A Simple Deception

XI

"The best lightning rod for your protection is your own spine." Ralph Waldo Emerson

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XI.

Susanna had been home a fortnight. Two very long weeks. She never thought she would miss the busyness that was London, but her life in Hertfordshire had never felt greyer. It didn't help that the weather seemed to be turning cooler even earlier this year.

She had settled back into her routine easily because it was the routine that she had kept each and every day since leaving finishing school. Perhaps the only change these last few years was her time spent with her nieces. Susanna would never begrudge her nieces, for she adored them terribly, but she was once again consumed by that feeling that had haunted her during her season.

It was unfulfillment. It was the knowledge that something was dreadfully lacking in her life, that worldliness that she had so craved, and yet had been too frightened to go out and grasp.

These feelings often led her thoughts to Alexander Whitfield. In fact, it did not take much in Susanna's day for her thoughts to travel to him. She watched the gardeners from the window lugging large planters, and she was instantly reminded of Mr Whitfield's brute strength. Whenever she saw her brother out riding, she could not help by think of Mr Whitfield's connection with his horse, Argent. She had found a French title of a book in the library and she had smiled to remember the moment where Mr Whitfield had revealed to her mother that he indeed spoke English, as well as his mother tongue. Susanna thought of his voice, his hands, his smile, his character, his eyes ... oh, his eyes. What windows to a deep, wounded soul they were.

Susanna wrote to him. Of course, she never sent her letters. She had felt so foolish as to have asked, and ashamed when she had witnessed Mr Whitfield's embarrassment at his illiteracy. But she needed to write to him for her own sanity. How she wished she could talk to him. Really talk to him, beyond any conversation she had ever shared with a man, or a woman, indeed. Susanna simply knew there was something there to be discovered.

"Oh, Susanna, for God's sake, stop moping!" snapped Cecily as they sat together with Grace and the girls in the drawing room for tea. "I cannot tolerate it."

Susanna righted her posture as Grace offered her a sympathetic smile. Susanna turned away from her mother and towards Perrie, who was sitting on the same settee with her. Perrie was playing with a doll that she had been gifted last Christmas, one made of beautiful porcelain and wearing a white dress made of real lace.

Perrie looked up at Susanna and offered her a sweet, yet cheeky, grin, her bright, blue eyes sparkling with delight. Perrie offered Susanna had doll and Susanna dutifully accepted it, straightening her dress as Perrie had been doing.

"She is so pretty like you," Perrie observed innocently, reaching up to stroke the side of Susanna's face, fingering one of her blonde curls which matched the colour of Perrie's doll.

"Oh, I quite agree, Perrie," commented Cecily. "And so many gentlemen this last season agreed also."

"Cecily," murmured Grace, "really? I know you appreciate and respect Susanna's choices somewhere inside of you."

Susanna's eyes flicked to her mother as Cecily pursed her lips.

"Just you wait until that one," Cecily nodded at Perrie, "or this one," she again gestured to Lily, who was sleeping in Grace's arms, "vexes you as that one," she motioned to Susanna, "vexes me."

Grace smiled peacefully. "I should hope they resist the charms of suitors who would want them for their dowries and not their hearts. Nothing would make me prouder, and it should certainly not vex me."