The Secret Love of a Gentleman

by Jane Lark

  Before she turned away, she saw her words strike. Albert’s eyes widened, and the line that creased down the centre of his brow when he became angry formed. He was ready to strike her. “You cannot hit me here…”

  The sharp, sudden light of thought in his eyes implied his realisation that she was no longer cowed by him. He had no control over her any longer, and he had finally realised it, just as she had.

  She turned and walked away.

  When she reached Rob’s family, the air about them was full of whispers as people spoke behind fans and hands.

  “Caro.” Drew was there.

  “I would like to go home,” she said, quietly.

  “Now?”

  “Yes.” Her fingers shook as she touched his arm. He gripped them gently. “Rob has gone. I said what you asked me to, and he has left.”

  Drew looked at her with sympathy. “It was the right thing to do.”

  It did not feel right anymore. She was numb no longer, her heart was ripping in two. “I do not wish to go back to Pembroke House. I wish to go home. I cannot stay here. These people are his family. He ought to feel able to visit, and he will not if I am here.”

  “We cannot go tonight, Caro, it is too late, and it would look odd.”

  “Caro…” Mary stood beside them.

  “She wishes to go home, to the estate.”

  “Oh Caro, I am sorry Lord Kilbride has spoilt this for you.”

  I do not care about him. The words echoed through her head, and yet as with Rob, it would be easier to let Mary think it.

  “We will take you to Pembroke House now and leave first thing tomorrow morning. Mary, will you stay with Caro while I arrange for the carriage to be brought about?”

  “Come, we will tell John and Kate,” Mary turned her as Drew walked away.

  Caro endured a dozen farewells as Mary told her brother, John, her parents and others in the family that they intended to leave town, and through it all the pain in her chest intensified. Her heart was gone and in its place was a hole. Rob held her heart and he’d taken it with him.

  Chapter 30

  He knew, God, he knew, he’d broken a rule. He’d sinned. He’d lain with a woman and begun an affair. Curses ran through his head as he gritted his teeth on the anger in his blood. He’d known such a thing would be foolish, and yet he’d done it because that woman had been Caro.

  He walked quickly, his strides long.

  God I have been a fool.

  Harry and all of his cousins would laugh at him if they knew he’d lain with a woman, his first, and fallen for her.

  You will love the first woman you have lain with, of course you will, but it will be a love that is unlikely to last. It is shallow, not real at all.

  That was not true. His feelings were not shallow, they were ripping at his soul. She’d betrayed him. Treated him ill. Good, vulnerable and delicate, beautiful, Caro.

  The night was dark, there were no stars, and the moon must be hidden behind a layer of clouds, but there were gas lamps in the streets, and some light from the windows. Yet if he walked past a theatre he ought perhaps to pay for a link boy to light his way. The darkness suited the emotion in his soul, though. His whole life felt shadowed.

  He’d begun to see a future for himself this morning, as a tenant farmer. He would not need any capital to begin if he were to rent a farm. He need not borrow from anyone, and he would have a home with it that would house a wife. It would also provide him with an income and a living that might be managed from a distance so that he could sit in Parliament. His plan had developed as he’d spoken with Drew earlier. He’d decided to rent a farm near a place where there would be a vacant seat in the House of Commons, and then he’d stand for it. But without Caro the image was void. Nothing felt right without her. He did not even wish to think about his plans for politics without her.

  She might have lived in the country too and never come to town. She need never have faced Kilbride again, and yet she’d not denied that she intended going to him.

  Damn. Damn her. Why was she such a fool? Why make that choice?

  Because I am inferior.

  Bloody hell! He longed to hit someone or something, but instead he released his hands from the fists they’d been curled into for the last half hour and slid his hands into his pockets.

  It was cold. He’d dressed believing he would be riding in the carriage; he had no outer coat, and he’d left his hat.

  He could not believe that Drew had told her that he’d been a virgin! He’d thought Drew a friend. “Go to hell, you bastard!” Rob said the words aloud.

  Inferior. The word rang through him like a bell tolling. It was the truth, and she’d seen it. He was inferior to Kilbride, and inferior to all other men, because he’d saved himself until the moment he’d lain with her.

  Damn her.

  His footfalls echoed as he walked across an empty street. On the far side the street was so dark he could not even see his feet—in the same way that he could not see his future. For all he knew he had none. Caro had taken hope and happiness from him. If she thought him unworthy, then what cause was there? He could carouse like his cousins and waste John’s gifts on wine and women. Who would care? No one within his family, and certainly not Caro.

  A sharp pain gripped in his gut. But the problem was that he would care, because behaviour like that was not within him. He would not do that, yet nor would he ever marry. He’d reached out and been burned.

  Perhaps he ought to become a bloody monk.

  A strangled laugh broke from his throat as he turned a corner.

  Crack. Something hard and heavy struck the back of his head and Rob fell. Then a boot smashed into face. He lifted his hands to try and protect his head, but the kicks came too fast, and he was dizzy and disorientated from the first blow.

  When he raised his hand, something solid and cold, metal, struck it, and a sharp pain lanced up his arm. Then the same solid implement struck his leg. Bile lurched into his throat as the bone broke. He vomited on the pavement.

  “The gentleman said to tell you to leave his possessions alone.”

  Rob’s uninjured arm lowered and a searing pain pulsed through his body from his injured leg. His hand moved instinctively to grip it.

  Another hard blow hit his head.

  Chapter 31

  “Hey! There’s a toff over ‘ere!”

  The shout dragged Rob back from the darkness.

  The voice was a heavy working man’s pitch.

  Where the hell was he?

  Rob’s head throbbed, as though he’d been struck, and a bitter taste filled his mouth. He’d been attacked… He groaned as he tried to lift his arm and found it swollen and immovable. A violent pain shouted in his head.

  “Governor…” The man was squatting or kneeling near him, but Rob could not see, his eyes would not open.

  “He’s been robbed, he ‘as,” The woman’s voice came from above him.

  A moan left Rob’s lips. God, he was in so much pain, and his throat was too dry to let him speak about the blood in his mouth.

  “It’s all right, governor. We’ll get you sorted. We’ll get you home.” The man said.

  “Where d’ you live, sir? Can you tell us?” the woman coaxed. She’d knelt or squatted down too, and her fingers touched his shoulder.

  Rob groaned, thinking through the racket that the pain was making in his head… Not his apartment, no one was there. Nor John’s. He did not wish to see Caro. “Bloomsbury Square,” he said on his breath. “Lord Barrington… The earl.” His chest screamed with pain, and his face, and his shoulders. He felt like every bloody bone was broken.

  “Get a cart!” the man shouted, standing.

  Four men moved Rob onto a piece of tarpaulin and then they all took a corner and lifted him from the pavement as he cried out in agony. The damned pain roared within him with every jolt. But as they slid him back onto the cart the pain from his leg not only roared but burst, splitting his head with anguish. He fell in
to darkness as he retched.

  ~

  When Rob woke, someone was dropping something bitter into his mouth. It ran across his tongue. It tasted bloody foul.

  He sat up, or tried to, as his hand sought to swipe away whatever it was, but neither his body nor his hand moved as he wished, and a pain-filled groan escaped his lips.

  The liquid, whatever it was, spilled on to his chest, soaking through his linen shirt.

  “Robbie.” A woman’s voice, a familiar voice. His Aunt Jane’s.

  He tried to open his eyes. Only one opened, slightly. A damp cloth settled on his brow.

  “Robbie.” His Uncle Robert.

  He tried to sit up again, pressing an elbow into the mattress. The world span full circle and bile rose in his throat.

  “Do not move. Lie down.” His aunt’s cool fingers rested on his shoulder. He caught a glimpse of her through his half-open eye.

  His uncle came forward. “You were set upon by footpads last night. Some people found you this morning and brought you here. Just stay still, Robbie, you are a mess. I’ll send for your parents. They are at John’s, but the men who brought you here said you gave this address.”

  He thought Rob confused.

  “Do not worry.” His uncle’s hand cupped the side of Rob’s bruised face, “They will come—”

  “No.” It hurt to say the word, his lips were swollen and his jaw bruised. “Do not tell them…” He would not have Caro know of this. How would this look? He could not even protect himself. It would only solidify her view of him, too young to care for himself, let alone her. Inferior. That bitter word. She would pity him and he would not endure that.

  “Rob.” His uncle leant forward, his fingers slipping into the open palm of Rob’s right hand, as his thumb gently touched the back. Even with the lightness of his touch, Rob flinched. His hand was bruised too. “I have sent for a surgeon. You’ve been badly beaten. But your mother will never speak to me again if I do not tell her that her son has been hurt. They need to know. You will not be healed for weeks.”

  “Then tell them, but they must tell no one else.”

  “Rob…” Jane breathed in complaint.

  “No one else.”

  “Your brother—” his uncle began.

  “No one,” Rob cried on a note of pain, leaning upward.

  His aunt pressed her hand to his arm. “Lie back, Robert will do as you wish.”

  He let go of Rob’s hand. “I will go to John’s myself and ensure the news is not shared.”

  Uncle Robert was Rob’s favourite uncle. When the old Duke had been alive, before John had inherited, Rob’s family had stayed here when his parents came to town, when Rob had been a child. Rob had always felt less out of place here. Uncle Robert’s heir, Henry, was younger than Rob, and unrelated to Rob’s Pembroke cousins on his mother’s side.

  As his uncle walked away, his aunt pressed a hand on his arm. “Drink some of this laudanum. It will ease the pain until the surgeon comes, and it will make it easier when he sets your hand and leg.”

  Sets…

  Heaviness and burning resonated from one side.

  “Let me lift your head a little.” Her palm settled beneath his head.

  He flinched as her fingers touched a wound.

  “Sorry, can you open your lips a little more?”

  His jaw was stiff and his lips felt triple the size, but he did so. Jane tipped a spoonful of the bitter medicine onto his tongue. He swallowed.

  “All will be well,” Jane said quietly. “Lie back and rest. Your mama and papa will be here soon.” She sounded bewildered by his desire to be here and not at John’s. She could not understand. But then, Rob did not wish her to.

  He shut his eyes. In moments the darkness and the drowsiness from the medicine claimed him.

  ~

  “Son…”

  Rob opened his eyes and moved. In one eye his vision was clearer, yet the other was still swollen shut.

  “No do not try to sit up, Rob.” His father was sitting beside the bed.

  “What happened?”

  Rob tried to shrug, but instead he flinched with pain.

  “Never mind,” his father said quietly. “Your eyes are black. You look like hell. Do you want me to get a mirror and show you?”

  “How awful I look… No.” His throat was dry and his voice rasping.

  “The doctor thinks they cracked four of your ribs, and he has splinted your hand and your thigh. Both are badly broken.”

  And Rob had not even woken… Jane must have given him a large dose of laudanum.

  “You will not be exploring your future for a while,” his father said in dry, bitter humour.

  Rob lowered his head in a slight nod.

  “Your mother and I will stay here with you.”

  A laboured breath drew past Rob’s lips as he tried to shake his head.

  His father’s hand lay on his shoulder. “Your uncle told me you do not want the others to know, yet your mother took one look at you and has gone outside to weep rather than cry before you. She will not leave your side once she has recovered from her tears.”

  He did not wish his mother upset, not due to him.

  The door opened. Rob looked across the room. It was her. She held a handkerchief and her eyes glistened with tears as she sniffed.

  He moved to rise again, but his father pressed his shoulder, urging him to stay still.

  She cried, a sob escaping her lips, as his father rose from the chair and let her sit.

  “I do not know what to say to you,” she said quietly. “We should not have let you come to London alone.”

  “He is one and twenty. The lad has a life to begin. You cannot keep him on a leading rein all his life, Ellen. This could have happened at any time. It is nought to do with his age.”

  Rob shut his eyes.

  “Your mother will worry; it is what mother’s do, and I will worry, but I will aim to ensure that neither of us smothers you.”

  Rob looked at them again, his father’s hand was on his mother’s shoulder.

  Rob coughed painfully. His father lifted Rob’s head as Jane had done and held his handkerchief to Rob’s lips. When he took it away there was blood upon it.

  His father looked at it, then crushed it in his hand.

  His mother reached for a glass, which stood on the side. “Here.” She held it to his lips, as his father lifted his head once more. The water was cool and refreshing. It washed the bitter taste from his mouth.

  He shut his eyes when his father lowered his head. Caro’s image hovered in his mind’s eye, but not the Caro of recent weeks: Caro in the summer, when they had taken the woodland walk with George.

  ~

  Over the next days, whenever Rob woke, someone was there to help him drink or eat, or with whatever else he needed.

  Then, as the days progressed, his mother or his aunt would sit and read to him if they were beside him, or his father and uncle would talk, while he drifted in and out of sleep, still sore and bruised and riding on the dizzying relief of laudanum.

  Yet the hours he lay sleeping were spent with Caro. In his dreams they were together as they had been in the summer, and as they had been in his rooms.

  But after three weeks, he was tired of sleeping and spending the days unaware. He wished to be able to think clearly. He could not lie here forever looking back at what was not to be. When Jane opened the bottle of laudanum on the side, he gripped her wrist to stop her. “No more.”

  “But you must still be in pain.”

  “I shall live with it.” His face was no longer swollen, though it probably still had dark- purple and yellow stains from the bruising. He’d seen the bruises on his arms and on his sides, and legs, and so he could imagine his face.

  In the hours that followed, the pain was overwhelming. Even his blood ached, as he shivered. His mother sat beside him, replacing the damp cloth on his forehead.

  “The doctor said you ought to reduce the laudanum slowly,” she mur
mured, for about the sixth time.

  He did not care, the drug made him feel half dead. He did not like it. He wished for his awareness back: at least let his mind be free of the splints, even if his body could not be free yet.

  His father sat up with him through the night as Rob continued to shiver and drift into sleep, then woke with gruesome visions in his head. And then the visions were not dreams any more but bizarre illusions that he saw when dawn broke. At one point his bed became a carriage, and the horses had been spooked, and it was racing out of control. Then he saw and heard a thunderstorm in the room, and people were gathered in a ballroom whispering in a corner.

  It was late, dark, when the visions ceased. It must have been two days since he’d refused the drug. He lay, still staring at the shadows the moonlight cast across the ceiling.

  His mother sat in a chair beside his bed, her hand holding his, but she was asleep. He did not move, he did not wish to wake her; so he lay silent, wondering how his life had come to this. He’d walked a steady road forever, never really stumbling, and then he’d stayed with Mary and become someone he did not know. A man, he supposed. What had happened between him and Caro had changed him, and what had happened to him in that dark street had changed him. He saw things through different eyes now.

  He slept when dawn broke through the curtains, without dreams, even though there was a constant hum of pain.

  When he woke, the clock on the mantel across the room chimed midday and his mother brought him chicken broth to try and eat. He insisted then that she, and Aunt Jane, help him sit up. He had them place pillows behind him and tried to feed himself. He was tired of being an invalid.

  His mother set the bowl on a tray on his lap and gave him the spoon. He was right-handed, but his right hand had been broken, and so with a shaky left hand he fed himself. He spilt it a couple of times, but he did not care. He wished to become independent again. His father sat with him in the afternoon, and Rob slept once more. Then his uncle came too, and the two of them talked while Rob lay with his eyes closed and let the sound fill his soul. His father’s voice was a part of home.

  When he woke the next morning he felt stronger, and his mother brought buttered toast with honey, which had been his favourite as a child. It made him laugh, but laughing hurt his ribs and made him cough.