Page 14 of The Secret Love of a Gentleman (The Marlow Family Secrets #3)

The day had been pleasurable, using Caroline’s half-hearted description of the women’s anticipated trip into town.

Rob enjoyed Drew’s company and he was impressed by the respect shown by his tenants.

These people liked Drew, and sought his opinion on farming subjects that Rob doubted Drew could have discussed a couple of years ago.

Of course, everyone they met had enthused over George too.

George had lapped up the attention with his usual gusto.

But as Mary predicted, George became tired.

He had been asking to go home for the last hour.

Now he was fast asleep, stretched sideways across Drew’s saddle, one of his arms draped about Drew’s hip, with Drew’s forearm as his pillow, where he had been holding his father before he fell asleep.

George’s other hand was at his mouth, his thumb hung at the corner of his lips where he was sucking on it before sleep claimed him.

George’s precarious position meant their return ride was restricted to the pace of a slow walk, and they were still about twenty minutes away from the house.

Hoof beats, at the pace of a canter, sounded behind them. A single horse, and the creak of a vehicle, hurrying along the mud track.

Rob tugged the reins, steering his animal to the edge, out of the vehicle’s path.

Drew did the same. Rob looked over his shoulder.

He recognised the pony pulling the trap, even though it was a distance away.

It belonged to Drew. The vehicle was the one Drew bought for Mary, a two-seat, light-weight trap that she drove herself.

Mary and Caroline sat side by side on the seat.

Mary was clothed in pink, with a wide-brimmed straw bonnet, while Caroline was wearing pale-lemon yellow, with an ivory shawl and parasol. The pair of them looked like a tableau from a ladies’ magazine.

‘It is Mary,’ Rob said to Drew. Drew was unable to twist around to look with George sprawled across his saddle. ‘You are in for it now, when she sees George.’

Drew laughed, as he halted his horse.

‘Whoa,’ Mary called to slow the pony. Obviously, she recognised them too. She glared at Drew as she slowed the trap to a halt beside his horse.

Drew looked down with a devil-may-care smile, daring her to challenge him.

‘He is exhausted,’ she said, as soon as she saw George.

‘He is asleep because he had a wonderful time, and yes it tired him out.’

Mary clicked her tongue and made a face at Drew. Rob smiled at them, she knew her husband well. It amused him that she stood up to Drew, yet knew when she would not win an argument.

‘He did have a wonderful time,’ Rob assured her. ‘Everyone made a fuss over him.’

Mary frowned, reminding him whose side he should be on .

‘Don’t turn your wrath on me,’ Rob stated jokingly. ‘George did enjoy it.’

‘Will you hand George to me?’ Caroline interrupted, folding down her parasol.

She was closest to Drew. She stood up in the trap, as Drew let go of his reins and passed George’s limp body over.

She sat a little clumsily, as though George were heavier than she expected, settled him on her lap and cradled his head on her arm.

Yesterday Rob had sensed wounded pride in Caroline’s manner.

She left the position of Marchioness behind her when she left her husband.

When she was married, she must have been responsible for a household the size of John’s.

She must have received the level of respect Kate did.

Then she found herself as penniless and dependent as a spinster sister. That would embarrass anyone.

A lurch of pity gripped in his gut as Mary flicked the straps and encouraged the pony into a walk. He was certain Caroline would abhor pity, though. Perhaps that was another part of her discomfort, that she must be reliant on Drew and face pity.

The decision to leave her husband and the life she had grown accustomed to must have been hard to make. He would stop pitying her and instead admire her.

Drew turned his horse off the road, kicked his heels and rose from the saddle into a canter, racing the trap back to the house. Rob followed.

The night Rob met Drew, Rob’s family had applauded Drew for helping Caroline escape her marriage. They should have applauded Caroline – she was the survivor of cruelty and she was the one who had the courage to leave.

When they reached the house, the trap travelled towards the stables from the opposite direction. Drew threw his leg across the rump of his horse and jumped from the stirrup .

The grooms came running from the stables. It always amused Rob that Drew had more servants for the horses than in the house. A groom held the head of Rob’s horse as he dismounted and the trap came to a halt.

The groom who held Rob’s horse turned to hold the pony’s bridle as well.

Another groom offered Mary a hand, to help her down from the carriage, as Drew took George from Caroline.

Instinctively, Rob walked forward and lifted his hand to help Caroline navigate her descent, forgetting entirely she did not take anyone’s hand but Drew’s.

He did not feel able to retract the offer once it was made, though, and so his gloved hand hovered in the air in front of her as she stood in the trap.

Drew’s arms were full of George. Caroline must either accept Rob’s hand or reject it and climb down unaided; those were her choices.

‘Caroline.’ He bowed slightly, as she hesitated.

She took one of the deeper breaths, that lifted her full bosom.

Then… her hand rose and rested in his. They gripped each other’s hand more firmly in the same moment as she moved to take the step.

She held him confidently, but even so he could feel her hand tremble as she climbed down.

It was not only a carriage step that was navigated, though, but another step taken towards friendship.

Their hands released when she was safely on the ground.

Drew and Mary were walking towards the house and not even noticed.

‘If you would like to,’ he said to Caroline, ‘we could walk about the gardens for a little while, to stretch our legs. Drew and Mary will be going to the nursery.’

She looked at him, challenge bright in her eyes, but he guessed the challenge was to herself. ‘Yes, if you wish.’ She was being brave this afternoon .

He began walking, clasping his hands behind his back, ignoring the instinct to offer her his arm. She walked beside him.

‘I know you feel awkward,’ he said, ‘and therefore I believe I should confess, I feel awkward too. I do not spend time with women outside of my family.’ He chuckled.

‘Why do you laugh?’

‘Oh, perhaps I should not admit my thought, but, well, women are Harry’s domain.

I shall worry about wooing a lady at the point I want a wife.

’ Rob was not interested in casual liaisons, or the expense of a mistress.

He believed in morality. He pitied the women his brother and cousins visited in the brothels.

He thought it sad that they felt sex was their only path to earn a living.

If he held a seat in the House of Commons he would speak out for the safety of those women, and for the many more on the streets. It was not right.

She opened her parasol and rested it on her shoulder, to shade her face.

‘Did you enjoy your day?’ he asked.

‘Very much.’ Her voice quivered.

‘I respect you immensely, Caroline.’ Rob looked sideways at her as they walked around the corner of the house on to the lawn.

‘I was thinking, when we saw you earlier, how courageous you were to leave the Marquis of Kilbride. It only really occurred to me today what a big step it must have been to give up so much.’ It was not the best topic to choose, yet this was what was on his mind and if Caroline were to be a friend, he ought to treat her as he would his male friends and say what he thought.

‘I want you to know I admire your courage. To experience such things and then to walk away and leave that life behind…’ He bowed to her.

Her skin flushed red and tears glossed her eyes. ‘Excuse me…’ Sh e did not wait for his response but walked off – the phantom, the ghost, of Caroline.

‘You are a damned idiot, Rob,’ he said quietly to himself, as he followed a few paces behind.

He asked the footman in the hall for tea and water for a bath, both to be sent up to his room. It would be best if he stayed out of the way for the rest of the afternoon.

Caroline did not come down for dinner.

After the meal, Mary went up to the nursery to check on George, and Drew suggested they drink their port in the garden, so he could smoke a cigar and prevent Mary complaining about him filling the room with smoke.

Drew offered Rob a cigar, but smoking was another vice Rob had never got into the habit of.

He thought the taste and smell foul. However, he grasped at the opportunity of their privacy.

‘I was thinking today about Caroline’s marriage.

It is no wonder her nerves affect her as they do.

I know some of the details from the newspapers at the time…

’ He let his words hang, in the hope Drew would add more depth without any specific questions.

A trail of smoke slithered through Drew’s slightly parted lips.

‘You do not know any of the details. Even I do not. You read sensationalised stories, which did not even scratch the surface of the truth. And, for God’s sake, do not tell Caro you read anything.

She did not have sight of newspapers at the time, it would upset her. She is a private person.’

So Rob had noticed.

Rob’s fingers brushed through his hair, sweeping back his fringe from his forehead, as he thought through how to navigate this conversation to find out more.

Her response to his chosen topic this afternoon had made him suspect something else about her – that her air of shame was possibly not wounded pride but because her failed marriage had stripped her of all pride.

‘I shall not speak of it,’ he confirmed to Drew.

He wished to make Caroline feel at ease, and now he wondered more than ever if it was embarrassment, and the corresponding emotions, that weaved the threads that tied her tongue and kept her trapped.