The Secret Love of a Gentleman (25 page)

A rush of pride and adoration raced through his blood when Caro lifted her hand for Pickford to take.

“It has been a while, Caroline.”

Rob was thrown by Pickford’s use of her name.

“Indeed,” was all she answered, before she turned to his wife. “Lady Pickford.” Caro curtsied.

“Lady Framlington.”

A frown furrowed Rob’s brow, as he greeted Pickford. Why would the man use Caro’s first name and his wife not? A bitter taste filled Rob’s mouth—jealousy.

“How do you know him?” Rob questioned in the moment before they turned to the others.

“Rob, I knew everyone. I was a marchioness. I have held and attended dozens of balls and numerous parliamentary dinners. He was, is, an ally of Albert’s. I had forgotten until I saw his face. Yet it means Albert will be here.”

Rob’s heart pumped, hers must be thumping like a drum.

He looked at Drew, who was watching them.

“Will you dance the first with me?” she asked.

Rob looked down at Caro, clearly her fear had forced her to forget caution. She should not ask, and yet friends danced, him dancing with her would be nothing out of the ordinary and no one beyond Drew and Mary had heard her ask.

He nodded. “Yes, but it will not be this dance, I believe it has just begun. It will have to be the next.”

“I will dance the set after that with you, Caro. Dancing will keep your mind off other things,” Drew offered.

“You dance now, Caroline?” They all looked up to realise John had heard.

Her lips pursed, yet she nodded. Pride became a firm spear lodged in Rob’s chest. It was a far better feeling than jealousy, and yet it seemed that love amplified every emotion.

“Then may I have your hand for the next after Drew,” John stated.

“Yes.”

Rob saw his uncle Richard on the far side of the room, with his uncle Robert. John led their group across the room to join the others.

Rob glanced around. He could not see the Marquis of Kilbride. But then Kilbride was shorter than the majority of Rob’s family, he might hide more easily amongst the crowd.

“He is here,” Caro whispered, her fingers clawing into Rob’s arm. “I have just seen him walk into an anteroom.”

“Well, then, at least he is not in the same room as us.”

Her eyes were wide and dark.

“Are you sure you wish to dance?”

“I will not look like a coward before him.”

Drew cleared his throat behind them as they reached the family group. Rob looked back. Drew had noted Kilbride’s presence too.

“Shall I fetch you a drink, Caro, it may calm your nerves,” Rob offered.

“Do not leave me,” she whispered in the moment before they were swamped by his family. A round of greetings followed and Rob moved a little away so his attention would not be noticed.

The women fussed over the new, more confident Caro, while people commented on his unexpected attendance.

When the dance ended, after a short applause, muffled the gloves the dancers wore, the orchestra struck up a new tune and Rob returned to Caro. “We are dancing, I believe.” He bowed slightly, ignoring their audience. He did not realise how much he’d longed to dance with her again until she lay her fingers on his arm. The touch was gentle as they walked out on to the floor.

“Overwhelmed?” he asked.

“Absolutely,” she answered.

Her bosom lifted, pressing against her bodice when she took a breath, and then it fell.

He held her hand, aiding her to her position in a long set. It trembled in his fingers.

“It will be easier by the next ball.”

“I am not convinced. I am terrified Albert will speak to me.”

“The anteroom he walked into is the card room. He will probably be there a while. You may forget about him.”

“I will try. I shall look at you and not think of him.” She smiled for him.

He smiled back.

“Oh, and you have not told me yet, and said nothing in your letters. What of your great plan to tackle politics? You only mentioned it at the last moment and you told me nothing—”

The music began, though, ending their conversation, meaning nor could he tell her now. But suddenly he longed to share his hopes for the future with her. He hoped, too, she would be included in them. “I will tell you when we go out for our carriage ride.”

Rob took three steps back to join the line of men, and faced her.

He was ready to commence the country dance, as a ripple passed about the room. It was sound and movement. People turning to whisper and speak to others. They looked at Caro and then they looked away and spoke, and eyes widened with disbelief before heads turned, and fans fluttered. The volume of their whispers was an audible wave.

Rob smiled at Caro. She stood a yard beyond his reach.

She had noticed, but her chin lifted in defiance and she looked at some point on the wall across the room, beyond him, denying their comments, whatever they were.

It had never occurred to him that it would be like this for her. He’d not imagined that people would recognise her so easily, and yet, as she’d said earlier, she had been a marchioness, near the peak of the elite—of course she would be known. She must have stood in receiving lines welcoming all these people in the past.

In contrast, he doubted the majority of the room even knew with whom she danced. It was another reminder of how hard he would need to work to have his aims reach fruition through Parliament.

Yet perhaps it had been wrong of him to bring her to town.

~

The music began. Caro breathed out with relief and took the first steps of the country dance, her eyes on Rob as her heart beat with the knowledge that Albert was only yards away.

Rob spoke as they moved past one another, but she did not catch his words, her mind had turned to chaos. All she could think of was not muddling her steps and she let her mind be filled with the music and not those who stared.

Yet when the dance came to a close, the room and the people crowded back in upon her. Rob gripped her elbow. “Save me the supper dance. I’ll not hover by you when you return to the family, but I will not be far away in case you need me. Simply give me some sign.”

Before she even reached the family Drew came forward to take her hand for the next dance. When Rob let her arm go and moved away the loss clasped in her stomach, but she’d been brave without him for weeks at home, she could be so here. Her chin lifted a little as she smiled at Drew, denying the looks of all those staring at her.

Drew turned to take her back amongst the dancers and Caro looked across the room, her heart skipping along to the dance already. On the far side of the room she saw Albert walk out from the card room, his hand rubbing his jaw as he walked.

It was a gesture that had once been so familiar to her it made her dizzy. He looked the same, exactly the same. Warmth flooded her skin.

She looked at Drew, but then something pulled her to glance back.

Albert stood at the edge of the crowd about the dancers, and his eyes scanned those on the floor. Someone had told him she was here. He was looking for her.

The rhythm of her heartbeat pulsed at her throat, where his hands had wrapped about her neck. Yet she still felt emotion from him—an echo of love. There was still feeling in her soul that longed.

Why? Why could she not free herself entirely of the past?

Albert’s gaze ran across the dancers.

She did not look away as she took up her position in the set. She refused to look weak. She was not his wife now. He had no power over her. She wondered if his new wife was here. What was he like with her? Was he brutal and violent towards her?

“Caro.” Drew called her attention to him.

Albert stood behind him. Drew did not know he was there.

She looked at her brother and yet beyond him she could still see Albert. Their gazes met across the room, his eyes a deep, dark brown. She had looked into those eyes when they had shared a bed.

She loved Rob, but that was a different feeling; that was founded on admiration and gratitude, it was gentle—and like a new flower opening. What she felt for Albert was hard and needy—and broken. Yet he had owned her heart first and he’d not let it go for years, so how might she give it wholly to Rob, when it could never be quite whole.

He never loved you
. She looked away. She had learned true care and affection from Rob, things that Albert had never shown. It had never been love on Albert’s part. Her heart had been fooled and given itself away blindly.

Her love for Albert had always felt needy, it had been all about need for her. She had so longed for a man’s love to fill the void her parents had left in her childhood. She had allowed Albert to step in and stomp all over her affections.

There was the guilt again. Guilt because he’d not loved her when she’d done nothing but love him, as her parents had not loved her, and so there must be something wrong on her part. Shame swept over her in a wave. Shame that her lack of ability to bear children had made Albert hate her so much he’d beaten her. Guilt that she could still have cherished and loved a man, who treated her so badly, because she craved so much for the attentions and the mimicked love he’d shown her in their bed—but then she had continually hoped that her love might win over his.

Drew stepped forward and took her hand as the dance began, his eyes watching her expression. He was concerned for her, protective. When she completed a turn, she looked for Rob. He was in conversation with his uncle and his fringe tumbled forward over his eyes when he leant to listen to something his uncle said. But then, as if he sensed her looking, he straightened and looked across the room, his fingers brushing his fringe back.

When he saw her watching, a smile twisted his lips for an instant.

She focused on Drew after that, and the music, and the steps.

When the dance came to an end, Drew lifted his arm. Caro laid her hand on it. “Albert is behind you, he’s watching.”

Drew glanced over his shoulder, then looked back at her. “How long has he been watching you?”

“Since the beginning of the dance.”

Caro stole another glance in Albert’s direction as the dancers moved, swapping partners or returning to the edge of the room.

A blonde woman walked up to Albert and touched his arm, then lifted to her toes and whispered something in his ear. He smiled—the benevolent smile he’d often bestowed on Caro in the first year of their marriage. It meant he was willing to concede to something, a gift, a new dress or an outing.

Was that his new wife? She was younger than Caro, full of youth and smiles. She did not look beaten or brutalised, and yet she was a mother.

“Caroline.” She turned to find the Duke of Pembroke bowing before her. Of course she had agreed to dance with him too. Two months ago she’d known him far better than his younger brother. She had lived with him for a while before Drew had purchased his property, and now they were neighbours. Yet she’d never even let him touch her hand, and she’d barely said a dozen words to him in all those years. It was testament to how high the glass walls of her prison cell had been, and she’d set them about herself for love of the man across the room who had a new wife and a child, and had never cared for her.

She held out her hand and the Duke took it. He walked with her onto the floor. He was not at all like Rob, Rob was a man who opened his heart and let a person see what was within, but the Duke was more reserved, cautious, he held himself at a distance, and it was even in the touch of his fingers.

“I’m sorry to increase your woes, Caroline, but you may wish to know that your family have arrived.”

She shut her eyes for an instant. Rob had said if she endured this step then she would have faced every fear, and he could not have been more right. She did not look for them; she had no interest. They had not looked for her since she’d run away from town.

After she’d danced with the Duke, she danced with one of his cousins and one of his uncles and then, at last, the chords of the supper dance began. It was a waltz.

Relief gripped at every sense when Rob came to lead her out, and when he held her…

“You are very pale,” Rob stated as he began to turn her.

“Albert has been watching me most of the evening.”

“I know, Caro, I have been watching him.”

“My parents are here too.”

“Yes, I heard, Mary pointed it out to Drew.”

“Have you heard what people are saying?”

“Only that they had not expected to see you in town again. You have defied their perceptions. I believe you have defied Kilbride’s too.”

“And from your voice, you think that a good thing.”

“And from yours, you think it is not.”

No. She longed for Drew’s quiet home and the children, and the peace. “No, I would happily walk from the room and not return and let them think what they like. I am happy at Drew’s. I prefer it there.”

His eyes suddenly became a dozen shades darker. “I enjoyed it there also in the summer, I’d prefer to be there too, then we might have slipped away into the garden and I could kiss you and forget all these people. But we cannot do that and so let us enjoy what we might have, this moment. I feel as though I have waited a century to have you in my arms again, and now you are, even if it is before a crowd of hundreds.”

She smiled, her lips parting as she held his warm gaze and forgot their audience entirely. She had longed to be with him too.

“I will take you driving the day after tomorrow. I cannot wait until next week. But we must appear to be no more than friends and so I will not accompany you tomorrow night, but Drew will be with you, so you need not be afraid without me, and we will look forward to the day after…”

She nodded. He was using this moment to say as much as he could, because he could not speak before his family.

“I will call early to visit the children and spend the morning with them, then stay for luncheon, and in the afternoon I will propose a drive. It will look as though it wasn’t planned. They know we are friends; I hope Drew will not think it odd. But when you come driving with me wear a broad-rimmed bonnet.”

“Because you are ashamed of being seen with me?” she smiled.