Page 40 of The Secret Love of a Gentleman (The Marlow Family Secrets #3)

Caro’s gaze remained on Rob as she followed the steps of the dance, praying she would not trip while everyone stared at her.

Rob spoke when they were close enough, but she could not digest his comments, or reply, her mind had turned to chaos.

All she knew when the dance came to a close was that she had neither caught a toe in the hem of her dress, nor stood on Rob’s foot.

Yet as the song stopped, the crowded room closed in on her.

Rob’s hand cupped her elbow. ‘Save me the supper dance. I shall 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 a sign.’

Drew came forward before she reached Rob’s family and took her hand for the next dance.

Her chin lifted as she smiled, denying the looks of the people staring at her.

As she turned with Drew to take a place for the next country dance, Albert walked out from the card room, his hand rubbing his jaw, a gesture that was as familiar to her as it was to drink or eat.

He looked the same, exactly the same.

A blush warmed her skin. If Albert saw her, he would know he had unsettled her .

She looked firmly at Drew, as the music began, until they performed a circle with the couple beside them and she faced in another direction?—

Albert stood at the front of the people at the edge of the room, looking through the dancers. Someone must have told him she was here and he was looking for her.

The rhythm of her heartbeat pulsed at her throat, remembering where his hands had pressed. Yet there was also, still, an echo of love in her heart. Why? Why could she not free herself from the emotions of her past?

Albert’s gaze ran across the dancers as she watched him, waiting for him to find her. She would not look away, she refused to weaken her newfound bravery. He could not hurt her, she was not his wife now, and she had learned how deep her courage ran.

‘Caro.’ Drew called her attention to him. He had lifted a hand that she ought to hold in the pattern of the dance. Albert stood behind him. Drew did not know he was there.

She looked at her brother and beyond him saw the moment Albert spotted her. The focus of his blue eyes firmly collided with hers. Her nerves – past emotions – screamed. She had looked into his eyes so often in their marriage and seen so many different expressions, from adoration to hatred.

She loved Rob, but that was a different feeling, it was like a rose bud with a promise of what it might be, the flower of it yet to bloom.

What she felt for Albert was more like a diamond – hard and glistening – yet broken into glinting pieces of memory.

But Albert had occupied her heart first and he would not leave it.

He never loved you , she told herself and looked away, knowing that he continued to stare.

When she completed the next steps of the dance, a back-to-back turn with Drew, she looked for Rob.

He was standing with his Uncle Robert, leaning forward to listen to him, the soft curl of his fringe cloaking his eyes.

As though he sensed her gaze, he straightened and looked in her direction, a smile lifting his lips.

She smiled quickly too, focusing on Drew, the music and the steps.

When the dance came to an end, Caro rested her hand on Drew’s raised forearm and immediately said, ‘Albert has been behind you during the dance, watching me.’

Drew briefly glanced over his shoulder, confirming what she said.

Caro looked too. Albert was no longer looking at her, but talking with a blonde-haired woman who had joined him.

She lifted onto her tiptoes and whispered in his ear.

He smiled the benevolent smile she had seen in the first year of their marriage.

The expression meant he was going to bestow some form of generosity. An outing. A new dress.

The woman must be his new wife. She did not look beaten or brutalised. She was younger than Caro, full of youth and smiles, this mother of his heir.

‘Caroline…’

She turned and faced John who performed a handsome bow.

Of course, she had agreed to dance with him too, she had already forgotten.

Four months ago, she knew John far better than his half-brother. Yet she had never let him touch her hand and said barely a dozen words to him. It was testament to how high the glass walls of her prison cell had been, and how vital Rob was to her freedom.

She accepted John’s hand and walked back to the centre of the room.

He was not like Rob. Rob was as readable as a book, he let a person see what he thought and felt; John was reserved, cautious, he kept the man she knew in his home hidden in society.

‘I’m sorry to increase your woes, Caroline, I am sure you have noticed Kilbride, but you may also wish to know that your family have arrived.’

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 contacted her since she left Albert.

Not one single letter had arrived from her mother.

She stiffened her spine, pinned a smile on her lips, looked only at John and danced.

After dancing with him, she danced with others in Rob’s family, his uncles mostly.

Then at last the chords of the last dance before supper would be served began. The orchestra played the opening notes of a waltz.

‘You are very pale,’ Rob stated as he came to lead her in the dance.

Her heart swelled with relief as he held her hand and his other hand came to her lower back. She felt safer than she had all evening. ‘Albert has been watching me.’

‘I know. I have been watching him.’

‘Have you heard what people are saying about me?’

‘Only that no one expected to see you in town again. You have flouted their expectations, and Kilbride’s too.’

‘And from your voice, you think that a good thing.’

‘And you do not?’

‘No, I would happily walk from the room, never return and let them think what they like. I much prefer the country.’

His eyes suddenly became a dozen shades darker.

‘I would rather be in the country too, then we might have slipped away and I could kiss you. But we cannot do that here and so let us enjoy 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.’

Her lips parted in a warm smile, and she forgot their audience entirely, as they spun and spun for a few steps, looking into each other’s eyes.

‘I will take you driving the day after tomorrow. I cannot wait until next week,’ he said.

‘But if we want to keep our affair private, I cannot spend too much time with you. We must appear friendly and nothing else. So I will not accompany you tomorrow, to wherever the family are going, but say I will see you the following afternoon.’

She nodded.

‘Do not tell anyone. I will call early to visit the children, spend the morning with them, then stay for luncheon and in the afternoon, I will propose a drive.’ He was using this moment to say as much as he could, because he could not speak before his family.

‘I hope it will seem unplanned. 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, so passing traffic cannot easily notice who you are.’

‘Because you are ashamed of being seen with me?’ she teased.

‘Because I do not want your reputation challenged. People will see you with a younger man and think you fast. I will not see more judgement heaped upon you.’

‘Thank you.’ She said the words, not really thankful; in this moment she did not care what others thought.

‘Did I say how beautiful you look?’ he said, as he spun her for several steps.

‘You did.’

‘You do not regret…’ he said then, his expression suddenly serious.

A desire to stop dancing and kiss away the concern in his eyes assaulted her, but all she could do was squeeze his shoulder gently. ‘I do not regret anything that happened between us, Rob.’

‘Good. Neither do I, though I can promise you nothing still, and I feel guilty because of that.’

‘You need not feel guilt. I told you I expect nothing.’

‘Then how do you see us progressing?’ His eyes searched hers for the answer.

‘I cannot say. I am only thinking of today.’

‘I am not in a position to offer you marriage, I have no living?—’

‘Rob, I do not expect it.’

The music slowed, and Rob turned her with a flourish. Then he leaned to her ear. ‘Well, you ought to expect it, you have my heart. You may know that now at least.’

‘And you have mine,’ she whispered back even though she knew that Albert still had a grip upon it. But in Rob’s arms she had not thought of Albert.

‘Will you wait until I am able to offer, then? Now you are here and I see you, I can only see what I long for.’

She had not expected this, but… ‘Yes.’ Heady with the emotions of dancing with him, the thought of marrying him appealed. It was more than she dared imagine.

Rob looked beyond her, his expression changing to a threatening glower.

She looked across her shoulder, following Rob’s gaze, and realised he was looking at Albert. She looked back. ‘Rob. Stop glowering at Albert, people will see?—’

‘Caro,’ he interrupted, smiling, ‘my entire family are glowering at him. I am not giving away any particular interest in you.’

He walked her back towards his family and she could see it was true. Every man in the group frowned towards Albert, and some of the women .

‘I wish they would not,’ Caro said, before they reached them. ‘It will only rile him, and it is none of their concern.’

‘You are their concern, because, as I have told you before, you are an honorary member of my family. Will you sit beside me to eat supper? It cannot be misconstrued, it is expected since we danced this last set.’

‘Yes. I would like that.’

It was not as enjoyable as she had imagined, though, as they sat among his family about a large table, with Drew taking the seat on her other side, which meant there was no further chance for private conversation.

Albert sat at a table on the other side of the room, beside the blonde woman. Every time Caro looked at him, he was looking at her. It was not a hostile stare, but one that said he wanted to know why she was here.

‘Is that his wife?’ she asked Drew quietly.

‘Yes, and please say you do not care.’

‘I do not.’ That was such a lie. That woman had borne him the child Caro could not, and envy flowed deep within her blood.

‘Do you ever speak to your parents?’ Rob asked, looking at them both, posing the question to them both.

Caro smiled – Rob had waded onto ground that should not be traversed where Drew was concerned.

‘I never speak to my mother,’ Drew said, pointedly marking the fact that the Marquis was not their parent. ‘I gave up trying to gain her notice years ago.’

‘I do not remember ever wasting my time trying to obtain her notice,’ Caro responded.

‘I only asked because you have been so long away from town, Caro, I am surprised they have not spoken to you.’

‘We are not surprised,’ Drew answered, in a petulant tone .

‘Will your mother speak if you walk past her?’ Rob’s eyebrows lifted.

‘She would cross a room or a street to avoid it,’ Drew answered.

‘I see,’ Rob stated.

‘I am sure you do not,’ Drew said.

Mary reached over and held Drew’s hand, then leaned about him. ‘We do not speak of them, Rob, they are naught to do with us.’

Caro did not care what they did either. When she had married Albert at a young age, she had left that family behind, physically and emotionally.

After supper, she had no further opportunity to speak to Rob. If they were to dance again, or if he stood beside her and talked to her, rumours would begin, and they would likely be unpleasant. So, she danced with Drew and John again, and the other members of Rob’s family.

When it came time to leave, it was Rob who lay her cloak on her shoulders and held her fingers as she climbed up into the carriage.

He sat beside her, his thigh against hers as they travelled.

The inside of the carriage was lit by an oil lamp, and it had been warmed with hot bricks on the floor, but even so she held her cloak tightly about her to fend off the cold.

John had agreed to drop Rob at his rooms, to save him walking back through dark streets. When the carriage stopped, it rocked as the footman jumped from a step on the back. Rob reached to open the door himself, but the footman reached it first.

‘Goodnight,’ Rob said before he climbed out. He could not look at her particularly, his departure was too quick and closely observed.

The footman shut the door .

She could not even wave as the carriage drew away.

Her thoughts clung to the moment of their waltz.

‘Will you wait until I am able to offer, then?’

‘Yes.’ How could she remarry, though, when she could not carry a child?