The Secret Love of a Gentleman (35 page)

“Let you go to him…” It was said in a low, hurt voice. “Does Drew know this is what you plan to do?”

“I have no plan. I simply know that you and I made a mistake. I’m sorry.”

He looked up at the ceiling. His hand lifted and gripped his hair for a moment, then fell. It was as though he searched for the words or an action that might change her mind.

He looked at her again, then, and swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple shifting.

He could change nothing.

Hurt, anger and accusations hovered in his eyes, but he did not voice them. “Is there nothing I might say or do?”

She shook her head. “I am sorry that I have hurt you, but in years to come you will see this was the right choice.” She hoped in those years he did not find someone else to love, and that they would be together again.
If there is really something between you it will last the years…
Yet she would be over thirty, and Rob would probably see that it had been folly.

“That was condescending of you, Caro. You are speaking to me as though I am a youth. I do not need years to know what I feel. I know it now. So, then, the fault is yours. You do not have enough faith in me, or respect for me.” He shook his head, as if in disbelief—or disappointment. “Well, as you deem my love not worthy of you, then I shall not force it, or my presence, on you any longer.” He turned away.

She had struck him where it hurt most, slashing at his feelings of inferiority. He had never been inferior to his cousins. He was a superior man, even at the age of one and twenty.

“Rob.” She reached out to catch hold of his arm. He pulled it free, merely glancing back.

“Goodbye, Caro.”

He turned away again and walked from the room, leaving the door open behind him, and leaving her.

No. It could not end like that. She followed him into the hall, but he was already near the front door. A footman opened it, and then Rob was gone. He’d not even waited for his hat. The door closed behind him.

It was over.

She went to the retiring room and sat so that the Pembrokes’ maid might check her hair. She was hollow, numb. Her heart had not broken yet, and yet it felt empty, because he’d gone.

She walked downstairs feeling wraith-like. She had no real idea where she was or who she was anymore. She did not exist without Rob.

Albert stood in the hall below. He’d been speaking to a footman. When he turned to the stairs the footman opened the door and went out.

Caro walked on, ignoring Albert’s presence. She did not care about him. He had no meaning in her life. She had no feeling for him: not love, nor fear, nor interest.

“Caro.” He grasped her arm and glanced down at her throat and then her bosom before his gaze lifted. He was looking at the absence of the cross he’d given her.

Rob’s touch had been gentle to the last. Albert’s had been brutal from the first. He’d always gripped her arm over-tightly, even before the beatings had begun. It was his way of saying “you are mine”.
Only I am not, not anymore.

“You will dance with me.” It was not a question but a statement, and through his hold on her arm he began steering her back into the ballroom.

Heart-sore and empty she let herself be led.

The orchestra was playing another waltz. Albert clasped her hand and lay his other hand on her back, then began to turn her. It was fast-paced. He spun her aggressively into a turn.

“What is that boy to you?”

“It is none of your concern.” Her pitch was as flat and hollow as her heart.

“Have your tastes turned to that of your sister’s?”

That was what Drew had accused her of too, of being like Elizabeth. Elizabeth used young men like toys. No, Caro was not like Elizabeth, nor Albert. She’d given herself, not taken.

Feelings were returning to her now: anger, disgust. “I do not wish to dance with you.”

“I suppose you would rather be with that child?”

“He is not a child.” She would not listen to Albert ridiculing Rob.

“He is barely a man.”

Caro stopped, pulling free of Albert’s hold, but he clasped her arm as she tried to walk away. “Let me go. You cannot control me now.”

He stared at her, time hovering over them. Then finally he let go. It was over. Any involvement with him was at an end. She had let him go from her heart and now she let him go from her head. She was free from memories and fear, from the pain he’d caused her. “Rob Marlow is more of a man than you will ever be,” she breathed at him.

Before she turned away, she saw her words strike. Albert’s eyes widened, and the line that creased down the centre of his brow when he became angry formed. He was ready to strike her. “You cannot hit me here…”

The sharp, sudden light of thought in his eyes implied his realisation that she was no longer cowed by him. He had no control over her any longer, and he had finally realised it, just as she had.

She turned and walked away.

When she reached Rob’s family, the air about them was full of whispers as people spoke behind fans and hands.

“Caro.” Drew was there.

“I would like to go home,” she said, quietly.

“Now?”

“Yes.” Her fingers shook as she touched his arm. He gripped them gently. “Rob has gone. I said what you asked me to, and he has left.”

Drew looked at her with sympathy. “It was the right thing to do.”

It did not feel right anymore. She was numb no longer, her heart was ripping in two. “I do not wish to go back to Pembroke House. I wish to go home. I cannot stay here. These people are his family. He ought to feel able to visit, and he will not if I am here.”

“We cannot go tonight, Caro, it is too late, and it would look odd.”

“Caro…” Mary stood beside them.

“She wishes to go home, to the estate.”

“Oh Caro, I am sorry Lord Kilbride has spoilt this for you.”

I do not care about him.
The words echoed through her head, and yet as with Rob, it would be easier to let Mary think it.

“We will take you to Pembroke House now and leave first thing tomorrow morning. Mary, will you stay with Caro while I arrange for the carriage to be brought about?”

“Come, we will tell John and Kate,” Mary turned her as Drew walked away.

Caro endured a dozen farewells as Mary told her brother, John, her parents and others in the family that they intended to leave town, and through it all the pain in her chest intensified. Her heart was gone and in its place was a hole. Rob held her heart and he’d taken it with him.

Chapter 30

He knew, God, he knew, he’d broken a rule. He’d sinned. He’d lain with a woman and begun an affair. Curses ran through his head as he gritted his teeth on the anger in his blood. He’d known such a thing would be foolish, and yet he’d done it because that woman had been Caro.

He walked quickly, his strides long.

God I have been a fool.

Harry and all of his cousins would laugh at him if they knew he’d lain with a woman, his first, and fallen for her.

You will love the first woman you have lain with, of course you will, but it will be a love that is unlikely to last. It is shallow, not real at all.

That was not true. His feelings were not shallow, they were ripping at his soul. She’d betrayed him. Treated him ill. Good, vulnerable and delicate, beautiful, Caro.

The night was dark, there were no stars, and the moon must be hidden behind a layer of clouds, but there were gas lamps in the streets, and some light from the windows. Yet if he walked past a theatre he ought perhaps to pay for a link boy to light his way. The darkness suited the emotion in his soul, though. His whole life felt shadowed.

He’d begun to see a future for himself this morning, as a tenant farmer. He would not need any capital to begin if he were to rent a farm. He need not borrow from anyone, and he would have a home with it that would house a wife. It would also provide him with an income and a living that might be managed from a distance so that he could sit in Parliament. His plan had developed as he’d spoken with Drew earlier. He’d decided to rent a farm near a place where there would be a vacant seat in the House of Commons, and then he’d stand for it. But without Caro the image was void. Nothing felt right without her. He did not even wish to think about his plans for politics without her.

She might have lived in the country too and never come to town. She need never have faced Kilbride again, and yet she’d not denied that she intended going to him.

Damn. Damn her
. Why was she such a fool? Why make that choice?

Because I am inferior.

Bloody hell! He longed to hit someone or something, but instead he released his hands from the fists they’d been curled into for the last half hour and slid his hands into his pockets.

It was cold. He’d dressed believing he would be riding in the carriage; he had no outer coat, and he’d left his hat.

He could not believe that Drew had told her that he’d been a virgin! He’d thought Drew a friend. “Go to hell, you bastard!” Rob said the words aloud.

Inferior.
The word rang through him like a bell tolling. It was the truth, and she’d seen it. He was inferior to Kilbride, and inferior to all other men, because he’d saved himself until the moment he’d lain with her.

Damn her.

His footfalls echoed as he walked across an empty street. On the far side the street was so dark he could not even see his feet—in the same way that he could not see his future. For all he knew he had none. Caro had taken hope and happiness from him. If she thought him unworthy, then what cause was there? He could carouse like his cousins and waste John’s gifts on wine and women. Who would care? No one within his family, and certainly not Caro.

A sharp pain gripped in his gut. But the problem was that he would care, because behaviour like that was not within him. He would not do that, yet nor would he ever marry. He’d reached out and been burned.

Perhaps he ought to become a bloody monk.

A strangled laugh broke from his throat as he turned a corner.

Crack. Something hard and heavy struck the back of his head and Rob fell. Then a boot smashed into face. He lifted his hands to try and protect his head, but the kicks came too fast, and he was dizzy and disorientated from the first blow.

When he raised his hand, something solid and cold, metal, struck it, and a sharp pain lanced up his arm. Then the same solid implement struck his leg. Bile lurched into his throat as the bone broke. He vomited on the pavement.

“The gentleman said to tell you to leave his possessions alone.”

Rob’s uninjured arm lowered and a searing pain pulsed through his body from his injured leg. His hand moved instinctively to grip it.

Another hard blow hit his head.

Chapter 31

“Hey! There’s a toff over ‘ere!”

The shout dragged Rob back from the darkness.

The voice was a heavy working man’s pitch.

Where the hell was he?

Rob’s head throbbed, as though he’d been struck, and a bitter taste filled his mouth. He’d been attacked… He groaned as he tried to lift his arm and found it swollen and immovable. A violent pain shouted in his head.

“Governor…” The man was squatting or kneeling near him, but Rob could not see, his eyes would not open.

“He’s been robbed, he ‘as,” The woman’s voice came from above him.

A moan left Rob’s lips. God, he was in so much pain, and his throat was too dry to let him speak about the blood in his mouth.

“It’s all right, governor. We’ll get you sorted. We’ll get you home.” The man said.

“Where d’ you live, sir? Can you tell us?” the woman coaxed. She’d knelt or squatted down too, and her fingers touched his shoulder.

Rob groaned, thinking through the racket that the pain was making in his head… Not his apartment, no one was there. Nor John’s. He did not wish to see Caro. “Bloomsbury Square,” he said on his breath. “Lord Barrington… The earl.” His chest screamed with pain, and his face, and his shoulders. He felt like every bloody bone was broken.

“Get a cart!” the man shouted, standing.

Four men moved Rob onto a piece of tarpaulin and then they all took a corner and lifted him from the pavement as he cried out in agony. The damned pain roared within him with every jolt. But as they slid him back onto the cart the pain from his leg not only roared but burst, splitting his head with anguish. He fell into darkness as he retched.

~

When Rob woke, someone was dropping something bitter into his mouth. It ran across his tongue. It tasted bloody foul.

He sat up, or tried to, as his hand sought to swipe away whatever it was, but neither his body nor his hand moved as he wished, and a pain-filled groan escaped his lips.

The liquid, whatever it was, spilled on to his chest, soaking through his linen shirt.

“Robbie.” A woman’s voice, a familiar voice. His Aunt Jane’s.

He tried to open his eyes. Only one opened, slightly. A damp cloth settled on his brow.

“Robbie.” His Uncle Robert.

He tried to sit up again, pressing an elbow into the mattress. The world span full circle and bile rose in his throat.

“Do not move. Lie down.” His aunt’s cool fingers rested on his shoulder. He caught a glimpse of her through his half-open eye.

His uncle came forward. “You were set upon by footpads last night. Some people found you this morning and brought you here. Just stay still, Robbie, you are a mess. I’ll send for your parents. They are at John’s, but the men who brought you here said you gave this address.”

He thought Rob confused.

“Do not worry.” His uncle’s hand cupped the side of Rob’s bruised face, “They will come—”

“No.” It hurt to say the word, his lips were swollen and his jaw bruised. “Do not tell them…” He would not have Caro know of this. How would this look? He could not even protect himself. It would only solidify her view of him, too young to care for himself, let alone her. Inferior. That bitter word. She would pity him and he would not endure that.