The Secret Love of a Gentleman

JANE LARK

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HarperCollinsPublishers

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First published in Great Britain by HarperImpulse 2015

Copyright © Jane Lark 2015

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Cover layout design © HarperColl‌insPublishers Ltd 2015

Cover design by Zoe Jackson

Jane Lark asserts the moral right

to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record for this book is

available from the British Library

This novel is entirely a work of fiction.

The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are

the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to

actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is

entirely coincidental.

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and Pan-American Copyright Conventions.

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Digital eFirst: Automatically produced by Atomik ePublisher from Easypress.

Ebook Edition © August 2015 ISBN: 9780008135362

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Praise for Jane Lark

'Jane Lark has an incredible talent to draw the reader in from the first page onwards'

Cosmochicklitan

'Jane Lark writes soulful romance'

Big Little Sister Blog

'Every single book in this series is wonderful'

Literati Literature Lovers

'The book swings from truly swoon-worthy, tense and heart wrenching, highly erotic and everything else in between'

BestChickLit.com

'Beautifully descriptive, emotional and can I say, just plain delicious reading?'

Devastating Reads BlogSpot

'Any description that I give you would not only spoil the story but could not give this book a tenth of the justice that it deserves. Wonderful!'

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Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Praise for Jane Lark

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Chapter 51

Chapter 52

Epilogue

Author Note

Also by Jane Lark …

Jane Lark

About HarperImpulse

About the Publisher

Chapter 1

Life is cruel.

A piercing pain struck Caroline’s jaw as the sharp edge of Albert’s signet ring cut her skin. Her head snapped back and her gaze left 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. No. 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.

“What have I done?” Caro cried, her hands gripping her head and her body curling on the wooden floor into a position that sought to protect, and yet it was childlike. She longed for comfort, for kindness

“Lived, while my son died!” The accusation rang about her bedchamber. A curse. 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 him, regardless.

He hated her.

“Your doctor spoke to me today. He believes you may never bear a child. He believes your womb is damaged.”

Caro swallowed back the tears catching in her throat. She knew. She had been told. Yet did it justify such brutality and bitter hatred? He hates me, and I have always loved him…

There was nothing to say in her defence. She had lost another child, his child, and she might never be able to carry an infant full-term. Tears flooded her eyes. How many times? How many 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 giving birth!”

She lifted a hand so she could look at him. His gaze softened.

His eyes were like azure stones, an entrancing blue. Even in his vicious moods, when he was cold and callous, she still saw the man she’d married, the man who’d given her months of happiness and hope.

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

He turned away and walked across the room.

How could she love and hate the same man? How could she love a man who terrified her?

She struggled to her feet. “I am trying to give you a son.” Yet she no longer believed she could. She had lost five children.

He stopped and turned, his eyes expressing pain, pity and disappointment.

Long ago, once upon a time, Caro had believed him in love and her marriage a happy-ever-after, like a fairytale. There had been gifts and balls, and their gazes holding across rooms, and gentle touches on her waist and her back as they walked together, which said, silently, I love you. But it was damned—doomed.

“Trying is not enough. I need a son. You will do your duty.” He turned again and walked away.

She stared at the door when it shut behind him.

Before their marriage, and after it, throughout the first year, Albert had seemed love-struck. He’d begged the Marquis of Framlington for her hand, and the marriage had been arranged swiftly so he could be rid of his wife’s illegitimate daughter.

Albert had been attentive, walking and standing close to her wherever they went, and devouring her body at night, but it had not been love, it had been obsession, and when she’d become pregnant and sickly, his interest had waned. He’d found a mistress and ceased to come to her bed. It had broken her heart. Especially when he continued to touch her and look at her as though love hung between them in the day and at balls. Then she’d lost the child.

That was when the beatings and the hatred had begun. He would not forgive her for the loss of their first child and now when she was with child he was so used to beating her he would not even think of her condition.

Yet the old Albert still shone through: the handsome, powerful man who’d entranced her in the beginning. Every night she had an unbearable reminder of how things should be between them, of how they had been. Even when he was angry with her, when he came to her bed he still joined with her as though he cared. That sense of being loved was still there—when in her childhood she had known so little love. She’d clung to the moments of intimacy and affection for years.

She cared for him.

“Ma’am, may I help you retire.”

Caro had forgotten the maid was even in the room. “Yes, and please bring some fresh water.” To wash the blood from her cheek and her lip. Albert would expect her to look well when he came to her later.

~

Sunset had passed long ago when Albert returned to the house, and Caro’s bedchamber was entirely dark when he entered. He’d not brought a candle.

His footsteps quietly crossed the room, then the sheets beside her lifted. The mattress dipped when he lay down.

“Caro,” he whispered as his hand reached for her waist and pulled her to him. The scent of brandy carried on his breath. His lips pressed onto hers and his hand slid to her breast, gentle now.

His kiss eased away all the pain from the blows. The thoughtfulness he showed her at night wrapped about her soul and held her heart as his prisoner. The Albert she’d fallen in love with was here.

This was how it was with him—cruel, heartless, beautiful love. He would beat her and then he would devour her tenderly.

His fingers rubbed and gripped her breast through the cloth of her nightgown for a while, then he unbuttoned it.

He was passionate in all respects, in anger, in admiration, and in bed. Yet where his heart ought to be, there was a lump of stone.

His fingers slipped inside her open nightgown and skimmed over her skin, searching out her nipple. He teased it to a peak.

She yearned for more than this, she yearned for love. Her palm rested on his shoulder then slid down across his warm, naked chest. Soft skin covered the firm muscle beneath.

His hand began drawing up the hem of her nightgown and his lips left her mouth to kiss the bruise beside it, then kiss across the bruises on her neck, where his fingers had gripped earlier.

He did this every day, ripped her apart and then put her back together at night, and she did not even think it deliberate or mean, he was simply cold-blooded. She truly believed he had no idea how his behaviour hurt her.

When the hem of her nightgown reached her waist, his fingers touched her between her legs, gently caressing and calling to her body.

The magnetism in his character, his presence, his touch, pulled her to do things for him, to wish to be near him, to love him.

When he entered her she was damp between her legs and hot, and his intrusion was hard and fast, yet not painful. This was always how he loved her, with a force and strength that sent her reeling.

The little death swept over her in moments, and in a few more moments 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 and physically denying her again.

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

He kissed her cheek. “Thank you. God willing there will be a child soon.” Then he got up and returned to his rooms. His departure ripped another little hole in her heart.

When Caro rose in the morning she had her maid carefully powder her face and neck, and she chose a gown with long sleeves. They hid the bruises, but not the swelling about her lip. She tried to hide that with rouge. It was not the worst it had been.

Her stomach trembled, along with her hands, as she walked down to break her fast with Albert before he left. The marble-lined hallway was cold.

A footman bowed his head when she reached the door of the morning room. He held the door open for her.

Her stomach tumbled over. Every servant in the house must know how she was treated.

Albert looked up. He’d been reading the paper while eating scrambled eggs, his fork lowered to the plate.

She longed to see that old look of want and reverence that used to hover in his brown eyes, but instead he stared at her as though she was an oddity in a village fair.

A sharp and violent sensation raced through her blood, reaching into her limbs—terror. She hoped it did not show on her face. Had she done anything wrong today? He did not only beat her for her lack of ability to breed; everything that went wrong in the house was her fault, a fork out of place, a glass broken, something he did not like on a menu. The servants were her responsibility and therefore their errors were hers.

“Caro.” He stood up and gave her a shallow bow. “Good morning.” Then he sat again.

She took her seat at the far end of the table, her fingers shaking when she accepted her food.

Albert was a dozen years older than her. His maturity and strength of character had seemed a blessing to her younger self when they’d met, when he’d been adoring and attentive. She’d felt sheltered by him then.

Now, this was their day; they would take breakfast together and then he would leave, and perhaps return to dine with her, or to accompany her to a ball, or ask her to entertain his political friends. Then at night he would lay with her, at whatever hour he returned home from his mistress, or mistresses.

“I shan’t be home for dinner.” Albert set his napkin down and rose.

Caro looked up. There was no emotion in his blue eyes.

She had tried. She had tried to be a good wife. She loved him. She had tried to give him children. She could not. She had failed.

The blood from her torn heart dried at little more, just as the blood had dried on the cut his ring had ripped in the flesh of her face last night.

How much longer could she live like this? If she lost another child…

In the last six weeks he’d beaten her a dozen times.

After the loss of the last child he’d left her in bed a day later, unable to move, her face grotesquely swollen.

If she lost another child would he kill her?

Would anyone care?

Her brother would care. Drew. He would. Like her, he’d been a cuckoo in the Marquis of Framlington’s nest, and their parents’ rejection had forged a bond, which had held. She’d clung to Drew for security as a child, for the love and attention their parents never gave. Drew was the only person who had returned her love.

Her closeness to her brother was the only thing in her life that had lasted.

She finished the last mouthful on her plate to make it appear to the servants that all was well, then rose and left the room, passing through the cold, austere marble hallway.

Drew had begged her to leave Albert. He had offered to keep her. He’d recently married a woman with money and he’d said he would buy Caro a property somewhere in the country where she would be safe. But how could she run from someone with the power of the seventh Marquis of Kilbride, and how could she leave when she still loved him, and yet… How do I stay?

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

If she stayed there would be more beatings and more children lost.

Drew had promised her security.

Her fingers slid along the stone banister as she climbed the stairs to her rooms.

If she stayed nothing would change. Nothing would become better, it could only be worse. The doctor had said she would never have a child and she would always have to look into the eyes she loved, which had once held a look of adulation and were now hollow windows, which merely acknowledged her existence.

She would run. She had to leave Albert. Yet if she did, she would leave herself here, her soul and her heart. They might be wounded but they were not dead, and they still loved Albert with a loyalty that she did not think would end. She had been so starved of love, to have known what she had with Albert, even for a year, would stay with her forever.

But there was no other choice than to leave. This was a poisoned marriage. He would kill her in the end.

Chapter 2

Caro descended from the coat-of-arms embossed carriage her husband provided for her use, gripping 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 had a reputation for setting up intrigues, her own birth was evidence of it, and her eldest sister was as bad as their mother. The Marquis of Kilbride did not wish to be cuckolded. He might play away from the marriage bed, yet she must stay loyal, and to ensure her loyalty he surrounded her with his staff.

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 bowed low over her hand, then let it go and turned to force her a path through the people.

The broad bow window of the shop displayed fabrics and fashions. The footman opened the door and held it open as the bell above jangled.

She walked in. He followed.

How long would it be before he guessed something was amiss once she’d gone?

Half a dozen customers touched fabrics and accessories, which had been put out on the counters for them to consider.

Caro’s eyes scanned the occupants through the fine net of the veil she’d worn to cover the bruising on her face, and her identity. Her heart hammered against her ribs. She knew no one, and she hoped no one, bar the modiste, would know her. She did not want to be stopped by anyone.

She held her heavy reticule carefully as she crossed the room, so it appeared light, hiding the weight of the jewellery within it. She’d taken nothing that belonged to Albert, only what he had given to her as gifts in their first year—the year she’d believed he’d loved her.

It was what she hoped to live on. She did not wish to be entirely dependent on Drew nor to become a burden. She would live quietly and spend little.

“May I see some fabrics for a new ballgown?” Caro pointed out some bolts. The modiste’s assistant took them down and lifted a pattern book out from beneath the counter.

Caro touched each fabric as the assistant unravelled lengths. This would be the last time she would have the chance to look at such fine things. She picked a very delicate pale pink, then thumbed through the fashion book. Her heart racing, she stopped suddenly and left it on an open page as she leant across the counter to ask the assistant discreetly, “May I use your convenience, please?” Her voice had trembled. She coughed as if clearing her throat.

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

Caro was led through a workroom and then out to a cold, short corridor. The closet was at the end of that. Caro had used it before, and she knew how it was situated, next to the rear entrance into the yard behind the shop.

“I will find my own way back,” she said to the girl when she went into the closet. Caro shut the door for a moment. But she did not make use of the chamber pot, which had been left in the room. Her fingers gripped at her waist while she listened to the assistant walk away. Caro came out and turned to the door, her heart thumping against her ribs. She opened it and shut it quietly.

Drew was there.

“Caro,” he whispered as he took her hand. “Come.” He led her out of the shop yard. “Did they query your exit?”

“No, I asked the modiste if I might use her closet, but there is a footman waiting for me in the shop.”

“Then we had best hurry.”

His grip on her hand pulled her into a run along the narrow cobbled alley at the back of the row of shops.

“There is a hired carriage at the end of the alley. I ordered it in a false name. We will change carriages once we are out of London and go the opposite way, and then change again. No one will be able to trace you. Where was Kilbride when you left?”

“I waited until he’d left for the House of Lords. He will be there hours before he knows I am gone. He cannot abide being interrupted while he is in the House.”

When they reached the end of the alley, the door of the waiting carriage was ajar. Drew pulled it wider and handed her up, then climbed in behind her.

“Go!” He called up to the driver, before shutting the door. He pulled down the blinds to hide them from view.

Caro’s hands shook as she opened her reticule. “I have brought something to help. I cannot allow you to support me entirely, Drew.” Gold and jewels glinted in the low light of the carriage as she opened the handkerchief she’d hidden them in. “They are all gifts he has given me, they were mine to take, earbobs, hair slides, bracelets and necklaces.”

Drew smiled awkwardly.

He’d expected nothing and yet he was not a wealthy man. He needed the dowry he’d received from his wife to find his own happiness, not hers.

He said nothing, turning away to lift the edge of the blind and peer around it as they passed the front of the shop, and Albert’s carriage.

Drew looked back at her. “They do not appear to have noticed your absence yet.”

When they did discover her gone there would be bedlam. They would fear Albert’s response. She would always be terrified of her husband’s influence.

What if he found her?

Drew’s hand held hers, offering comfort and reassurance.

She was grateful and yet his own marriage was falling apart, his wife had left him.

They were both flawed.

They’d been scarred as children by their mother’s betrayal and their stepfather’s hatred. But on top of that Drew had the curse of male pride. He would not plead his case and try to persuade Mary to have him back.

~

“We will leave the carriage here and walk,” Drew stated when it jolted to a halt. It was the last stage of their journey.

He opened the door and took her hand. She climbed out, her eyes wide and heartbeat racing. He kept a hold of her, leading her out of the inn’s courtyard.

They turned a corner and walked down another street. Then past a shallow ford across a river and a large, ornate building.

Drew continued walking until they reached a row of terraced, whitewashed, thatched cottages. Most had gardens filled with vegetable plants, but the one in the middle was full of flowers in bloom. When they reached it Drew opened the gate in the stone wall that ran along the edge of the road.

They walked up the path.

The cottage door was small, but it was the entrance to her new life. In that context it was a giant step.

Drew knocked and the door opened. A thin, middle-aged woman, dressed in unrelenting black, stood there. Drew hurried Caro in and shut the door. It was dark inside and the ceilings were low. It felt a little like a prison cell—gloomy, cold and desolate.

She had come from affluence to this, tumbling down the stations of society, simply because she could not bear a child.

Drew stayed with her for a while, as the housekeeper who had opened the door showed her about the small four-roomed cottage, and then he drank tea with Caro. But he could not stay forever.

“Caro, you know I cannot return for a while. Kilbride will have people watching me for weeks. We both know it. Do not write either. It is not worth taking the risk. I will come as soon as I can, but in the meantime, simply live quietly here.”

She nodded as he stood. She rose too. Then she lifted to her toes and hugged him, crying, clinging to him. The one person in her life who had proved themselves constant—who loved her truly.

“You must be brave, Caro, stay calm and stay strong and sit it out here. He will not find you, I promise.”

She nodded again, but Albert would never cease looking. She knew him better than Drew. Albert would take her flight as an insult. He’d wish for revenge. He would continue to live his life without her and yet ensure she never felt able to live hers without fear.

Chapter 3

The knocker struck on the cottage door with four firm raps.

Caro rose from her chair, fear clasping in her chest as she walked into the hall.

This was her haven—no one knocked on the door.

Beth, the housekeeper, had come out from the kitchen. She wiped her hands on the skirt of her white apron.

Caro had lived here alone for days, a prisoner in her new home, communicating with no one except Beth and no one else ought to be here. Drew had said he would not come.

Caro could not look from the window without giving herself away. Instead she stared at the door, willing her eyes to see through wood.

No word had come from town and she had not asked Beth to purchase a paper for fear that local people would wonder why a woman of the class she was now supposed to be would wish to read. She was living humbly, trying not to rouse suspicion.

“Madam, should I open the door?” Beth whispered as Caro merely stood there, her heart pulsing hard.

Foolishly she longed for Albert, for someone to turn to and say, what should I do? She missed none of her finery but she missed her husband. She missed the man who had felt like her protector once, the man who had come to her at night and touched her as though he loved her. A part of her foolish heart longed to be found, but not by the man who beat her.

“Ask who it is.” Caro whispered.

“Who is there?” Beth called as she looked towards the door.

“It is Lady Framlington. Your brother sent me, he could not come himself.” Mary’s soft voice penetrated the wood and pierced Caro’s heart. Drew’s wife should not be here if all was well.

Caro looked at Beth. “Something is wrong. Why would my brother not come himself? They are estranged…” Of course, it was foolish asking her housekeeper. How was Beth to know? But the anxiety skittering through Caro’s nerves stopped her from thinking clearly.

“Ma’am, I cannot say –”

Panic gripped and solidified in Caro’s stomach, and froze her limbs as though ice crept across her skin. She imagined Drew beaten or dead. “Should I trust her, do you think?”

“Ma’am.” The decision must be yours, Caro heard the words Beth did not utter.

Drew’s wife was from a good family, a family renowned for its loyalty and high morals. Surely Mary had not come to entrap her.

“Let her in,” Caro ordered in a broken whisper.

“Very well, my lady?” Beth’s hands reached behind her back to untie her apron as she turned away and went to hang it up in the kitchen.

When Beth returned, her black dress still dusty with flour, she freed the bolts that held the door.

When the door opened, a silhouette of the young woman standing outside was framed by the daylight.

Beth bobbed a curtsy. Mary looked at Caro, her gaze assessing the brown shawl Caro had wrapped around her shoulders to shelter from the chilly draughts in the cottage.

Embarrassment lay over Caro and her skin heated, probably colouring. Where was Drew?

Her fingers gripped her shawl tighter to hide the tremble in her hands.

“May I come in? My brother is with me.”

The Duke of Pembroke…

The thought of a man, a stranger, within any distance of her sent terror racing through Caro. She’d become used to this little four-roomed prison cell—used to there being no risk. He had once been her elder sister’s lover, and rumour had cast him as rakish and rebellious when he’d followed the route of the grand tour at the same time as Drew, but now the imposing duke was married, and all gossip and talk of him had died in town. He’d absorbed the morals of his family, people said, and Caro had heard his marriage discussed as a love match.

Her gaze reached past Mary as the housekeeper stepped aside, and her heart hit against her ribs like the beat of hooves on hard ground in a canter.

“I have this from Andrew, so you know that what I say is true.” Caro looked at the letter Mary held out. Then looked at her sister-in-law.

Mary was dressed in the fashion of the capital. In the finery Caro had been accustomed to, until she’d fallen out of favour and been forced to run. She was no longer a Marchioness. She no longer had a right to such things.

The letter trembled when Caro took it and unfolded it.

Drew’s familiar bold, assertive letters stretched across the page. She spotted words. Kilbride. He has accused us. I have to go to London to face the charge. She stopped and read it in full, her heart pounding harder.

When Caro looked up, Mary had turned to beckon her brother forward.

“He has accused Drew of being my lover. Incest is a crime. I never thought… Oh God.” A dark cloud crowded Caro, and a heavy sensation pulled her down. She’d never imagined this.

“This way Ma’am.” Beth directed them to the parlour.

“Here” Mary held Caro’s arm as the Duke of Pembroke removed his hat to pass beneath the lintel.

His presence robbed the dark cottage of even more light.

Caro’s heart kicked against her ribs, like Albert’s boot had often done and she shivered.

She’d grown too used to her own company, to the safety of her solitude. She wished to run, and yet Drew had been imprisoned. He’d asked her to go with these people.

The letter trembled in Caro’s cold hand.

“You must sit,” Mary said.

They’d been accused of incest…

Caro sat in an armchair and looked up. Drew’s letter crumpled in her fingers. Nausea twisted through her stomach. “Drew will regret helping me.”

“He does not. The last thing he said to me was that he could not regret it.”

The Duke, who could not stand straight beneath the low ceiling, took the other chair in the room. Now he was not looming over her, Caro remembered her manners. “Your Grace.” She moved to rise, but Mary pressed a hand on her shoulder to keep her seated.

“Forgive me, I would stand myself but it is a little awkward,” the Duke said “and I would rather you felt able to be informal in my presence. Besides, it is far easier to converse with us both seated.”

Caro’s fingers clung to Drew’s letter in her lap. She did not understand this. Drew had eloped with Mary and had made an enemy of the Duke. Why would he be here? Why was Mary here? She had been estranged from Drew… She’d left him…

“I have promised to protect you,” The Duke continued, as Caro looked her bewilderment, she could take none of this in. “You will be safer at Pembroke Place. No one can get within miles of the house without being seen, and my wife, Katherine, and Mary and I will be there to keep you company. Of course the house and grounds will be at your disposal. You may mix with the family or avoid us entirely if you wish. But there is a music room and a library to entertain you. It need not be confinement as this must feel, and you need not live in fear, Lady Kilbride?”

“Why would you help me?” Caro looked from the Duke to her sister-in-law.

“Because you are my sister now.” Mary dropped to her haunches and gripped one of Caro’s hands.

“You are together again?”

“Yes.”

“How?”

“I thought he had been disloyal and betrayed me. He was seen with another woman in a draper’s and I was told and I heard him saying he was setting up a woman in a house. I thought he’d taken a mistress. I was mistaken. The woman he was taking care of was you. He has forgiven me my misjudgement.”

Oh, Caro was glad for Drew. “He deserves to be happy. I knew you would make him so, you are good.” Yet he would not be happy because of Caro, he was in a true prison, locked away for helping her.

“And Drew is a good man.”

“Yes.” Caro’s vision clouded with tears. He was not known for his goodness, but he had always shown it to her. His love had been precious to her as a child, when he’d protected her from the cruel taunting of their siblings and tried to shelter her from their lack of parental love. He’d been her safe harbour when her marriage had turned sour. He deserved happiness. “I owe him much.”

“The two of you are not alone anymore. Will you come with us?” the Duke asked, his baritone cutting the stillness in the room and making her jump.

When Caro looked at him a tingle like hackles lifting on her spine rippled across her skin, cat-like. His authority and arrogant stance reminded her of Albert. “I will come.” Because Drew asked it of me.

“Then we should go directly.” Mary stood. “John can send a cart back for your possessions.”

A new sensation, a sense of drowning, overwhelmed Caro, stealing her breath, as though the water about her was icy.

To be outdoors again.

To be amongst people again.

She took a deep breath, fighting against panic. Yet Drew would not have asked her to do this if he did not think it right. “I have barely anything… Lady Framlington, I left everything in town.”

“You must call me Mary. You are my sister.”

Yes, and that is what Caro must think. This was not accepting charity from strangers, and this was for Drew.

Chapter 4

“The magistrate wishes to speak with you, Lady Kilbride.”

Was she to be charged now too? Caro’s fingers clasped together at her waist as the nervous discomfort that had claimed a hold over her ever since she’d left her cottage roared through her. Her heart pounded so loud in her ears it was deafening.

The Duke of Arundel, Mary’s uncle, stood before her, in her private sitting room. He’d come to speak with her, in Mary’s company, while downstairs the magistrate who had the say over Drew’s situation waited in the formal drawing room.

“If you wish to help your brother then you must speak. He has told us of the Marquis of Kilbride’s violence and sworn that is the only reason you accepted his protection, yet unless you confirm it I fear Kilbride’s word will be taken over Drew’s.”

Then she must speak. She would not see her brother hang because of her.

But to speak of such private things… Shame touched her skin with warmth. She had lived with the Duke of Pembroke for only two days and yet she had seen love as it ought to be returned here. He loved his wife and Mary loved Drew—Caro still loved Albert too, the Albert of her fairytales, the Albert who for a little while had seemed so similar to the Duke of Pembroke and how the Duke was towards his wife, Kate. Yet Albert had never looked at Caro quite as the Duke looked at Kate. Caro knew what she’d lacked. She had been right to run, but her heart still remembered all the emotions of her first year with Albert, and it clung to the only time she’d known such tenderness and admiration in her life, even if it had been a shallow image of it. It also clung to the moments Albert’s touch had been gentle and tender in her bed. Those had been the most precious moments of her life…

And the times he had hit her the worst. It had been betrayal.

“Do you wish me with you?” Mary asked.

“No. Thank you.” She could not bear to tell the truth of her humiliation before Mary, she wished no one to know. Yet she must speak to save Drew. “If I speak, will the details remain private?”

“I shall ask for the records to be handled discretely.”

Caro took a breath trying to calm her heart and the terror in her blood. “You may take me to him. I will speak.”

The magistrate rose as she entered the room. He was a large, tall man. His gaze studied her as she walked across the room. He knew things about her and she could see in his eyes that he assumed other things. But she doubted Drew had spoken of the children; she hoped he had not. Yet it was the reason she was here. If there had been living children perhaps Albert would have adored her still.

“Please sit.” The magistrate lifted a hand.

She did so, as he sat too. Lord Wiltshire sat beside him.

“Please tell me about your relationship with your brother, Lady Kilbride?”

She took a breath, then began from when they were children, because the isolation and ill-treatment they had suffered then was what had truly brought them together and held them fast.

“And since your marriage?”

“We have not been so close. My husband did not wish me to go out alone, but Drew and I have managed to speak.” She’d spoken to Drew mostly about the beatings since her marriage.

“To speak…”

She took a breath. She did not care for the inflection in the magistrate’s tone. If she was to save Drew she must tell him what she spoke to Drew about. Tears welled in her eyes and her fingers shook as nausea spun in her stomach.

“Here.” Lord Wiltshire passed her his handkerchief.

“I spoke to him mostly when my husband beat me. Drew would give me comfort.”

“Comfort…”

She had looked at her hands, but now she looked up and glared at the magistrate, her heart racing wildly. “Not the physical kind. I sought words of comfort. He was someone to speak with when I had no one else. As I said, neither my mother nor my sister will speak with me.”

“And so you turned to a brother.”

“Yes. Because my brother is a good man.” She stared at the magistrate, denying the accusations in his eyes, as fear danced through her nerves, running up her spine.

“It has never gone further? Never become something beyond what it ought to be? You have been accused of incest by your husband.”

“My husband is a liar. He does not like to lose. There has never been anything inappropriate between myself and my brother. My husband is merely angry because I have left him and my brother has enabled it.” And she had once thought that man cared for her… She was a fool. Her heart had been deceived. Yet it could not forget the web of emotions his shallow devotion had cast. It wished to believe his devotion continued to lie beneath all else, and guilt had hung over her since she’d fled because, despite everything, her heart told her she’d been disloyal and had disgraced herself—and him.

“And you have left your husband because?”

“I cannot breathe,” she said to Lord Wiltshire as the vice of terror tightened about her chest.

He rose and turned, going to a table across the room, then returned with a glass of amber liquor. “Here.”

She swallowed a mouthful. It burned the back of her throat, but it relaxed the muscles in her chest. “Because he beat me, violently, sometimes daily. If I had stayed with him he would have killed me. Is it a crime to wish to be alive?” Her words echoed through her head. Was it a crime? She felt as though it was, and now she served her sentence. She had spoken the words to her foolish heart as well as to these men.

“It is no crime. But nor is it crime for your husband to reprimand you, yet neither point is the cause of my investigation. Did anyone witness the Marquis strike you? I am not entirely insensitive to the fact that such a thing would justify and explain your brother protecting you.”

Nor is it a crime for your husband to reprimand you… So the men agreed to her guilt—that she ought to be blamed and chastised for her inability to breed. Hearts should not be involved in marriage—love like that which Drew had found was abnormal. Most couples in society lived without love.

Yet what the magistrate said meant there was hope for Drew, if there was a witness who would dare to stand against Albert.

Caro drank the last of the brandy, then passed the empty glass to Lord Wiltshire. Her fingers curled tighter about the handkerchief in her hand. “My lady’s maid would be able to give you an account of the events which she witnessed, but I cannot say where she will be, she will have been dismissed, and if you find her you will need to promise that her name will not be released.” She looked at the Duke. “She will need to be protected if she is willing to speak.” Albert’s temper may turn against her as it had turned against Drew.

But all would be laid bare if they spoke to her maid. Betsy would tell them the words Albert spoke when he’d beaten Caro and then they would know she was incapable of providing him with a child.

Heat burned in Caro’s cheeks and tears made the Duke shimmer. She looked at the floor, shame lancing through her breast as the tears ran on to her cheeks.

“Thank you, Ma’am. We are finished.” The magistrate and the Duke of Arundel stood.

Caro wiped the tears from her cheeks.

The Duke walked past her and then opened the door to let the magistrate leave.

“I believe Lady Kilbride would appreciate your company, Mary. John, may I stay with you and dine here before I return to town?”

Caro rose and turned as Mary came into the room. She clasped Caro’s hands. “I am sorry you had to endure this.”

Mary was kind and generous in nature. She loved Drew deeply and she never hid those feelings. Caro could see now how Mary had drawn out the best qualities in Drew.

“Better that than for Drew to suffer because of me.” Caro would never forgive herself if her failure destroyed Mary’s and Drew’s chance of happiness.

Tears sparkled in Mary’s eyes, then fresh tears spilled from Caro’s. She leant to embrace Mary as Mary embraced her, both offering comfort. Caro broke the embrace, heat burning in her cheeks. “I am sorry.”

Mary wiped away her tears with the sleeve of her dress. “You have no cause to be sorry.”

“I do. This is my fault.”

“It is not… It is no one’s fault, and we are going to remain calm. That is what is best for Andrew, and we are going to feel confident and trust Richard to return him to us.”

“The magistrate did not believe me, not wholly. He is going to speak with one of my lady’s maids to ask her to confirm what I have said. The whole thing is mortifying… and then I think of Drew in a cell, alone. When he has done nothing to deserve it.”

Mary gripped Caro’s hand. “I know. I know you are both innocent. I know you have both been through so much. But that is over now. We will have faith.”

Caro gave her a tentative smile. “Thank you. Thank you for your concern. But most of all, thank you for loving Drew. He needed a woman like you –”

“And I need him –” Mary smiled, but a tear escaped.

Caro wiped it away with the handkerchief she held. “I am glad for you both.”

A light knock struck the door, which had been left ajar. “Come!” Mary called.

“Sorry to interrupt.” It was the Duchess of Pembroke, Mary’s sister-in-law. “It is just, I wished to let you know we are serving dinner. Your uncle is staying with us to dine, Mary, and he sent me to fetch you to ensure you came to the table. “Will you dine with us, Lady Kilbride?” The Duchess looked at Caro and Mary, as they looked at her.

The Duchess had requested Caro’s attendance at the table daily and yet Caro had kept to the rooms she’d been allotted. She felt safe there. Among people, the sense of shame and discomfort was overwhelming.

Caro shook her head.

“I will leave you, then. Come when you are ready, Mary.”

“I’m sorry,” Caro whispered. “I feel as though they must think I am rude and disrespectful of their hospitality, but I… I cannot tell you how I feel. I… Do you think the Duchess would send my dinner to my room?” How could she explain her feelings to Mary? She was beginning to feel as if she were mad.

“Of course she will. You must not feel pressed.”

“Thank you, Mary. I will retire, then.”

“Yes. But send a maid to fetch me if you need me.”

Caro nodded.

They left the room together, but when Mary turned towards the dining room, Caro turned to climb the stairs.

~

Caro waited in the drawing room of the Pembrokes’ giant Palladian mansion, seated in a corner, beside Mary’s mother, her fingers clasped in her lap, struggling to control her breathing and the pounding of her heart.

But Drew was here. Free. She had been told by the Duchess an hour ago that he’d arrived. They’d all hoped today. She’d heard them talking even from upstairs.

The house was full of people. All of Mary’s extended family had come from town to celebrate on Drew’s behalf, and they were all in the room. Caro felt crowded as she waited, smothered by them. Her nerves screamed.

Mary’s mother had said he was with Mary still. Yet he must come down soon. Caro had been waiting nearly half an hour.

When Mary came into the room she was alone. She walked across it and whispered something in her father’s ear, then they left together.

Caro’s gaze hung on the door while Mary’s mother talked of her younger children. Caro was not listening.

The noise of conversation was intense, deafening. A shiver ran up her spine. It was more than simple fear, though. There was annoyance and anger inside her too. She wished to scream as much as run.

She was falling to pieces. At any moment the panic inside would explode and she would shatter like glass.

But Drew was free…

Maybe she ought to retire to her rooms. He would come up to her.

She was about to stand and declare her apology when he came into the room, his hand holding Mary’s.

The room broke into applause and he smiled self-consciously. She had never seen him look humble as he did in that moment, and yet there was pride in his eyes when he looked at Mary. He had won himself a place in this family. He had achieved what Caro never would—a good marriage. He deserved this. She did not begrudge him it and nor would she spoil this moment for him. She would not run.

While the men moved to speak with him, Caro tried to make conversation with Mary’s mother, but all the time her awareness was on the proximity of her brother. She looked up. Drew spoke with Mary’s younger brother, Robert, a tall, slender youth. Mary lifted a hand and pointed Caro out, and then Drew looked and a moment later he turned towards her. But his progress towards her was hindered by well-wishers.

The sight of him filled Caro with a mix of emotions, relief and happiness, he was her home, the only place she felt safe, but there was sadness too, to know that she was dependent on him.

When Drew reached her he sank down onto his haunches and took her hands in his, looking concerned. “How are you, Caro?”

Caro hugged him and broke into sobs, the pent-up fear and pain spilling out of her. He held her in return.

“I am glad you are safe. I am sorry. This was my fault,” she whispered in his ear.

“No,” he whispered back, speaking into her ear too. “It was not. It was Kilbride’s, but it is done with, and all will be well now, I promise.”

“I feared for you, but it seems now you have all you deserve.”

“I was afraid for me too,” he jested. “This feels strange, doesn’t it? I shall not lie. I am ready to run as much as you are, I should think… But these people are not like ours, Caro –“

“I know.”

“The Duke of Arundel, Lord Wiltshire, Mary’s uncle, told me Kilbride is going to sue for divorce. You will be free soon, too, and then you may begin a new life.”

Fresh tears gathered in her eyes. Albert wished to be rid of her entirely, and then he would find a wife who would bear him children. The pain of that cut at her heart. Drew pulled away and gripped her hands gently.

He would never understand if she told him she loved Albert still.

Mary touched Drew’s shoulder and Caro looked up to see her holding out a gentleman’s handkerchief. Lord Marlow’s, Mary’s father’s.

“Thank you.” Caro forced a smile, then looked away as she dabbed at her tears.

“All will be well, now,” Drew said, his hand patting her arm. Then he stood and looked at Lord Marlow. “I thought you were hungry. Are we not going to eat?”

Lord Marlow turned and in a moment the dinner gong sounded.

Caro’s heart pounded, but Drew gave Mary an apologetic smile and raised his arm to Caro.

She stood and lay her fingers on his sleeve. Drew was her security—and now her only hold on sanity. She could not have walked into the room to dine without him.

“I shall buy you some new clothes,” he said quietly as they walked ahead of Mary and her father. “Living among the Pembrokes is not the same as living in a cottage.”

“I cannot bear this, Drew, is there nowhere else –”

“I have a home. I am buying a property bordering Pembroke’s. You will have a home there too, Caro.”

Tears blurred her vision again. She was grateful, and yet she did not wish to be a burden and beholden to him for the rest of her days, a poor, shamed, dependent relation.

She would be a blight on his happy home.

Chapter 5

Three years later

Rob leaned on a windowsill in the first-floor drawing room, looking out onto the gardens below. His gaze caught a sudden movement across the lawn. It could have been the shadow of a cloud sweeping across the sky, if the movement was dark and not light. But it had been something pale blue.

It could have been a ghost if it was night and not midday. But it was not a spectre. He would lay strong odds it was the tail end of Caroline Framlington’s skirt disappearing behind the hedge. Perhaps a ghost of sorts, then.

Rob leant more firmly onto the windowsill.

Her fingers had held the rim of her bonnet, hiding her face as she’d hurried away, head down, scurrying from the house.

He assumed she’d left the house because he’d arrived. He had not even come within ten feet of her. It did not bode well.

“Do not take it personally.” His brother-in-law said jovially, in a low tone, resting a palm on Rob’s shoulder. “Caro does not appreciate company.”

Rob turned to look at Drew “And male company particularly… Yes, I know. Are you sure it is a good idea for me to stay here if it will disturb her?”

“Life must go on, Robbie, she cannot orchestrate what we do. Caro will keep to her rooms as she does most of the time. I wish she would be braver, but I do not have the heart to force her into facing her fears, and yet nor will I pander to them. She’ll cope because she has to. We have servants, after all, and men among them. It is not only Mary and I who live here. It is just because your presence is unfamiliar and so she feels threatened.”

“I could stay at John’s.”

“Rattling about your brother’s monstrosity of a mansion on your own. No, Robbie. Mary invited you for the summer because she wants to spend time with you. You and I can go out shooting and fishing, and riding.”

“I can ride over daily from John’s and do that. His property is only a few miles from yours.”

“And kick around the house alone all night, bored. Do not be foolish. You will stay, and Caro will adjust. It is only going to be for the summer. Caro will survive.”

“Or hide.”

“Well more likely that. But either way, it will do her no harm.”

“Uncle Bobbie!” George, Drew’s son, charged across the room and barrelled into Rob’s leg. The boy was barely two, and a little tyke, but adorable despite it. He still refused to sound his “r”s and thus Rob, known to his family as Robbie, had become Uncle Bobbie to the boy.

Rob bent and caught the child by his chubby arms, lifted him and tossed him in the air once, then caught him and turned him upside down. George laughed in his childish giggle.

His nephew was another good reason to stay, as was his infant niece, whom his sister currently cradled on her arm while speaking with their mother.

Rob loved the children. There was something very endearing about being hero-worshipped by George, something his younger brothers rarely did.

Mary was the sibling he was fondest of. She was the closest to him in age and temperament, and her notorious husband had always treated Rob like a grown man, even when Rob had been scarcely that. Rob had been eighteen when Drew and Mary had eloped.

“And I have been looking forward to your company, as has this rapscallion.”

“Uncle Bobbie, I want to fly!” George cried.

Rob carefully let him descend to the floor, head first.

The boy rolled onto his back, then rose and turned to his papa to be caught up again, in a firm hold. “Your uncle Robbie is not going to swing you about all day, George.”

“Boats!” The boy yelled.

Rob ruffled the child’s hair. “Yes, I will play boats and kites, and ball, George. We’ll do lots of things.”

“Aun’ie Ca’o too.”

“Perhaps.” Drew avoided the true answer.

“We ought to be getting back to John’s, if you are ready, Robbie?” Rob looked at his mother as she stood up.

Mary stood too, with the baby sleeping in her arms. “We shall see you at John’s tomorrow. I believe we have even persuaded Caro to come, because the children are. But I doubt she will speak to anyone but them.”

“I do feel sorry for her. I wish there was more I could do.” Their mother smiled at Mary, then Drew. “But I have no idea how to help her, she always looks so uncomfortable the moment I begin any more personal conversation.”

“She is not so unhappy, Mama. She adores the children. She would be more distressed to think you pitied her.”

Unease swung over Rob, like a cloak settling on his shoulders, as Drew continued reassuring Rob’s mother.

Rob was still unsure about staying, but he did not really wish to remain at John’s. He turned to look from the window again.

His eldest brother’s, his step-brother’s, property was vast. So vast it currently housed every branch of the family. But after the garden party the family would splinter again and each aunt, uncle and cousin would return to their own homes, and John and his wife, Kate, were retiring to a smaller estate for the summer.

Rob could change his mind and go home with his parents or stay with any of his uncles and aunts, but he would still be one of a dozen wherever he went with them. He wanted to spend some time just as himself.

He’d finished at Oxford at the beginning of the summer. He wished for independence. If he went home he would be lost among his siblings, and with his aunts and uncles, lost among his cousins, and being lost among his cousins was worse because most of the men his age were titled. He was not. Rob was the odd one out in his extended family, the only firstborn son without a title or a huge inheritance awaiting him.

Here with Mary and Drew that did not matter. Rob could be himself, independent, respected, and hero-worshipped by his nephew, and it was close enough to town that he could also begin to plan for his future. He could hunt for lodgings in London and move into them in the autumn. All he needed to do then was choose a living. In his mind he had a grand idealistic plan, yet in practice he was unsure how this great feat of his might be managed.

Not that he needed an occupation, he had an income provided by his ducal brother. He’d come of age, he was one and twenty, and on the day of his coming of age he’d received his first quarter’s allowance—but the idea of living off John jarred brutally.

John had everything. He was rich, titled and successful in both the management of his estates and in the House of Lords. He’d lived abroad for several years and explored archaeology in Egypt, returning with his finds as trophies. He drew like a master, sung with the voice of a professional and played the pianoforte equally well.

What do I have, what can I do? Rob wished to make something of himself. To make some mark on the world. To do something worthwhile with his life, but he wished to achieve it through his own efforts. His cousins and brother might mock him as a philanthropist but he did not think it a bad thing to wish to make a difference. He refused to sit back and live on the largesse of his brother. He wished to do something meaningful and inspiring. Something more than being dependent and idle.

He was the grandson of an earl and a duke, but not within the line of inheritance for either, and his father’s estate was small, too small for his father to require assistance. Rob could paint with moderate skill, sing with pleasing countenance, ride as well as any man, and shoot well, but he could not join a regiment, he was still an heir. He was good at many things, but a master of nothing, so numerous occupations were beyond his reach, while his step-brother had set a bar above him that was so high it could never be achieved.

But he still had his plan that would, he hoped, give him the sense of pride in himself that he craved, some separation from reliance on his family and bring benefit to thousands.

He longed for a position in government. That was his great plan—to carve out his place in the political world and create a niche for himself.

Yet to be elected he needed money for a campaign, and he did not wish to involve his father, or John, or anyone else in his family because they would simply offer him one of their pocket seats, which they owned through bribery. The whole idea of that rankled. It would feel immoral, and then again Rob would have achieved nothing on his own. There would be no pride in it. If he were to respect himself, when he spoke out for the poor, he could not do it when everything that had got him to that point had come from the wealthy.

He’d rather give the money he received from John to the poor and bypass himself, if that was the way he had to earn a place in parliament. Perhaps I am a philanthropist. But he hadn’t a clue where to begin without using John’s money. The only detail in the conception of his plan to date was that he did not wish it to become John-shaped.

This summer, therefore, was his time to think things through and develop his method to win himself a place in the governance of the country which had been earned and not inherited.

“Robbie.” His mother touched his elbow.

His thoughts had been a mile away.

Looking at her, he smiled. He’d driven her over here to see Mary. His father was with John, looking over John’s estates.

“We ought to go, and leave Mary to settle Iris and George down for a nap.”

He agreed. He kissed his sister’s cheek, before bending to kiss his niece’s forehead as his finger brushed over the wispy hair on her soft head.

He would stay here. With Mary and Drew, where he did not feel such a lesser mortal, or so lacking in achievements and ability.

Drew slapped Rob on the shoulder. “We shall see you tomorrow, and we shall have a merry time over the summer.”

~

Caro looked out of the open French door at those gathered on the terrace and the lawn beyond it. It had been over three years since she’d first visited the Duke of Pembroke’s. She had felt then as she felt now, overwhelmed, afraid, and yet angry. Nervous sensations tingled across her skin, as her heart raced.

There were dozens of people here, adults and children, all laughing, smiling and talking.

Drew was among them playing cricket as Mary sat on a blanket beneath a canopy watching him, with Iris in her arms.

Many of the women held young children.

Caro was the only parasite—unmarried and childless, sucking the blood from this family, hiding among them, dependent and clinging to her brother. She hated her reliance on Drew, it pressed into her side, a steel-hard pain. Sometimes she felt as though Albert’s hands were still about her neck, cutting off her breath and that she had not taken a breath since she’d left him three years before.

Yet this family accepted her, all of them. She could not blame her misery on them. They were simply a constant reminder of what she had failed to possess, she had not succeeded in winning the love of her husband, or to bear his child. Guilt, shame and longing hung about her and whispered in her ears as constant companions.

Caro sipped from the glass of lemonade she held. If the family had gathered at Drew’s house she would have retired to her rooms and found a book or embroidery to absorb her thoughts. But today she had been foolish enough to agree to travel with them. Yet Mary had asked specifically and refusing would have seemed too rude.

“Throw!” The Duke of Pembroke yelled from his position behind the wicket, holding up his open hands. The ball was thrown to him and his uncle was caught out.

Some of the women and children cheered and others booed, depending on who their allegiance lay with.

The Duke slapped his uncle’s shoulder and his uncle laughed.

The Pembrokes were a happy, harmonious clan, and Drew was now one of them. He’d thrown the ball to John.

The crack of hard leather hitting willow echoed across the open space above the sound of conversation. Mary’s brother Robbie held the bat and ran.

He was to stay at Drew’s for the summer.

Caro watched him run from one wicket to the other. He was tall but lithe. He touched the bat to the ground, then ran back.

Discomfort rippled through her nerves.

“Papa! Uncle Bobbie!”

Caro’s gaze turned to Drew’s son. He’d escaped the women and was running on his little legs to join the game.

Before he’d run more than a dozen steps, Mary’s father caught him up and tossed the child, squealing, into the air.

Drew’s children were the only part of Caro’s life that brought her happiness. She spent hours with her nephew and niece.

Applause echoed over the lawn as Robbie ran his fourth length and beat the ball back to the wicket. He turned and braced himself to hit again, his dark-brown hair falling forward over his brow.

He was different from most of the Pembrokes, and from most of Mary’s family. He looked like his father, not his mother. He did not have the Pembrokes’ dark hair or their pale-blue eyes.

Drew had told her Robbie had seen her leave the house yesterday. Drew had said she’d made Robbie concerned about staying. Then Drew had waited as if he hoped she would say she did not mind Robbie coming.

She had not answered. She did not wish to discuss her silent madness with her brother. Guilt and shame had eaten away at her in the last three years and she was not a whole woman; she could not simply snuff out her feelings like the flame of a candle. She did not understand it herself, so how could she discuss it anyway. He’d encouraged her to speak with doctors in the early years, and yet the only one she had told had offered her laudanum to calm her nerves—nothing else.

She did not wish to feel ill as well as mad.

Perhaps Drew ought to have her admitted to an asylum and be done with it. She felt as though she was trapped within a prison anyway—a glass gaol of her own making.

A raucous cheer rang across the lawn outside as Robbie’s wicket was smashed by the bowling technique of one of his cousins. Once the cheering was over the men began to walk back up the hill towards the house.

Her heartbeat pounded violently in her chest.

Drew spotted her. Of course, he knew where to look. He knew she would not be outside among Mary’s family. He lifted his hand, peeling away from the others, who walked towards the women.

Her brother was a man to match the Pembrokes, he was tall, athletic and handsome; brown-haired and hazel-eyed. He’d carried his own insecurity before he’d married Mary, but not now. Mary and her family had healed him—made him a complete man. He was at peace with himself, confident and in love with Mary. He deserved more than to have a sister who clung like a shackle about his neck.

“Caro!” he called as he drew nearer. “Come and sit with Mary and me!”

“I am happy here!” she called back.

“Are you?” he responded with a smile. “You need not exclude yourself, though! Come!” He held out his hand as he walked closer.

Unfortunately, he was also stubborn.

Her lips trembled when she tried to smile.

Then he was there, taking her hand, whether she willed it or not. He pulled her outside. “Kate will take it as an insult if you do not join us.”

“She will not. The Duchess will not notice.” Yet Caro gave in to his urging rather than cause a scene.

His hold on her hand was loose as he pulled her on.

The only people she felt comfortable touching her were Drew and the children… and yet she craved touch. She felt starved of it at times. It was another anomaly of her madness.

He flashed a smile across his shoulder. “She notices. They all do. But admittedly no one thinks ill of you, and yet you still hide.”

She said nothing to that.

The family groups were gathered about the refreshment tables. Some of the children ran between people’s legs, playing a game of chase, until one of the Duke’s uncles called a stop to the game. “Enough, children, you shall knock one of us over!” Caro flinched at the tone of his voice. It rattled through her nerves.

“Come on.” Drew’s hold tightened on her hand as he felt her hesitation.

Caro focused on Mary, her heart racing with the pace of a galloping horse. Her panic was irrational, there was no threat and yet every one of her senses tingled with a need to run. Fear hemmed her in and tightened in a heavy grip about her chest, making it difficult to breathe.

Flashes of memory stirred, images sparking through her thoughts like flashes of lightning—there and then not.

“Look what I found,” Drew said to Mary.

Caro fought the growing pain in her chest when Drew let go of her hand and tried not to gasp for breath as her heart pounded out a wild rhythm.

Mary smiled and patted a vacant space beside her on the blanket.

Caro sat down.

“Caro was in the house. I thought I’d bring her out here so that she could converse with you at least.”

Caro’s gaze fell to Iris—her niece was asleep in Mary’s arms. Instantly the panic eased, replaced by love and longing.

“Would you like to take her,” Mary offered.

Mary was a few years younger than Drew, but she was so good for him, and good to Caro.

“Thank you.” When Caro took Iris from Mary, the child stirred, her little hands opening as her eyes did.

Drew’s fingers brushed his daughter’s cheek. Iris looked up at her papa.

“Poppet,” he whispered.

Iris gurgled in recognition.

“Aun’ie Ca’o!” George barrelled into her side, tumbling onto the blanket with a roll. She clasped one arm about George while the other held Iris, and the world was at peace again.

“I hit a ball with Uncle Bobbie.” George announced.

“I held the bat with him.” The words came from above them.

Mary looked upward. Caro did not. Robbie’s voice grated on her nerves.

“I hit it far,” George declared slipping from beneath Caro’s arm to hug his mother instead.

“Clever boy,” Mary praised her son. “Perhaps Uncle Robbie will teach you how to hold the bat yourself in the summer.”

“And I missed this marvellous feat,” Drew said. “You will have to do it again after luncheon so I may see you.”

Robbie stepped closer.

Tremors ran across Caro’s skin and unravelled into her veins. She wished Robbie to move away.

He dropped down to sit on the end of the blanket, near Mary’s feet.

Panic claimed Caro in full force, her chest becoming so tight she could not pull the air into her lungs.

The baby made an impatient sound in Caro’s arms.

“Sorry, she’s fractious, she is hungry, I ought to take her in and feed her.” Mary gave her son another squeeze, then let him go and stood up. “Come along, little one.” She reached down so Caro could pass Iris back.

Robbie’s gaze rested on Caro as she held Iris up.

When Mary walked away, Drew sat down beside Caro and leant back on his hands, stretching out his legs. “You know your mother is taking your absconding personally,” he spoke to Robbie.

Caro’s limbs filled up with the weight of lead and she adjusted her sitting position, bending up her knees within the skirt of her dress and hugging them, as George crawled towards Robbie.

Robbie laughed and his hand ruffled George’s hair. “She is not ready for me to leave the nest. She thinks we are all growing up too fast.”

“I suppose that is my fault, for snatching Mary from it.”

“She does not hold that against you. You have given her more grandchildren in return. It is an exchange. I am just a loss.”

“Shall I tell her to stop henpecking and let you fledge?”

Drew was joking. He was close to Mary’s and Robbie’s parents. They were his parents too—because theirs had never fulfilled that role.

“Papa spoke to her. He supports me. He knows I cannot live on his estate, there is nothing for me to do there.”

When Caro had first come to the Duke’s home Robbie had been eighteen. He’d smiled and laughed frequently, but as a man he seemed more serious than the others. Most of his cousins had no interest in the children, his peers within the family always kept to their own group, but Robbie never stood with them. Yet his younger brother, Harry, did. Drew at his age had been wild, playing with danger, fighting everyone and everything.

“Of course you cannot, if you wish to sow a few wild oats?” Drew added.

“Not my style,” Robbie answered.

Drew’s face split into a broad smile, “So your brother told me.”

“Harry?”

“Harry…” They laughed again. Caro did not know the joke.

“Well, you may tell Harry to mind his own business, not mine,” Rob said, with a smile.

“But younger brothers are born to be a thorn in the side. Mary and I are working on one for George solely for that purpose”

“I have never been a thorn in John’s. He’d win whatever argument I started with a simple glance.”

“True, your older brother does have a way of making a man feel as small as a mouse. I ignore it.”

“I do not risk it. I never give him cause to deploy that look on me.”

Another laugh was shared between them as George scrambled back across the blanket to Drew, then began using his father as a climbing frame. He clambered up Drew’s back and then tumbled over Drew’s shoulder. George’s legs flew out towards Robbie.

Robbie reached to catch him and slow his fall.

Caro instinctively leant back.

Robbie and Drew looked at her, but Robbie did not move back, instead he shifted forward on to his knees, leaned over and tickled George’s tummy, making him giggle.

It left Caro sitting two feet away from him.

When Robbie stopped tickling, George crawled to her, to escape his uncle, still giggling.

The attention of both men followed George. Heat burned in Caro’s cheeks as the rhythm of her heartbeat rose. She pulled George onto her lap and hugged him, perhaps a little too tightly, but it helped relieve her discomfort.

“I am sorry I missed you yesterday, Caroline.”

Robbie was being polite, nothing else, but yet again her senses revolted. He knew she’d avoided him on purpose.

“Caro,” Drew prompted, when she did not answer, as though she was a child to be corrected.

Her gaze lifted to Robbie’s eyes. They were blue, but a much darker blue than Mary’s.

Caro had never spoken to him before, never been this close to him. He did not have the imposing presence of his elder ducal brother, his body was relaxed and his appearance therefore more approachable as he smiled at her. But he was still a man, even though he was young and behaved with good manners, and she was still uncomfortable with him so near.

He leaned sideways, resting his weight onto one hand. His shirtsleeves were rolled up and she could see his forearm covered in a dusting of dark hair.

George broke free from her embrace. “Papa, I need the pot,” he declared with extreme urgency. He always waited until the last moment.

“I’ll take him.” Caroline moved to rise, but Drew pressed a hand on her shoulder as he did.

“You stay here, I’ll take him.” He rose.

She knew what Drew was doing—he was forcing her to endure Robbie’s company. He’d expressed his view over her “flighty nature” dozens of times and he was never cruel about it, but he’d insisted often that she should try harder to overcome it. He was stubborn.

“I will do my best not to discompose you when I stay at Drew’s.”

Caro’s gaze spun back to Robbie. Every one of her senses screamed.

Robbie had a physical energy about him, an aura that said he was an active man and he was athletic in build.

“I… I…” Her gaze turned to where his elder female cousins sat a little way away. They had their husbands beside them.

She had never felt more desolate.

The tears which threatened caught in her throat as she clutched her knees, holding them close, clinging to herself as if she were driftwood on a swirling sea.

A family group the other side of them laughed. Caro unfurled and rose instantly. She could not do this. She turned and began walking, uncertain where she was going, but knowing she could not stay there.

“Caroline.” her name was spoken quietly. Robbie had followed. She glanced back, her gaze apologising. It was not his fault. He’d done nothing wrong.

But then she turned away and fled, striding across the lawn in the direction that Drew had taken.

She had truly cast herself a gaol cell.

~

Rob was torn. Should I chase after her? He’d said nothing wrong and yet guilt gripped in his chest. Caroline had braved his company and he’d scared her off.

He cursed himself as he watched her ascend the shallow flight of stairs leading to the stone terrace and then disappear into the house, a phantom again.

He’d have to apologise this evening.

When they ate dinner he watched Caroline often, glancing at her across the table. Kate had pandered to Caroline’s insecurities, she’d been seated between his mother and Mary, disobeying the male, then female, structure of the entire group. But between the women who she knew and perhaps felt a little more comfortable with, Caroline had animation. Deep in conversation, she smiled at Mary on occasions and her hand gestured as she spoke.

She was beautiful, but not in the striking way of his family. Caroline’s beauty was almost indefinable—there was no particular notable element—but the elements put together…

Her hair was blonde, a golden yellow, her skin clear but not remarkably pale, and her eyes hazel. Her nose was slender and long, and her lips generous, but when they parted in a rare smile, it lit up her face, awakening her overall beauty. He was fascinated. He hardly spoke to his aunt Jane and his cousin Eleanor, who flanked him at the table.

Watching Caroline was like watching a wild creature. She required patience. To observe her in reality you must sit in silence because if you moved she would know you were watching and be scared away.

Her gaze caught on his, only for an instant. Then she looked at his mother. But in that instant something hard struck him in the chest.

The candlelight from the candelabra on the table made her skin glow, and the different shades in her eyes became darker as the light flickered.

When the women rose and left the table, Rob spoke with his uncle James. They walked into the drawing room together later, once they had finished their port, and as they did, Rob’s gaze searched for Caroline.

She was sitting in the corner, beside Kate.

Every time he’d seen Caroline here over the years she’d hidden in corners.

“Robbie.” Rob turned at his ducal brother’s greeting. “I imagine you have been longing for this summer, to have your freedom and stretch your wings. I know I was excited at your age.”

“You did not just stretch your wings, you flew off.” John had been the ideal Rob aspired to when he was younger—but John was so damned perfect Rob would never match him. John irked him now. They were not particularly close. In Rob’s formative years John had been away at school and then abroad for years. When John had returned to take up the role of duke, he’d been a grown man and Rob still a boy.

“Yes, well, this country held no appeal when grandfather was alive, and I had a contrary nature. Leaving was the only way I could influence my life. You could do the same if you wished—go abroad. Your allowance is yours to do with as you will.”

Rob held his brother’s gaze as the words kicked him in the gut. Living on John’s generosity was not the life he chose. “I’ve no idea what I wish to do.” That was not true, but he would not share it with John because he knew one thing clearly, I do not wish to mimic you.

“Except escape Mama’s nest.”

“Well, yes, that, obviously.” Rob’s gaze swung away and reached across the room, only to find Caroline watching him. His heart thumped in his chest as he met her look. She turned away, and his gaze turned back to John.

“Will you run riot in town, then?”

“That’s Harry’s style. You know it is not mine.” Harry was the hell-raiser. Rob had never been that.

John gripped Rob’s shoulder. “Well, whatever you do, do not become a stranger.”

Rob nodded. John turned away. Rob looked back at Caroline. She was alone.

She was looking at her hands, which rested in her lap, trying to hide amidst a crowd. A phantom.

He walked over to her. “Caroline.” The muscle of her upper body jerked, her gaze flying to his for an instant. She hadn’t noticed him approaching. She looked down again.

Her hair was curled and coifed, with a few wisps trailing the length of her slender neck and kissing her cheeks. Those curls danced with her movement.

She was a slender woman, neither short nor tall, but fragile in appearance, and yet she had a generous bosom.

Rather than tower over her, he dropped into the seat beside hers.

She leant back a little.

“I am sorry for upsetting you this afternoon, but there was no need to run.”

Once more her gaze flew to him, before falling away.

“Look at me.” Rob urged quietly, sitting forward in his chair and leaning towards her. No one ever challenged her, no one. Everyone protected her.

The memory of his younger sister, Jemima’s, aversion to spiders came to mind. He’d caught one and kept it in a glass so that she could look at it, and eventually he’d persuaded her to touch it, now she could let one run across her hand. Fears ought to be faced.

Her gaze lifted to his, and her eyes shone from behind blonde eyelashes; her eye colour in candlelight was a dark amber. Her eyebrows arched as her fingers clasped more firmly in her lap.

“I am staying with Drew and Mary for the summer…” He searched for words.

“I know, Mr Marlow.”

Her gaze left his and looked for someone to rescue her, probably Drew.

“Rob, Caroline, not Mr Marlow. Look at me,” he said again. If she would look at him, then maybe he could begin to help break her fear.

She did, but her gaze raged at him, bidding him to leave her alone.

“Why do you not feel comfortable?”

She looked away. She was about to rise and run again. Instinctively he reached out and caught hold of her wrist. “Caroline…” But immediately he realised what he’d done. No one touched her except Drew, Mary and the children. Everyone knew Caroline could not abide to be touched.

It was as though a lightning bolt struck between them her reaction was so violent and sudden. Her gaze accused him of committing murder as his fingers opened. Her arm slipped from his hold when she rose from her chair and fled again, crossing the room to the safety of Mary.

Rob watched her flight and felt a heel. He should not have pushed her.

He looked at his sister and awaited a glance of condemnation. None came. Caroline did not tell Mary, and no one in the room had noticed that he’d approached Caroline.

He rested his elbow on the arm of the chair and his chin on his fist, still watching Caroline.

“You’re miles away, where are you?” Rob’s uncle Robert, the Earl of Barrington, occupied the chair Caroline had vacated.

As Rob leant back, his ankle lifted to rest on his opposite knee and he smiled. Uncle Robert was his favourite uncle, his father’s brother. Rob had been named for him.

“I did not think you were coming. I thought you were going home to Yorkshire.”

“Jane wished to spend some time with everyone before we left. I gave in to her coercion.”

Aunt Jane was sitting at the pianoforte, in the company of his cousin Margaret, sorting through music.

Rob had been close to them from a young age. Their eldest son, Henry, was of an age with Harry, so Rob and Harry had stayed with them frequently as children.

Henry was more like Harry, though. They were both currently standing to one side of the room drinking and laughing with the others of their age group.

Rob looked back at his uncle. Robert had undertaken a grand tour, as John had. “Did you enjoy the continent when you were there?”

Robert smiled, then looked at his wife. “Jane grew up on a manor bordering my father’s land. We were close as children. I was in love with her, but she married someone else, an arranged marriage. She broke my heart. I left England because I was miserable. My time abroad was equally miserable.”

Rob shifted to sit upright, his leg falling from his knee. He’d known Jane grew up with his uncle and his father, but he had not known his uncle had loved her then. His father often likened Harry to their uncle Robert, but in that context there was nothing similar. “I thought you’d gone abroad for fun, like John.”

“No, I was sent there in disgrace by your grandfather. I’d dropped out of university and become an embarrassment.”

“I did not know. I’m sorry.”

“Why should you have known? What of you? Have you decided what you will do?”

“No, beyond finding rooms in London during the summer.” He’d told none of his family about his great plan. He knew if he spoke of it they would grasp upon the idea, and in the name of helpfulness take it over and manipulate it all so that the achievement would not be his. If he wished to take up a place in the House of Commons and speak for the working class he needed to first earn the people’s trust and win a true vote, not one contrived by his family.

“You know you would be welcome with us, if you wished to come. The tenants are due to leave the estate, which used to belong to Jane’s father. I’d be happy for you to take it over and cut your teeth managing that.”

Rob’s father had done that, he’d managed all of the Barrington Estate, while Robert had been abroad and, like John, Rob’s father set the bar high for any comparison. No, Rob wished to take his life in a direction that no one in his family had gone. Following in his father’s footsteps and relying on his uncle held no greater pleasure than living off his brother’s generosity.

“It is only an offer, Robbie…”

Rob’s gaze travelled to where Caroline stood. She had been looking at him; she looked away.

A spasm seized his stomach. It was odd to have her look at him.

“If you change your mind write and let me know. I’ll probably not re-let it for a few months; there is some work to be done on the house.”

Rob looked at his uncle. “Henry may want it in a couple of years?”

“Henry will have plenty to occupy him on my other estates and Henry is not you. My son is reckless and self-absorbed. He’ll not settle to anything that requires sobriety and forethought for years. The only thing he is currently interested in is racing horses. He spends more time with Forth than me.”

Lord Forth, who bred horses, was a neighbour of Uncle Robert’s and a friend of Rob’s father’s too.

“Racing is Henry’s passion and his weakness,” Rob stated.

“What is your weakness?” His uncle lifted an eyebrow.

His whole family believed he had no weaknesses, thanks to Harry’s mocking. His brother liked to taunt Rob for being staid. Or boring, as Harry put it. But Harry was so damned wild Rob had always been too busy hauling his brother out of scrapes to get into any of his own. Being the eldest boy he’d been forced into responsibility for his siblings.

Yet his peers in the family had never done the same.

It was true he had no vice, though. But he did not think himself dull.

He’d drunk excessively once, and woken up hating the fact he could not recall what he’d said and done. He’d played cards for money once and lost half his allowance, then considered gambling a fool’s game.

Perhaps his weakness was idealism. But in truth, now… “A lack of inspiration.” The look he shared with his uncle mocked himself. He had this great plan, but really it was no plan at all, simply fanciful, he did not have a method by which to achieve it.

“Something will come along to give you purpose. Wait and see.” His uncle looked away, turning as his eldest daughter, who was fifteen, joined them.

“We are going to dance, will you dance with me, Papa?” She gave Rob a smile. Julie had her mother’s unusual green eyes.

“Julie.” Rob nodded.

“Robbie,” she bobbed a shallow curtsy. It was unnecessary but the girl was already practising for her debut. He smiled more broadly and she smiled brightly.

“I shall be honoured, young lady.” Uncle Robert stood.

Rob looked across the room. Caroline was standing beside his sister, looking at him. Before she had chance to look away, he smiled as he had just done at his cousin. Red stained Caroline’s cheeks when she did look away.

Rob rose. It would be crass of him not to offer to escort one his female cousins in the dance.

They danced a string of over half a dozen country dances, and he participated in every one with one of his cousins or sisters, but as he did so, he noted Caroline watching him frequently. If he’d been more courageous he would have offered to partner her, but she never danced.

He wondered if she wished to dance, if perhaps she was trapped by her fears and they were just as disturbing for her as they were for those trying desperately not to upset her.

Idealism was certainly his fault, because in his mind’s eye he saw her dancing. She’d come to life when she’d spoken with Mary. How much more would she come to life if she danced without fear.

I shall dance with her by the end of the summer. The promise whispered through his soul. He abhorred dares, dares were another thing that was Harry’s forte—but if Rob wished to achieve something, when he set his mind to it, he did so with determination. He would see her dance because he firmly believed, from the amount of times she had looked at him this evening, she was not happy to be withheld by her fear. She wished to dance.

If I wish to achieve something, when I set my mind to it, I do so with determination… He’d hold that thought fast through the summer, and find a way to win himself a seat in the House of Commons without the assistance of his family.

Chapter 6

“Aun’ie Ca’o, look.” Caro turned her gaze from the window to her nephew, 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. I have nothing else to do.”

Caro walked over to George, who was galloping 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 up and balanced him on her hip. From outside came the loud sound of an arrival, carriage wheels turning on the gravel and horses’ hooves crunching in the stones.

“Uncle Bobbie!” George bellowed, pointing to the window with his horse.

Caroline’s heart thumped in her chest.

“Let me see, Aun’ie Ca’o.”

She wished to look as much as George did. She crossed the room and leaned to the window. She could still feel the sensation of Robbie’s fingers brushing against her skin last night when he’d touched her arm, and then she’d risen and her arm had slipped from his hold. His grip had been gentle. He’d not held her hard.

Robbie’s fashionable phaeton stood below and two thoroughbred chestnuts shook out their manes in the traces, while one of her brother’s grooms held their heads to stop them bolting.

Robbie jumped down as Drew walked forward. She’d watched Robbie moving last night as he’d danced. His slender, athletic build gave his movement grace. He’d not meant to disconcert her yesterday. She knew it. He was simply being thoughtful, and she had watched him dance with his sisters and his cousins, displaying the same thoughtfulness, while his brother and his male cousins stood to one side of the room talking amongst themselves and laughing frequently.

“Uncle Bobbie!” George cried again, his legs straightening, expressing his desire to get down as he wriggled to be free.

Caro set him down. Immediately he ran to the door and tried to reach the handle.

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

“I shall go with him,” Caro stated as George managed to turn the handle 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 inexplicably excited. Why was she excited?

“George!” she called, as he ran along the hall. He always looked like a little caricature of Drew when he ran. “George!” He did not stop. “George! Wait! Or I will tell your papa you misbehaved and you shall not see Uncle Robbie!” Her heart thumped harder as George neared the top of the narrow stairs leading down from the attic. “George, stop!” She clasped her skirt and held it high as she ran too, terrified he’d fall.

The child was an absolute nightmare when he chose to be, but thank the Lord he stopped and turned back, waiting for her as he grasped a spindle of the banister.

“Good boy, George, darling,” she praised breathlessly when she reached him, dropping to her haunches to hug him in 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 face twisting in a look of concern over her distress.

“Good boy,” she gave him another squeeze as love spilled from her heart into her blood. Drew’s children were her life. Without them she would have nothing to hold her together.

When she rose she lifted him to her hip and kissed his cheek, then said near his ear, “Come along, then, 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 may see them another day.”

“Will Papa let me ‘ide them?”

“One day, yes, I’m sure he will.”

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

When they reached the first floor, Caro heard loud, masculine voices echoing along the landing. Robbie was already upstairs and he and Drew were heading towards the drawing room. She stopped on the stairs, looking down through the stairwell and saw the servants carrying in Robbie’s luggage on the ground floor.

She’d hoped for a moment more of obscurity, but her hopes wilted as George shouted loudly, “Uncle Bobbie!” and then he fought for freedom. She finished her descent and set him down. He charged off in the direction of the voices.

Caro did not follow. Her excitement ebbed as she saw them.

“Uncle Bobbie!”

They looked back.

Foreboding crept over Caro and then the familiar discomfort—panic. Her lungs emptied of breath. Rob was looking at her not George, his gaze briefly skimmed the length of her body, then lifted back to her face. She felt hot as well as uncomfortable. The recollection of his touch now gave her a sense of self-consciousness. Her discomfort with other people had been her companion for too many years.

“Oh!” The cry came from George. He’d caught his toe on a wrinkle in the carpet and he tumbled forward, still gripping his wooden horse.

Caro lifted the hem of her dress and ran as the poor child’s head hit the floor with a bump. Thank the Lord it was wood and not stone.

Drew reached him first, but George was now howling, the broken wooden horse still grasped in his hand. It had lost a leg, but it was also covered in the child’s blood.

“What has he done?” she asked, stopping before them, breathing hard.

Drew wiped his thumb across his son’s swollen lower lip as Robbie held out a handkerchief.

“He bit his lip when he fell. No real harm, Caro,” Drew answered.

Caro’s fingers pressed against her chest, then reached to brush through George’s hair. He was crying still. She sensed Robbie watching her, but she did not care. George was everything to her. “Poppet,” she whispered, “did you break your horse?”

“Grandpa will buy you another,” Robbie said, his fingers brushing across George’s brow. They touched Caro’s. She pulled her hand away as she met Robbie’s dark gaze.

Her heart raced into a gallop, calling her to flee.

But if Robbie was to be here for the whole summer she must force herself to feel easier with him. “I brought him down because he wished to see you.”

George’s wails had turned to quieter sobs and sniffs. Robbie held his hands out and George reached for him in return. He set his arms about Robbie’s neck as Robbie took him.

Robbie’s ease with George moved something within Caro. If she had given Albert a son he would not have held the child, he would have probably looked into the nursery for a few moments each day and no more. It was more evidence that Robbie’s actions towards her had been nothing more than kindness. He was simply a good-natured young man.

“Mama,” George cried, pressing his face into Robbie’s neckcloth, probably getting blood all over it.

“Your mama is asleep,” Drew ruffled George’s hair. “Iris woke her in the night and she needed to rest. She will be down in a little while.”

Robbie’s gaze lifted to Drew then passed to Caro, and he smiled. It shone in his eyes, not simply parted his lips. He was as open in nature as his sister.

The rhythm of Caro’s heartbeat was painful. Something solid tightened in her chest. He’d smiled at her last night, across the room, and anger and discomfort had taken up their swords and begun a war inside her. That was her irrational madness. But when he’d touched her arm, his fingers had gripped her gently.

“Are you going to join us for tea, Caro? You could act as hostess…” Drew lifted an eyebrow at her. It was a challenge.

Forcing a smile, she looked from Drew to Robbie, fighting the urge to run. Yet, bizarrely, as much as she wished to run, she felt pulled towards Robbie when he smiled again. His smile tried to reassure and pleaded with her to stay.

Her skin burned as she blushed, but she nodded, then turned to lead the way towards the drawing room. A maid was already there, laying out the tea tray. 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.

A plate of almond biscuits stood beside the teapot, and as the men came into the room, George released a deep whimper of longing.

Caro picked up the plate and held it out for George, who was still balanced in Robbie’s arms. George took a biscuit and sucked it. Tears stained his cheeks.

Caro’s gaze lifted. Robbie had been watching her again.

“Your neckcloth is ruined,” she said to him.

Drew was watching her too.

Robbie’s hand lifted and he took a biscuit. He had long, slender fingers and beautifully proportioned hands. They looked as gentle as they’d felt.

Albert’s hands had been broad and brutal.

A spasm caught in Caro’s stomach, as though her womb ached.

It is because he’s holding the child.

Her gaze met Robbie’s again as he bit into the biscuit. She looked at Drew and held out the plate.

~

Rob watched Caroline as they ate breakfast the day after his arrival. He’d experienced a strange sense of recognition, déjà vu, when she’d offered him the plate of biscuits as George had held his neck.

Something had passed between them, her eyes had said something he did not understand. Yet after serving their tea she’d disappeared into hiding, leaving Drew to take George to see his mother and Rob to unpack.

She had not come down to dinner.

But this morning she’d risked Rob’s company again. He’d entered the morning room after her and seated himself opposite her. She’d mumbled good morning as he sat, but she had not looked at him.

Rob was unable not to look at her. The more he watched her, the more he became fascinated.

Mary spoke to Caroline about a book she’d read, probably trying to ease Caroline’s discomfort through conversation. Flashes of expressions passed across Caroline’s face, but they never fully formed. She hid her thoughts and emotions as she hid herself. Her smile was tempered and frowns fleeting, and he’d not once in all the years he’d known her, heard her laugh.

Her gaze lifted and the morning sunlight spilling through the windows caught her eyes. It turned them from the hazel with a look of amber to a remarkable gold.

He wished he could make her see he was no risk, that at least with him she might be free of fear.

She looked at Drew.

What would she look like if she were to laugh, while her eyes, cast in gold, sparkled? Rob wished to see her laughing.

I will have her laughing and dancing by the end of the summer. He smiled as a sound of humour slipped from his throat. It was his idealism speaking. He wished everything ordered as it should be, and no one should feel as restrained as Caroline did. That was why he saw himself in government, because he cared about the people who desperately needed help.

Yet while he worked out how to win himself an elected seat and change the world for them, the aim of bringing Caro out of her shell would give him a purpose he could fulfil more quickly.

Caroline had looked back at him when he’d made a sound, as had Mary. He did not explain it, but looked at Drew. “Is there any interesting news?”

“Not really,” Drew folded the paper and threw it across to Rob. “It’s all gossip and insinuation. What are we doing today? Riding out? I could show you all of the estate. You’ve never ridden the boundary.”

“Your son has a prior claim on me. I promised to teach him how to bat alone, and you will need to help me with that.”

Drew smiled. “Then I’ll defer to my son. We can ride out tomorrow and I’ll take George with us on my saddle. He’ll—”

“Not be going,” Mary interrupted, “That is too much for him.”

“Nonsense, he loves riding up with me, he likes watching everything and he loves the horses.” Drew gave Mary a smile that said do not challenge me. “He is my son, he has backbone.”

“He is a two-year-old child—”

“Who has a healthy interest in the world.”

Rob looked from Drew to Mary. “I did not come here to cause a rift between you, but I’m sure George will cope. He will have the two of us to entertain him, and he will be unhappy if we leave him behind.”

Mary glared at Rob and rose from the table. “We will see. I am going to the nursery.” She turned, her skirt swaying with the movement, speaking her annoyance without words. Then she walked away.

Drew laughed for an instant, but then he rose. “Mary…”

She did not look back.

Drew’s hand touched Rob’s shoulder and he leaned down. “Do me a favour, in future do not side with me. You are her brother. She’ll hold it against me.” Laughing again, then, he walked on, while Mary made a disgruntled noise as she left the room.

Drew’s lack of respect for her irritation would rile her further and she’d be angry for a while. Poor George would have to wait for his lesson until Drew had finished patching things up.

Rob looked back at Caroline, expecting her to rise immediately and leave. Instead her gaze met his.

“I’m sorry,” she breathed in a quiet, blunt voice. “If I have made you feel uncomfortable. I will try to accept your presence here. But it is not easy for me, Mr Marlow, and I wish you would not stare at me as you have been.”

“Caroline…”

She rose, leaving her napkin on the table and her meal half-eaten.

But Rob carried on quickly, before she could walk away. “…I will be no threat to you. I am staying here only because I love my sister and I love the children. I have no desire to discompose you. I hope you will come to feel at ease in my company as you do in Mary’s.”

She nodded, slightly, but then she turned.

“Good day!” he called in her wake, feeling as though he’d taken a step towards dancing with her. It was the first time she’d voluntarily spoken to anyone in his family beyond his mother and Mary, as far as Rob knew.

~

Love. The word echoed in Caro’s thoughts like a bell that kept tolling, as she crossed the hall, then climbed the stairs. Because I love my sister and I love the children.

Love. The word had seemed odd on Robbie’s lips. Yet she heard Drew say it often, and she saw love everywhere in Mary’s extended family. But for a young man like Robbie to use the word so freely about his sister and his niece and nephew.

Even in the first year of their marriage, when she’d thought herself loved, Albert had never used that word. But nor had she spoken it to him. It was a word that had never been spoken in her childhood. She had never dared to risk the mention of it to Albert in case it had broken some spell—the spell had broken anyway.

She walked past the stairs to the nursery. Drew and Mary would be up there, either continuing their disagreement or ending it.

Caro went to her rooms and collected her bonnet, so she might walk outside. The sunshine and the sounds of nature would calm the turmoil inside her.

When she came down she used the servants’ stairs to avoid the possibility of another encounter with Robbie.

The servants’ hall brought her out into the walled garden. It was full of vegetables waiting to be harvested for the table, and rows of flowers to be cut to fill the vases in the house. The scent of herbs caught on the breeze as her skirt brushed the leaves of the thyme, mint and rosemary.

A flock of sparrows chirped riotously, chasing each other through tall beanstalks, seeking insects.

Caro walked on, smiling at the gardeners, who lifted their caps, as she had smiled at the servants who’d curtsied and bowed within the house.

She felt no unease with them.

But they bore no comparison to the life she’d left—she had no need to feel judged by them.

She walked from the walled garden through the narrow wooden door onto the lawn, which fronted the house and followed the path that would lead her about the hedge into the parterre gardens. New scents greeted her: lavender, roses and the sharp smell of the pelargoniums that grew in pots positioned along the path.

~

Rob watched Caroline from the library window as she walked the path at the edge of the lawn, heading towards the parterre gardens.

He’d not gone up to the nursery for fear he’d be intruding on Mary and Drew. He’d go up later, but that meant he was currently at a loose end.

He freed the latch and opened the French door, then stepped out as Caroline disappeared behind the same tall hedge he’d seen her go behind the other day.

When he walked across the lawn he realised he’d come outside hatless and gloveless, but his stay was informal.

He turned the corner and saw her on the other side of the hedge.

She stood at the edge of a flower border, reaching down and leaning forward, pulling a flower to her nose.

His heart made an odd little stutter. If he could draw as well as John, it would have been a perfect pose to capture—the serenity of a summer morning.

He walked closer, the grass silencing his footsteps. “Caroline.”

She jumped half out of her skin, turning and stumbling.

He was close enough to catch her arm and stop her falling. Her bosom lifted with a sharp breath, and her hazel eyes, in the shadow of her bonnet, burned like soft amber.

“You frightened me.” When he let go of her, she stepped away.

“I’m sorry. I did not intend to. I saw you come out, and I had nothing to do…”

She looked into Rob’s eyes as though she saw a puzzle that confused her.

It made him unsure what to say. I wish she would be braver, Drew had said the other day. We have male servants, after all. “Do you think it possible that by the end of the summer we may be friends?”

Her bosom lifted with a breath. “That would b-be nice. But you will have to f-forgive me. I-I am not b-brave. I’m sorry.”

She turned away and she would have left him again, but he gripped her arm. It would discompose her and yet, when the woman kept running, how else was he to keep her there long enough to speak?

The muscles in her arm stiffened within his hold. “We may progress at your pace. But I do not see why it is not possible. That is what I hope for.”

She nodded.

When he let her go she turned away and walked further into the garden; he presumed to find solitude and security.

She must have endured much in her past. He knew Drew had helped her leave her violent husband, but her husband must have been very violent for her to still be affected by it after so many years.

Pity clasped in his stomach. Perhaps it was that which had caught him in the gut the other day. She might suffer with fear, but he also thought she suffered with wounded pride, because she was embarrassed, by her husband perhaps…

Chapter 7

When Rob walked into the drawing room, in time for the dinner gong, he hoped Caroline would be there.

She was not.

He’d not seen her since they’d spoken in the garden and it would be hard to make a friend of her, to the point that he might make her laugh and dance, if she was never about.

“You are late, Robbie. Did my son exhaust you?” Drew walked forward and grasped Rob’s arm, turning him around so they could go to the dining room, leaving Mary to walk behind them for a moment.

Rob glanced back at Mary, wondering what Caroline did in the evening when she did not come down to dinner. “Did Drew tell you, your son is a natural with a bat. He quite surprised me. By the end of the afternoon I had him hitting nearly every ball Drew threw.”

“When I am sure they were very carefully thrown to hit his bat.” Mary smiled at Drew.

He let go of Rob’s arm, turned back and took her hand. “Perhaps.”

The two of them walked beside Rob as they continued.

Rob longed to ask Drew more about Caroline. He wished to understand her.

“Caro. I did not think you were coming down.”

Rob looked forward when Drew spoke. Caroline stood at the foot of the stairs to the second floor. Her fingers were clasped together at her waist. She had not been there when he’d come from his rooms a moment ago.

She wore a shimmering amber silk dress. It drew out the variety of colours in her hazel eyes, and in her blonde hair too. Nothing about her was one shade. One lock of gold hair fell to her throat and a necklace with a single amber cross pendant lay in the cleft between her breasts.

A moment ago, as he’d made his way to the drawing room, a dozen topics to encourage her into talking had been spinning in his head. There were no words there at all now. He swallowed against the dryness in his mouth. He was thirsty tonight.

“I changed my mind,” she answered Drew, only looking at Drew.

“Caroline,” Rob stated, as she walked nearer.

She looked at him and dropped a very slight curtsy, then turned to walk beside her brother. There was not room for them to walk four astride, so Rob held back and Mary let go of Drew’s hand, then dropped back to walk beside Rob.

How many times had Mary given up her husband for the comfort of his sister? It seemed an odd scenario. Surely Caroline could not enjoy such a life.

When they reached the dining room, Drew pulled out a chair for Caroline. “Caro.”

A footman pulled Mary’s chair out and Rob walked about the table to sit opposite Caroline, while Mary sat at the other end of the table to Drew. It was not like dining at John’s. Drew’s manor was small, and their dining table arranged for a small family, not a stately affair.

Once seated, Rob leaned back to allow the footman to pour him a glass of white wine, and across the table, although he kept his gaze lowered, he could see Caroline’s slender fingers reaching for a small fork and spoon as she was served muscles in a cream sauce. Her hands shook.

Rob lifted his glass of wine and took a sip as Mary and then Drew were served, and then he leant back as he was too, the glass still in his hand, his eyes turning to the footman.

It was hard to avoid looking at Caroline, especially when he was so pleased she had come downstairs. Yet he did not wish to do anything that might upset her and dissuade her from coming down again.

When the footman finished dishing up the mussels, Rob looked up. He caught Caroline watching him. She looked down at her meal, her cheeks colouring a little.

Friends. He hoped they could achieve it. He thought it would be good for her, and it was a good foundation on which to build the hope of making her laugh and dance with him.

His gaze followed her hand as she freed a mussel from its shell and lifted it to her mouth. Then his gaze ran from her wrist up to the hem of the short sleeve of her gown. She was so very slender, frail and vulnerable in appearance. Yet she’d borne beatings. Had she suffered broken bones? He would probably never know the answer.

He looked at Drew. How much did Drew know?

Drew spoke about where they would go tomorrow and who he would take Rob to meet.

Rob looked at Mary. Did Caro confide in her?

Caro looked up and met his gaze. He swallowed against the dryness in his throat once more, then took a sip of wine to clear it and smiled, trying to make his smile as warm and unthreatening as he could. Her lips lifted at the edges, and they seemed to lift a little more than they’d done yesterday.

He looked at Drew and asked some questions about Drew’s tenants, suspecting that Drew was keener on showing off his son than he was on entertaining Rob. But Rob would not fault him for it. George was a sweet bundle of boyish energy whom Drew should be proud of.

When Rob finished his mussels he left his cutlery resting on the rim of the bowl and looked over the table once more. Caroline had finished eating too.

He tried to think of questions he might ask to draw her into the conversation, but his mind remained blank.

She leaned back to let a footman clear her place. Then on the next plate she was served fish terrine, chicken in aspic and sliced venison.

He lifted his glass and took a sip of wine, as she did, and their gazes collided. He smiled. In the candlelight her eyes were more matt than they were in daylight, but there was still a warm glow in the colour about the wide onyx circles at their centre.

She looked at Mary, her skin turning a deep red. “What will you do tomorrow, Mary?”

“We could drive to Maidstone if you’d like, Caro, and visit some of the shops?”

“That would be pleasant.”

~

As Caro listened to Mary speak of the things she would buy tomorrow, she took a deep breath and let it out slowly, trying to slow the beat of her heart and loosen the vice tightening about her chest. She was too aware of Robbie, of the way his dark-blue eyes studied her. Yet he was sitting opposite, it was only natural for him to look at her, and she had watched him too. It had been mean to ask him not to stare.

Friends. He had proposed this morning. Friends! And she had said that would be nice. But she’d never had a friend. Mary, perhaps, was the closest person to such a thing, but Mary was Drew’s confidante and Caro had deliberately avoided interfering too deeply in their closeness.

Caro thought of Albert and heard Robbie’s words. Do you think it might be possible that by the end of the summer we will be friends, Caroline?

Even from the beginning, when Albert may have adored her and admired her, he’d never treated her as an equal. He would never have considered a woman his friend.

She looked at Robbie and he smiled as he leant back to let a footman serve him. His smiles were swift, open and warm. There was no malice or artifice in him. He was a kind man. Thoughtful.

Friends. The idea appealed to her, and terrified her. She could not have seen it as a possibility if he’d asked in the company of his extended family. But here… She could imagine they might achieve it when it was the four of them. He was likeable.

He lifted his wine glass. She could see how gently his fingers gripped the stem, as they’d touched her twice. She could not see his hands about a woman’s throat. They were hands designed for creativity, writing, art or music, or honest labour.

He was different from his cousins and his younger brother, not brash and assertive, simply confident. Drew at his age had been an inferno of aggressive, defensive anger, fighting against the world. But Robbie seemed to sit back and watch it.

She tried to imagine Albert at Robbie’s age. Albert had been handsome, but not in the way Robbie was. Robbie had a masculine beauty, not simply a handsome face. The women in his family had a beauty that was breathtaking, and in Robbie it was striking, he had elements of his father’s angled features, marked with the Pembrokes’ large eyes and full lips.

He spoke to her brother, joining in a conversation Drew and Mary were having about George.

Robbie laughed as Drew admitted that he intended to pamper George in everything. It was a deep, low sound.

He glanced at her, as if he knew she’d been watching him, and smiled again, even more warmly.

His dark-blue eyes glittered in the candlelight.

She smiled again too, weakly, then looked at Mary and tried to join the conversation, her heart thumping steadily. She was not wholly comfortable, yet she did not feel the onset of panic.

Chapter 8

The day had indeed been pleasurable, using the word Caroline had applied to her anticipated trip into town. Rob liked Drew’s company, and he was actually impressed with the way Drew handled himself among his tenants. He’d earned their respect in the years since he’d taken over this property. People looked up to him because they liked him, not simply because he was the landowner, and they sought his opinion on subjects that four years ago Rob doubted Drew could have even discussed.

Then, of course, everyone they’d met on their circuit had enthused over George, and the boy had lapped up all the attention with his usual gusto.

But as Mary had predicted, George had become tired. He’d been complaining for the last hour and asking to go home, and now he was stretched sideways across Drew’s saddle, one of his arms draped about Drew’s hip, where he’d been holding his father before he’d fallen asleep with Drew’s forearm as his pillow.

George’s other hand was at his mouth, and his thumb hung at the corner of his lips, where he’d been sucking on it.

It meant their return ride was restricted to the pace of a walk as Drew cradled George on one arm and tried not to dislodge him with the rock of the horse.

They were still about twenty minutes away from the house when Rob heard the sound of a single horse cantering along the dry mud track and the creak of a vehicle. Gripping the pommel of his saddle, Rob turned to look back, steering his animal off the track and out of its path. He recognised the trap, even though it was a distance away. It was the vehicle Drew had bought for Mary to drive when she wished to go out alone. He saw the two women.

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

“Mary.” Rob stated, looking back at Drew, knowing that Drew would not have been able to look with George sprawled across his thighs. “You’re in for it now. She said you’d wear George out.”

Drew laughed, but he pulled his horse to a halt as the trap approached.

“Whoa,” Mary called to slow her horse. Obviously she’d recognised them from a distance too. She stared at Drew as she slowed the trap to a halt.

Drew looked downward and gave Mary a devil-may-care smile, which dared her to challenge him if she wished to.

“He is exhausted,” she said, her gaze shifting to George.

“He is asleep,” Drew answered. “Because he had a wonderful time and needed to rest.”

Mary clucked her tongue and made a face at Drew. She knew her husband well. There was no point challenging Drew, she would not win the argument.

“He did have a wonderful time,” Rob assured her, “Everyone made a fuss over him and he spent his first hour laughing his head off with glee at the opportunity of such a long ride, and he has been given a dozen biscuits.”

Mary frowned at him, reprimanding him for siding with Drew.

“Don’t turn your wrath on me,” Rob stated jokingly, “I am not to blame. But George did enjoy it.”

“Will you hand George to me, Drew? At least then we can get him home sooner, and securely.” Caroline stood. Of course she must know Drew best of all.

Drew smiled at her, let go of his reins and lifted George, then leaned over. Caro put down her parasol to receive the sleeping child.

Yellow suited her colouring. It gave her freshness and made her look younger. She sat, as though George was heavier than she’d expected, and settled him across her lap, cradling his head on her arm.

When she’d been married she must have had to organise a huge household, the size of John’s probably. The other day Rob had sensed wounded pride within her distress. When she’d left her husband, she’d also left the position of marchioness, with respect and finery to the style that Katherine had, to then become a penniless dependent of her brother. It must have tilted her world upside down.

Another hard, sudden feeling gripped at his gut as Mary pulled away and he watched Caroline. It was pity.

What she’d left behind was another signal of how much she’d suffered. It would have taken a lot to make her choose to leave that life.

But he was certain that Caroline would abhor pity. Perhaps that was a part of her discomfort, that she must be reliant on others, and therefore be in need of pity. Perhaps she was embarrassed by her reliance on Drew as much as by her husband.

The pity in his gut swelled to admiration in his chest as Drew turned his horse off the track and kicked his heels, rising into a canter. Rob followed, racing the trap back to the house.

The first night he’d met Drew, Rob’s family had applauded Drew when he’d entered the room, out of respect because he’d helped Caroline escape her marriage. They should have applauded Caroline because she had survived years of cruelty and then had the courage to leave Kilbride.

When they reached the house Rob dismounted and handed the reins of his horse over to a groom, then waited for the trap beside Drew. It was a few yards away.

A groom came to hold the horse’s head as the trap pulled up. Drew lifted his hands up to take George from Caroline.

Another groom helped Mary down. Rob stepped forward, offering his hand to Caroline, forgetting entirely that she’d never taken anyone but Drew’s hand in all the years he’d known her. But he could not retract the offer, that would look crass, and so his gloved hand hovered in the air a foot away from where she stood in the trap.

Drew’s arms were full, the grooms were not near her, she accepted Rob’s hand, or rejected it and climbed down unaided; those were her choices.

She looked at him, her eyes gilded gold in the sunlight.

“Caroline.” He bowed his head, slightly.

She took a breath, which lifted her bosom. Then her fingers gripped his. They’d been trembling, but her firm hold denied it as she stepped down.

She immediately let go, when her feet touched the ground. But it was another step they’d taken towards friendship.

He turned to see Drew and Mary walking towards the house. They had not even noticed. He glanced at Caroline. “If you like, we could walk about the side of the house across the lawn and go in through the French doors of the morning room, to stretch our legs a little. Drew and Mary will be going up to the nursery anyway. Then we can call for tea.”

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 today.

He turned and began walking. She fell into stride beside him.

He clasped his hands behind his back, refusing the instinct to offer her his arm.

It was not only Caro who felt awkward; he felt awkward too. He was not overly used to spending time with women outside of his family. Again, women were Harry’s forte, not his. There were many years to be lived before the time came for him to think about a wife, and he was not interested in mistresses, or casual liaisons. He was happy as he was. And unlike his peers in the family he believed in morality.

Rob had seen how the whores his brother and his cousins favoured lived. He pitied them. He had no desire to lie with them, and if he held a seat in the House of Commons then he would be speaking out for the safety of those women. His brother and cousins used the brothels, but there were many women on the streets who were only there because they needed food. It was not right.

But if Caroline were to be a friend, he supposed he ought to treat her as he would his friends—he would not offer his arm to a male friend.

A humorous sound escaped his throat.

She glanced at him, but said nothing as they walked on, side by side, in steady strides, she gripping the handle of her open parasol, while his hands were held together behind his back.

He ought to say something. “Did you enjoy your day?”

“Very much.” There was a slight quiver in her voice.

“You know, Caroline.” Rob glanced sideways at her as they walked around the corner of the house on to the lawn. “I respect you immensely.”

She did nothing to acknowledge his comment.

He liked her hair. It was in a loose knot and a whole swathe of it had been left to fall and curl across her shoulder and over her bosom.

“I was thinking, after we saw you in the trap, how much you must have had when you were with the Marquis of Kilbride. It only really occurred to me today what a big step it must have been for you to leave.” Perhaps it was not the best of topics to choose, and yet he did not wish to walk in silence and this was what was on his mind. “You gave up a life like Kate’s… ”

He stopped walking as they neared the open French doors of the morning room. He wished to complete this conversation.

She stopped too, and her hazel eyes widened as they became darker in the shadow of the parasol.

“I want you to know, I admire your courage. To experience such things and then to walk away and leave that life behind.” She’d been wrong. She was brave, braver than anyone else he knew.

Her skin pinked across her cheeks, then tears made her eyes appear fluid. “Excuse me…” She turned and then was gone again, his phantom, hurrying towards the house, her fingers clutching her dress to lift the hem.

“You are a damned idiot, Rob,” he said aloud, as he followed.

He did not see her in the house, and she was not in the drawing room. He ordered the tea and then went to his room to change out of his riding clothes. She was not downstairs when he returned, nor was she there for dinner.

After dinner, when Mary went up to the nursery to kiss the children goodnight, Rob walked out into the garden with Drew, to drink their port, so Drew might have a cigar.

Rob grasped at their privacy. “I was thinking today about Caroline’s marriage. It is no wonder really that her nerves affect her as they do. I mean I know what she went through. I read the details in the paper.”

Drew blew smoke up into the cooler night air, then looked at Rob. “You do not know the details. Even I do not. You read the story, which merely scratched at the surface. But for God’s sake do not tell her you read anything. I never told her what was printed in the papers. She did not have sight of them at the time. It would have hurt her and she’d been hurt enough, and she would be cut by you speaking of it. She is a private person.”

So Rob had noticed. His hand lifted and ran through his hair, then fell.

He was not proud of the conversation he’d started this afternoon. But oddly, the thought made him understand a little more of Caroline. Perhaps her air of wounded pride was not because she had been prideful, but because she was without pride. Perhaps she did not feel proud of her past or herself and that was why embarrassment left her tongue-tied.

“I shall not speak of it,” he confirmed to Drew.

He wished, more than anything, to make Caroline feel at ease.

Chapter 9

Caro walked into the nursery after breakfast, knowing that Drew and Mary had gone out for a ride. She’d assumed Robbie had gone too, but he was lying on the floor beside George raining an army of lead soldiers with imaginary cannon fire.

I respect you immensely. Those had been the words he’d used yesterday. Respect… When she’d spent the past years feeling shame; feeling like a leech.

But the words and the mention of Albert had thrown her into turmoil, the past rising up before her and memories scurrying through her head, good as well as bad. Yes, she had given up a lot: her home, her self-possession, her position in society. Despite his brutality, she had held her head high, denying in public what happened in private and she had still been looked up to, and she had not felt a burden to Albert… No, that was a lie. Her barren womb had made her a burden to him, and her failure had been a shame she concealed with embarrassment as she’d tried to look confident before others.

She turned to leave. Unsure of what she would say to Robbie.

“Caroline.”

She turned back. He’d risen from the floor and crossed the room. His long fingers wrapped about her arm to stop her turning away.

His gentle hold reminded her of the way Albert had touched her in bed.

She pulled her arm free.

“May we speak for a moment?”

I respect you immensely. She lowered her head in agreement.

“We shall return in a moment, George. I wish to speak to your aunt. Have the horses move to the far side and set up a cavalry charge.” He lifted his hand so Caro would walk ahead of him. She stopped on the landing, only a few feet away from the nursery door.

Robbie pulled the door closed.

Heat burned in Caro’s cheeks when he took a couple of strides towards her. He was nearly a foot taller than her, at least ten inches, and when he moved his athletic physique expressed energy, a love of life, a desire to discover.

His hand lifted as if he might clasp her arm, but then it fell. “Caroline, I’d like to apologise again. I’m sure you shall become bored of hearing me use the word ‘sorry’ but I wish I had not chosen the topic of conversation I did yesterday. It was crass of me. I am sorry I upset you again. Will you give me another chance?” As he spoke, the hand that had lifted previously rose and swept back his hair, brushing his fringe from his forehead.

“I should have thought before I spoke. Your past is none of my business. Yet I just, well, I wanted you to know that I respect you and I applaud you, and I believe that you must be a lot braver than you think. I see you as a woman full of courage. I did not intend to make you feel uncomfortable. I’ll say nothing more on the subject, I swear, only as I said the other day. I hope that by the end of my stay we might be friends, and although I have been making a mull of it, I still have hopes, if you will forgive me?”

She did not really have anything to forgive him for. He’d only mentioned the name of her former husband, it was hardly a crime—and each day she liked Robbie more. He was a kind, good-hearted young man. “You need not ask for my forgiveness. It was not because of you that I became emotional. Your words simply stirred up memories that I ought not to think of. I am sorry I made you feel uncomfortable. You are a guest here. It was rude of me.”

“Aun’ie Ca’o! Aun’ie Ca’o!” The nursery door handle rattled.

“Master George! Come back and play, your aunt will be here in a moment.”

Caro turned to the door.

Robbie clasped her arm, the gentle touch twisting something in her stomach. “May I ask one thing of you, Caroline? Please do not leave me alone at dinner.”

“You cannot be alone. Mary and—”

“Are a couple, and I feel foolish intruding on them every night, as I’m sure you must do when you are here alone. I presume that is why you frequently do not come down, so why not make the most of my presence and have some company?”

“You are a guest. They do not make you feel unwelcome.”

“Nor do they you.” His tone had dropped and become slightly challenging, but the words were still softly spoken, not threatening.

“Au’nie Ca’o! Play!” George shouted through the wood of the nursery door, as the handle rattled again.

Caro looked at the door then back at Robbie. She had not pulled her arm free. Robbie’s touch was soothing. It had been a long time since anyone other than Drew had touched her, and now Robbie continually did so—she was becoming accustomed to his gentle fingers about her arm.

“Shall we take him outside?” Robbie offered. “We could play on the lawn with him; the day is not too hot yet.”

She nodded agreement.

He let her go and opened the door. “Are you causing trouble, George?”

“I’m sorry, sir,” the nanny said.

“You need not be. We are going to take him outside for a little while, to play in the garden.”

Caro smiled at George as his eyes lit up, then he turned and ran across the room, his little legs on a charge.

“My boat!” George pointed to the sailing boat, which was on a shelf above him. He did a little awkward jump. “Play with my boat, Uncle Bobbie?” He looked back at his uncle with a plea.

Robbie crossed the room. “Yes, you shall sail your boat, George. We’ll take it out to the pond.”

George lifted his arms. Robbie bent to pick him up and held him so that George could take the boat from the shelf.

“Caroline.” Robbie indicated for her to walk ahead of them as he came back across the room.

“I have to fetch my bonnet. I will come down soon.” She turned and went ahead of them, hurrying down the stairs from the attic. Then she ran along the landing on the second floor to her rooms.

The day was warm, so she did not bother with a shawl, but just picked up a straw bonnet and tied the burgundy ribbons, which secured it beneath her chin. The colour of the ribbons matched the flowers in the pattern on her ivory muslin dress.

Her heart raced as she ran down the stairs, yet it was not from fear, it was from expectation and excitement. I applaud you. I respect you. No one had said such things to her.

You must be a lot braver than you think…

Albert had complimented her often when he’d courted her, and during the first year of their marriage, but always for her beauty. Robbie had looked beyond her appearance and considered what was inside, and he’d seen courage.

Courage…

What an odd thing for him to see in her when he’d only known the woman who hid herself away. She smiled as she hurried across the downstairs hall and then she ran lightly through the morning room and out through the French doors into the garden.

She could hear them. George was squealing with excitement, and Robbie’s lower tone cheered along with him. When she turned the corner of the second hedge in the parterre gardens, she saw them. Robbie was kneeling at the edge of the pond and George stood beside him with both hands pressed on the stone rim as they blew at the boat. It moved a little, wobbling through the water and sending out ripples.

Caro laughed, the sound bursting from her throat. She could not remember the last time she had laughed. “I see the wind is not really strong enough and so you are making your own.”

Robbie looked up, his lips parting in a sudden wide grin and his slate-grey eyes, which were paler in the sunshine, looked full of pleasure. “It is good to hear you laugh, even if it is at our expense. Will you help us blow?” His lips twisted into a wry smile.

“Aun’ie Ca’o,” George looked up.

“Are you blowing your boat to make it sail?” She lifted her skirt and knelt on the grass, on the other side of George to Robbie, but as Robbie’s hand was settled at George’s waist she did not touch George. She leaned onto the stone about the pond and blew at the boat’s white sails. George blew too, but he could not purse his lips.

Caro patted his head and laughed at the funny sound he made when he blew. “Who is on your boat, George?”

“Uncle Bahbah and the pi’ates.”

Robbie choked mid-blow and laughed more heartily than Caro had done.

Uncle Bahbah was Drew’s nickname for the black sheep of Mary’s family, Robbie’s younger brother Harry.

“Why is Uncle Harry with the pirates, George? What has he done?” Robbie’s hand gripped at George’s side.

A frown drew a line between George’s brows, as though he thought the answer was obvious. “He’s been bad, the pi’ates have captu’ed him and then he took ove’ the s’ip and now he is the capt’in.”

“Well, I am imagining a whole fleet of the Navy’s ships coming up behind your pirates, who are ready to save the day, and they shall be captained by your Uncle Robbie.”

A humorous, but less exuberant, sound slipped out of Robbie’s throat on a low note. “We should have brought your cannons down so we could fire on the pirates.”

“We can imagine cannons,” Caro dipped her fingers into the water. “Now, who do you wish to win, George? Are we blowing with all our might for the pirates to get away, or willing the Navy to catch them?”

“The pi’ates get away!”

Robbie looked at Caro with a smile. “He is Drew’s son.”

“He is, indeed.”

“Then we blow.”

“We blow.”

“Raise the main sail, and pull the yard arm! We need to get away!” Robbie called before he began blowing.

Caro blew too, and the boat began to wobble its way at a snail’s pace through the water.

Robbie kept throwing in comments about how Uncle Bahbah and the pirates were preparing to fight. “Draw your swords!”

“But Uncle Robbie is nearly upon them!” Caro cried. “They wish to take the bad pirates to their gaol.”

“No! No!” George squealed.

She laughed. “Then blow harder, George. Blow harder.”

“And now there’s a storm whipping up! It is making my navy ships sail faster.” Robbie said, dipping his fingers in the water and stirring it up so that the boat rocked even more. “Blow, George, blow.”

“If one of us must rescue it, it will be you who gets his boots wet,” she said to Robbie.

He laughed as poor George tried to blow harder and harder, with no effect.

“Uncle Bobbie, Aun’ie Ca’o, blow!”

“I think I owe you a little chivalry. I can be valiant, Caro,” Robbie responded, smiling at her, before he turned to blow once more.

He’d not called her “Caro” before; no one did but Drew and Mary. The intimacy of her nickname on his lips touched something inside her and clasped tight. She did feel differently towards him. Friendship…

“The storm is coming, George. Tell the pirates to bring down their sails.” Robbie said as he stirred up the water rocking the sailing boat, but it was too far out of reach for George to do anything.

“It’ll sink, Uncle Bobbie. Stop. Stop the sto’m!”

“Not if they take down their sails. The Navy ships are heavier, they have the cannons, they are more likely to go down! Call out to the pirates, take down your sails!”

“Ta’e down you’ sails pi’ates!” George shouted at the boat.

“They are doing it.” Caro, cried. “I can see them. Look they are in the rigging, preparing for the storm.”

“And the Navy have their cannons ready to fire, and their hatches open, the fools. They’ll be caught out.” Robbie stirred the water even more and the boat swayed. “Tell the men to come down from the rigging, George, the sea is too wild. Uncle Bahbah is up there too. Tell him to come down.”

“Come down, Uncle Bahbah!”

“He is down,” Caro said.

“The storm has hit the Navy in full force, the water is sweeping over their decks and it’s washing into the gun decks. They are sinking. They are sinking, George. Shout hurrah, the pirates have won.”

“Hu’ah!” George shouted, thrusting a fist into the air.

“Hurrah!” Robbie called. Then he looked at Caro. “Are you not pleased, Auntie Caro, why are you not cheering?” It was said with satire, and she smiled, but again something clutched in her middle when she looked at his face.

“Because I think your papa ought to teach you to favour the Navy, George, and I shall tell him so. I would have put those pirates in gaol.”

Robbie laughed.

“Pick me up, Uncle Bobbie.” George turned and wrapped his arms about Robbie’s neck, his interest in the boat gone.

“Bend over, then.” Robbie stated as he stood.

George bent over, holding out his hands between his legs. Robbie gripped them and pulled him up so that George spun a somersault in the air. It was a practised manoeuvre, which Robbie must have taught him.

George laughed as Robbie set him on the ground.

Caro closed her mouth on another laugh as her stomach tumbled over. She was laughing in a way she had not done in years, and she was enjoying herself. “You have to rescue George’s boat yet…”

“You just wish to watch me get my boots wet, and I cannot afford to have them ruined.”

“Then you will have to take them off.” Gosh, she could not remember teasing anyone since she and Drew had been children.

He grinned at her. “A perfect solution. Stand up, George.” He began pulling off his morning coat. “You may be the bearer of my coat, while I valiantly climb into the pond to rescue your boat from the storm.”

Even George grinned as Robbie stripped it off.

He folded his coat. “George put out your arms.” George obeyed. “You must stand here, and not let it fall. I do not want grass stains upon it. Conquering heroes should not be covered in grass stains.” George looked at him with eyes full of worship.

Caro smiled at George, then looked at Robbie, as he sat on the low stone rim at the edge of the pond, in trousers, shirt and waistcoat. He had a lean waist and narrow hips. Albert had been broader.

Robbie turned back the cuffs of his shirt, revealing the lean, muscular shape of his forearms and the dark hair across his skin.

Caro breathed in. Something twisted in her stomach.

“I do not suppose you would help me with these?” He lifted a booted foot.

She shook her head. She may feel more comfortable with him, but she did not feel comfortable enough to lean over before him and yank at his boot.

He struggled a little, but he had not brought a valet with him so he must take off his own boots every night. It did not take him long.

She looked at George. Robbie had given George a task so he would not run around. It was a wise trick.

“And these are for you, Caro.” He held out his boots with a wry smile.

She poked her tongue out at him. When had she last done a thing like that?

George laughed, and she looked down to find him looking up at her. Even he’d noticed the difference in her today. She smiled.

“The hero is rising to the challenge!” Robbie called. “Prepared to get both his trousers and his stockings wet for the sake of your poor boat, George.”

Oh, good Lord! She laughed so much her sides ached as he made a great fuss of climbing into the pond. The water came up to his thighs and he waded through it, one hand raised, as though he intended planting a Union Jack and naming it for a territory of Royal Britannia.

“It is rescued!” he cried, when he lifted up George’s toy.

“You are stupid, Robbie,” Caro breathed as he carried it back.

“Call me Rob, Caro, please. Robbie is so childish, I will never get my brothers and sisters to change, but my friends never call me that.”

Friends. Had they achieved that now already? Perhaps not yet, but she truly believed they could become friends. “Let me take the boat, Rob. You may have your boots back.”

He smiled. “Thank you.” He swapped her the boat for his boots, then put them on the edge of the pond and climbed out. The water had plastered his trousers to his legs.

Physically he was at his peak, so young and beautiful.

He picked up his boots. “May I have my coat, young master coat-keeper?” He held out his hand, George raised his arms and Rob took his coat from them. “And now I think we ought to return to the house. I am soaked and would like a change of clothes, and your mama and papa have probably come back and will be looking for you, George.”

Caro gripped George’s hand before he could run off. “Come along, then, do you wish to carry your boat?” He nodded, and so the three of them walked back across the lawn with George gripping his boat and Rob carrying his boots, with his coat hanging over his shoulder.

When they reached the house, Rob excused himself and ran upstairs ahead of them, heading to his room, which was on the first floor, displaying the energy and agility that the muscular definition of his body implied as he took the steps two at a time.

Caro followed him, walking more slowly with George.

Chapter 10

Caro had spent her days very differently in the last few weeks. She often played with George and Rob, while Rob thought up silly games. Then in the evenings she dined at the table and afterwards went to the drawing room with Rob, Drew and Mary, where they would either play the pianoforte and sing, or play cards.

It was probably the strangest period of her life because it was the most normal she had ever felt. Rob frequently engaged her in conversation and offered his arm when they walked anywhere together. He also sat beside her at the pianoforte some evenings and would turn the music for her as she played, and on rare occasions, if the song desperately needed a baritone, he would concede and sing with her.

For the first time she did not feel like a parasite, and she was certainly not isolated, she felt a part of life, of a family, and she laughed every day, and smiled often, and most importantly—she was happy. It was a feeling of joy deep inside her.

“Uncle Bobbie!” George complained, gleefully, as his uncle chased after him and captured the running child, wrapping an arm about George and lifting him up by the waist. George’s feet kicked as though he was still running.

“I caught this little monkey.” Rob turned and grinned at her. “I’m not sure exactly what species it is.” George wriggled.

“Aun’ie Caro!” he complained.

They’d taken George for a walk, leaving Mary and Drew to enjoy a little peace with Iris. Their path followed a circular route about the edge of the formal garden, along a woodland wilderness walk. It did not have the orchestrated picturesque views of Albert’s vast gardens, but it was quaint and it made Caro feel absorbed in nature. Birds sang from the branches above, and the summer breeze swept through the leaves, which shaded them from the sun, rustling them and making a pretty sound, while bees buzzed and butterflies fluttered through the air, adding more bright colours to the occasional planting that lined the route.

It was a beautiful day.

Rob had left his coat and waistcoat off because the day was so hot. They were used to being informal because of playing with George. He’d rolled his shirt sleeves up too and so, as he carried George under his arm the fine, dark hairs on his forearm showed against his pale skin, and he was sweating, so his shirt stuck to his side and became transparent.

It was a very hot day. It was the best place to be, beneath the trees.

“Put me down, Uncle Bobbie!” George wriggled harder.

“When you can behave, little monkey. You were told not to run.”

Rob turned and stopped, waiting for her to catch up. George kicked out, complaining, at Rob’s side.

She smiled, her legs slashing at her petticoats and the skirt of her dress. Her bonnet, which hung from her neck by its ribbons, bounced against her back. It was not fair that Rob could strip off layers and she could not. The thought stirred a tight feeling in her stomach.

When she reached him, she ruffled George’s hair.

“Aun’ie Ca’o.”

Rob swung him round to sit at his hip, and Caro actually glimpsed Rob’s skin at his waist as his shirt pulled up.

Rob gripped George’s chin and made George look him in the eyes as George clasped Rob’s neck. “Now, George Framlington, you are not to run ahead, there is a stream further along. If you tumble into that and drown your mama and papa would string me up. You’re to do as you are told or I will not bring you out for a walk again. Do you hear?”

George lifted his chin free, but nodded.

“I wish to hear the promise from your lips. Say it George, I will not run off.”

George’s lower lip wobbled. He hated to be told off, but then he said, “I won’t ‘un. I p’omise.”

“Good boy.” Rob patted George’s back, then he added more softly. “There’s no need for tears. You did wrong. You know you did, but now you are going to do right.”

“You may hold my hand,” Caroline offered.

“Or ride on my back,” Rob added.

“’ide” George chose, already lifting his hands to Rob’s neck. Rob shifted him, spinning him to his back as George’s arms circled his neck, and then he carried George in a piggyback, with George’s legs looped over his arms.

George looked ahead over Rob’s shoulder. Caro smiled at them both.

Rob’s patience was a wonderful thing.

“You are good with him,” she commented when they began walking again.

“I’ve had enough practice. Remember the size of my family.”

“I did not have a close family. We were not like yours.”

Rob glanced at her and smiled. “I know. Mary met them. She’s spoken of it. She described them as unpleasant.”

“She was being polite. But they were not unkind to me. Drew and I were just not wanted and ignored—for understandable reasons. The Marquis did not want Mama’s little cuckoos in his nest.” She laughed—she was talking to him of things she never spoke of. But they had become friends and friends shared confidences. “I do not even know who my father is. Neither does Drew.”

“But the fault was your mother’s, not yours. Did the Marquis not recognise that?”

She looked at Rob with a shrug. She had never understood her mother. The woman had not one maternal bone in her body. “Perhaps, but if we were treated as though we did not exist then her infidelity could be ignored. It was Mother’s view too. We were mistakes to be disposed of. Fortunately for me, Albert was willing to ignore my birth—or perhaps he did not know. He never mentioned it and neither did I.”

“Fortunately… Forgive me if this is ignorant, but what was fortunate about your marriage?”

Caro glanced at him, surprised to hear him speak of it, but she did not feel horror as she might have done a few weeks ago, and she had spoken of it first.

“I’m sorry, it’s none of my business.” His smile became apologetic.

But it was nice to feel comfortable to talk, and Rob was easy to talk to. He never judged. “It does not matter. You may speak of it. But my marriage was not always bad. I loved him.” She still did, in a way. He was the only one who had ever shown her the intensity of feeling that had felt like love, and her body and her soul had never forgotten it—the thing she’d lacked and longed for as a child. Drew may care for her, but it had always felt such a shallow comparison to the infatuation Albert had shown. And she still knew Drew’s affection to be a shallow emotion compared to what he felt for Mary… “I was young when I met him and I suppose I idolised him. He was attentive and earnest. He courted me with devotion. We spent hours and hours together before we married, and he was so determined to have me that he threatened to run off with me if the Marquis disagreed. Of course the Marquis did not refuse.”

A sound of amusement slipped from her throat when she remembered how happy her mother and the Marquis had been at the news they were to be rid of her so easily.

“Even when we married, though…” She glanced at Rob, to see him watching and listening. “…things were wonderful, Albert spent hours in my company at the beginning. He never said he loved me, but I thought it was love. Yet in the second year his interest waned, and he began keeping mistresses.” Her memories drifted into things she did not want to recall, and she stopped talking as images flashed through her thoughts: strikes, words shouted in her face, the unbearable sensation of failure and loneliness.

“Caro…”

She had stopped walking as well as talking. Her consciousness returned to the woodland walk, the sound of the birds and the sunshine above the trees. Those bad moments and those feelings were behind her. She looked ahead and began walking again. “He spent less and less time with me. He wanted a son and I could not carry a child. In the end I was not good enough for him. Things turned sour and his anger grew worse, and, well… you know the rest,” she whispered the last.

They walked a few steps in silence, her gaze focused on the grass pathway.

She glanced at Rob. George was sucking his thumb as his head rested against Rob’s shoulder.

An elemental warmth twisted in her stomach—longing. “I am glad I married him. In the first year and the year that he courted me, he made me happy. I was fortunate to have those years. They were the happiest of my life. What I had missed in attention as a child, I received from Albert tenfold, and it felt like heaven then.”

“You need more happy years, then,” Rob said in answer, as he looked ahead.

“I do not anticipate them…” A lump caught in her throat. She’d never thought of her unhappiness. She had spent years here, angry with herself for her failure to succeed as a wife, disappointed and ashamed. But to be unhappy was unfair on Drew. He’d done so much for her. Yet now Rob was here and she’d discovered what it was to be happy again. She knew how unhappy she’d been.

She swallowed, not looking at Rob, and she did not think he was looking at her. “Why am I telling you this? I’ve told all this to no one else, not even Drew.” She laughed then, to dispel the melancholy feeling wrapping about her heart.

“I do not know. But I am glad you feel able to. We have truly become friends, haven’t we?”

She smiled at him.

“Perhaps I am easy to talk to because I’ve spent a lifetime listening to my sisters.”

She laughed and it was not shallow laughter, it came from her stomach. How absurd. A moment ago she had been remembering the awful muddle she’d made of her life with Albert and then Rob had made her laugh.

Her gaze turned to Rob’s shoulder. “George has fallen asleep.”

“We’re nearly back anyway.”

Caro looked ahead. The narrow stream that signalled the end of the woodland walk was a few feet ahead.

Robert navigated it first, carefully stepping onto the flat stone in the middle of the stream. He set one foot on the far bank, left one on the stone, reached an arm behind him, bowing forward to carry George’s sleeping weight, then held out a hand to Caro.

Her heartbeat raced, and her breathing fractured when she looked at his bare, slender, long fingers as his hand reached out.

He was being gentlemanly, gallant. It would be ridiculous to refuse the gesture. Yet her hand was bare too. It was too hot for gloves.

It is nothing of consequence.

She clasped his fingers and their warmth and strength closed about her grip, but the feeling of his security grabbed at her soul too when she stepped onto the stone. Her heart thumped as her bosom brushed against his chest briefly.

Heat flared in her cheeks, but there were other sensations too, sensations that recalled memories from her marriage bed.

“Caro…” he said in a low voice, his eyes a very dark grey.

She smiled, ignoring the heat burning in her cheeks and fought a foolish urge to kiss him. Then she stepped on, climbing up onto the far bank, lifting the hem of her dress with her free hand.

He kept hold of her hand and she held him steady as he stepped onto the bank. She met his gaze when he did, her limbs turning to aspic. There was a look in his eyes that she had seen in Albert’s long ago, when Albert had courted her—Rob’s pupils were wider, and they seemed to glow with a depth that was not normally there.

“George, will fall if you’re not careful,” she said, letting his hand go.

He smiled. “I’ll move him. Just take him for a moment so he does not topple off.”

Caro lifted George from his back, and then Rob took him again.

George’s head rested against Rob’s shoulder, while Rob’s arm braced George’s back and his hand gripped one of George’s legs. He gave Caro another smile. “Do you ride?”

She nodded. She did, but she had not done so for years.

“Then, shall we ride tomorrow? We could ride onto John’s land and give the horses their heads.”

A gallop. She hadn’t ridden since she’d left Albert—she didn’t even really know why. But Drew had never offered to accompany her and she’d never asked, nor thought of riding alone. But the thought of it now…

“I would like to.”

Chapter 11

“You should come,” Rob suggested, leaning back in his chair at the dining table and eyeing Caro with determination as he twisted the stem of his wine glass in his fingers.

She wished to poke her tongue out at him, but she would not before Drew and Mary. Instead her forehead creased into a scowl as she closed her lips on her argument.

“Why not, Caro?” Drew, pushed.

She ignored him.

Drew, Mary and Rob had visited a neighbour’s for dinner the night before. She had not joined them, she had become used to Rob being here, and her feelings of discomfort being silent, she did not wish to stir them up again. But now they were trying to persuade her to attend an assembly in Maidstone that they had heard about from Drew’s neighbour.

“You will have all three of us with you,” Mary urged, quietly.

“You need not even dance, if you do not wish to,” Drew stated. “One of us will stay with you.”

“I will stay with you,” Rob stated, “They will wish to dance with each other.”

“We will not,” Mary answered, “I can barely persuade him to dance one set, even if it is a waltz. Drew does not like dancing.”

“It’s superfluous,” he responded, laughing, “once you have a wife.”

“Well, I enjoy it,” Mary bit back.

“Then I will dance with you, and Drew can keep Caro company.” Rob smiled at his sister.

“Well, I prefer swimming, but I get precious little chance to do that these days.” Drew lifted an eyebrow at Mary, who blushed.

“I dare you,” Rob said to Caro from across the table.

She shook her head at him. “No, Rob.”

“Why?”

“Rob…” she pressed him to be silent.

“Let us talk about this in the comfort of the drawing room over a hand of cards.” Drew rose. They all rose then, their chairs scraping on the wooden floor.

Caro walked beside Mary. But then Rob appeared at her other side and gently braced her elbow.

She was used to his touch now. He often held out his arm or his hand for her to take, they’d taken three early-morning rides together in the last week, and when they did he would hold his joined hands in a step for her to mount—and grip her waist to lift her down when they returned.

He leant to her ear and whispered. “I cannot understand what you are so afraid of. It is just a little country dance. Come, and do not dance. I understand you do not like to be touched by strangers, but you might enjoy the company and conversation. Be brave, Caro. I know you are…”

“Rob…” she sighed, willing him to stop pleading.

“You trust me now. You trust Drew and Mary. We would not allow you to feel threatened. If you do, then I will bring you home. I’ll even take my own curricle, if you wish, so you may leave at any time.”

“You do not understand.” She stopped and turned to face him, freeing herself from the distracting grip on her arm.

Drew and Mary walked on.

“I understand that you keep yourself shut in here like a prisoner. You should break out.”

Neither Drew nor Mary looked back, leaving them to talk. At first Drew had raised his eyebrows on occasion, when Caro had become more relaxed with Rob, but now it had become commonplace.

“You will come, Caro?” Rob’s fingers touched her cheek and turned her gaze to him.

“No.”

His thumb brushed the edge of her lips accidently.

Like the first time she’d taken his bare hand and the first time he’d held her waist when he’d lifted her down from a horse, a sudden jolt lanced through her body. She knew what it was – desire. It was the feeling she had learned in her marriage bed, and when she looked at Rob she felt it. He was too beautiful.

“Will you come for my sake?” he asked, his dark eyes glinting in the light of the single candelabra that stood on a cabinet behind her. “You have immense courage. Remember it.” His breath caressed her lips. He was so close.

Her gaze held his. His eyes were reassuring, confident and encouraging.

She looked at his lips. She wished to lift to her toes and press her lips against his; there was something invisible within her pulling her to do so. She had imagined it often, ever since they’d crossed the stream, when he’d carried George, and she had thought she’d seen the same pull in his eyes.

That look she’d seen in his eyes then was not there now. She’d thought it desire too, and yet, she wondered if she’d imagined it. She had not seen it in his eyes since, only this open look of like and care.

He was inviting her because he cared…

The thought stirred places in her soul, as his touch moved her physically.

She should go. She should stop locking herself away in her glass gaol, Do I have the courage?

Her gaze clung to his. “I will go,” for your sake. The last words erupted from somewhere within her, but she did not say them. They were foolish, yet true. She wished to be in his company.

His gaze seemed to delve into her.

“Caro! Rob! Are you coming? We’ve dealt already.” Drew’s voice stretched back into the hall, echoing about the stairwell.

Rob smiled, cheerfully. There was a charm in his smile and it caught like a stitch in her middle when his hand fell away. “That is settled, then.” He cupped her elbow. “Come along, let’s tell Drew.”

She took a deep breath. What had she just agreed to?

When they reached the drawing room, he let go of her. “Caro is coming to the assembly. I have persuaded her.”

Drew looked up, his mouth open and his eyebrows lifting. But he said nothing.

For years Drew had encouraged her to broaden her horizons. He would be happy that she was going.

Mary stood. “Oh, I am so glad. We will have fun.” She gave Caro a sisterly embrace, full of excitement.

~

The assembly rooms in Maidstone were above the coaching inn, and the area before it tonight was full of carriages when they arrived. They were late because Caro had delayed coming down from her rooms.

Rob had been kicking his heels in the hall for nearly an hour, wondering if he ought to go up. But in the end she’d appeared on the stairs, and he’d had to stop himself from staring as she walked down the last flight.

He’d never seen her in a ball gown. He’d never seen her attend a dance, so of course he had not… But she’d found a dress, or perhaps borrowed one of Mary’s. It was teal. The colour set off her golden hair, and as she came closer he noted how well it caught against the colour of her eyes too. The little amber cross necklace she wore rested in the cleft between her breasts.

“You look beautiful,” he’d said, and he would have offered his arm, but Drew offered his first, so instead Rob had escorted Mary to the carriage.

A footman opened the carriage door. Drew climbed out and offered his hand to Mary to help her down. Then Drew held his hand out to help Caro. Her shawl slipped from her shoulder a little as she left Rob in the carriage. Her hand was shaking when she pulled her shawl back up. She breathed in deeply as she took Drew’s hand and climbed down, and breathed out as her foot touched the ground.

When Rob climbed out, he heard Caro’s next shaky intake of air.

She’d been sitting with her head lowered throughout their journey, her bosom lifting and falling with her measured breaths. He’d presumed she’d been fighting her fear, yet now it seemed to be overwhelming her.

When Drew let go of her hand, Rob took it and set her fingers on his bent arm, then pressed his hand over hers. She was shaking and her gaze darted about the carriages and people.

“We are beside you,” Rob whispered. Drew looked sideways at them as Mary rested her hand on his arm.

“Caro,” Drew encouraged them to walk ahead.

Caro shook her head. “You lead.”

“Caro…” Drew’s voice expressed concern. It was clear she was not comfortable.

“We will follow you,” Rob answered for her.

Drew had commented, only two days ago, on how much Caro had changed, how relaxed she was in Rob’s company. Rob had given Drew the same explanation he’d given Caro—it was probably due to him having so many sisters.

It said a great deal, though, that tonight she accepted his support—and she’d only come because he’d urged her. They had grown close. They were friends. He’d had a desire to see her laugh, and he’d achieved that weeks ago, but he still now longed to see her dance even more than he had at the beginning of the summer. Then it had been a fascinating concept. Now he wished his friend to be able to do as she pleased. To enjoy herself.

Pride swelled in his chest, on her behalf, because she had come this far, and yet he wished her to take more steps.

Drew walked ahead with Mary.

Rob’s hand pressed over Caro’s, urging her to keep going as they followed.

Caro’s fingers curved on his arm, grasping, as they stepped over the threshold of the inn.

“Upstairs, my lord, my lady, sir, ma’am.” The doorman directed them to the stairs.

Caro’s breathing fractured into short, sharp sounds.

Damn propriety. If others judged, they could go to hell. Rob let his arm fall and clasped her hand in his instead, willing her to be brave as they began to climb the stairs.

Drew glanced back at Caro over his shoulder, offering her a shallow smile. She was not looking up, though, her gaze was on the steps ahead of them, and she did not seem able to notice her surroundings.

Rob nodded at Drew, to say he would help her manage it.

But then she stopped. “I cannot.” She looked from Rob to Drew. “I cannot. Take me home. Please.”

Rob held her hand more firmly and looked at Drew, who had half-turned. “You go in. I will take Caro back outside for a moment. If she still wishes to go home, I will take her and have the carriage sent back.”

Drew looked at Caro, anxiety in his eyes, but she nodded. He smiled slightly, giving his cautious agreement, then turned away.

Voices rose behind them as others began to climb the stairs.

“Rob.” Caro’s fingers gripped his hand more firmly—clinging. “Please may we go?”

He turned and led her back downstairs, past the group who’d just entered. Her arm trembled, and her breathing became hurried, short gasps for air. It was not a mere lack of confidence, it was a very real terror, the sort of terror he’d seen when one of his younger siblings had woken from a nightmare and were still unsure of what was real and what was not. But he knew Caro’s nightmare was not imagined; it had been real in the past.

“We will walk this way,” he said, as they stepped back out into the night. The air was warm, humid and heavy.

She drew in a deep breath as he walked her away from the carriages.

A little further along the street the shadows cast by the moon dropped back into the churchyard. If they walked there it would be silent and they would remain undisturbed, and unobserved, while Caro had chance to calm herself.

Rob’s heart thumped hard, and compassion gripped tight in his chest as he walked with her. “This way.” He led her through the wrought-iron gate onto the stone pathway leading towards the church.

Once they were in there, the darkness consumed them, but it seemed to ease Caro, her hold on his hand softened and her breathing slowed.

“Caro…”

She did not answer and he could not really see her face.

“If I remember rightly, there is a stone bench over there. Shall we sit for a while?”

“My dress, Rob. I would not wish to ruin it.”

Of course, that was foolish, the stone seat would be soiled. “At least let’s move further back from the street, then.” He was suddenly very aware that drawing her out here, alone, in the darkness, was perhaps the wrong thing to have done. People might make assumptions and gossip. But she was a divorced woman with some freedom, not a young, sheltered woman. But even so, he did not wish to damage her reputation. It would be better if they were out of sight.

His fingers threaded through hers and he walked backward, pulling her slowly with him, relief swaying over him. At least she felt better. “Tell me why you became distressed?”

“It is irrational.”

Once they were on the far side of the ornate stone porch, they stood in a patch of moonlight and she looked at him with eyes that expressed an inability to understand or control how she felt. Fragility hung in the air about her, as her small hand held his, her fingers woven between his.

“Remember that I am the man you may tell things to, even if you have never spoken of them before. You told me you loved Kilbride. I did not judge. Explain this to me. It will help, I’m sure.”

“I do not even know why myself.”

“Then tell me what happens. Tell me what you think. How you feel.”

“It is just panic. Not even fear. But I suppose it is fear. It’s the thought of being surrounded and hemmed in, and… Then I see images from the past, flashes, moments of memory. But it’s not the memories that make it unbearable, but the feelings that accompany them.”

“What feelings?” His fingers squeezed hers in encouragement

“Rejection,” she said, quietly, her gaze falling to look at the stone pavement. “I suppose that is what I fear, rejection, humiliation—cruelty.”

“Caro…” Compassion lanced through his chest and his fingers lifted to her chin. She was so, slender and delicate.

He did not know if he lowered his head further or if Caro rose to her toes, but by some action their lips touched. Hers pressed against his, gently.

He hadn’t kissed a woman for over a year, but then he’d never really kissed a woman, not a woman like Caro. He’d kissed barmaids when he’d been at college, before he’d realised what those women really wished for, but no more than that.

Caro felt different, her lips were soft and gentle, tentative not urgent.

The barmaids he’d kissed had been seeking payment, or escape from a life of service—Caro sought nothing but the press of his lips against hers.

Her mouth opened against his lips.

The barmaids used to thrust their tongues into his mouth as they pressed against him, desperately searching for opportunities of escape. Once his eyes had been opened to the way of society, of class and rank, he’d never let those women degrade themselves with him again.

He stepped closer, his hand slipping to Caro’s nape, as need raced through his stomach.

Her arms came up about his neck as he tentatively pressed his tongue into her mouth.

His other hand braced her waist gently and her tongue stroked over his and danced around his elegantly.

The sensation in his stomach hardened, fisted and grasped at his groin too.

Her fingers combed into his hair, splaying across his scalp, bracing his head, as their tongues continued their exquisite dance.

He sighed into her mouth, the sound leaking from his throat, as he held her more firmly. He’d never had emotions like this for a woman. The desire to lay her back and do far more than kiss her was a hard pull inside him. But it was wrong.

He broke the kiss and looked down at her. The sound of their breaths filled the night air.

“Caro…” What the hell had he done, had he just made a muddle of this? “I’m sorry.”

She said nothing as her hands slipped from his hair. He held them. He had to make her understand that she need not feel afraid, so she could be free. “No harm will come to you here. You have my word. Drew is well respected. You will not be rejected or ill-treated.”

“I know my fear is irrational. I told you. I am not rejected by your family but I—”

“Then you must learn to believe it. I am here with you and I will not let you be rejected or harmed. I know you have courage. You are capable of this.”

~

Courage… He’d used that word to her before. He was the only person who had, and perhaps he’d enchanted her when they’d kissed, because she truly felt strong. “Will you stay with me?”

“Of course I will. There is no question of that.”

She pulled one of her hands from his and touched his cheek. The moonlight coloured his features silver, making his hair, his eyes and eyelashes darker.

He was young, beautiful, strong-natured, good-hearted—and he had kissed her.

Emotions played through her nerves, but they were not fear and panic, it was anticipation and longing that made her feel shaky—desire.

“Shall we return, then?”

No. She did not wish to return. She wished to stay here hidden in the darkness and kiss him, but she could not ask for that. “Yes.” Her fingers dropped from his cheek and her heart beat more strongly as they turned and began walking from the churchyard.

He walked briskly, as though he feared she might renege and his grip on her hand pulled her with him.

When they left the security of the dark churchyard, he let go of her hand and glanced at her, offering his arm instead. She held it firmly, her senses absorbing the strength of his lean muscle beneath his evening coat.

His hand lay over hers, applying a slight pressure as they walked on. She looked ahead at the inn’s door.

She still did not feel panic, her consciousness was on Rob’s arm and his hand over hers, as a desperate longing to experience a marriage bed again raged through her blood.

He slowed when they reached the carriages, then navigated her through a group of people who were arriving. At the entrance, the doorman bowed and lifted a hand, encouraging them to progress. Caro gripped Rob’s arm tighter as they crossed the threshold.

“As I said, you have courage, be brave,” he whispered as they climbed the stairs. She did not want his words of comfort; she wanted his kiss. It had been different to Albert’s, a genteel connection, respectful and considerate. Albert had kissed with force and intensity.

As they climbed the stairs her memories were not flashes from the past but flashes from moments ago in the churchyard. At the top of the stairs, he shepherded her into the busy assembly rooms. It was crowded with people, dancing and talking at the edges of the room, as a quartet played music on a dais at the far end of the hall.

Her chest tightened and awareness of her surroundings overtook any other thought. Rob’s hand lifted from hers and then his arm dropped. Her heart leapt to the pace of a canter.

“Your brother is over there, look. Remember your courage. Remember you have survived far worse than a simple assembly dance.”

Drew was in the corner to the left of the door. She took a breath and felt Rob’s hand hover at her lower back as she began to walk. He did not touch her, yet his hand protected her, ensuring no one might bump into her.

Drew watched her progress, a smile lifting his lips slightly. He’d been waiting for her, she could see, hoping she would find the courage to come in.

Relief lay an invisible cloak over her shoulders when she reached him, and Rob stood to one side of her, while Drew moved closer and protected her from the other side, as she stood with her back facing the wall.

“How are you?” Drew had been her sole comfort for years, she’d always looked to him for reassurance, and yet today his words stirred no feeling. It was Rob’s comfort she’d clung to.

She nodded, although in truth her nerves were as tight as a copper coil and she was fighting the urge to run.

Drew took one of her hands and squeezed it gently. “Bravo, Caro.”

“I think Caro could do with a drink,” Rob said. “Do you wish to come with me to the refreshment table?” Rather than be left here without him. He was so thoughtful.

“We’ll join you,” Mary answered.

They walked about the dancers, but when they reached the refreshments, Rob refused to let Caro take the lemonade. “No, drink this.” He handed her a glass of the rum punch. “For a little added courage.”

Drew passed Mary one too and she lifted her glass in a toast, smiling at Caro. “To first steps.”

“To putting on a brave face,” Drew answered, lifting his glass.

“To dancing,” Rob concluded, touching his glass to Caro’s before emptying it in one swallow.

She shook her head at his suggestion.

He leant to her ear. “I dare you.”

She shook her head again, but a smile caught her lips before she took a sip from her glass. The liquor flowed into her blood a moment later, warm and strong.

“Well, Mary and I shall dance the next,” Drew stated, “As I have come, I may as well indulge her.” He looked at Mary. “If you will indulge me, of course, sweetheart.”

“Of course I will. I shall not pass on such an opportunity.”

They smiled at each other, but then Drew looked at Caro. “If you will be happy here with Robbie?”

Her answering smile was to reassure him. “Go and make Mary happy. You deserve some fun.”

Drew took Mary’s hand as the music came to a close and they turned to find a set to join.

“Is dancing fun, then?”

Caro looked at Rob and her smile fell. She took another sip from her glass.

“You said, fun,” he pressed. “If you think it fun, you must enjoy it…”

She shook her head and lifted her glass to her lips once more. Rob’s fingers settled beneath it and tipped it higher. “A little more courage, I think. I shall have to get my brother Harry to make a drinker of you.”

She laughed despite herself, having taken an enforced gulp. A moment later she felt the heat of it in her limbs, making them a little heavier and more relaxed.

“I watched you at my brother’s, at John’s, at the party before I came to Drew’s, you watched people dancing, you watched me dancing as if you would like to dance, so why do you not?”

“Rob….” She could not explain.

“Tell me.”

But this was Rob, who never ceased pushing until she did explain.

“I do not wish to be stared at, to become a spectacle, and make a fool of myself.”

“People might stare, but it would only be because you are beautiful. But that is not the heart of your issue, is it?”

Her blood heated with the knowledge that he thought her beautiful, but his comment had not been flirtatious, he’d said it with a factual tone.

She took another sip of her punch, then placed the glass down. She did not want to drink too much. “My mother used to drink excessively. I have never been comfortable with liquor.” Caro changed the subject, clutching at anything to stop him seeking to persuade her. “I think it was an excess of alcohol that brought Drew and me into the world. I think she knows who Drew’s father is, but I think she cannot even remember mine.” It was a throwaway comment because she was panicking once more, and yet she realised she had perhaps given away too much of herself.

Pity caught in his eyes.

“Do not pity me for that. I came to terms with it long ago.”

“Then, what should I pity you for? What harm is there in telling me why you feel you cannot dance?” He was too perceptive and too forceful.

She picked up the glass again and drank the last of the punch. Then glared at him. “I feel trapped, I cannot be who I wish to be. I cannot do the things I want to do because I’m bound by the past—kept captive by it. I feel as though I have a glass prison cell about me, but it is of my own making.”

“Then break it. Dance the next with me.”

“Rob—”

“I cannot…” He mimicked her voice. “Only because you will not. But half an hour ago you believed you could not walk into this room. At the beginning of the summer you could not abide being in a room with me. You can do anything you wish. Dance.”

“You do not understand.”

“You have just told me it is you yourself who has created this gaol. You have had the courage to escape far worse. You may tell me tomorrow or the next day, or the day after that why your gaoler still has a hold over you, but tonight… dance.”

Can I? Everything he said was true.

Her heart thumped against her ribs. Could it be so simple?

The tempo of the music changed as the country dance came to a close and a waltz began.

Rob offered his hand. “I dare you to dance with me.”

He was a beautiful young man—and cruel and wonderful. His smile glinted in his eyes.

“Caro,” he said more formally, with a slight bow. “May I have the honour of this waltz?”

“You are a fool,” she answered.

“Perhaps.”

Oh, she had feelings for him. They consumed her when he smiled.

She accepted his hand, and he drew her away from the refreshment table, then lifted their joined hands and formed the hold of the dance as his other hand came about her. When he spun her out onto the floor, she was not aware of anyone else—it was only Rob in the room.

His hand and his fingers, at her back, steered her through the steps.

She’d always loved to dance. Then why had she not done so for years?

Because it was self-punishment, for failing her husband so terribly. But surely she’d done enough penance for the loss of her children. Perhaps now, Rob was right, she might let herself live again.

Guilt cut at her. Yet she could still love and mourn her lost children and not hide or deprive herself of the basic elements of life—dancing. She was dancing.

She looked into Rob’s eyes and forgot about anything except the music, the touch of his hands and the look in his eyes.

He did not speak, and she was glad he did not because it would have broken the magic. She was building new glass walls, ones about a palace in the sky. She smiled as the music skipped through her soul. It was a wonderful feeling; she had always loved dancing.

She was breathless when it came to an end, and stupidly disappointed as Rob walked her to the edge of the room, where they met Mary and Drew.

“Caro…” Drew said with emotion. “Will you dance the next with me? I shall willing make a cake of myself no matter what the dance is, if only to see you smile like that again.”

She actually laughed at him, the fear and the panic were not there; her restraints had gone.

After she’d danced with Drew, the physician who’d treated Mary through two pregnancies asked Caro to dance. Rob and Drew looked at her meaningfully, willing her to accept. Caro knew him, she had drunk tea with him at the house. She smiled and accepted his hand, though hers trembled, but as they danced her nerves eased. It was a fast, jolly dance and she glanced at Rob often. He was dancing with Mary, but he kept glancing over and smiling at her too. He had given her the courage to achieve this.

She was returned to Drew’s side, flushed and smiling. He stood beside a man she did not know. “Caroline, this is Mr Slade, he rents one of my farms. Mr Slade, this is my sister, Lady Framlington.”

The farmer bowed. “Would you care to dance with me, ma’am?”

Caro’s skin heated by a degree. Had he come to wait with Drew so he might ask? But it was merely a dance, it was what people did—she had forgotten so much of life.

“Indeed.” She offered her hand.

It became the pattern of the evening. She did not sit down. Each time a dance ended, another gentleman was introduced to her, and she danced with her brother and with Rob again too.

When they travelled home in Drew’s carriage, it was two in the morning, and she was tired and quiet, as a melee of emotions fought within her chest. But happiness was the first, that and hope, pride and wonder. But perhaps the pride was not for herself, yet for Rob. He had given her the courage; she would not have found it without him.

She was wonderfully, physically exhausted, yet she did not think she would be capable of sleep.

She looked from the dark landscape outside the window to Mary and Drew. Drew smiled at her, a gleeful smile, his hand clasping Mary’s, and drawing it onto his thigh.

He shook his head at her a little, as if in wonder. She had surprised him, but she had surprised herself.

She looked at Rob. He was sitting beside her, staring out of the window. She wished to hold his hand, but the gesture would be inappropriate. Even more, though, she wished to lean against his shoulder.

She wondered what he was thinking, if the memory of their kiss was still a gentle heat in his blood as it was in hers.

“It was a wonderful evening,” Mary said.

They all looked at her. “It was, indeed,” Drew agreed, and he usually hated such affairs.

Caro said nothing. She felt as if words might break her new glass castle in the air.

~

Rob leant back against the squabs in the carriage and returned his gaze to the outside, watching clouds cast their shadows across the moonlit fields. He was intensely aware of the heat radiating from Caro’s thigh, so close to his.

They had shared a kiss…

He’d not danced with anyone other than Caro and Mary; he’d not liked to in case Caro had needed him. But that had meant he’d had an entire evening to watch her. He’d become a little addicted.

Weeks ago his uncle had asked him what his weakness was. Perhaps his weakness was Caro. All night his thoughts had hovered on the feel of her mouth.

When they reached home, Drew handed Mary and Caro down, and Caro held Drew’s arm when they walked up to the first floor.

Rob walked behind them, speaking with Mary.

“I shall retire immediately, if you do not mind?” Caro said to them all.

“I will too,” Mary agreed.

“Then I shall retire as well,” Drew stated.

“Goodnight, then,” Rob responded, he was not tired. He would be unable to sleep. He kissed Mary’s cheek as Caro climbed the stairs, and nodded at Drew before they turned to their rooms.

He looked at a footman. “I shall go to the library. You may retire.” He picked up a candelabra and took it with him as he walked back downstairs.

In the library he stripped off his coat and his waistcoat and set them over the back of a chair, then pulled off his cravat and poured himself a glass of whiskey before occupying an armchair.

He shut his eyes and let his head fall back.

What had he done? Kissed her…

Bastard.

His blood hummed. Even now, the thought of that kiss made his groin heavy. He was thirsty, but not for the liquor, or any other liquid. It was a thirst to learn more, to find out how things might feel with Caro. He had always had morals. Always.

But God! I am tempted.

Would she be horrified if she knew what he thought?

He lifted his head and opened his eyes, then sipped the whiskey, seeking to regain the reins on his feelings. He’d never found it hard before; he’d never even been tempted. He’d been kissed by the barmaids, but no more. Their brash attitude had never appealed to him, and unlike Harry he’d never sought sexual experiences as trophies of his manhood.

But Caro had not kissed him out of the need those women felt, or for any other reason than their lips had come together. It had merely been a response to a friendship and closeness, which had been weaving about them for weeks. He’d asked for friendship, and he’d called her a friend, but he had known for days that it was becoming more than that. He did not feel a softness in his chest, or a tightness in his gut when he was with his friends.

When they’d waltzed he’d felt the muscle in Caro’s back shifting with her movements and her smaller hand in his with a sense of awe.

The door swung open. He looked up. All of the servants ought to be in bed.

It was his phantom. Caro. An apparition in a silk robe that was a deep red. Her blonde hair was plaited and hung across one shoulder. But there were wisps of golden curls left about her face. They gave her a halo.

His gaze dropped to her toes, which peeked from beneath the hem of her white nightdress, that hung lower than the red robe which she wore over it.

Something lanced through his groin. Was it lust? An emotion Harry spoke of that Rob had never felt.

“Caro?” He rose, although he half-expected her not to be real—he’d drunk more than usual tonight as he’d watched her.

But she was real. “Rob.” She came further into the room, her hands clasped together at her waist, and stood a few feet away. “I could not sleep and I heard you tell the footman you were coming downstairs. I wanted to say thank you.” She gave him a smile that made her glow.

“It is yourself you have to thank. You found the courage to break the invisible walls around you.”

“But I would not have done it without your persuasion.”

Her eyes shone in the light of the candelabra, looking at him through pale eyelashes.

He could not help himself. He lifted a hand, morals and self-discipline deserting him. He wished her closer. “Caro.”

She walked towards him, seeming to float like the phantom he’d first thought she was, and then his hands were at her waist and hers lay on his shoulders.

He was a little in his cups, the whiskey burned in his blood and heat clasped at his groin. Thirst. For more than liquor. “I think you ought to go back to your room.”

“Why?”

He shook his head. “You do not wish to know.”

“Tell me.” She was speaking as though this was the same as her fear. It was not.

“Caro, go back upstairs, please. I’m feeling very weak tonight.” His words urged her and yet his whiskey-guided hands still gripped her waist.

He was a bastard.

“Weak?” she breathed, looking at him with confusion.

He did not warn her again as lust reared its head and roared through him. Yes, he was weak tonight and now he understood what Harry spoke of.

This time, undoubtedly, the lead came from him. His lips touched hers as his hand braced the back of her head, while his other slipped to the curve of her lower back. His tongue pressed into her mouth in a firm, bold stroke.

Her mouth opened wider, compliant, and her hands told him she was willing as they slipped into his hair, bracing his head as she’d done in the churchyard.

He drew her closer, so her body pressed against his as his tongue danced with hers. His blood pulsed, heavy in his veins, as lust clutched in his groin, hardening as she pressed against him, rather than pushing him away.

The hunger inside him pulled and thrust, fighting for him to hold her more tightly, to be as close as he could come to her. Lust.

She broke the kiss. “Rob.” Her fingers combed through his hair.

“Caro.” He did not understand this, and his conscience cried out when she pulled his lips back to hers. But he did not heed it, he did not care for it anymore. He wanted to be closer still.

His hands clasped her bottom, sinking into her soft flesh through the material of her robe and her nightgown as his erection pushed against her stomach, trapped between them. It throbbed to do far more than touch. “Caro,” he breathed into her mouth, perhaps for permission, he hardly knew; he’d never done this, had never been like this.

His breathing became rapid as he slid one hand back up across the thin silk of her robe to grip her breast. It filled his hand, the weight of it resting in his palm. She had full, round breasts.

She broke the kiss, but probably because he’d stopped kissing her. Her fingers came forward and cupped his cheeks, cradling his jaw as his gaze met hers, her eyes saying, it is all right, you may touch me.

Giddy from the lust and the whiskey in his blood, his hazy gaze held on to the amber in her eyes as his fingers tightened and kneaded her flesh. Her nipple protruded into his palm.

“Why do you not speak?” He wanted her to stop him, because he’d drunk too much to stop himself.

“I do not wish to shatter this.”

His gaze fell to the hollow at the heart of her clavicle, where he could see her pulse flickering. The amber cross that hung below it lifted when she breathed in. Surely she ought to be panicking, but she was not.

Damn it. Damn conscience and morals, and doing right. He let go of her breast and lifted his hand, then touched where her pulse flickered. It rose in tempo.

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