The Secret Love of a Gentleman (2 page)

“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’d 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 they 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.