The Secret Love of a Gentleman (26 page)

“Because I do not want your reputation challenged. People will see you with a younger man and think you fast. People do not know me, Caro, I do not attend these sorts of things normally, and I will not see more judgement heaped upon you.”

“Thank you.” She said the words, not sure that she truly was thankful; in his arms, looking up at him, she did not care what others thought.

“Did I say how beautiful you look?”

“You did,”

“You do not regret…” he said then, his expression suddenly looking serious.

She longed to stop dancing and kiss him. “I do not regret anything that happened between us, Rob.”

“Neither do I. I had thought perhaps I did, when I first came to town, because I can promise you nothing still, Caro, and I felt guilty. But now you are here and I see you, I can only see what I long for.”

“You need not have felt guilty. I told you I did not expect promises—”

“Then where do you see this progressing?” His gaze looked into her eyes, searching for the answer.

“I cannot say, can it not just be?”

“I wish to do right by you in the future, as I ought to, but I am in no position to offer for you. I have no living—”

“Rob, I do not expect it.”

The music slowed, and Rob turned her with a flourish. Then he leant to her ear, “Well, you ought to expect it, you have my heart. You may know that now, at least.”

“And you have mine,” she whispered back, even though she knew that Albert still had a grip upon it. But in Rob’s arms, she could not think of Albert.

“Will you wait until I am able to offer, then?”

She had told herself she would only think of now. She had promised him she had no expectations. Yet seeing Albert had helped her see how much more happiness might be found with Rob. “Yes.” Oh she had not hoped. She had not dared build up such dreams, and yet he was speaking of marriage. Could she truly be married again?

He looked beyond her and his expression changed.

She turned following his gaze. He was looking at Albert. “Rob. Stop glowering, you are as bad as Drew and I thought you did not wish to give us away.”

His gaze fell to her and he smiled. “Caro, darling, my entire family are glowering at him. It will not give my interest away.”

When they walked across the room to join his family, she saw that it was true. Every man in the group stared at Albert.

“Well, I wish they would not, it will not help, it will make his interest more obvious, and it will only rile him, and it is none of their concern.”

“You are their concern because you are under Drew’s care. I have told you before you’re an honorary member of my family.” Rob’s tone was flat and factual. “Will you sit beside me to eat supper? That will not be misconstrued, it is expected as we have danced this set.”

“Yes.” She would like that.

They sat amongst his family, with Drew on her other side, about a large table, and so there was no more chance for private conversation.

Albert sat across the room beside the blonde he’d spoken to, amongst his friends, and every time Caro looked up he was looking at her. Although it was not a hostile stare, but nor was it the open interest he had looked at her with when he’d courted her.

Perhaps she was an embarrassment he’d wished to keep hidden.

“Is that his wife?” she asked of Drew, when Drew looked up and caught him watching, then glowered.

Albert ignored Drew’s look, as he had ignored all the others.

Drew turned and smiled at her, “Yes, and pray, please say you do not care.”

“I do not.” That was such a lie. That woman had born him the child Caro could not and envy breathed deep within her blood.

“Do you never speak to your parents?” Rob asked, looking at them both.

He had waded onto ground that should not be traversed.

“Our mother,” Drew began pointedly, marking the fact that the Marquis was not their parent, “does not care to acknowledge our existence. I gave up trying to gain her notice years ago.”

“I never sought to obtain it and she never gave it,” Caro responded.

“I only asked because I was surprised they have not spoken to Caro, as she has been so long away from town.”

“We are not surprised.” Drew answered, in a petulant tone.

“Would they not even speak if they passed you in a street? Even your mother?” Rob’s eyebrows lifted.

“She would cross over it, in fact she has done it,” Drew answered.

“I see,” Rob stated.

“I’m sure you do not,” Drew responded.

Mary’s fingers gripped Drew’s, and she leaned around him. “We do not speak of them, Rob, they are naught to do with us.”

Caro could not dance with Rob again. They had danced the two sets that polite society allowed, and so she danced the first after supper with Drew, then another with the Duke and from then on she danced with Rob’s wider family, as they ensured no one else might ask.

When it came time to leave, it was Rob who laid her cloak on her shoulders and held her fingers as she climbed up into the carriage, and then he sat beside her, his thigh against hers.

His brother had agreed to drop him at his rooms, and when they stopped he smiled at her, then he looked about everyone. “Goodnight.” He said before he climbed out and the footman shut the door behind him.

It had been the most impersonal parting.

Her thoughts clung to the moment of their waltz.
“Will you wait until I am able to offer, then?” “Yes.”

Chapter 23

The day after the Earl of Pickford’s ball, after the family had eaten luncheon, a stream of unexpected visitors began calling on the Duke and Duchess of Pembroke. Caro watched them arriving from the drawing room. Carriage after carriage came.

They had not called to see either Kate or John, they had called to stare at the fallen marchioness. Drew had shown her a column in the paper that morning, and it had recorded her return to public life.
It was noted last evening that the cast-off Marchioness of K dared show her face in town
and all eyes were upon the Marquis, yet his were upon her
.

Caro’s skin had heated, but she was glad Drew had shown her. It was better that she knew what was said about her than that she lived in ignorance.

John had called it nonsense. While both Kate and Mary had advised her to think nothing of it, or Kilbride.

She had been surprised, though, when she’d not thought of it last night, nor of Albert. She’d expected to lie awake thinking of him, but instead she’d fallen asleep remembering her waltz with Rob, and during the day all she thought of was that tomorrow he’d said he would call early and then ask her to drive out with him.

She nodded as people spoke, and asked polite questions. But her thoughts were not in the room with them. Not because she was anxious at all, simply because she did not care that they were here. Few of the callers stayed longer than half an hour, and she was never in the room without Mary and Kate, and so the day was entirely bearable, yet exhausting.

When the clock chimed four, the last caller left and Caro fell back in the armchair, sighing.

Mary laughed.

Caro smiled at her. “May I cry off this evening?” The family were going to a musical evening. Rob would not be there and so there was no need for her to go. “After today I would rather stay here, if you do not mind?”

Mary rose and crossed the room, then pressed a hand on Caro’s shoulder. “Why would we mind? Of course we do not. Remain here as you wish and rest.”

“I shall retire now, then, if you will excuse me, Kate. May I take a simple supper in my rooms?” Caro stood.

“Of course, Caroline.”

~

Rob had slept restlessly. His friends had teased him in the evening, wondering over the cause of his absences when he’d said he would be busy all of the following day.

“Is it a woman?” Tarquin had accused. “It is the only reason I imagine you might be drawn into ballrooms and drawing rooms.”

“It is not,” Rob had denied. But perhaps his skin had coloured because his friends had captured the theme.

“I think it is too,” Arthur agreed.

“Who is it?” Stephen asked.

“No one. There is no woman.” Thank God he’d been in Brooks’s and not White’s, where someone within his family might have heard.

“I think he lies,” Patrick had teased. “You should be careful of this political reputation you wish to build if you are consorting with other men’s wives.”

“If any of you spread such a stupid rumour…” A threat hung in his words, but that was so unlike him, in itself, it probably gave the depth of his emotion away, and confirmed their assumption that it was a woman who was pulling him away from progressing his plan.

“Then he will take us down to Manton’s and put us at the end of the shooting range as targets,” Tarquin laughed.

“Yet, I still think it true,” Thomas had thrown his t’pence in.

Rob had made a face at him. “But it is not and so please do not repeat your foolish thoughts.” He had never lied in his life until he’d begun this thing with Caro. It was not only his plan her presence in London was leading astray, it was his morals too.

Memories of the twice he’d lain with her whispered in his head.

He had sinned with her in the summer, and he wished to commit sin with her again.

He swallowed against a dry throat as he knocked on the door of John’s opulent town house. He would be alone with her today, he hoped, and he hoped they would have an opportunity to become intimate again.

Finch opened the door. “Master Marlow.” He bowed.

Rob walked in. “Is anyone free.”

“Their Graces have just broken their fast. The Duke is in the library, sir, and Lord Framlington is out visiting, however the Duchess and Lady Framlington are in the drawing room.”

He presumed Caro was too. “Thank you, Finch, I’ll show myself up.”

He handed Finch his hat and gloves, then ran upstairs, taking the shallow stone steps two at a time, his heart thumping with an eagerness to see her.

When he walked into the drawing room, before he even said good morning, he asked, “Where is Caro?”

Mary stood up to greet him, smiling broadly. “She has not come down. She is not feeling well. I think things are taking a toll on her.”

“We had a considerable number of callers yesterday. Or, rather, poor Caroline did and she chose to keep to her room last evening,” Kate clarified.

“I cannot blame her, Rob, she spent the entire afternoon playing exhibit.”

I should have been here
. He wished to go to her room. The words hovered on his tongue, but of course he could not.

Instead he walked forward and kissed Mary’s cheek, then Kate’s. “I called early so I might see the children.”

Mary smiled, “I will call for them.” She crossed the room and pulled the bell rope, while Kate waved a hand encouraging him to sit.

“We are planning an outing.” Kate sat forward in her chair. “Will you join us? We are asking all the family. We thought to take the children out somewhere and give them some space to run.”

“When?”

“In a fortnight, when Mama and Papa are in town,” Mary answered as she came to sit next to him on the sofa.

“Rob.”

He rose and turned as Caro walked into the room, his heart flooding with a violin tune. He crossed the room and clasped her hands. She had dark circles beneath her eyes and she looked pale. “Mary said you were not well.”

“I was tired. I did not sleep. Forgive me for not coming down, Kate.”

He remembered himself as she looked at Kate, and let Caro’s hands go.

“I understand entirely,” Kate responded.

“I was going to go up and visit the children, but then I heard Rob arrive.”

She’d come down to see him, then.

He returned to his seat, as she sat in an armchair near Kate.

“I have called to see the children.”

She smiled at him.

He felt awkward and tongue-tied suddenly.

When the elder children were brought down from the nursery, George, Paul, and John’s second, David, who was the same age as George. They vied for Rob’s attention and so Rob let his concentration and energy be absorbed by them while the women talked and planned their family outing.

John was still in his library when it came time to eat luncheon, and so they ate in the morning room with the children.

As they finished, Rob looked at Caro. “You look as though you could do with some fresh air, Caro, and perhaps it may be an idea to escape the house before the calling hour. Why not come driving with me? We could go to the Tower. Have you been?”

She was sitting at the table with George on her lap. She looked up. “No, I have never been.”

“Well that’s it, then. We will go for a drive, in the opposite direction to Hyde Park, and ride out to the Tower and you will get some air and feel better.”

A smile parted her lips slightly. “I would like that, thank you, Rob.”

He looked at Mary. She was smiling at him too. She had seen nothing odd in his offer. “You do not mind if I steal her away for the afternoon?”

“Not at all, it will be good for you, Caro. George, come here poppet.”

“Go fetch your bonnet,” Rob nodded to Caro, meaningfully. “I’ll await you in the hall.”

She handed George to Mary, then rose and smiled again before leaving the room.

He said goodbye to the children, Mary and Kate, then left them and went downstairs.

When he waited for a footman to fetch his hat and gloves, and for John’s grooms to bring his curricle around. He knocked on the library door.

“Come,” John called in his ducal voice.

Rob opened the door, but he did not step in. “I just thought I would say hello. I have been visiting the children, but I’m leaving now. I’m taking Caro out to escape the callers.”

John lifted a hand and smiled. He was in a meeting with Phillip, Kate’s brother, John’s business man. “Hello and goodbye, then.”

Rob smiled at John, then Phillip. “Yes. Goodbye.” He lifted a hand, then shut the door as Caro hurried downstairs.

If anyone beyond the servants had seen her haste they would guess there was something between them. Her smile was broad and excitement glittered in her eyes. She no longer looked tired. But John’s servants did not know Caro. They had barely seen her for years, they would not know the expression was unusual for her.