The Secret Love of a Gentleman (32 page)

She did not answer.

“His cousins have begun talking about his odd behaviour. They are speaking about him in the club he does not go to, so he will not know. Your name has not yet been linked to it, but it will be soon if you continue this and it will break him.”

She sipped the brandy because her throat was so dry.

“What happened when you went for that long drive when I was out?”

She blushed. It was as though he’d slapped her. “It is not what you think.”

“I concede he is not a boy and I know the two of you discovered a friendship in the summer, but it should have gone no further. If you are his first, such a thing engenders emotion and Rob is a young man with high morals. If you have lain with him, he will feel obligated to marry you.”

Caro swallowed and bit her lip, nausea rolling through her stomach. She wished to deny everything Drew said, yet it was true.

“I do not doubt he is now in love with you. It is in his every look. It will be a bloody mortal wound to him if you end it. But I urge you to do it, even though it will cut him now. Give the lad space and time, Caro, let him grow up and find his feet. If there is really something between you it will last the years. Do not snatch the poor man straight from the cradle.”

“It is hardly the cradle,” she breathed.
If she had been his first, why had he not said so?
Their moments in that empty cottage returned. She had urged.

Did I seduce him?

She met Drew’s gaze. “I did not—”

“You have done more than nothing with him. Your face says so.”

“I have not seduced him, we—”

“Who kissed who first? In fact, you need not even answer, because I know it would not have been him. His morals are too high. It began with a kiss and then…”

She had not known that night who kissed who first. But she had gone to the library, and she had gone to his room the second time they’d been intimate. He would never have come to her.

Her fingers pressed to her collarbone at the base of her neck. She had begun it.

“You look white; you did not know that he was innocent, did you?”

She shook her head.

“Drink some more of the brandy.”

He leaned back in his seat, watching her and finished his drink in one swallow.

She felt sick.

“You will have to explain to him that now is not the right moment for you, that it is better to have time, because if you say it is because of him, he will be mortified, Caro.”

She nodded, numb.

“I cannot believe that you have done this, and with Mary’s brother, of all people.” He rose, then, and walked across the room, to leave his glass on the side. Then he turned back. “I will retire. I had hoped, Caro… I had always thought… That you were not like the others in our family, and yet this… Did you learn nothing from their barbaric ways?”

He turned, and walked from the room.

Caro stood.

She had agreed to marry Rob, but Drew was right, his feelings might be infatuation. If she had been his first…

Drew left the door open.

Caro blew out the candles, which burned in a candelabra on the mantle. Then she walked across the room and blew out those in the candelabra that stood on a table on the far side of the room. Then she walked out into the hall. A footman waited near the stairs.

She ignored him and climbed the stairs towards her room, her limbs heavy. Rob had not chosen to do the things they’d done; she’d urged him.

Seduced. Trapped. He’d called the word inferior, bitter, and said it sounded like self-pity. The words Drew had used were a dozen times worse. They made her sound predatory and cruel. She had not been that. That had not been her intent.

Once the maid had helped her undress, and left, Caro looked at herself in the mirror and saw the amber cross hanging at her throat. It had been the one thing she’d clung to from Albert. He’d given it to her when they’d first wed and she’d never removed it. It was a memory of happier times.

With shaky fingers she released the clasp, then left the chain and the pendant on the chest of drawers. She needed no reminder now. She had no wish for memories of Albert. She had no feelings left for him. The feelings and memories she wished to cling to were for Rob.

When she lay down in bed, in her nightgown, between the cold sheets, she wrapped her arms across her chest and wept, feeling a dozen times lonelier than she’d done before. She did not wish to be in the wrong. She loved Rob. All she wished for was for his love in return. But had her craving for love made her take advantage of an offer of friendship?

Oh, she had believed in Rob’s love. He’d convinced her wholly since she’d come to town, that it was real and lasting, and yet… Her knowledge of love was so shallow, how could she tell? She had been wrong about Albert, and Albert had been the only person to show her any depth of emotion beyond the brotherly love Drew had always offered her.

Then all she could do was trust in Drew’s judgement. Another tear ran onto her cheek.

Chapter 28

When Rob approached his brother’s lavish town house, it was with an intent. He’d come to participate in the picnic, and yet he’d equally come to speak to Caro. He wished to announce their engagement. It was the only way he might have the right to care for her openly. They might need to be engaged for years, it might restrict how easily they could slip away, and yet he could not stand to be in the position he’d been in last night. He could not watch her with Kilbride and do nothing.

He’d spent the night awake, with nausea rolling through his stomach.

I will feel better once I’ve seen her
.

He’d wished for a night with her. He’d wished to hold her, to know that she was safe in his arms. Yet thinking of holding her only reminded him how fragile she felt when he did.

He parked his curricle behind the long line of carriages waiting before the house, let a groom take the ribbons, and jumped down.

When he walked into the drawing room there were numerous members of his extended family filling it up. It looked as though they would be travelling in a dozen carriages.

He saw Caro. She stood in a far corner alone, looking out through a window. She was dressed in lemon yellow. The colour was bright, yet her posture and expression were not.

Perhaps she’d been looking for him, but she did not look at him now he’d come into the room.

He bowed to one of his aunts and said good morning, then spoke to a couple of his female cousins as he worked his way across the room.

Caro looked like a phantom again today. She was overly pale and silent, and she had still not looked away from the window.

When his mother stopped him to speak, he refused to be delayed again. “Forgive me, Mama, but I wish to speak to Caro for a moment before we leave.”

His mother gave him a questioning look, but smiled and turned away.

He walked the last few paces, then took Caro’s hand from where it had rested across her midriff, bowed over it and pressed it to his lips, not caring what anyone thought. But everyone was probably too focused on their own conversations to pay any attention to him. When he rose he kept a hold of her fingers as she looked at him.

“Caro…”

There was sadness in her eyes and she did not smile.

“You look as though you did not sleep.”

She pulled her hand free and looked beyond his shoulder.

Rob glanced back, following her gaze, to see Drew watching them.

He smiled.

An odd sense, like a feeling of premonition, slipped over Rob, an internal shiver. Something seemed wrong.

He looked back at Caro. “Are you very disturbed? I have brought my curricle if you would like to ride with me today? Perhaps we could—”

“It is better we do not, Rob. Phillip has offered already and I accepted.”

Phillip
… The name was a punch to Rob’s chest, in the position of his heart. Yet he merely nodded and turned away, unsure how to respond.

Phillip…

“We are all here, so I propose we leave! The carriages are ready!” Kate called across the room.

A stream of his relations, and a stream of conversation, flowed down the stairs. Then, in the hall, there was the bustle of cloaks and coats being put on. Rob watched Caro slip on her straw bonnet. Its yellow ribbon matched her dress. The pelisse she put on was a pale brown.

The front door opened and outside more than a dozen footmen waited to hand them all up.

Instead of Caro, Rob took Jenny and Helen in his curricle, the two of them squeezed in beside him, smiling brightly, wearing bonnets and cloaks, with their hands on their laps. Both of them had acquired new pairs of kid-leather gloves.

Their friendship was so close he could imagine them never settling on husbands because they would not wish to be separated.

He was one of the first to leave. He did not wish to hang about to see Caro with Phillip, but as he drove he could sense her following somewhere behind him, watching his back.

Why had she not wanted to ride with him? It would have been a perfect opportunity. It was only his family here, and they would understand their friendship.

“Are you jealous that Caroline is riding with Phillip? You keep looking back.”

Rob looked at Helen, shocked.

“I heard you danced with her,” Jenny stated.

“She conquered her discomfort in the summer. She dances now, not just with me.”

Jenny smiled. “She is pretty, though, isn’t she, and Papa said he thinks she has caught your eye.”

“And who did he say this to?” Discomfort twisted in Rob’s stomach. Was that the cause of her pulling back?

“To Mama, in their rooms, but I overheard.”

“And you thought it wise to repeat it?”

“Only to you, and Helen, no one else. Do you like her?”

Yes, a lot.
“Jenny. You are not to say anything to anyone and you may tell Papa, if you dare to admit you were eavesdropping, that Caroline and I are friends. We became friends in the summer when I stayed with Mary. There is nothing more.”

“Except that she is entirely different, and Mary says that is down to you. And Papa says you are acting oddly.”

“It is still only friendship, Jenny, and you will embarrass her if you share this.”

“I heard Frederick say you were acting oddly too.”

“And you would take his word for that.” He did not value the opinion of his arrogant cousins.
Inferior.
That horrible word rattled through his bones. “I am acting as I act.” He glanced at Helen, then Jenny. “No more talk of this, and if you hear anyone say it, pray tell them they are wrong.”

Yet an hour ago he’d hoped to announce his engagement within the week.
It is better we do not, Rob. Phillip has offered already…

He looked ahead.

There had been nothing particularly wrong with the words she’d spoken, except maybe,
better not
, but her tone of voice and the look of sadness in her eyes had disturbed him.

“Harry was supposed to be meeting us there,” Helen said.

“But Papa stopped his allowance this month, and so he said he could not afford to travel. Did you hear?” Jenny asked.

“Papa is constantly stopping his allowance,” Rob answered. When Rob had still been at college he’d had to frequently bail his brother out of debts because he had no income, and yet he continued to spend.

“He broke into his master’s room last week for a dare and hung his underwear from the window.”

“Yes, that is something Harry would do…”

The conversation continued on the subject of Harry for a little while and then turned to what their other brothers had relayed in letters home.

Their procession of carriages was a like a ribbon running through the countryside, and when they reached the meadow by the Thames, where Kate had planned for them to eat their picnic, there were already two dozen servants there setting out tables and marquees to keep the women shaded from the sun. The great castle stood on the hill above them and the Thames meandered through the flat meadow beneath it. It was a picturesque place.

He was handing Jenny down when Phillip and Caro arrived. They’d travelled alone and she did not look uncomfortable. She was smiling. Rob looked away before Caro saw him watching. He did not wish to appear as though he cared. But if “inferior” was a word that cut, then jealousy was an emotion that growled.

He helped Helen down and then the two girls walked away to offer to help Kate.

“Robbie!” Jemima cried, as she and Georgiana raced across the grass, the hems of their dresses flying.

“Jemima!” He caught her up and spun her, laughing with her. Then he set her feet back on the ground. He’d always been a favourite of the younger girls, because John had been too distant and too old for them to idolise and so they had picked on him, because he was away from home, doing the things they wished they might do. Of course, Harry rarely gave them any attention, so he could not be admired.

He gripped Jemima’s hand and rested his other arm about Georgiana’s shoulders as he walked towards the others who’d arrived. They were gathering by a group of blankets the servants had laid out.

Caro walked that way too, with her hand on Phillip’s arm. She joined the group first, and began speaking with Kate and John, Rob’s mother and father, and Mary and Drew. Mary was holding Iris, and Kate held her youngest, Hestia, while Drew held George, and John carried David. Paul stood beside John, gripping his father’s trouser leg.

Rob would have walked to another group, but Jemima pulled him in their parents’ direction.

His heart tugged that way anyway.

“Uncle Bobbie!” George cried, raising his arms.

“George!” Rob called back with a smile on his lips, looking only at the child. Jemima let go of his hand, and he took George from Drew. “You are suitably excited, I see, and ready to tire your mama and papa out.”

George grinned. “Tumble.”

“In a moment. Let me say good day to everyone first.”

“Good day, Mary, Papa, John,” he swallowed as he looked, “Phillip.” Caro he had already spoken to, so he did not say good day, and yet he ought to say more than a simple good day to Phillip, but the words stuck in his throat. He swallowed again. “How are you, Phillip? Thank you again for letting me sit with you the other week.”