The Secret Love of a Gentleman

by Jane Lark

  “Harry was supposed to be meeting us there,” Helen said.

  “But Papa stopped his allowance this month, and so he said he could not afford to travel. Did you hear?” Jenny asked.

  “Papa is constantly stopping his allowance,” Rob answered. When Rob had still been at college he’d had to frequently bail his brother out of debts because he had no income, and yet he continued to spend.

  “He broke into his master’s room last week for a dare and hung his underwear from the window.”

  “Yes, that is something Harry would do…”

  The conversation continued on the subject of Harry for a little while and then turned to what their other brothers had relayed in letters home.

  Their procession of carriages was a like a ribbon running through the countryside, and when they reached the meadow by the Thames, where Kate had planned for them to eat their picnic, there were already two dozen servants there setting out tables and marquees to keep the women shaded from the sun. The great castle stood on the hill above them and the Thames meandered through the flat meadow beneath it. It was a picturesque place.

  He was handing Jenny down when Phillip and Caro arrived. They’d travelled alone and she did not look uncomfortable. She was smiling. Rob looked away before Caro saw him watching. He did not wish to appear as though he cared. But if “inferior” was a word that cut, then jealousy was an emotion that growled.

  He helped Helen down and then the two girls walked away to offer to help Kate.

  “Robbie!” Jemima cried, as she and Georgiana raced across the grass, the hems of their dresses flying.

  “Jemima!” He caught her up and spun her, laughing with her. Then he set her feet back on the ground. He’d always been a favourite of the younger girls, because John had been too distant and too old for them to idolise and so they had picked on him, because he was away from home, doing the things they wished they might do. Of course, Harry rarely gave them any attention, so he could not be admired.

  He gripped Jemima’s hand and rested his other arm about Georgiana’s shoulders as he walked towards the others who’d arrived. They were gathering by a group of blankets the servants had laid out.

  Caro walked that way too, with her hand on Phillip’s arm. She joined the group first, and began speaking with Kate and John, Rob’s mother and father, and Mary and Drew. Mary was holding Iris, and Kate held her youngest, Hestia, while Drew held George, and John carried David. Paul stood beside John, gripping his father’s trouser leg.

  Rob would have walked to another group, but Jemima pulled him in their parents’ direction.

  His heart tugged that way anyway.

  “Uncle Bobbie!” George cried, raising his arms.

  “George!” Rob called back with a smile on his lips, looking only at the child. Jemima let go of his hand, and he took George from Drew. “You are suitably excited, I see, and ready to tire your mama and papa out.”

  George grinned. “Tumble.”

  “In a moment. Let me say good day to everyone first.”

  “Good day, Mary, Papa, John,” he swallowed as he looked, “Phillip.” Caro he had already spoken to, so he did not say good day, and yet he ought to say more than a simple good day to Phillip, but the words stuck in his throat. He swallowed again. “How are you, Phillip? Thank you again for letting me sit with you the other week.”

  He was intensely aware that Caro’s fingers still gripped Phillip’s arm. It made it impossible to speak with Phillip dispassionately.

  “You were welcome, as you know, and if there is any more I might help you with.”

  Rob nodded, but then his gaze reached to Caro. He could not help it. His gaze asked why she had not wished to travel with him.

  There was no answer in her eyes; the amber was blank, like shallow glass.

  “Uncle Bobbie tumble…” George begged again.

  “It is Uncle Robbie.” Paul corrected, looking up at Rob with pale-blue, assessing eyes just like John’s, as though he thought George and his exuberance an oddity. Paul was three, yet sometimes he sounded thirty, but he was the heir to a dukedom and was already being schooled.

  Still, “inferior” was not a word that Rob would have George feel. “I am Bobbie to George, Paul, and I think I always shall be.” He tussled Paul’s hair, because Paul ought to be a boy before he became a duke.

  George tugged at Rob’s hair, calling silently for all of his attention.

  “Are you going to show your cousins how you can hit a ball with the bat today? You will have to hope your papa, or grandpapa, or one of your great uncles has brought a bat and ball.”

  “Uncle John has.”

  “Ah, well, then we are in luck.” Rob laughed, then looked down at Paul.

  “Now, if George and I are to play tumble, then I think we should play on the blankets. So if anyone else wishes to play, then they may come with us.” The offer was put to Paul, but it was David and Jemima who squealed with excitement.

  John set his second son down. Georgiana took David’s hand, as Rob set George down. George’s little legs raced ahead. Rob followed. It was better to be out of Caro’s way until they might speak alone.

  The morning progressed, with the men setting up a game of cricket, but because George wished to play, then all the children did, and so it became a game of fathers holding the hands of their children and helping them bat, and then the little ones were lifted off the ground when they needed to run.

  George had thought it amusing when Rob had picked him up and run with him. He’d had the giggles for ages.

  Rob was exhausted, though, when it came time to eat, and hungry. He’d taken off his coat because he’d grown hot, and it was easier to move without it, although he still wore his waistcoat, but he had also rolled up his shirtsleeves to his elbows.

  It was not polite dress for a park and yet all the men in his family had done the same.

  George walked beside him, holding his hand, and Drew walked on the other side of George. Caro was sitting on a blanket already, with Mary. She held Iris and Phillip was nowhere in sight.

  Rob dropped down onto the blanket, remembering the gathering in the summer, before he’d gone to Mary’s, when Caro had darted off into the house. He had not known her at all then.

  How different things were now.

  When he rested his forearms on his bent-up knees, he could feel her looking. He turned. She’d been looking at his arms, at the one part of him that was unclothed.

  They knew each other fully without clothes.

  She glanced up and smiled awkwardly, blushing a little, then looked away.

  He still had that sense that something was not right.

  “Would you like some lemonade, Robbie?” He looked up to accept a glass from Helen, only to see Drew watching him too.

  He smiled, and Drew smiled.

  “Shall I ask Jenny to fill a plate for you, Robbie?”

  He nodded.

  Helen looked at Drew. “Would you like one? She could fill a plate for you and George.”

  “No, I shall go to the buffet and help myself, do not worry.”

  Helen nodded then moved on, and caught up with Jenny.

  “Did you see me hit the ball, Aun’ie Caro?”

  “Yes, I did George.”

  “And we ran.”

  “I know.”

  “I hit the ball right across the field.”

  “I saw. I’m very proud of you.”

  “You have wonderful patience, Rob” Mary said.

  “What is patience, Mama?” George crawled towards her.

  “What everyone needs when they are faced with your energy.”

  Caro and Drew laughed. Rob smiled—he was no longer in a mood to laugh.

  “You are good with the children.”

  Rob looked up, to see his father standing over him, with his mother.

  They had come over to sit on the blanket beside the one Mary and Caro had occupied.

  Rob turned, so his back would not be to them, and y
et, after Jenny’s words earlier, he felt uncomfortable with his father being so close.

  Helen returned with his plate, and then Drew rose to go and fill a plate for him and Mary, Caro already had a plate beside her.

  “Can I have some?” George asked looking at Rob’s plate.

  “I will bring you something on my plate.” Drew answered, before walking away.

  Rob held out his plate anyway. “You may take a piece of the cold pie now, but, hush, do not tell your mama.”

  George gave him a devilish, cheeky little grin that was so like Drew, and then picked the piece of pie up and tumbled backward.

  Of course, Mary had heard and seen, but she laughed at Rob’s dry humour as George gave her a funny, suspicious look.

  “Grandmama.” George turned to her to obtain a place of safety to eat his pie. She drew him onto her lap.

  “Grandpapa!” Paul shouted, hurrying over to the blanket. “David and I will sit with you.”

  Rob’s father patted the blanket. “Sit here.”

  Paul settled himself and had David sit next to him between Rob and his father. A footman appeared with a full plate. “Lord Sale.” The servants knew the lad would be their bread and butter one day. Was it any wonder his cousins, and men like them, had grown up thinking they had a right to order, and play, with the world? There was Paul, who would be handed everything he needed, and then there was open-hearted, accept-me-as-I-am, George, who would spend his childhood like Rob—unable to compare.

  Inferior… Perhaps. He suffered. But whatever the emotion, his experience of such feelings had helped give him the idea and incentive to speak out and fight for the underdog. He still wished to do that. More than anything.

  John sat behind his sons, with Kate beside him holding Hestia in her arms, and then Phillip, who’d been with them, walked around to sit beside Caro.

  Rob’s skin itched and he sighed again quietly.

  When Drew returned, as they ate he spoke to Rob’s father about stock management, asking questions, and Rob listened, interested. He was to go to the market with Drew in the morning. Farming was an option he’d not yet considered properly. He’d dismissed it because it was what his father did, but that was before he’d realised just how much money he would need to help acquire and then fund a place in Parliament.

  “How did you get started,” he asked them both, “I mean, I know how you came by the lands, but where did you begin?”

  “Are you interested in farming now?” his father prodded, laughing. “You have paid no interest before.”

  “Perhaps, Papa. I am allowed to explore.”

  He nodded. “Yes, you are. I’m sorry.”

  “Most of it, day to day, I leave to others, as you saw when you stayed with us,” Drew answered. “But I like to know what is what. I like to be asked for agreement before a decision is made, so that I can learn and so that I feel in control. But I began by asking your father and John what they did.”

  “And I spent hours with the steward on your uncle’s estate, and learnt it all first-hand. If you are interested, Rob,” his father said, “your Uncle Robert has a vacant tenancy, the property that used to belong to Aunt Jane’s family. I bought it on his behalf when it was sold off years ago. It’s a large estate. You would make a fair profit from it. I can ask him about it if you’d like.”

  “I am able to speak for myself and he has already mentioned it, but I’m sure he’d rather keep it open for Henry? And if not, then one of the others ought to have it, Percy…” Percy was his Uncle Robert’s second son.

  “Can you imagine Henry farming? I cannot, he would not apply his mind to it any more than Harry would be capable of it—”

  “Papa, I am only thinking about farming, I have no idea even if I wish to do it.” This was what happened if he mentioned anything to his family. Within a moment it was all planned out for him.

  “Well, if you decide you are interested, Robert would let the property to you, willingly, because you are my son and you were named after him, after all.”

  “It would be another favour, then,” Rob answered, quietly, not really for his father’s ears as a bitter note cut into his voice.

  Inferior. It was the need to be—given to—which had left him with such an emotion. But Caro was right, it was what he felt, and it prevented him from letting people help. He breathed out. It was foolish. If he wished to be a good politician, it was an emotion he needed to let go of. Perhaps he was, in a way, as self-absorbed as his cousins were in their arrogance. Inferior. Damn it! It made him feel self-pitying. But he could not simply remove the feeling from within him.

  Rob looked at the river flowing across the land in front of them, angry with himself.

  “Shall we take the children for a walk along the river bank to see the swans?” It was Caro who spoke. He wondered if she’d been listening to his conversation and sensed his discomfort… Or perhaps it had been Phillip’s suggestion. That thought slashed across Rob’s chest.

  “Yes! Pease!” George shouted. He would do anything if it meant he need not sit still.

  “May David and I come, please?” Paul asked.

  “Of course you may,” Drew stood up and brushed crumbs from his waistcoat.

  Rob stood too, hoping his father would not come.

  Caro passed Iris to Mary and rose.

  “I will walk with you.” Phillip stood beside her.

  Caro only smiled, expressing no particular pleasure as she took Iris back, so Mary could rise. “I will carry her,” Drew stepped forward and took his daughter from Caro’s arms.

  He looked down at Iris with love and pride in his gaze as she reached up and grasped his fringe.

  Pride was very different to inferiority. Pride was to be respected. Inferiority was not. Rob had been mistaken about himself for years.

  As Phillip offered his arm to Caro, Paul gripped Rob’s hand and Rob smiled down at him. His mother and father had risen too, but clearly Paul wished to have what George had had, a little of his Uncle Robbie’s attention.

  George gripped his mother’s hand and they all began to walk towards the river. Others in the party followed, his aunts and uncles and their families.

  The servants brought bread down to the river, and so they helped the children feed it to the ducks and swans, while Caro walked on with Phillip in conversation.

  “George.” Paul called, offering some of the bread he held, when George had used all of his.

  George took it with a smile. “Thank you.”

  Hell. Is that not just what John is doing with me—sharing. That is all.

  Rob had squatted down to help the children, when he stood he faced Caro. Phillip had moved away and was speaking with Kate.

  Caro’s lips were closed, there was no full, bright smile for him today, and yet it was as if a smile wished to form, but the sadness he saw held her back.

  “Uncle Bobbie.” He looked down at George, who’d doubled over and reached his hands through his legs to be somersaulted. When Rob bent to fulfil the task, he caught Drew watching. His gaze was complex, but there was sympathy within it.

  Why?

  When the carriages were loaded for the journey home, Rob had hoped to swap with Phillip, but Caro had avoided a single moment of private conversation with him, so he’d had no chance to persuade her to find an excuse to ride with him, and so ended up watching her let Phillip take her hand.

  When they reached Pembroke House, Rob helped Jenny and Helen down, and entered the hall with everyone else, but he did not stay there as the scene became a melee of servants helping people remove coats and take gloves and hats. He slipped into John’s library, found paper, a quill and ink.

  The words were bubbling inside him, he could not keep them within any longer.

  Dearest Caro

  I have wanted to speak with you today, but not had the chance. I want you to know that I wish I could have prevented you enduring that dance with Kilbride last night. I’m sorry I could not. Yet it made me think. There is only
one way that I may have the right to be your protector. Drew was right, it is not my responsibility but his. Yet if we were engaged it would give me the right. I wish to tell people what is between us. Let us announce our engagement. If you are in agreement? I am sorry, it may need to be an engagement that lasts years, and yet at least I would know that you are to be mine, and others would know.

  He thought of Caro walking with Phillip, of her hand on Phillip’s arm, and their heads close as they talked, as the quill hovered over the page, but this was not about Phillip. This was about protecting her from Kilbride.

  Yours sincerely and devotedly,

  Rob

  I love you

  He folded the letter, picked up the wax and melted some to seal it.

  He would have to take a risk. He would have to give the letter to one of John’s servants.

  He slipped the letter inside his waistcoat and went out into the hall. The commotion was over, the family had gone upstairs and Finch, the butler, had gone with them. But there was one footman left in the hall, perhaps because Finch had known Rob had gone into the library, it would be unlike Finch to miss anything.

  “Would you come in a moment,” Rob stated, beckoning him into the library. He did not wish his voice to travel in the hall. “Can you be discrete?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I have a letter to be delivered, but you must not let anyone see it, or see you give it to that person.”

  The footman nodded, his eyes intrigued. “I shall give you thre’pence, but you must swear to me that no one will know.”

  “I swear, sir.”

  Rob handed the letter over and then reached into his pocket for the change. The footman slipped the letter inside his waistcoat, and the money in his pocket. “Thank you, sir.”

  “Deliver it as quickly as you can. I am leaving now. If any of the family ask after me, simply tell them I had other arrangements to attend to.”

  Chapter 29

  Rob had spent a successful morning with Drew looking over the farm stock at the market. Drew had agreed that Rob had an eye for spotting a good breeding animal, and the sellers in the stalls had confirmed it.

  Rob’s interest had gathered as Drew kept asking, “Which do you think?” Then Rob had considered and pointed animals out, and then afterwards Drew had pointed out what it was about them that actually made them right, but Rob had been correct every time without knowing.