The Secret Love of a Gentleman

by Jane Lark

  ~

  Rob walked out of Pembroke House with Harry. He’d told Mary and his father that he was going out on an errand for medication, having spoken to the doctor. But there was no medicine that would help Caro—except perhaps for her mind to be free from any fear of Kilbride.

  “Where are we going?” Harry asked as he jogged down the steps while Rob hobbled, although his limp was becoming far less noticeable. He hoped to hide it when they found Kilbride.

  “To his home first, and if he is not there to wherever it is we may find him.”

  “Will your leg hold up if we walk?” Harry gripped Rob’s shoulder.

  Rob glanced over at him and smiled when Harry’s hand slipped away, they were entirely opposite in so many ways and yet there was a closeness between them that ran deeper than a conflict in morals. That was why he’d wished to have Harry with him—they had always been there for each other in times of trouble throughout their school and college years. “It is getting stronger, it would, but we will take a hackney because I wish to be quick, and if he is not at home, I do not want to be walking about London like a fool. Come on, we will walk to the next square and pick one up so no one within the house sees and wonders why we have not used John’s carriage.”

  “This subterfuge is not like you, Rob.”

  “I have discovered a lot of new things that were unlike me since the summer. Like I can feel jealous, angry and possessive as hell.”

  His brother laughed. “You…”

  “Me,” Rob grinned. “Women do that to you. They take you to extremes.”

  “The women I know only take me to one extreme.”

  “You only stay with them for a few hours. It is not the same.”

  “At least I know how to avoid making them pregnant. I would not be fool enough to do that.”

  “No, you will catch the French disease.”

  “God, you are so naïve. There is a thing called a condom. It is made of pig’s bladder. You use it as a sheath to protect yourself from a whore and having a child.”

  “Is that all you think of the women you sleep with? Whores.”

  Harry smiled. “That is what they are, and I am merely paying for the service they offer, as I’ve told Papa every time he yells at me about it. Better that than I defile young ladies.”

  “Your morals are twisted.”

  “And yours are broken. You cannot preach to me now you have impregnated the family’s one ward.”

  Rob lifted a hand to hail a hackney as Harry laughed.

  “You should have come to me if you wanted to have sex with her, and I would have told you how to avoid a child.”

  Rob glanced at Harry as he climbed into the small carriage, and jested. “My younger brother, the font of all knowledge.”

  “When it comes to bedroom sport, yes, and where you are concerned, definitely, because you knew nothing and look at the position you have landed yourself in.”

  Harry tumbled into the seat beside Rob, as Rob leant back into the squabs. “I have not landed myself in anything. I wish to be with Caro. It is called love. Admittedly it was unplanned, it evolved, and it has continued evolving. Yet I am still wiser than you, because while you may know all about bedroom sport you know nothing about love.”

  “I do not wish to know. That knowledge you may keep. John has agreed to pay a commission for me when I am done at Oxford. What will I need with love? It would be a burden to have a wife when I become a captain in a regiment. You may keep your wife. I am happy with my whores.”

  Rob shook his head. Harry was irresponsible, but unchangeable. He’d endured numerous lectures from their father; none had touched him. He never changed his behaviour. But now Harry’s rebellious nature was exactly what Rob needed.

  “I have no idea what we will walk into,” Rob said more seriously. “I am taking a gamble that with the two of us together, and no space to claim it might be footpads, that Kilbride will not attack us, but I do not know.”

  “I should have my fists ready, then. Had you told me, I would have brought a knife.”

  “This will not be a tavern brawl, Harry. I intend to call him out.”

  “That is against the law and a thing of two decades ago,” Harry glared, with a look which said, are you are mad?

  “It is that or I ask him to shoot against me at Mantons or I fence with him or spar with him in a club. It would not be the same, and I hope he will be eager enough to shoot me that he will disregard all else.”

  Amusement growled in Harry’s throat when he looked out the far window. “I have had you wrong all these years. You are madder than me.” He looked back at Rob. “I cannot believe you wish to make yourself a shooting target.”

  “I will make myself as small a one as I may.”

  “And then you are able to fire.”

  “And then I may fire.”

  Harry shook his head. “Let us hope that he is a bad shot.”

  “He has to accept the duel first.”

  When the hackney pulled up before Kilbride’s town mansion, the driver knocked on the roof. Harry climbed down, then held the door for Rob.

  “Wait for us.” Rob said to the driver as he paid him their fare.

  When Rob climbed the steps, he thought of Caro’s small feet upon them. She must have climbed these steps the first day she had wed, and many days throughout her marriage. When she had first married, she must have skipped up the steps. She would have been three years younger than him and Kilbride had been nearly thirty. Her steps must have become heavier with the loss of each child, and with each beating.

  It was a foolish distortion of society that they believed it acceptable for women to bear the age difference but not men.

  Rob knocked on the door, his strike firm. He was determined to hold his ground and force this issue.

  The door was answered by a porter, which probably meant that the butler was engaged in the drawing room. Either the Marquis of Kilbride was at home or the Marchioness was.

  “We have come to speak with the Marquis in private.”

  “He is entertaining.”

  “Perhaps, but this is urgent. You may tell him that Robert Marlow is here.”

  “And Harry Marlow.” Harry grinned as though this was a great lark.

  Rob was suddenly swamped by his sense of inferiority. The two of them were nothing compared to the place they stood in. Kilbride had power. The mansion was neither as big as John’s nor as showy and yet it was one hundred times larger than the small rooms Rob had rented.

  The plaster above them was painted with cherubs and gilded. Caro must have thought herself in heaven when she’d crossed the threshold—only to be transported to hell.

  No, he was not inferior; he was better than this man, perhaps not in the measure of possessions, but possessions did not matter, it was what lay in your heart that was the measure of a man. Poor or rich—it made no difference.

  “Wait here.” The porter walked away and pulled a tassel to call for a servant. A footman appeared from a door beneath the wooden staircase. The porter said something in a low voice, then the man went out as he’d come in, probably to tell Kilbride they were there.

  Rob’s heart began to knock against his ribs with a heavy beat.

  Caro would not wish him to do this. Nor would his father. But Rob was not doing this for Caro, not really, he was doing it for himself, to quieten the possessiveness and protectiveness. He needed to know that Kilbride would not touch them again; that he could keep his family safe. Yet the anger burning low in his stomach was also for revenge, revenge for all of Caro’s children this man had killed, and the years of life she’d lost in her glass gaol.

  It was madness, though, because if he was caught duelling, Rob would have to flee the country or he’d end up in a real gaol.

  …So he would not be caught.

  “That child…” Kilbride stated.

  Rob looked up as the insult echoed about the hall. Harry was looking at him not Kilbride, but Rob focused his attention on “
the monster”. Kilbride stood on the first-floor landing looking down.

  “Why have you come?” His hand skimmed along the banister as he began walking down.

  That hand had hit Caro many times.

  “I will speak when we’re in private.”

  “What can you have to say to me in private that might not be said before my servants?”

  “You will discover that.”

  Kilbride stepped from the bottom stair. He was shorter than Rob by inches, but broader by inches too.

  A footman, who had followed Kilbride down, crossed the hall and opened a door. “This way, then. Is that other boy joining us” He flicked a hand at Harry, who grew an extra inch with anger.

  Harry had never tolerated mocking. If anyone had said that at school, they would have been on the floor with Harry astride them and a fist in their face.

  Rob gripped Harry’s coat sleeve for an instant as they walked towards the open door. He wished this to be played on his terms. He did not want Harry’s temper flying.

  Rob entered the room behind Kilbride, Harry followed, and then behind them the door shut. Rob glanced about the room. The walls were lined with books and in the centre of the room was a round table with a large globe upon it.

  Behind Kilbride, above the mantel, was a painting of Venice. Of course, like John and Drew, Kilbride would have done the grand tour.

  “Have you come to ask me to play a game with you?”

  Rob’s temper soared, but he would not allow it to control him. “You might call it that, if you like to play games with pistols. You have set your men on me, beaten Caroline and kicked your defenceless children out of her, and yet you look down on me. I think that strange when you have not been man enough to face me and fight.”

  Kilbride looked lost for words.

  “I am challenging you to a duel.”

  “That is illegal.”

  “Who cares? I do not. Are you a coward, then? I am offering you a chance to stand on a field with me and take aim at me. In return I ask you to allow me to do the same. Are you man enough for that?”

  Kilbride had stilled; there was no bravado in his expression now. He was racing though his options. Reject the duel and he would look weak, accept and he might die. Did he have the courage? The look in his eyes changed, as though he was weighing up the likelihood of his death, or rather the potential skill of his shot.

  “Very well.”

  Rob wished to yell for joy. He had not wholly believed Kilbride would take the challenge. He’d believed the man a coward. “Then we will meet in the fields before Windsor, on the edge of the river. Tomorrow. At dawn. Turn off the road at the White Swan Inn. We will duel at sunrise.”

  Rob turned away. There was nothing more to say. Harry pulled the door open himself and they both walked out.

  The porter opened the front door.

  As they descended the steps outside, Rob almost achieved a jog.

  Harry slung an arm about Rob’s shoulders, with brotherly pride, before they climbed into the hackney.

  Rob glanced at him. “You know this will not be easy. I do not know how good a shot he is, or whether he will simply bring the runners, or whether he will instead send a dozen men to beat us both.”

  “Then we will take a dozen loaded guns.” Harry winked.

  Rob laughed.

  “And if he brings the runners, we will take one of Uncle Robert’s dogs and claim we were merely there for a walk and Kilbride is mad.”

  “You are mad,” Rob answered.

  “And I would guess the Marquis of Kilbride has far too much pride not to come himself and alone, so he might do the deed now the challenge has been set. He would know himself a lesser man than the one he calls a child if he does not accept your offer.”

  “Thank you for coming with me. Your sense of humour and your blind stupidity are just what I need. Anyone else in our family would be telling me to cease this foolish notion.”

  “Not me,” Harry laughed.

  Chapter 46

  Caro lay in the bed looking pale and weak. She’d woken while Rob had been out and asked after him.

  “Have you felt our daughter kick again?” he asked as he walked across the room.

  “Your mother said you went out.”

  Rob looked at his mother, who sat on the far side of the bed. She rose as he looked back down at Caro. “Not for long. I wished to arrange things for tomorrow.”

  “Will tomorrow happen now?”

  “Have you bled any more?”

  “No.”

  “Then we will see what tomorrow brings. I have asked the doctor to call early so he might advise on how we may take you to the church. Perhaps in a bath chair.”

  A choked sound of humour slipped from her lips and she held her stomach. “Do not make me laugh, it jolts me.” Her eyes widened. “She kicked.”

  “You have decided it is a girl, then” his mother said. She must have been reading aloud to Caro—she held a book with her thumb marking a page.

  Caro looked at her. “Rob has decided, and if it is a boy, when it is born, he will hold it against him that his father called him a girl.”

  Rob laughed, glad to hear her speak of the child living. She held out a hand to him. When he took it he leant to kiss her forehead. “Hello.”

  “Hello.”

  “Did you bring me medicine? Your Mama said you went to fetch some.”

  “I did, a maid will bring it.” It was a herbal tea he’d purchased so he might not return empty-handed. “He hoped neither woman said anything to the doctor.” Lord, he had turned from an intensely moral man into a man who was entirely immoral—he would lie to her—and today he had threatened to kill a man. But it was a violent man.

  He sat down next to her and pressed the back of her fingers to his lips.

  “I will leave you alone.” His mother smiled.

  “I missed you when I woke.” Caro said after the door had closed.

  He stroked the hair from her brow. “Sorry.”

  “I wish to marry you tomorrow.”

  “I wish to marry you too. I am sorry this has happened at all, but I am even more sorry it has happened now.”

  Her fingers separated and then wove between his as she smiled at him. “I am sorry.”

  “You have nothing to be sorry for, Caro. Do not apologise for what is not your fault.”

  He leant his elbows on the bed and pressed the back of her hand to his forehead. The doctor had said he might lose her. He would not allow it to happen.

  His free hand lay on top of the covers over her stomach. “Is she kicking now?”

  “She has not since I laughed.”

  He was tired, he’d gone to bed late and risen early.

  “Would you read to me for a little while? I feel better then. It stops me thinking. I would guess your mother left the book she was reading next door.”

  “I’ll fetch it.” He rose, but when he walked into the other room he was besieged by emotions he’d subdued all day: fear, shock, sadness. Tears ran as he walked across the room. He could not stop walking because she would be listening to his footfalls. He wiped the tears away with the cuff of his morning coat, then stripped that off to give himself more time to regain his composure. The book was on a table by a chair. He picked it up. Frankenstein. It was an odd choice.

  He walked back into the bed chamber. “Why this?”

  “It is absorbing, it is filling my mind with other things than my own sorrow.”

  Then he should read it and let it absorb his thoughts too.

  “She is kicking.” Caro held her hand out for his.

  When he reached her, she took his hand and lay it flat over her stomach. He felt the jolt. “Yes, I feel it.” The reassurance slipped through his soul.

  “I have sung to her at night, so she knows my voice, but she will not know yours.”

  “She will learn it now as I read, although I would have picked a less gruesome topic for the first story I read to my daughter.”

/>   Caro laughed. “I love you.”

  “And I love you. Now lie silent and still so our daughter has space to kick, and a chance to hear my voice.”

  She smiled. Rob felt as if his heart was weeping as he read. He could not bear to lose her. Or their child.

  When Drew and Mary came to say goodnight to Caro, Drew’s hand settled on Rob’s shoulder before Rob had chance to stand. “How are you?”

  “Tired and beleaguered. But Caro is happier now we have felt the child move frequently.”

  Drew smiled. “There is no denying you are good for her.” He turned to Caro as she held out a hand to him.

  Rob rose and moved out of the way. “Caro, I will go back to my uncle’s.”

  He glanced at Drew. “The doctor is to call at nine to assess if Caro is well enough to come to the church and, if so, how best to transport her safely. We wish to be married, but neither of us would risk the child. I will leave that situation for you to solve. Send word to me if she is unable to reach the church and I will come here.” He turned to Caro. “But if you are well enough I will see you at eleven at the church.”

  She nodded.

  He leant past Drew and kissed Caro on the lips. Her hand reached to the back of his head and her fingers ran through his hair when he pulled away. “Goodnight.”

  “Goodnight.

  Chapter 47

  Rob smiled when Harry opened the door of Pembroke House, but it was a nervous smile. It was still dark and Rob had not gone near the door but waited, seated on his curricle, at the corner of the square.

  The servants would know that Harry had crept out, but none of them would question it. No antics were beyond Harry.

  Harry ran across the square at a slow jog, then gripped the bar by the steps and leapt up with the energetic ease Rob had known until a few months ago. “Are you ready to slay the dragon?”

  “I am indeed.”

  He’d not slept much last night. His thoughts had been of Caro. She was oblivious to the fact that she might be at risk, and he would not tell her, but for half the night a prayer had run through his head that both Caro and his daughter would live.