The Secret Love of a Gentleman (27 page)

She wore a moss-green pelisse and a matching broad-rimmed bonnet, with white rose buds decorating it and she also wore kid-leather gloves and a thin cream silk scarf.

He smiled at her as Finch crossed to pass him his gloves and hat. “We will be a while. If anyone calls to speak to Lady Framlington let them know she is out for the afternoon.” He offered his arm to Caro, and then the door was opened and they were stepping out.

He had her at last.

His fingers pressed over hers as they lay on his arm, while jubilation skipped through his blood.

He handed her up into his curricle as the grooms held the horses, then he walked about the far side and climbed up himself.

When he took the reins he glanced at her. “I suppose this is nothing new to you. You must have ridden in Kilbride’s or Drew’s curricles.”

“No, actually.” The sunlight caught in her eyes, making them gleam gold. “Never.”

“This will be a treat, then. Except we cannot go particularly fast in London. I should have taken you out when I stayed at Drew’s; I could have shown you how fast my horses can fly.”

“They may be fast, but I am sure they cannot fly.”

“Very well, I admit they cannot, but it feels as though they can when you are going at a gallop and racing through the wind.”

He flicked the reins, set the horses into a trot and once they were a distance from the grooms, he glanced at her. “Caro, we can go to the Tower if you like, or we can go to my apartment?” He could see nothing but the rim of her bonnet. “Caro…”

Her head turned. “I have seen the Tower a dozen times, Rob.”

“My apartment then…”
God
. His heart pumped with the power of a piston thrust. He drove through the back streets, avoiding the routes society preferred. They passed a couple of carriages, with occupants they might know, but her bonnet kept her hidden and he doubted anyone would be interested in who he had beside him. It was the rest of his family who were important. He was insignificant to the elite of London, a mere relation, unheard of as yet.

When they reached the stables where he kept his curricle he slowed the horses to a walk, then halted them. He threw the ribbons to a groom when he jumped down, and walked about the curricle to help Caro descend. He did not take her hand, but gripped her waist.

She kept her head lowered, demurely, keeping her face hidden within her bonnet.

They walked out from the mews and crossed the street, holding hands.

His apartment had a private staircase.

When they reached the black-painted door, he took the key from his pocket. His hand shook as he turned it in the lock. He ought not to be doing this.

She swept past him, her perfume hovering in the air. Lavender. He remembered the smell from their night in the dark. When he shut the door behind them and threw the bolt, she was running upstairs.

He followed her, hurrying too, and at the top, as she stood before his door, he caught hold of her. She lifted her head at the same moment he lowered his, ducking beneath her bonnet. “You must accept my apology now,” he said over her lips, “for this and much more.”

“You are forgiven.”

When their lips met it was as though he had spent his last weeks in a desert and Caro was water, their mouths opened and their tongues danced. “I love you,” he said as he pulled away and opened the door to his rooms.

She paid no attention to the small amount of purposeful furniture in his sitting room, but reached to his shoulders, urging him to remove his morning coat. He pulled the ribbons of her bonnet loose before he conceded, and then as she tugged at the knot of his cravat, he released the buttons at the front of her pelisse.

When he was clothed in his shirt and his trousers only, and she in her dress, the buttons undone to her stomach, he gripped the back of her head and kissed her once more, pressing her back against the wall.

Her lips were swollen and her pupils wide and bright when he let her go.

She tipped her head back against the plaster and breathed in, as if she’d been dying of thirst too and sighed out her relief.

“How are you, Caro? I have been in agony waiting to get you alone like this.” He slipped his fingers beneath the shoulders of her dress to take it off her.

“I missed you yesterday.”

Her dress fell to floor and she stepped out of it.

“I know, Mary told me about your callers. I wish I had been there. I will be there tomorrow. Turn.”

She turned her back so he might unlace her corset. “If you had been, you could not have helped, or held my hand as I wished.”

“No, but I would have been in the room, and you would have known I was there.” She tipped her head back onto his shoulder as her corset fell to the floor.

His hands crept over her stomach, running across the cotton of her chemise. Then he gripped her full breasts through the garment as he kissed her neck.

She sighed into the air.

They ought not to be here, and yet no one knew they were, it was as if they were not. They were in a secret world.

He turned her and kissed her again, then held her hand and led her to his bedchamber. A single chest of drawers and a wardrobe stood against one wall, and the bed against another. She did not look at them, she looked at him.

“Shall I light a fire?”

“No, we will be warm enough beneath the covers.

“Sit on the bed and I’ll take off your boots.” He unlaced her walking boots. Her feet were tiny and slender; they fit in the length of his hand. He stripped off her stockings too, rolling them down her pale legs. “Take off your chemise and your drawers and slip beneath the covers, while I take off my boots, before you become cold.”

It was not yet winter, and odd days were still warm, but today was colder.

He sat on the edge of the bed, yanking at his boots, watching her.

She slid off her drawers first, beneath her chemise, but then she lifted that off. Her body was feminine curves and pale skin—beautiful. She lifted the covers and slid beneath, smiling at him.

His boot dropped to the floor. He removed the other and then stood and stripped off his trousers, underwear and stockings. Then, finally, he lifted his shirt off over his head.

When he joined her in the bed, his heart ran, pounding through his chest.

He was to be intimate with her again, in daylight, when he might see her body. He’d thought he loved her before today, but today… it was amplified a dozen times.

~

When Rob lifted the covers and lay beside her, Caro shivered. The sheets were cold. “Warm me up.”

“Yes, m’lady.” He laughed against her neck as his hand ran over her hip, then upwards. He cupped her breast and kneaded it. She rolled to her back as his head lowered and, despite the cold, her arms lifted above the covers as he began to suck her breast. His mouth was warm.

She clasped his shoulders and let every sensation seep into her blood.

The bed smelt of him.

She pressed her head back into the pillow.

His teeth caught her nipple and bit gently. “Ah.”

He laughed, but then he licked it, before kissing across her middle and over her stomach. She lay back and breathed slowly.

Sunlight poured through the narrow window. It looked out across the street, but she could see the blue sky above the houses.

His fingers touched between her legs.

“Oh.”

“I have dreamed of this so many times,” Rob whispered against her stomach, before he moved down the bed and she opened her legs for him and shut her eyes.

“I have dreamed of it too.”

He held her thighs gently as his lips, tongue and teeth caressed her.

Her body arched against him. She was not cold any more. Her hips undulated as he worked, and her mind was completely lost in the sensations of adoration. The amber cross on her necklace slid across her throat as she moved. She died her little death on his tongue, and felt her body fall into the soft bed that smelt of him.

Then he was above her, looking down at her, his legs between hers and his body poised over hers. “Caro,” he said, in a voice of utter adoration. “I have wanted you constantly since you came to town.”

Her fingers brushed his fringe from his brow. “You have me now.”

“Yes.” He pressed into her, and she grasped his shoulders.

It was paradise.

Her breasts rocked with his movements, as he watched her body. It was their first time unclothed in the light.

“I love you,” she said. He looked so young sometimes.

His lips twisted when he looked up, and then, his palms pressing into the mattress beside her shoulders he moved more vigorously. She lifted her legs.

His hips brushed against her inner thighs as he continued moving.

She raised her arms and gripped the iron struts at the head of his bed.

He moved more aggressively still. He had truly been longing for this.

She bit her lip and shut her eyes, letting him invade her with as much force as he wished, but his roughness was still unlike Albert’s because if she looked into his eyes she would see the gentleness and emotion in Rob’s.

He was looking down at where they joined, biting his upper lip, as he fought to avoid his release for as long as he might.

No he was not Albert.

“Oh.” A sensation caught inside her, as he struck the sensitive spot between her legs. “Yes, continue like that.” She said into the air, her body involuntarily arching. “Ah!” She cried out when she fell and the release rushed through her veins.

He looked at her with a smile and moved more aggressively, seeking his own completion, but when it came he withdrew and let himself pulse across her stomach, the warm sticky liquid settling there, as a muscle flickered in his cheek.

He’d had no need to be cautious, she could not carry children, and he knew that. It was another sign of his thoughtfulness.

He rolled away, collapsing beside her. “My conscience knows I should not have let this begin, I have no life to offer you yet, but I cannot regret it.”

“You need not,” she said in return, her body satisfied and her heart full. “Tell me about your hopes in politics…”

“My hopes…” He laughed.

“Yes. You said you had a plan. Tell me about it…”

“I wish to make a difference in the world. To be influential. I want to speak out for the working class. For those who need a voice but have no power to speak in Parliament. They have no right to vote. They need a voice.”

It was such a Rob-like statement, she smiled to herself.

He rolled towards her, looking at her, and his fingers ran across her cheek before he tucked the strands of her hair behind her ear. “There are numerous women who live in poverty and are forced to do things which they do not wish to do. I would free them from that life if I can. And I wish to free men from being controlled by their employers’ greed. I wish to force employers into paying a fair wage. The current system favours the wealthy too much. They are allowed, within the law, to grind those who earn them their money into the ground. It is not right.”

Respect and admiration swelled inside Caro, as Rob rolled to lie on his back. She turned to rest her head on his chest. “I am glad someone like you wishes to give them a voice. It will be a good voice. You are a man of compassion.”

Albert sat in the House of Lords. She had heard him practise his speeches—he’d only ever spoken for the bills that made the rich, richer, and the landowners more secure.

Rob was so different. He cared not only about her, but for right and goodness. He was a good man. And she had feared he would forget her before coming to town, that had been folly, a foolish construction created by the history of her past. Rob was a good man who would not treat her lightly—her heart and head must learn that he was not Albert.

“My family would call it idealism, not compassion.” He laughed slightly as his hand lifted and tucked behind his head. “But perhaps it is idealism. I had not realised how much money I will need to achieve this dream of speaking for the poor. Which in itself makes the whole thing a farce.”

“Your brother—”

“Do not say it.” His hand slipped from beneath his head and rested on her hair. “How may I speak for the working class if I am living off my family? Yes, and before you say this too, I know a dozen others do it, but I am not them.”

“No,” Caro rolled onto her stomach, her fingers pressing onto his chest as she met his gaze. “You are not like them, you are passionate and compassionate and I love you.”

~

The clock in the other room chimed four.

Caro brushed a hand across Rob’s shoulder to wake him. They had lain in bed all afternoon, and they had made love twice, on the second occasion she’d touched him and aroused him once more, then used her mouth and ridden him, sitting astride his hips and watching the adoration in his eyes as his palms had lain on her thighs, his thumbs brushing over the inner surface.

But now it was time to go back.

“It is four, Rob.”

His dark-grey eyes opened and looked at her. He smiled. “Sorry, I have so little time to spend with you and I fall asleep.”

“I fell asleep too.” It was the first time she’d slept deeply for days.

His fingers brushed her cheek. “But now I must give you up again. At least I think the dark circles that were beneath your eyes when I picked you up have gone.”

“You have a way with compliments, Rob Marlow.” She turned and began to rise, feeling him move, rolling to his side.

She looked back to see he’d rested his head on a palm, while the sheet settled low over his hip. The athletic definition of his torso was visible. It had been visible to her throughout their love- making, along with the dark dusting of hair across the centre of his chest.

“You are beautiful, you know you are, you do not need my compliments, but if you wish for them, then what I notice more is your eyes when they turn gold in the sunlight.”

She did not know what to say, the look in his eyes said hers were gold now. What she saw in his was adulation.

She rose and picked up her chemise from the floor.

“Caro.” He stood behind her. His hands gripped her waist and pulled her back against him. Then he spoke into her hair. “I wish us to be married. I have nothing to offer you yet, but I wish it so, as soon as it can be. As soon as we do not need to rely on John or Papa.”