Page 29 of The Secret Love of a Gentleman
‘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 shoulder. ‘There’s no need for tears. You did wrong, but now you are going to do right.’
‘Would you like to hold my hand?’ Caroline said.
‘Or ride on my piggyback,’ Rob offered.
‘’ide,’ George chose, lifting his hands to Rob’s neck. Rob spun him to his back as George’s arms circled his neck. He caught up George’s legs, looping them over his arms at the elbows.
George peered over Rob’s shoulder.
Caro smiled at them both.
Rob’s patience was a wonderful thing.
‘You are so good with him,’ she commented when they walked on.
‘I have had plenty of practice. Remember the size of my family.’
‘My family were never close. 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. Drew and I were unwanted and ignored – for understandable reasons, as we are not theMarquis’s children.’ She was talking about things she never spoke of. But they had become friends and friends shared confidences. ‘I do not know who my father is. Neither does Drew.’
‘But the fault was your mother’s, not yours. Did the Marquis not judge her?’
She shrugged. 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. That was my mother’s view anyway. Fortunately for me, if Albert knew, he overlooked my birth. 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 am sorry, it is none of my business.’ His smile became apologetic.
But it was nice to feel comfortable to talk, and Rob never judged. ‘You may speak of it. My marriage was not always bad. I loved him.’ She still did because he was the only one who had shown her the intensity of feeling that felt like love, and her body and her soul had never forgotten it. ‘I was young when I met him. I suppose I idolised him. He was attentive and earnest. He courted me with devotion. He was determined to have me.’ She smiled as she remembered.
‘When we married…’ she met Rob’s gaze, ‘…things were wonderful. He never said he loved me, but I thought it was love, because he treated me so kindly. Things changed, in the second year, when…’ she could not form the words to mention the children, ‘…his interest waned, and he took on a mistress.’ Her memoriesdrifted to things she did not want to recall, and she fell silent.
‘Caro…’
She had stopped walking as well as talking. Her consciousness returned to the woodland walk, the sound of the birds and the dappled sunshine on the ground. She looked ahead and walked on. ‘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. ‘But in the beginning, yes, I consider it fortunate that I enjoyed that period of my life.’
He was silent.
She looked at George who 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. The months of the first year of our marriage and the period he courted me, they were the happiest of my life. He showed me the attention my childhood lacked.’
‘You need more happy years, then,’ Rob said bluntly.
‘I have not anticipated them.’ A lump caught in her throat. She never thought of her unhappiness. She had spent years being angry with herself for her failure to succeed as a wife, disappointed and ashamed. But to be unhappy was unfair on Drew. He did so much for her. Yet now Rob was helping her discover a new happiness, she realised how unhappy she had been.
She swallowed, then laughed briefly at herself. ‘Why am I telling you this? I have not even told all this to Drew.’ She laughed again, dispelling the melancholy feeling wrapping about her heart.
‘I am glad you feel able to. We have truly become friends, haven’t we?’
