Page 5 of The Secret Love of a Gentleman (The Marlow Family Secrets #3)

THREE YEARS EARLIER

A piercing pain struck Caroline’s jaw as the sharp edge of Albert’s signet ring cut her skin. Her head snapped back, her gaze ripped from the blue of her husband’s eyes. He was a villain, this man she loved.

Her hand lifted to protect her face from another blow while she grasped the back of a chair to stop herself from falling. ‘Please. Stop. I did nothing wrong.’

‘Nothing…?’ he growled at her through teeth gritted in bitter anger.

His hand lifted again.

She covered her face with both hands, to avoid the next strike. It hit her across the side of her head, a hard slap. Tears flooded her eyes as she fell – from the pain of the blow, and the pain in her heart.

‘What did I do?’ Caro cried, her arms covering her head as her body curled into a dormouse-like ball on the hard floorboards, making herself as small as possible.

‘You lived, while my son died!’ The accusation rang about her bedchamber .

She was cursed. She could not carry a child, could not give him the heir he needed. He leaned over her, every muscle in his body taut with accusation.

She loved this man, regardless. He hates me.

‘Your doctor spoke to me today. He thinks you may never bear a child. He believes your womb is damaged.’

Caro swallowed back the emotions catching in her throat. She knew. She had been told.

There was nothing to say in her defence. She had lost another child and she might never be able to carry an infant to full-term. Tears ran from her eyes, drowning her. How many more times, how many more children? How long could she endure this?

‘I need a son! Give me a son, Caro! That is all I ask. You are capable of conceiving, you must be capable of birthing!’

As the blows had stopped, she lifted a hand from her face.

His gaze softened. His eyes were like the azure stones in one of her necklaces, an entrancing blue. Even in his vicious moods, when he was cold and callous, she still saw the man she married, the man who gave her months of happiness.

But each time he behaved like this, a little more of her died.

He turned away.

How could she love a man who terrified her? Because there were the times when he was kind.

She unravelled from the ball and dared to stand up.

‘I am trying to give you a son,’ she said, though her quiet voice denied it because she no longer believed she could.

Five children lay in shallow graves beside where her husband buried his dogs, because they had not lived to be baptised and could not be buried in a churchyard.

When he looked at her, there was nothing but disappointment in his eyes.

Long ago, once upon a time, Caro believed in his love.

Then, her marriage was a happy-ever-after.

There were many gifts and late hours dancing the nights through at balls.

When they were separated in rooms, his gaze had followed her.

When they walked together, gentle touches said, silently, I love you.

But her happy-ever-after was doomed. It had never been love on his part, it had been obsession.

‘Trying is not enough. I need a son. You will do your duty.’

He left the room.

She stared at the door as it shut behind him.

Before their marriage, and throughout the first year, Albert seemed love-struck.

Though she could never remember him saying the word ‘love’ now.

Adore, treasure, worship, those words were said.

Albert had asked the Marquis of Framlington for her hand, and the marriage had been arranged swiftly so the Marquis could be rid of his wife’s illegitimate daughter.

At the time they wed, Albert had been so impassioned he would devour her body whenever he could, until she became pregnant and sickly, then his interest waned.

He set up a mistress then and spent his evenings with her at the theatre and in the sitting rooms of the demimonde.

Yet in the days and at ton balls, he would talk to and look at Caro as though he respected and felt something warm for his wife.

That was when she learned how fake those looks and gestures of love could be.

It was when she lost her first child that the beatings and hatred began.

He was so used to beating her now, when she conceived, he would not even think of her condition. She knew at least two of her miscarriages were his fault. This time… she did not know why. The doctor said her womb may well be too damaged to carry a child to full-term.

Albert was a handsome, powerful man. She was spellbound in the beginning. Even now, when he came to her bed, he joined with her as though he loved her. Her childhood had not contained love. He taught her what love could be, and even now she clung to those moments of intimacy and affection.

She cared for him.

‘Ma’am, may I help you retire?’

Caro had forgotten her lady’s maid was in the room. ‘Please bring some fresh water.’ The servants were as afraid of Albert’s temper as she was. Like her, they sought to be silent and invisible like mice.

Caro watched her reflection in the mirror as the maid dabbed at her face with a cloth to wash away the blood from her cut cheek and lip. She masked the bruises with powder and reddened Caro’s lips with rouge. Albert would expect Caro to look well when he came to her later.

The sun had long since set by the time Albert returned. Caro’s bedchamber was entirely dark and he had not brought a candle. His footsteps quietly crossed the room, then the sheets beside her lifted and the mattress dipped when he lay down.

‘Caro,’ he said as his hand reached for her waist. He turned her to him.

The scent of brandy carried on his breath. His lips pressed on hers and his hand held her breast, gentle now, denying that his hands could ever be brutal.

Even though her lip had split, his kiss eased away the pain from the blows. The thoughtfulness he showed her at night wrapped about her soul and held her heart as his prisoner. This Albert was the man she loved.

This was her marriage – cruel, heartless, beautiful love.

His fingers rubbed and groped her breast, teasing her nipple to a peak through the cloth of her nightgown, then he released the few buttons at her chest, and helped her strip the garment off.

He was passionate in all respects, in admiration, in anger and in bed.

Yet passion was not love, she had learned the difference.

She longed for his love. She imagined it when he was in her bed – that he touched her with love.

Her hands rested on his shoulders as he moved across her.

He kissed the bruise on her cheek. He did this every day, ripped her apart then put her back together at night, and she did not even think it deliberate or mean, he was simply cold-blooded like a frog, or a snake.

She truly believed he had no idea how his behaviour hurt her.

His fingers touched her between her legs, gently caressing and calling to her body.

The passion in his character pulled her to do things for him, to be what he wished, to love him with her whole self.

When he entered her, she was damp between her legs.

His intrusion was hard and fast, yet not painful.

This was always how he loved her, with force and strength that sent her reeling.

The little death swept over her after a few minutes, and in a few more he spilled his seed inside her.

Another minute’s tick of the mechanism of the clock on the mantle above the hearth and he was withdrawing, disengaging, mentally as well as physically.

The pain of her bruises flooded her senses, while the pain of his loss filled her soul.

He kissed her cheek. ‘Thank you. God willing there will be a child soon.’ Then he got up and left her rooms.

When Caro rose in the morning, her maid powdered her face and neck. The powder hid the bruises but not the swellings, so the maid used rouge to help disguise some of the swelling on her cheek. Caro chose a gown with long sleeves to hide the bruising on her arms.

As she walked down to breakfast, her stomach trembled as much as her hands.

The marble-lined hallway was as cold as the man who waited for her at the table.

A footman bowed his head when she entered the morning room.

She no longer felt humiliated by the violence in her own home; every servant in the house knew how she was treated.

It had gone on for too long for embarrassment to be a burden here.

But outside the house… Yes, it embarrassed her.

A newspaper was folded beside his place at the table, so he could read it more easily. He looked up from the newspaper as Caro entered, and his fork lowered to the plate.

She longed to see the reverent look that used to hover in his eyes. His expression today said he was watching an oddity in a village fair.

When he frowned, terror – sharp and violent – cut into her chest. Had something happened?

Everything that went wrong in this house was a reason to beat her; a silver spoon left with a smudge, a glass broken, a meal he did not enjoy.

The servants were her responsibility and therefore their errors were hers.

‘Good morning, Caro.’ He stood up and bowed his head, then sat again.

A footman withdrew a seat for her at the opposite end of the table and served her breakfast.

Albert was a dozen years older than her. His maturity and strength of character had seemed a blessing to her younger self. She felt safe, then, protected, when he was adoring and attentive.

‘I shall not be home for dinner,’ Albert said as soon as his plate was empty. He put his napkin on the table and stood.

He was saying he would be with his mistress.

He walked to her, she turned her cheek for him to press a quick kiss there, then he left the room.

Her torn heart bled. She had tried to be a good wife. She had tried to give him children. She had failed.

He had beaten her more than a dozen times in the last month. After she lost their last child, she was unable to move for three days, while her face was grotesquely swollen.

If I lose another child, will he kill me?

Her brother, Drew, said Albert would kill her eventually if she did not leave him.

Like her, Drew was a cuckoo in the Marquis of Framlington’s nest. Her mother liked younger men – but not the children her affairs produced.

Caro and Drew were unwanted and unloved children, but the origins of their birth had formed their unbreakable bond.

Drew was the only person who genuinely cared for her.

Drew regularly begged her to leave Albert, but he had recently married a woman with money and that made it possible.

He had promised to buy Caro a property to hide in.

But how could she escape the influence and power of the seventh Marquis of Kilbride, and how could she leave when she still loved him? Yet… How do I stay?

The blood about her heart congealed and the bruises in her soul throbbed.

If she stayed more children would be conceived and die.

Drew had promised to keep her safe. Could he?

She lay her knife and fork on her plate, and rose, her breakfast barely touched as her mouth was too sore to eat. She left the room.

Her fingers slid along the stone banister as she climbed the stairs in the hall.

If she stayed nothing would be better, it could only become worse. She would always have to look into the eyes of the man she loved and see how she disappointed him.

As she stepped from the last stair on to the first-floor landing, she knew in her heart she had made a decision that would change her life, for better or worse.

She must leave Albert. This was a poisoned marriage.

Yet she would leave a part of herself here.

Her wounded heart and soul would remain with the man she loved, and she would always be grateful for the first year of their marriage when she had known what love might be.

If she did not leave, Drew was probably right; Albert would kill her in the end.