The Secret Love of a Gentleman (56 page)

“But your leg, and your hand, I remember, was stiff too, and the scar at your temple.”

He nodded.

“When?”

“The night of the Newcombs’ ball. I left early and walked home alone in the dark. He paid some thugs to attack me. I was carried back to my uncle’s, and my parents came there to care for me.”

“They were out the morning Drew, Mary and I left town.”

He smiled.

“How poorly were you?”

“They hit me over the head with an iron bar, broke my leg and my hand with it, deliberately I think, and then kicked me repeatedly. I think I was quite unrecognisable by the end. It was why I did not come to see you sooner. I would have come to reiterate my proposal had I…” He smiled and laughed suddenly as he remembered the conversations he’d shared with his father. “But perhaps not. It was my father who convinced me I ought to try and persuade you, not simply accept your refusal.”

“I cannot believe you did not tell me. Why did you not?”

“Because you had just very squarely told me I was not good enough for you. Why would I have wished you to know and my family do not know? So do not speak of it before them, only Harry, Mama, Papa, Uncle Robert, Aunt Jane, and John. I do not wish people to know. I was embarrassed.”

“That is stupid. I would have wished to be with you. I should have been with you. The next time I see Drew I shall tell him severely he should have kept his thoughts to himself.”

“I have told him so myself.”

She reached out. “Hold me for a moment, please?”

Rob rose and moved to perch on the edge of the sofa where she reclined. His arms slipped about her midriff as hers wrapped about his neck, and then she sobbed onto his shoulder. His palm ran across her back. “I am sorry, I know that you felt for him.”

She pulled away, tears on her cheeks and glistening in her eyes, which shone gold in the sunlight. “Do not be silly, Rob, I am not crying for him, I am crying for you. I should have been with you. I should not have listened to Drew. I knew you loved me.”

“It does not matter now.”

“No. But you have still made me feel like crying.”

With that she held him again and sobbed gently on his shoulder.

Chapter 52

Sensations of contentment rested in Rob’s chest as he walked about the large farm with his steward. The stock here was good, the dairy herd, the pigs and sheep, and Rob had taken an active interest in breeding the cattle. He learned more about the arable crops every day, too, as they passed through the season.

He could hardly believe it was May. Everything was growing and the lambs were chunky little sheep bouncing about in the fields.

No, it was more than contentment in his chest, it was intense happiness. He rode out on a daily basis and worked on the farms alongside the people he employed, and then went home to Caro, to find her at some quiet activity, reading or sewing, and they would share an evening together entertaining themselves with conversation or music, or games.

Then there was night…

There had been no more blood, yet her new doctor had said that if the placenta had indeed broken partly away from the womb it would not have repaired and so Caro was ordered to continue resting, and so in bed they must be imaginative. He had learned to be imaginative.

He smiled to himself as he walked beside the farmer to see the litter of a dozen piglets which had arrived into the world last night. But then he turned as swift hoof beats struck the ground near him.

“Mr Marlow! Sir!”

Rob looked up, stepping back from the horses’ fractious strides as the groom pulled the horse up. “Sir!” the groom said again as he jumped down, gripping the reins hard to hold the horse steady. “I‘ve been sent to tell ye Mrs Marlow is birthin’.”

Already? Sarah was not due for another month.

“Mrs Marlow bled, sir, and then the pains come.”

Damn
. “I will take this horse. You ride the animal I brought here once it’s saddled.”

The groom lifted his hat and bowed as Rob grasped the reins. His right leg had healed mostly and yet he still set his left foot in the stirrup to haul himself up, his right leg was not quite up to that.

“Thank you.” His steward lifted a hand and bowed his head slightly, as Rob turned the horse and tapped his heels hard against the animal’s flanks.

The chickens in the farmyard scattered as Rob cantered out. He’d come via road, but if he rode back through the fields and jumped the stone walls, it would be faster.

Once he was beyond the yard he kicked his heels and set the animal into a gallop, at a gallop he was probably only a quarter of an hour from home.

Was the doctor with her already?

Caro would only be thinking of the child, but blood. If there was blood there was risk to her.

He would not lose her. “Lord.” He glanced up to the heavens, “Hear me, please, protect her and bring her through our daughter’s journey into the world.”

He set his mind on the wall approaching, kicked his heels and lifted the animal into a jump. It landed heavily, but Rob urged it on, his inner vision on Caro.

The horse’s nostrils flared and its breathing was heavy when Rob rode into the stables and jumped down. “Where is my wife?”

“In the bedchamber, sir.”

He turned and ran. At least his right leg was now fully able to do that, even if he still favoured the left side a little.

“Caro!” he raced up the stairs, taking the steps two at a time.

“Rob!” Her urgent voice stretched along the hall as he hurried.

“I am here,” he stated, as he entered and strode across the room. She was in bed, looking very pale, and she must still be bleeding because there was fresh scarlet blood on the sheets below her waist. “Lie back,” he said as she reached out her hand and sat up.

“The doctor…” he looked at the housekeeper, who was with her.

“Has been sent for.”

“Would you send a message to my aunt too, to Lady Barrington, and ask if she would come?”

The housekeeper nodded and turned away to send word.

“Rob.” Caro’s voice and her pale-hazel eyes expressed her fear. He could not express his.

He gritted his teeth for a moment, then swallowed back the pain and emotion in this throat. “Lift your hips a little. Let me set a pillow beneath you. It will make you more comfortable.” And perhaps slow the blood. Yet if the child was coming, surely she would continue to bleed.

When he lifted the sheet to place the pillow, he saw just how much scarlet blood had soaked into the sheet. Bile rose in his throat. She might be afraid for Sarah; he was terrified for her.

Her fingers grasped at his shoulders, her nails clawing as he finished putting the pillow into place beneath her. “Ahhhh…” It was a long, loud, sharp cry of pain, and he saw her stomach move beneath the chemise she wore. It tightened like a vice.

As tears ran over her pale eyelashes, he stripped off his gloves and his morning coat, his hat had been left at the farm.

He held Caro’s hand. “You are not to be afraid, you have to do the work, but do not let fear make it harder.”
Leave me to be afraid.
He would pray. That would be his task.

He pressed a kiss on her temple and her gaze clung to him. “I am scared, Rob.”

“I know, but you must not be. She is early, but it is not too early for her to survive, just a few hours of labour and she will be here and all will be well.”
Please, Lord
.

But hours of bleeding…

His free hand settled on her hair and his thumb rubbed her temple to help her rest. When the housekeeper came closer again, he said in a low voice. “Fill a bath with ice.”

“Sir…”

“Just do it,” his response was snappy.

He’d heard at school that the poet Shelley had put his wife into a bath of ice when she’d miscarried and bled, and it had saved the woman’s life.

His heart raced as more blood seemed to seep into the sheets with every moment. His fingers stroked Caro’s hair and her hand gripped his as her gaze clung to him. “Breathe slowly,” he whispered, as her contraction eased.

There was a knock at the door and a copper bath was carried into the room. Then there followed a stream of footmen arriving intermittently with newly crushed ice.

“What are they doing?”

“We need to stop you bleeding, Caro, and it is the only way I can think to do it.”

She nodded, the grip of her fingers tightening about his hand.

“Ahhhh.” She bit down on her lip to shut off her cry when the next contraction came. There were two footmen in the room.

Where was the bloody doctor? The ice bath maybe the best thing for Caro, but Rob had no idea how it might affect the child, and he wished them both alive.

“Sir, it is ready.”

Rob threw the covers back. More blood had come with her contraction. “Put your arms about my neck.”

When he put his hand beneath her legs, the blood on the cloth seeped from the cloth on to his arm and dripped onto the floor.
God, help us please!

He was out of his depth and losing her. She could not bleed this much if she had hours of labour to endure—and live.

His heart raced as he carried her to the bath. “This will be cold, and it will hurt, sweetheart, but it must be done.”

Her head turned and her face buried into his shoulder as he knelt. It was freezing, burning cold, even though that was a stupid thing to think, that is what it felt like, a burn, on his arms, as he lowered her into the water. She gasped with a loud cry and began to shiver violently, but he could see the flow of blood had eased.

“Rob,” she clutched his shoulders as another contraction came.

“Is it this way?”

Rob heard the question reach from the hall. The doctor.

Rob looked up.

“Mr Marlow, Mrs Marlow. Good heavens!” The doctor set his bag down in a chair as the door shut behind him, then he stripped of his gloves.

“My wife is bleeding heavily and experiencing contractions. I did not know what to do. I have put her in ice only because I thought it would slow the bleeding and it has.”

Rob moved out of the way as the doctor nodded and came to kneel by Caro, with a horn in his hand to listen to the baby’s heart. “There is still a good strong beat. There is no harm done to the child, and we shall keep you in the cold, I am afraid, for a while, Mrs Marlow. I think your husband has been very sensible and is entirely right.”

Caro nodded, her eyes looking up at Rob.

“Where is Mrs Marlow?” Another voice carried in from the hall.

His aunt. The door opened again. Her gaze caught on the blood-stained sheets before it turned to him. “Rob.”

“Aunt Jane.”

She crossed the room and touched his arm in a kindly way. “You ought not to be in here. Caroline will wish to maintain her dignity as the birth progresses. Robert has come with me, so you may go outside and sit with him, and I will take care of Caroline.”

Rob turned and knelt and kissed Caro’s forehead. He was in a dreamlike state now that the responsibility was lifted from his shoulders.

He stroked Caro’s hair back from her forehead and held her hand. “I will leave you and Sarah in the good hands of Dr Silver, and you must not be afraid, because he will guide you through. I will see you again when Sarah is in your arms.”

She nodded, sickly pale and looking exhausted, even though this had only just begun.

When he rose, Jane’s fingers closed about his arm again and she guided him to the door. “I have done this numerous times, Rob, you must not worry.”

“I am not a fool,” he whispered back, “I have known two dozen births in our family and the woman has never bled from the outset. She is at risk, and so is our daughter. Please have me come back if all is not well. Do not leave it until the last moment.”

Jane nodded. She had known this was not good, too, but been trying to pacify him.

He turned away.

His uncle waited in the drawing room. He’d already helped himself to a glass of Rob’s brandy, and he held a second full glass out in Rob’s direction. “It will be a long day.”

“Especially long. I don’t know if you heard, she is bleeding.”

“Rob, I know. You have it all over you.”

He looked down and then internally collapsed. Externally he dropped to perch on the edge of a footstool, his hands gripping his head.

“You will wish your parents here, I am sure, but they are too far away to be of any use.”

Truly, he did wish them here. He’d never been in so much need of someone to share the load of his burdens with.

He looked up at his uncle, “If I were to lose her…”

“Do not think of it. We will believe and pray it will not happen.”

Rob nodded, accepting the glass that was held out. He’d shunned the army of support his family always offered and yet now, if they might do anything he would ride a million miles and drag his father and every one of his uncles here.

The next few hours were long, and at least once every half hour, or perhaps more, Rob climbed the stairs to walk along the hall and knock on the door of his bedchamber, and ask after Caro.

Each time Jane’s answer was, “She is working hard.” Which told him nothing of Caro’s health or safety, while from within he could hear her screaming.

“I do not wish for another child,” Rob stated as he sat down next to his uncle for about the tenth time. “I cannot risk this happening the next time. The doctor in London said the cause may be the number of times she has carried, or perhaps from previous injuries Kilbride has caused. If she falls again, she may bleed again. I will not risk it.”

His uncle’s hand settled on his shoulder.

Rob stood and began to pace the room. He would write to Harry and ask about the condom he’d mentioned. They should be cautious from now on.

If she lives…

No. He could not think of any other outcome. She would live, and Sarah would live.

He walked across the room to the windows, then turned and walked back to the decanters, then turned and walked the same path again.

“You are making me anxious,”
his uncle said.

“You ought to be anxious,” Rob growled.