for him.
He was being truly pampered. It had been a very good decision to return.
~
“Mama! Mama!”
Susan looked at her sister as Alethea hurried into the drawing room, waving a letter.
“He’s here! At Farnborough! Henry is home!” Alethea turned to the footman. “Please have them prepare the carriage.” Then she looked back at their mother. “Mama we must go. If he is in pain…”
“If he is in pain he deserves to be in pain.” Susan said quietly towards the book which lay open in her lap. She was sensitive of all wounded animals and concerned for those in need, but she did not care for young irresponsible men.
“Susan.” Alethea scowled at her.
She had not intended Alethea to hear.
“How can you be so cruel. It was a terrible accident. He has been injured and you are wishing more harm on him.”
Susan closed the book and set it aside. “He was in an accident because he was driving his curricle foolishly. He only has himself to blame and it was only his arm that was injured, he is hardly in a state that requires extreme sympathy.” And even if he was worse Susan would not feel in the least sympathetic as he’d brought it upon himself. It was his family who ought to receive sympathy for having such a careless, reckless son who constantly treated their concern with no regard.
“Then do not come to visit him with me. You may stay here if you intend to be irritable and rude to him. I have not seen him for months. I will not have the moment ruined.”
Susan did not care. She had no desire to see Henry. In her view he had been a spoilt brat who had grown into a spoilt, insensitive, selfish, careless man. She lifted her eyebrows so they must be arched above the rim of her spectacles, making an I-do-not-care expression at her sister.
“Mama, you will come with me. I cannot go if you do not. Please?”
“I cannot. I am busy. You two will have to settle this argument. Susan will have to accompany you. Your father will be returning in an hour and expect me to be here to receive Mr. Dennison.”
Susan sighed and stood up. She was not to escape Henry’s odious company then. “I am willing, if you wish me to join you.” She was not cruel. She would not deprive her sister of his company when Alethea had waited so long for it. She was not selfish.
“He shall not thank me for bringing you when you are in this mood, but at least then I shall see him. Fetch your bonnet and cloak, I wish to go as soon as we may.” Having cast her commands Alethea turned to leave the room.
That Alethea was very well matched to her anticipated fiancé was not something Susan would say aloud and yet at the back of her mind it was a thought she kept in constant hiding. She did not wish to malign her sister and yet the comparison screamed at her at times.
Alethea stopped at the door and turned back. “Aunt Jane and Uncle Robert will most likely ask us to dine, Mama, and so I doubt we shall return until late. You do not mind?”
“Of course I do not