The Secret Love of a Gentleman (30 page)

He took both her hands. “You need not feel like that.”

“Nor do you, yet you do feel it.”

Damn.

Inferior?
The word cut him to the quick.
“I have never thought of it as that. I have always known I had my pride, yet… Inferior is a very bitter-tasting word. It makes me feel self-pitying. I do not think I like it, if that is what I am.”

“It does not have a very nice taste, does it, and it’s burned my tongue since the day your brother collected me from the little cottage Drew had hidden me in and took me to Pembroke Place.” She actually laughed. “But I think I am recovered.”

“Do you think I should be recovered?”

“I think you should be comfortable to just be who you are. You have great plans, and you should go ahead and fulfil them and be as idealistic as you wish.” Her hazel eyes looked at him, as her words struck him in the gut.

No, he was not comfortable with who he was among his family. He was inferior amongst his older cousins. It was a simple fact, and the truth was he had not shared his aims with anyone, to avoid their judgement. Yet…
is that the true reason I wish to make a difference, to make something of myself and make myself equal, not to help those who need help
? The question and the uncertainty it ignited settled heavily on his shoulders. All he managed to say was, “Sorry.” Because the feelings would not leave him.

He let her hands go, turned and began descending again, thoughts flying around in his head.
Inferior… Uncomfortable with himself…
They were harsh words.

The dinner gong rang as they reached the first floor. Rob lifted his arm for Caro to take.

“Have I made you angry?” she whispered.

He glanced at her and smiled. “No, just thoughtful. I should not feel as you described. I have no real cause to.”

Before they entered the drawing room to join the others, he said. “Save a waltz for me tonight: two if you can.”

She nodded and then Rob let his arm fall as he encouraged her to walk ahead.

Over dinner Caro participated in the conversation as much as anyone. It was only Kate and John, Mary and Drew, and his mother and father, and so she must feel comfortable…
bloody word
. But certainly she seemed happy, and his mother smiled at her and kept her talking, while his father watched a little bemused by Caro’s participation.

When they gathered in the hall, awaiting the carriage, as the only single male, Rob took the opportunity to escort Caro, and took her cloak from a footman to then rest it on her shoulders. She smiled over her shoulder at him. Rob caught his father’s gaze when she looked away.

His eyebrows lifted.
Caroline is letting you help her…

Rob smiled.
Yes.

When Caro took his arm, his mother bestowed a smile of approval on them both. He nodded at her to walk ahead with his father. His parents were to share John’s carriage; he’d agreed to ride in Drew’s with Caro.

Chapter 26

When they reached the Forths’ there was a queue of carriages waiting to deposit their passengers. Theirs crept along slowly, continually stopping to stand as the next carriage unloaded. As they waited Drew discussed the cattle market he wished to take Rob to.

When their carriage pulled level with the portico of the Forths’ town house, a footman opened the door and bent to lower the step, then lifted his hand to Caro. It was raining a light drizzle. Rob stepped down behind her and lifted the hood of her cloak over her hair.

They climbed the steps ahead of Drew and Mary. Her heart beat steadily and yet it was not unbearable or uncontrollable; she could still breathe. Her fingers did clutch his coat sleeve rather than lie on it, however.

“You’ll cope. I’m here,” he whispered as they crossed the threshold.

She nodded. She truly felt as though she would. She did not fear for herself at all any more. Yet there was a sudden churning in her stomach as she faced the receiving line and the ballroom full of people. John and Kate were already, walking into the ballroom with Rob’s parents.

“Lady Caroline Framlington and Mister Robert Marlow.” The footman introduced them as if the Forths would not know. Caro curtseyed. “Caroline, Robbie,” the Forths acknowledged.

“It is such a shame Alethea could not have come to town this year,” Robbie commented, “I would have liked to see her make her debut.”

Lady Forth smiled. “I think she would have come if Henry could be here, despite her illness, when Henry is ready to make his debut at balls then I think Alethea will.”

“Lord and Lady Framlington!” the butler said behind them as Caro and Rob walked on into the ballroom.

There were a hundred spinning dancers beneath the thousands of shimmering prisms of light dangling in the chandeliers above them, and the room was crammed with people five deep about its edge. Voices and laughter rose above the notes of the string quartet. The air became close about her.

People looked at her as she and Rob walked on. “Do you want to dance immediately? If so, it is probably better I do not lead you, as I led you first the other night, but Drew will—”

“Are you well?” Drew touched her arm.

Caro looked back. “I would like to dance, I think.”

He nodded and left Mary to stand with Rob as he took her hand. The music and the need to follow steps captured her errant thoughts and tied them down again, as she held his gaze and forgot about her audience.

“Kilbride is here,” Drew stated as he passed her in the pattern of the dance.

“Where?”

“In the corner, to the left of the door. He is watching you again.”

She glanced across and her gaze caught his. She looked away. Her heartbeat racing. Why was he watching?

“Ignore him.”

Yes, she fully intended to try to, and yet it was disconcerting because for over three years of her life he’d been everything to her. The amber cross resting between her breasts whispered its presence.

When the dance came to an end, Drew walked her back to where the Pembrokes’ extended family had gathered.

Rob was speaking with one of his aunts and Mary stood beside her father. He turned and took Caro’s hand, then bowed over it, with an odd expression. “I am thrilled to see you looking so much brighter, Caroline. Ellen and I have both felt for you over the years. I cannot believe the transformation.”

Heat flared in her cheeks, and that sense of inferiority burned beneath her skin, and yet that was not what he thought, she knew that.

He let go of her hand. She bobbed a shallow curtsy. “I have conquered my fear, with thanks to your son. Rob helped me in the summer.”

“I know, Mary told us, and yet I had not imagined it to be so much of a transformation. Congratulations. You have always held my admiration, but now it is far greater. Do you think you might bring yourself to dance with me?”

“Thank you, yes.” She smiled. Rob’s eyes came from Edward; they were the exact same colour, and Rob’s smile was similar to his father’s too.

Edward lifted his arm for her to take and led her onto the floor to join a set for a country dance.

Caro saw Rob join a set too, with one of his female cousins.

Caro was breathless when the dance ended, yet only from exertion.

Edward walked her back as Rob walked back too. Rob smiled at her then he looked at Drew as they both returned to where Drew and Mary stood. “Two of your friends are here. Could you ask them to dance with Caro? I think she ought to keep dancing. It makes her feel easier.”

Drew’s eyebrows lifted and Edward coughed, then laughed before turning away. Rob’s female cousin was speaking with Mary and fortunately had not heard.

“Rob…” she breathed. It was true and yet it was not his place—

“Apparently I must be told how to help my sister,” Drew looked at Mary as she finished her conversation and her cousin turned away. “I am to seek out Brooke and ask him to escort Caro in a dance. Will you accompany me? Caro, you ought to stay here among the family.” He looked at Rob. “Surprisingly I am sensible enough to know that.”

“I have upset him,” Rob said as Drew walked away.

“I think so, but I am dependent upon him, and he has cared for me since we were young. He thinks of me as his responsibility.”

Rob smiled as the notes of a waltz began, then he bowed over her hand. “May I have this dance?”

“Yes.”

They did not talk as they danced. She just looked into his eyes as he spun her. There was a light in them that spoke of his feelings, as the gentle pressure of his hand at her back did too.

She smiled.

“I love you,” he whispered in the last moments of the dance. She could not reply as the music stopped. But she squeezed his forearm once he’d lifted it.

When he took her back to his family, Drew stood there with Mary and his friend, Lord Brooke.

“Here is Peter, Caro, fetched as ordered to lead you into a dance.” There was something odd in Drew’s eyes, something that questioned as Peter laughed.

She offered Peter her hand.

“I would have come to offer without being ordered, Caro.”

She smiled at him. She had known Peter since he was fifteen, when he and Drew had left school. “Thank you, Peter. I am grateful.”

When he led her out to the floor, she asked, “Where is your wife?”

“With Harry and his wife. You have stolen me away from her, but Harry is minding her until I return, and then I am under orders to take you back there and have Harry dance with you.”

“You are such loyal friends.”

He laughed again, and they laughed through a lot of the dance as he joked with her when they passed in the movements.

When the dance came to end she excused herself. “I need the retiring room, Peter, would you let Harry know? I will be back soon.”

He nodded and bowed slightly.

She had to weave through the crowd at the edge of the room to find her way back out to the hall, and then she hurried up to the first floor. Mary’s maid was there.

Caro hurried back downstairs too. She did not wish to miss the next dance. Rob had been right, she felt much more comfortable when she concentrated on dancing. She pushed her way through those who stood about the edge of room. They were all looking towards the dancing and talking and so it was not easy to find a path.

Her arm was clasped in a firm hold as she passed through another gap.

It had been years, and yet she knew. “Albert.”

“Caro. Will you allow me this dance?”

He did not bow or show her any respect.

He did not love me
.

She wished to pull her arm free, but people about them were watching. His grip pulled her from the crowd and out onto the floor. It was a waltz.

She shivered as his arm came about her, a dozen memories of his hand lifting to strike her scattering through her head. She swallowed against the feelings tying up in her chest. It was not fear, it was another echo of her broken heart.

His hand held hers, in the firm, possessive way he had of touching her, and then he turned her. The scent of his cologne dragged her back through the years.

“That young boy you came in with is staring at you. Is there something between the two of you?”

He was talking as though he was still her husband—as though he had a right to judge those who danced with her. He did not.

She looked into his brown eyes. There was no depth, none of the open emotion that she saw in Rob’s eyes.

“Is there?” Albert pressed.

She shook her head, as heat rose in her skin.

“Who is he? Is he one of Wiltshire’s sons? He must be one of the Pembrokes. But which line?” A threat hung in his tone. God knew she was used to that pitch. It sent tremors dancing up her spine.

She swallowed against the dryness in her throat, and yet if she was to keep Rob from this, it was better for her to speak. “He is the younger brother of my sister-in-law, and they are all watching you, not just him.”

He said nothing for a moment, watching her as she looked about the room, while he turned her. It was true, all of Rob’s family watched.

She hoped they realised she had not chosen this.

Her heart raced.

“You are looking beautiful, Caro, but then you always did.” Her gaze spun to Albert. There was still no sentiment in his eyes. Perhaps even in the beginning it had just been words.

But the increased pulsing of her heart was not all fear. He still had a harsh handsomeness. The intensity in his looks still wrapped a charm around her. Other memories crept into her heart, of their moments in bed—the moments in which he had convinced her he cared.

“You are not interested in that boy, are you? You could have me back, Caro, if you wished.”

She gasped, and he looked down at her bosom as it pressed against her dress, then his gaze lifted and hesitated on the amber cross before lifting to look into her eyes. “You always did enjoy bed sport.”

Colour burned beneath her skin. That he knew made it sordid.

“You could become my mistress and we could be as we were—”

“Congratulations on the birth of your son.” Caro looked away as he turned her. “Is the Marchioness here?”

He leant close to her ear, his hand sliding a little further across her back. An image of him leaning over her, shouting in her face thrust into her mind.

“She is in the card room. She does not trouble herself over my paramours.”

“I am glad you found a wife who gave you the son you wished for.”

“I have a dull wife, who provides sons but does not warm my bed. You knew how to please me there.”

She swallowed against the dryness in her throat. She wished to run. “But I was never enough. Leave me alone. I want nothing to do with you.”

She looked beyond Albert’s shoulder, at Rob. He stood at the front of his family group, with his arms folded over his chest. He was ready to move if Albert hurt her. He would risk everyone knowing his feelings. She could see it. He was her dark angel. His dark-blue eyes flashed a warning of retribution.

Albert spun her sharply. She looked back at the man who was more like a devil. His eyes stared into hers for understanding. He was looking for ways to persuade her to let him back into her bed.