Page 10 of The Secret Love of a Gentleman (The Marlow Family Secrets #3)

TODAY

‘Aun’ie Ca’o, look.’ Caro turned her gaze from the window to George, who held out the wooden horse his grandfather had given him the day before. He was playing with his ark full of wooden animals.

‘I can see, darling.’

His nanny was kneeling on the floor beside him, while Iris lay sleeping in a cradle across the room. There was no need for Caro’s presence in the nursery other than that she wished to be here.

‘It’s nearly three, ma’am. Will you stay here for tea?’ the nanny asked, rising from the floor.

Caro turned fully away from the attic window. Robbie had been due to arrive at two. He was an hour late. Drew would expect her to go down for tea once he came, but Caro was a coward to the core. ‘Yes, I will stay. Thank you.’

George galloped his horse across the rug, she bent and caught hold of his waist, then lifted him an inch or two off the floor. He laughed and wriggled. ‘Aun’ie Ca’o.’

‘Tyke, you will be a monster when you are grown. ’

‘Papa says I’ll be a ’ogue and I’is a diamon’.’

‘You’ll be a star and outshine everyone, and Iris will be sunlight, too bright for anyone to look at.’ Caro lifted him to her hip.

Outside, the sound of carriage wheels churning on the gravel and horses’ hooves crunching in the stones told her someone had arrived.

‘Uncle Bobbie!’ George bellowed, pointing to the window with his horse.

Caroline’s heart thumped against her ribs.

‘Let me see, Aun’ie Ca’o.’

She wished to look as much as George did. She crossed the room and they looked through the window.

Robbie’s fashionable phaeton stood below and two thoroughbred chestnuts shook out their manes in the traces. Robbie jumped down as a groom held the horses’ heads to stop them bolting.

She watched Robbie dancing last night. He moved gracefully for a tall man. She knew he had not meant to disconcert her yesterday, he was simply being kind and thoughtful; she saw that in the way he engaged with his family.

‘Uncle Bobbie!’ George reached to the window with his horse.

‘No.’ Caro caught his hand, afraid he would hit and break the glass.

His legs straightened, expressing his desire to be put down.

When Caro set him on his feet, immediately he ran to the door and reached up, trying to turn the handle.

‘Master George!’ the nanny reprimanded, but George would never be deterred from the thought of someone new to play with.

‘I will go with him,’ Caro said as George managed to turn the doorknob, open the door and run out.

‘Forget the tea. I doubt we shall be back. ’

Caro’s heart raced as she followed, but it was not with fear. She felt a sudden, rare punch of… excitement .

‘George! Wait for me!’

He raced along the hall, his hands fisted, his arms pumping. He always looked like a little caricature of Drew when he ran.

‘George! Wait! Or I will tell your papa you misbehaved and you will not see Uncle Robbie!’

He did not stop.

Fear returned as he neared the top of the narrow stairs leading down from the attic rooms.

‘George, stop!’ She clasped the skirt of her dress, lifted it high and ran, terrified he would fall.

The child was an absolute nightmare when he chose to be, but he stopped at the head of the stairs and clutched a spindle of the banister as he looked back at her.

‘Good boy, George, darling,’ she praised breathlessly when she reached him, dropping to her haunches to hug him as love spilled from her heart into her blood on a tide of relief. ‘Remember, you are not to run near the stairs, nor near horses or water. They are the three things you must never do.’

He nodded, his expression crinkling into a look of concern for her distress.

‘Good boy,’ she said again, giving him another squeeze, then lifted him to her hip and kissed his cheek. ‘Now, let us find your Uncle Robbie.’

She carried him down, with one hand sliding along the stair rail.

‘May I see Uncle Bobbie’s ho’ses?’

‘They will be in the stables. You will see them another day.’

‘Will Papa let me ’ide them?’

‘One day, yes. ’

George’s short-sentenced conversation continued down the stairs. He rarely ran out of enthusiasm or energy.

When they reached the first-floor landing, Caro heard male voices. Robbie and Drew were in the hall below. She stopped, looking down. The servants were bringing in Robbie’s trunk.

‘Uncle Bobbie!’ George shouted.

Caro had hoped for a moment more of obscurity, but her hopes wilted, and so did her excitement. Robbie and Drew looked up. She finished her descent under their observation, with a sense of foreboding.

As soon as she put George down, he charged forward. ‘Uncle Bobbie!’

Robbie looked at her not George, his gaze briefly skimming the length of her body, then lifting back to her face. Heat burned in her skin as her nerves revolted. Yet, her mind insisted on recalling the weight of his warm hand as it had covered hers last evening.

‘Oh!’ The cry came from George. He had caught his toe on a wrinkle in the rug. He tumbled forward, the hand that would stop his fall reaching out with the wooden horse still in his grip.

Caro hurried to help as his head hit the floor with a bump. Thank the Lord it was wooden boards beneath the rug and not a stone floor.

Drew reached him first. George howled, his hand clutching a beheaded wooden horse covered in his scarlet blood.

‘Has he cut his head?’

‘No.’ Drew turned to show her. ‘I think he bit his lip when he fell. No real harm, Caro.’

Drew wiped his thumb across his son’s swollen lower lip as George howled and Robbie held out a handkerchief to wipe away the pearls of sparkling tears on George’s chubby cheeks.

Caro’s hand rested on George’s shoulder. ‘Oh, poppet, you broke your horse.’ Her hand rose and stroked George’s hair in the same moment that Robbie’s did. Their fingertips touched. She pulled her hand away.

‘We will buy you another,’ Robbie said.

Caro’s heart galloped, calling her to flee. But Robbie would be here for weeks so she must force herself to feel easier with him. ‘George was eager to say hello to you,’ she said. It felt as though he stared at her, but he was only looking at a person who was speaking.

George reached for his uncle.

Robbie reached out in return to take him from Drew. ‘Well, hello, young man.’

In his favourite uncle’s arms, George’s howling became sobs and sniffs.

Robbie’s ease with George stirred different emotions in Caro, as memories of the life she had once hoped for came to mind.

If she had given Albert a son, she did not think he would have held or played with him.

His children would be out of sight and mind in the nursery, kept by servants, to be inspected like his horses once or twice a day.

It was more evidence that Robbie’s actions towards her were kindness.

Unlike her former husband, Robbie was a good-natured man.

George pressed his face into Robbie’s neckcloth, probably getting blood all over it. ‘I want my mama.’

‘Your mama is asleep,’ Drew said. ‘Iris woke her in the night and she needed to rest. She will be down in a little while.’

Robbie’s gaze lifted to Caro, and he smiled. The expression shone in his eyes, not simply parted his lips. He was as open in nature as his sister. But even so, when he smiled at her across the room last night, anger and discomfort had taken up their swords and begun an irrational war inside her .

‘Will you join us for tea, Caro?’ Drew lifted an eyebrow as he threw down his challenge.

Forcing a smile, she nodded, then led them into the drawing room.

A maid was already in there, laying out the tea on a table. Drew must have ordered it when Robbie arrived.

Caro breathed slowly, trying not to show how hard it was to draw the air past the panic in her chest.

George released a deep whimper of longing and held out a hand towards the table where a plate of almond biscuits stood. Caro picked up the plate and held it out for George to take one. He took a bite from it, scattering crumbs onto Robbie’s morning coat.

‘Your neckcloth is ruined,’ she said, looking at the patch of blood.

Robbie shrugged, expressing that George was more important to him than his expensive clothes. He took a biscuit. His hands were beautifully proportioned, his fingers long and slender. She had only ever seen his hands act gently.

Albert’s hands were broad, his fingers fuller – and his hands had acted with brutal cruelty.

She looked away and held the plate towards Drew, as an ache twisted in her womb at the thought of a gentle man with a child. But her brother was gentle with his son all the time, so why it felt different looking at Robbie she had no idea.