Page 28 of The Secret Love of a Gentleman
‘I have it!’ he cried, when he picked up the toy boat.
‘You are silly, Robbie,’ Caro called, breathless with laughter.
George was in so many fits of giggles, he struggled with his task of holding the coat.
As Robbie walked, less dramatically and humorously, out of the water, he smiled at Caro. ‘Call me Rob, please. Robbie is so childish. I will never persuade my brothers and sisters to stop calling me that, but my friends never do.’
Friends. Had they achieved that connection already? She did feel as though they had.
He stepped out from the pond, his soaked trousers plastered to his legs.
‘I will take the boat inside. You may have your boots back.’ She held them out.
His smile tilted to one side. ‘Thank you,’ he said as he swapped the boat for his boots. ‘May I have my coat, young master coat-keeper?’ he asked George, and took his coat back. ‘Now, as I am soaked and would like a change of clothes, we shallgo back to the house. I imagine your mama and papa have come back and are looking for you anyway, George.’
They walked together across the lawn with Caro holding one of George’s hands, while his other gripped his boat, and Rob carried his boots, with his coat hanging over his forearm.
When they reached the house, Rob excused himself and ran upstairs ahead of them, leaving wet footprints on the stairs.
Caro followed him upstairs more slowly with George.
15
Caro had spent her time very differently in the last few weeks. She would spend most of the day playing with George and Rob, while Rob thought up silly games. Then in the evenings she would dine at the table and afterwards sit in the drawing room with Rob, Drew and Mary, where they would converse, play a four of cards, read or sing.
It was probably the strangest period of her life because it was the most normal she had ever felt. She and Rob often talked. He offered his arm when they walked anywhere together, and she accepted it with no flutter of nerves. Some evenings, he sat beside her at the pianoforte to turn the music for her as she played, and on rare occasions, if the song desperately needed a baritone he would concede and sing a duet.
She did not feel like a parasite, or isolated, she felt alive. She was happy. She found reasons to laugh every day and smiled often.
‘Uncle Bobbie!’ George protested gleefully, as his uncle captured him and picked him up. George’s legs continued running in mid-air.
‘I caught a little monkey.’ Rob grinned at her. ‘I am not sure exactly what species it is, though.’
George wriggled. ‘Aun’ie Caro!’ he complained, begging her to make Rob put him down.
They were taking George for a walk, leaving Mary and Drew to enjoy some peace with Iris. The path was a circular route about the edge of the garden. It wove through a woodland, creating a fashionable wilderness walk. It did not have the orchestrated views of Albert’s vast gardens, but it was pretty. Birds sang from the branches above, and the summer breeze swept through the leaves, which shaded them from the sun. While butterflies fluttered through the air, adding more bright colours to the occasional planting that lined the route.
Rob had left his coat and waistcoat behind because the day was hot, but it did not bother her, they were used to being informal while playing with George. He had rolled his shirt sleeves up too because he was sweating in the heat.
‘Put me down, Uncle Bobbie!’ George wriggled harder.
‘When you can behave, little monkey. You were told not to run.’
George kicked out, complaining. The heat was making him tired and grumpy, which is why they had come for a walk in the shade.
Her legs slashed at her petticoats as she strode after them, trying to catch up. Her bonnet, hung from her neck by its ribbons, bouncing against her back. It was not fair that Rob could strip off layers and she could not.
Rob stopped, waiting for her to catch up.
When she reached him, she ruffled George’s hair.
‘Aun’ie Ca’o,’ he whined.
‘Tyke,’ Rob said, turning George and sitting him at his hip,revealing a glimpse of the skin at his waist as his shirt tails pulled up from his trousers.
Rob braced George’s chin between his fingers, looking him in the eye. ‘Now, George Framlington, you are not to run ahead. There is a stream further along, and if you tumble into that and drown, your mama and papa would string me up. You are 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, and nodded.
