Page 6 of The Secret Love of a Gentleman (The Marlow Family Secrets #3)

Caro descended from the coat-of-arms-embossed carriage her husband provided for her, holding the hand of a footman.

Her foot touched the pavement of Tavistock Street, the address of her modiste, and her heart raced, its rhythm running through her veins.

The air petrified in her lungs, yet she refused to let her hold tighten about the footman’s hand or tremble.

He must not sense her fear. Her husband may not love her, but he had her watched like a hawk.

Her family’s reputation for setting up intrigues, her own birth being evidence of it, meant Albert did not trust her. He would not have a cuckoo in his nest. He had his mistress – but Caro must be devotedly his. So, his most trusted staff went everywhere with her.

The street was busy, a throng of people flowed past, even though it was still relatively early. She hoped the crowded pavement would help her.

The footman led the way into the shop, raising a hand to stop passers-by so she could cross.

The bell above the door jangled as he opened it and she followed him in.

The broad bow window display showed off some of the fabrics and fashions that lined the shelving and counters inside the shop.

Half a dozen customers were looking at lace, ribbons and fabrics on the counters, and fashion plates for the styles they wanted made.

How long would it take the footman to realise something was amiss?

Caro’s eyes scanned the occupants through the netting of the veil she wore to cover her identity as much as the bruising. Her heart hammered against her ribs. She knew no one, and she hoped no one, bar the modiste, would know her.

She held her reticule carefully as she crossed the room, hiding the weight of the jewellery in it, trying to make the purse appear as light as usual.

She had taken the jewellery from its boxes and put all the gifts he gave her in their first year into her purse.

It would help pay for her keep. She did not want to be entirely dependent on Drew, and she would live quietly and spend little so she hoped the money from these things would last.

‘May I see some fabrics for a ballgown?’ Caro asked the modiste’s assistant.

The woman lifted some folds of fabric off the shelves.

This was the last time Caro would look at such fine things.

She picked a very delicate pale pink, then thumbed through the fashion book, her heartbeat racing.

She left the book open on a page and leaned forward and asked the assistant discreetly.

‘May I use your convenience, please?’ Her voice trembled.

She coughed as if clearing her throat. She must not appear nervous.

When Albert’s footman attempted to follow Caro through a door at the back of the shop, the assistant shooed him away.

She was led through a workroom, and then outside to a cold closet that looked more like a coal store. The small space contained a chamber pot. Caro had used the closet once before, so she would know if an escape was possible .

‘I will find my own way back,’ she said to the shop woman.

As soon as the assistant left her, Caro ran to the gate at the back of the shop yard. It was unlocked as it had been the day she checked this escape route. She opened it.

Drew waited there, as he promised he would.

‘Caro.’ She shut the door. He took her hand. ‘Come. Did the modiste query your exit?’

‘No, I asked if I might use her convenience, but there is a footman waiting in the shop.’

‘Then we must hurry.’

He led her into a run across the uneven cobbles of the narrow alley.

‘I hired the carriage in a false name. We will change to another when we are out of London and go the opposite way. Then change again, so we cannot be easily followed. Where was Kilbride when you left?’

‘In the House of Lords. They will be sitting for hours and none of the servants will be able to speak to him there.’

The carriage stood at the end of the alley, the door ajar. Drew pulled it wide and held it while she climbed in. ‘Go!’ He called up to the driver, as he followed her in and shut the door.

‘Pull down the blind,’ he told her as he pulled down the one on his side, covering the small window in the carriage door.

Caro’s hands shook as she opened her reticule and showed him the jewellery she had brought.

Drew smiled awkwardly. ‘I will sell them for you, they will help you live for years.’ She hoped for that. He needed his wife’s dowry to find his own happiness.

He lifted the edge of the blind, peering around as the carriage drove along the street past the modiste’s.

When the servants discovered her gone there would be bedlam. They would fear Albert’s response. She did too. She could only hope he never found her.

Drew held her hand, offering reassurance.

She held his hand as firmly, trying to offer reassurance to him too.

He had told her his wife left him, his fledgling marriage was failing already.

They were both flawed, scarred by an unpleasant childhood, and on top of that Drew had the curse of male pride.

He would not plead his case and try to persuade his wife to forgive him.

When the last of the carriages on their higgledy-piggledy route rocked to a halt, they had been travelling for a couple of hours. ‘We will walk from here,’ Drew said. Their route had avoided the busy roads and toll houses, and so her bottom was sore from bouncing along rucked mud tracks.

He opened the door and knocked down the step, handed her down and shouted up to the driver, asking him to rest the horses and wait for him at the coaching inn.

‘Our aunt shall be so pleased to see us!’ he said in a loud voice to Caro, and held up his forearm, pretending to anyone in the stable yard this was a casual event. She lay her hand on his coat sleeve, her heartbeat fluttering.

They strolled past a shallow ford across the River Medway, and past a large ornate building, the Bishop’s Palace, as though this was a day out.

She looked everywhere for any sign of someone following but no one around them was behaving unusually, and how could Albert have followed her when his servants had not known she left?

A cold shiver in her told her she would be looking over her shoulder for someone forever.

They continued until they reached a row of whitewashed thatched terraced cottages.

Most of the square front gardens, tucked behind a long stone wall, were filled with vegetable plants, but the middle garden was a beautiful muddle of blooming flowers. Drew opened the gate.

They walked up the path. This was the entrance to her new life.

Drew knocked. The door opened. A middle-aged woman clothed in unrelenting black stood there.

‘Go in.’ Drew hurried Caro on and shut the door behind them.

It was a dark cottage, with small windows and low ceilings, and cold, with its thick walls and stone flags on the floor.

But it was clean and the woman had made it homely.

The scent of baking bread filled the air, and rag rugs lay on top of the stone paving slabs.

But Caro had come from wealth and it was a long way to fall to this – and all because she could not carry a child.

She often wondered what her life would have been like if the first child had been born healthy. Would the beatings have never begun?

‘This is Mrs Martin,’ Drew introduced the housekeeper. ‘She is a widow. She will live in the second bedchamber so you will never be alone.’ He looked at the housekeeper who bobbed a curtsy. ‘This is my sister, Mrs Caroline Smith, as I told you, she has also recently been widowed.’

‘Hello. May I use your given name? I would prefer that we were not formal but lived more as friends.’ Caro proposed, if they were to live on top of one another it would be better.

‘My name is Beth, ma’am.’

‘Mine is Caroline.’

Drew stayed for a while and drank tea in the front room. But he could not stay forever.

‘I should leave.’ Drew stood. ‘I must return to London, so Kilbride will not guess I helped you. It may be weeks before I can return; Kilbride will have people watching me,’ he said quietly as Beth was only in the next room, the kitchen, preparing Caro’s dinner.

‘So, do not write, it is not worth the risk. I will come as soon as I can, and in the meantime, do not draw attention to yourself.’

She hugged him as they said goodbye. ‘Thank you.’

‘You must be brave, stay calm and strong. He will not find you, I promise.’

‘I am very grateful.’

‘I am glad I have finally been able to help you.’

She nodded, tears clasping at her throat and leaving her unable to answer as he opened the door and left.

She walked into the kitchen, drawn by the smell of the food. Beef, suet…

‘Ma’am.’ The housekeeper curtsied.

‘Please, call me Caroline, Beth. Did my brother mention that we have some rather rough relatives, so we must always be cautious when visitors come?’

‘Yes, Caroline. He told me I must not say a word to anyone about you, or our lives, and that I should not open the door unless I know who is outside. I understand, because my husband was violent, so, I know how horrible people can be.’

‘Thank you. I am quite exhausted after my journey. Would you show me my room and I will lie down?’

She knew Albert better than Drew knew him. Albert would never stop looking, she would be hiding here for the rest of her life.

‘Of course, ma— Caroline.’