The Secret Love of a Gentleman (40 page)

When she’d walked along this street with Drew years ago, having fled from Albert hours before, she’d been terrified, afraid of the future and scared of the past catching up with her. Today her greatest feeling was hope. She felt truly free.

How strange was it that the first time she’d come here it was because of one man, who had hurt her, and now, the second time, it was because another man had helped her heal.

She’d come here in the summer last time, and the garden had been full of flowers, but now it was empty. The footmen were already there unloading the cart, and the woman who held the door was her housekeeper, the same woman who had been there years ago, and so Caro did not even feel as though she would be wholly alone. Instead excitement breathed in her chest.

As she walked up the path, she imagined how beautiful it would be in the summer, and her hand settled over her stomach. Her child would never see that, but Caro would talk of it tonight when she went to bed.

Chapter 35

Rob turned his head a little to the right so his uncle’s valet could shave the stubble from below his right ear.

He’d begun to feel human again, instead of a patient.

His hand had been freed from its splints. It was stiff and painful, though, and barely usable. He could not grip easily, so he could not shave himself, yet he had some movement in it and he could move himself about with the aid of crutches, or at least from the bed to the chair by the window. He still had the splint on his leg, but that too would be gone soon; the surgeon had agreed to remove it before Christmas. In less than two weeks he might wear trousers again. He was mortally sick of being clothed in a nightshirt and a dressing gown.

The door was being knocked on.

“Come in,” Rob called.

“Hello.” His father walked into the room, followed by his mother. They were no longer staying with his uncle. Life had to move on, and they had his brothers and sisters to think of. They had returned to John’s, but they called upon Rob every afternoon. His cousins had come home too, and so he was hiding here now.

“Good day,” Rob acknowledged brightly, without turning his head.

“You sound happy,” his mother said.

“I am counting down the days until the damned splints are off my leg.”

A towel was wiped about his chin and then his throat. “There you are, sir.” The valet bowed.

“Thank you, Archer.”

Archer gave Rob another bow and then walked from the room.

His mother’s fingers touched his jaw, and she leant and pressed a kiss on his cheek. “You look well.”

“Thank you. I feel well bar my damned leg. I am impatient to be in clothes and up.”

She smiled as she straightened, then glanced back at his father as his father pulled a chair over so she might sit near Rob. Then he brought a chair closer for himself and sat forward, his elbows resting on his knees and his hands clasped together, as though he had something to say.

He looked at Rob. He did have something to say.

“Jenny and Helen have been asking us numerous questions, Rob, about you, and about why we continue to go out each afternoon when we have only just returned. They are old enough to realise that the whole thing is odd. We wish to tell them.”

“No.”

“Just think of this from their perspective. We are confusing them and distressing them a little, and you know we have always been honest with you all.”

His mother blushed.

“Then wait two weeks. I will stay at John’s for Christmas. You may tell him I have had an accident in my curricle, or some such nonsense. I will have no splints and I will be able to climb into a carriage and get to John’s. No one need know.”

His father sighed. “Very well, I understand you do not wish Caroline to hear of this, so that is what we shall do.”

~

The thought of walking had been far easier than the act, and for the first two days of being without splints Rob favoured using the crutches, but he was determined to need no more than a stick by the time he went to John’s, which would be Christmas Eve, three days hence. So he forced himself to learn to balance on two sticks and then one.

He found it easiest to hold it close to his leg when he stood, so that he could put his weight through that, and when he walked he felt unsteady. Yet he believed he had established a style that made it look a lot easier than it felt, as long as he held himself straight and did not scrunch, and as long as he did not sigh when he sat down, and the pain was relieved.

When his father came to fetch him on Christmas Eve, Rob was ready. He’d dressed in outdoor clothes. He stood, gripping his stick. His father smiled. “Your mother is awaiting you at John’s and I think the girls have a little celebration in mind.”

Rob smiled.

“Uncle Robert has taken his family out, so that you may walk downstairs without them seeing.”

Rob laughed. He had been holed up here like some criminal hiding out in his uncle’s home for the last few weeks. He would be free now, and as he took his first, slow steps he felt as though he was walking into his life. He had signed all the legal papers to take over his uncle’s tenancy. All he needed to do was be well enough to travel to Yorkshire. There was a local seat coming up for election the following year. It gave him the time to get settled and to socialise in the local community so he would be known when it came time to campaign.

His father had agreed that in the weeks while Rob continued to recover at John’s he would go over everything about crop and animal management, and equally the management of those Rob would need to employ. He wished to be successful at farming as well as in politics. He needed the income, but success there would make him more credible in his political aims too.

It was a very slow descent down the flight of stairs to the ground floor, but Rob refused his father’s assistance and managed with the banister and the stick. At least he’d been in a room on the first floor.

Again he felt the impact of the fact he’d been secretly living within his uncle’s home, his cousins would have walked within a hundred yards of the door a dozen times a day since they’d returned here. He had never really thought of them. Numerous lies must have been told on his behalf the entire time he’d lain here.

When he reached the hall, a footman opened the door, and then there were more steps down onto the pavement. The carriage waiting there was his father’s. A man held the door. Rob handed his stick to his father and gripped the sides to help himself hop up the step, his right leg was still too stiff to climb the narrow, steep carriage step.

Inside he shifted over so his father might sit beside him, and then leaned back against the squabs with a sigh.

“Put your leg up on the far seat,” his father ordered.

Rob did so and then gritted his teeth as the carriage jolted into motion and it sent a jolt of pain through his leg. The bone may have set but the tissue about it was still healing.

His father talked of the family, of things his sisters had been doing, of his younger brothers’ jubilation when they’d returned from school, of Harry’s indifference when he’d come up from college.

Longing settled low in Rob’s stomach. He was looking forward to seeing them all. It made what had happened to him seem more distant. Yet he was looking forward to seeing Caro most. “Papa, after the Christmas celebrations have passed, do you think John would mind stabling my curricle and horses? I wish to drive. I will have more freedom then.”

His father nodded. “You know John will not mind.”

When they reached John’s, Rob had barely passed through the door when the madness began. Helen and Jenny came running down the stairs. “Robbie!”

“Now be careful, girls, he has had a fall from his curricle and his leg is injured quite badly, and so you must treat him with care.”

More hesitantly, Helen wrapped her arms about his neck and she gripped tight and held him hard. “I am so glad to have you home. Everyone has been wondering what you have been about.” She touched a point above his temple. “You have a scar, was that from your fall too?”

“Yes, I hit my head, as well as hurt my leg.”

The rest of the children then raced down the stairs in a tide as Rob fought to keep his balance and not appear as though he was in pain.

“Robbie!” They were all excited.

“Now let him through.” His father said, “or I will have to send you all away.”

If climbing downstairs had been hard, climbing back up a flight was triply so, and it seemed to take an age.

Once he’d prevailed and reached the top, he stopped, breathing heavily and looked along the hall to see Harry standing beside John. They were watching him with eyes that asked questions Rob did not care to answer.

“You cannot have been racing your curricle, I know,” Harry stated.

“I was not, the road was icy.”

“Did you turn it over?” John asked. “Have you lost your horses? Is it damaged?”

“No, both the curricle and the horses are fine, it was only myself that was damaged. I lost my seat.”

“And the horses did not bolt…” Harry queried.

“I do not remember. I was unconscious by that point. Now if I might reach the drawing room, John, I would be very grateful for a chair.”

The children chattered as they followed him, walking at the snail’s pace he set. His father walked beside them all with a smile hovering on his lips.

Yes, Rob felt good now. His life was beginning anew.

Even when his extended family called to take dinner at John’s, Rob did not feel any lower in spirits.

He did not eat with the family in the dining room, but was served his alone in the drawing room so he might rest his leg up on a stool. His cousin Henry came in with Harry, before the women had even risen from the table, and teased him over his stick, saying that his limp made him appear a dozen years older.

When his other first-born cousins returned with the men, Henry proudly told them all Rob was taking over his father’s property, on a lease. He made it sound demeaning, but Rob thought of all he hoped to achieve and did not care. He was certain it was something he would enjoy and it would give him an income and that was all that mattered. He did not feel inferior, he felt better than his cousins, because he aimed to achieve far more than them. When he fulfilled his political aims and helped those less fortunate, then any pride he felt would have foundation and be a worthy thing, not shallow, as theirs was.

Chapter 36

Two weeks after the Christmas celebrations had passed, wrapped up in his warmest coat and wearing a new scarlet scarf one of his sisters had made for him for Christmas, Rob drove away from Pembroke House in his curricle. It was nearly four months since he’d seen Caro.

His heart beat steadily. He’d been driving his curricle a short distance every day to get his right hand used to the straps again, and he’d been walking out daily, too, to encourage his leg to heal. But he had not gone anywhere near as far as Drew’s property, and it was a long way to travel when he was still unsure of his capability. Yet when his father had urged him to wait at least another week, Rob’s answer had been. “Have I not waited long enough?”

The only people who knew he was undertaking the journey were his parents. He’d told no one else. He’d not even written and told Mary of his plans. He wished simply to arrive and discover whatever he did. Largely because he had never been able to find the words he would feel comfortable writing in a letter.

The pace of his heartbeat rose as he turned the curricle on to Drew’s drive, remembering when he’d done so in the summer, excited about the opportunities he hoped for, and eager to spend a carefree summer here. That summer had left him bruised and battered, both inside and out, and yet he would not change a moment of it.

The ground was frozen dry, and the sky above him was grey. It had been blue for most of the summer—except during that thunderstorm.

He prayed as he neared the house that Caro would listen to him; that she still felt something for him.

When he pulled on the straps and slowed the curricle, two of Drew’s grooms appeared. He stopped before the front door and thanked the men as they gripped the horses’ heads, while he picked up his stick and slid across the seat.

In a curricle, getting down was harder than getting up, because if he used his good leg on the step then he would be forced to land on his bad leg and it would buckle. So ignoring the step he slid down.

Pain jolted up from his thigh.

He leaned on to the stick, taking a breath before he moved.

The door opened and Mary flew out. “Oh, you rogue!”

Her arms were about his neck in a moment and then she pressed her lips against his cheek, before gripping him hard again. He grasped her with his free arm, as much to make sure he did not fall as to actually hold her.

“Hello, stranger,” she said against his ear. “I have written and written and you have not replied. I thought you were angry with us for disappearing so quickly from London. Then I thought you ill.”

“Ow,” he whispered when she let him go and then firmly held his healing hand.

“You have a stick. Why? Have you been hurt? Ought I to have been praying for you, not cursing you?”

“I had an accident in my curricle and fell, but I am nearly healed. You must simply be a little gentle with me for a while.”

“Why did Papa or Mama not say?”

“I asked them not to fuss. You know how I hate it.”

“But you should have told me. I am angry with you again now.”

He laughed. They walked slowly back into the house, Mary hovering beside him.

“You were truly injured.”

“I was, yes. But, as I said, I am getting better now.”

“Andrew! Andrew!” Mary called through the house, as they stood in the hall. Then she looked at Rob. “I saw you from the nursery. Andrew does not know you are here. Can you manage the stairs? Andrew!”

“Yes, but slowly. You will need to be patient with me.” Was Caro still in the nursery? Had she not come down by choice? Did she wish to avoid him?

“Andrew!” Mary called again as Rob moved to the stairs.