by Jane Lark
Her breaths released in short, little panting sounds, and her hips lifted to the rhythm of his tongue. She imagined the feel of him within her and longed for it, even though it could not happen, and yet even the thought made her break and shatter on his tongue. The release swept through her body and into her limbs as she cried out her relief just as he’d done.
He rose, wiped his mouth on his arm and came to lie beside her. “The next time we do this, I shall have to pleasure you first, because I wish for it again now.”
She laughed, “You may have it again and use my mouth if you wish, if I move down the bed so I need not bend.”
“Lord, Caro, how can a man refuse such an offer…?” Heat burned in his eyes.
“Kneel next to me, then.”
A groan slipped from his lips as he rose. His trousers were still hanging open and a new erection pointed at her. She gripped him in her hand and let her tongue trace his tip. It was salty with the taste of his earlier release. “Lean over me, and then you might press into my mouth.”
He gave her a look that said she was mad, desirable and beautiful.
One hand pressed into the mattress, holding his weight, while the other stroked through her hair as he pushed into her mouth, without trying to go too deep and choke her. She had never done it this way with Albert. It was new and just for Rob.
Each time Rob ran through her hand, sliding into her mouth, he sighed out a sound on his breath, as his fingers curled, combed and clasped in her hair, as though he felt guilt and wished to hold on to a non-sexual contact. Yet he could not have denied he was enjoying it because his body was engorged, hot and heavy in her hand, and pressing more and more firmly into her mouth.
When he reached his climax, she felt it shudder through every muscle of his body, and her free hand lifted to trace the back of his buttock to his thigh.
She swallowed as he rolled away.
“Caro,” he said into her mouth. It was a statement of love, as he leant over her. He spoke with a depth she had never heard in Albert’s voice, even when they had first married.
Yes, you do have me Mrs Marlow, and you must endure me at your side forever more, till death us do part… and that will likely be a very long time… That was what he’d said the day they had married, and the more time she spent alone with him the more she believed it was true.
Chapter 51
Rob was sitting with Caro in the drawing room. They were eating breakfast on their laps, so Caro could remain on the sofa, with her legs up.
He was enjoying it—the day—his marriage—and Caro’s company. Yet he was eager to get out. That was why they had risen early. He was going to ride out and meet those who worked on the farms he now managed. His heart raced at the idea of responsibility and having something of meaning to do.
A noise breached the windows, an arrival, a lone horse-rider.
Rob stood as footsteps crunched on the gravel outside.
“I wish to speak with my nephew, Mr Marlow.” The words rang from the hall.
“Lord Barrington.”
“Uncle! In here!” Rob shouted.
Caro moved to rise, but Rob pressed a hand on her shoulder. “You need not stand.”
“He sounded agitated.”
“He will still not expect you to stand.”
The door creaked as it swung back heavily and his uncle walked in with a purposeful stride. “I am sure you will not have seen the paper.” He did not say, “welcome”, or, “how was your journey?” but strode across the room, withdrawing a folded paper from within his riding coat. “So I have brought you a copy.”
He held it out to Rob.
Rob took it.
“Would you like coffee?” Caro offered, trying to play hostess, even though she could not rise.
“Thank you, Caroline, but I shall pour it, you need not move.” He poured as Rob opened the paper. “Look at the obituaries.”
Rob sat down and scanned the open pages.
“You have done it now,” his uncle stated, as he sat down facing them both. “But you are rid of him. Yet I do not know if you, with your high morals, can live with shooting a man and being the cause—“
“He is dead.” Shock washed through Rob, draining all the blood from his head.
“He is indeed.”
“Who is? Who did you shoot?” Caro sat more upright.
“She does not know?”
“She knows now,” Caro answered looking at Rob, distress bright in her eyes, when she was not supposed to worry.
“I’m sorry.”
“For what are you sorry?” she pleaded.
“He is gone.” Rob still held the paper. He could not believe it.
“Kilbride, your former husband. Rob shot him in the leg, replicating the wound he’d caused Rob in a duel Rob called on the morning of your wedding. Rob did not intend to kill him and yet Kilbride is dead.”
“How?” Rob looked at his uncle, shock swelling through his veins. He’d killed a man.
“I have heard from your father that it was blood poisoning. The wound became infected.”
“My God.”
“Will you cope with this?” his uncle asked. “You are the last man on earth I would have thought might kill a man.”
“I did not seek to.”
“But you will feel the burden of it regardless. I know because I killed a man once. A man who deserved to die too, and that was in self-defence, but I have never forgotten it.”
Rob looked at his uncle. “I do not regret what I did. I have morals, but I will not let a man threaten and hurt us. His fate is not my fault, it was fate that took him—”
“Then fate is just,” Caro whispered. “But a duel, Rob… and what wound did he cause you?”
“It was nothing.”
“Nothing… You have still not told your wife. One thing I learned early is you should be honest within a marriage. It looks as though I must leave you now I have set all your secrets in the air.” Uncle Robert drank down the rest of his coffee, then stood. “Harry said the only person who knows it was you who shot him was a groom. Apparently the authorities are asking questions, but the groom has not yet told anyone how Kilbride was shot. Let us hope he holds his silence and you get away with this.”
“The groom will not speak,” Caro answered. “Albert was violent to his lower servants too. They hated him.”
Rob stood. He did not want Caro concerned by this. “Thank you for the news. But I am not sure I wished to know it, and thank you also for sharing it with Caro when I was protecting her from this.”
Amusement twisted his uncle’s lips. “Well, if you have need of any more common-sense spoken to you, you will know where to come.”
“Good day, then, to you and your common-sense.”
Uncle Robert laughed. “Let me know if you need any advice on your farms.”
“I am riding out to look at the farms in a while. I intended to ride over to you afterwards and discuss what I learn.”
“Then I will be at home and await your visit.” Uncle Robert looked at Caro and bowed his head, “Good day.”
“Good day.”
He turned away and walked from the room.
Rob sat. Pushed down by thought. He’d killed Kilbride, not physically, but… if he had not shot him…
“And now you must explain before I allow you to go anywhere. What did you do? What wound did Albert cause you?”
“I did not call him to a duel on my own account. It was for you and Sarah. He did not simply call at John’s once, he was there for our ball too, and after he hurt you the day before the wedding he came to White’s and threatened me. I know what he is capable of. I merely meant to teach him a lesson. An eye for an eye.”
“What eye did he lance in you?”
Rob took a breath. He did not wish to tell her this.
“Rob…”
“Very well,” he leant his elbows onto his knees and looked at her. “I did not have a fall from my curricle.”
“But your le
g, and your hand, I remember, was stiff too, and the scar at your temple.”
He nodded.
“When?”
“The night of the Newcombs’ ball. I left early and walked home alone in the dark. He paid some thugs to attack me. I was carried back to my uncle’s, and my parents came there to care for me.”
“They were out the morning Drew, Mary and I left town.”
He smiled.
“How poorly were you?”
“They hit me over the head with an iron bar, broke my leg and my hand with it, deliberately I think, and then kicked me repeatedly. I think I was quite unrecognisable by the end. It was why I did not come to see you sooner. I would have come to reiterate my proposal had I…” He smiled and laughed suddenly as he remembered the conversations he’d shared with his father. “But perhaps not. It was my father who convinced me I ought to try and persuade you, not simply accept your refusal.”
“I cannot believe you did not tell me. Why did you not?”
“Because you had just very squarely told me I was not good enough for you. Why would I have wished you to know and my family do not know? So do not speak of it before them, only Harry, Mama, Papa, Uncle Robert, Aunt Jane, and John. I do not wish people to know. I was embarrassed.”
“That is stupid. I would have wished to be with you. I should have been with you. The next time I see Drew I shall tell him severely he should have kept his thoughts to himself.”
“I have told him so myself.”
She reached out. “Hold me for a moment, please?”
Rob rose and moved to perch on the edge of the sofa where she reclined. His arms slipped about her midriff as hers wrapped about his neck, and then she sobbed onto his shoulder. His palm ran across her back. “I am sorry, I know that you felt for him.”
She pulled away, tears on her cheeks and glistening in her eyes, which shone gold in the sunlight. “Do not be silly, Rob, I am not crying for him, I am crying for you. I should have been with you. I should not have listened to Drew. I knew you loved me.”
“It does not matter now.”
“No. But you have still made me feel like crying.”
With that she held him again and sobbed gently on his shoulder.
Chapter 52
Sensations of contentment rested in Rob’s chest as he walked about the large farm with his steward. The stock here was good, the dairy herd, the pigs and sheep, and Rob had taken an active interest in breeding the cattle. He learned more about the arable crops every day, too, as they passed through the season.
He could hardly believe it was May. Everything was growing and the lambs were chunky little sheep bouncing about in the fields.
No, it was more than contentment in his chest, it was intense happiness. He rode out on a daily basis and worked on the farms alongside the people he employed, and then went home to Caro, to find her at some quiet activity, reading or sewing, and they would share an evening together entertaining themselves with conversation or music, or games.
Then there was night…
There had been no more blood, yet her new doctor had said that if the placenta had indeed broken partly away from the womb it would not have repaired and so Caro was ordered to continue resting, and so in bed they must be imaginative. He had learned to be imaginative.
He smiled to himself as he walked beside the farmer to see the litter of a dozen piglets which had arrived into the world last night. But then he turned as swift hoof beats struck the ground near him.
“Mr Marlow! Sir!”
Rob looked up, stepping back from the horses’ fractious strides as the groom pulled the horse up. “Sir!” the groom said again as he jumped down, gripping the reins hard to hold the horse steady. “I‘ve been sent to tell ye Mrs Marlow is birthin’.”
Already? Sarah was not due for another month.
“Mrs Marlow bled, sir, and then the pains come.”
Damn. “I will take this horse. You ride the animal I brought here once it’s saddled.”
The groom lifted his hat and bowed as Rob grasped the reins. His right leg had healed mostly and yet he still set his left foot in the stirrup to haul himself up, his right leg was not quite up to that.
“Thank you.” His steward lifted a hand and bowed his head slightly, as Rob turned the horse and tapped his heels hard against the animal’s flanks.
The chickens in the farmyard scattered as Rob cantered out. He’d come via road, but if he rode back through the fields and jumped the stone walls, it would be faster.
Once he was beyond the yard he kicked his heels and set the animal into a gallop, at a gallop he was probably only a quarter of an hour from home.
Was the doctor with her already?
Caro would only be thinking of the child, but blood. If there was blood there was risk to her.
He would not lose her. “Lord.” He glanced up to the heavens, “Hear me, please, protect her and bring her through our daughter’s journey into the world.”
He set his mind on the wall approaching, kicked his heels and lifted the animal into a jump. It landed heavily, but Rob urged it on, his inner vision on Caro.
The horse’s nostrils flared and its breathing was heavy when Rob rode into the stables and jumped down. “Where is my wife?”
“In the bedchamber, sir.”
He turned and ran. At least his right leg was now fully able to do that, even if he still favoured the left side a little.
“Caro!” he raced up the stairs, taking the steps two at a time.
“Rob!” Her urgent voice stretched along the hall as he hurried.
“I am here,” he stated, as he entered and strode across the room. She was in bed, looking very pale, and she must still be bleeding because there was fresh scarlet blood on the sheets below her waist. “Lie back,” he said as she reached out her hand and sat up.
“The doctor…” he looked at the housekeeper, who was with her.
“Has been sent for.”
“Would you send a message to my aunt too, to Lady Barrington, and ask if she would come?”
The housekeeper nodded and turned away to send word.
“Rob.” Caro’s voice and her pale-hazel eyes expressed her fear. He could not express his.
He gritted his teeth for a moment, then swallowed back the pain and emotion in this throat. “Lift your hips a little. Let me set a pillow beneath you. It will make you more comfortable.” And perhaps slow the blood. Yet if the child was coming, surely she would continue to bleed.
When he lifted the sheet to place the pillow, he saw just how much scarlet blood had soaked into the sheet. Bile rose in his throat. She might be afraid for Sarah; he was terrified for her.
Her fingers grasped at his shoulders, her nails clawing as he finished putting the pillow into place beneath her. “Ahhhh…” It was a long, loud, sharp cry of pain, and he saw her stomach move beneath the chemise she wore. It tightened like a vice.
As tears ran over her pale eyelashes, he stripped off his gloves and his morning coat, his hat had been left at the farm.
He held Caro’s hand. “You are not to be afraid, you have to do the work, but do not let fear make it harder.” Leave me to be afraid. He would pray. That would be his task.
He pressed a kiss on her temple and her gaze clung to him. “I am scared, Rob.”
“I know, but you must not be. She is early, but it is not too early for her to survive, just a few hours of labour and she will be here and all will be well.” Please, Lord.
But hours of bleeding…
His free hand settled on her hair and his thumb rubbed her temple to help her rest. When the housekeeper came closer again, he said in a low voice. “Fill a bath with ice.”
“Sir…”
“Just do it,” his response was snappy.
He’d heard at school that the poet Shelley had put his wife into a bath of ice when she’d miscarried and bled, and it had saved the woman’s life.
His heart raced as more blood seemed to seep into the
sheets with every moment. His fingers stroked Caro’s hair and her hand gripped his as her gaze clung to him. “Breathe slowly,” he whispered, as her contraction eased.
There was a knock at the door and a copper bath was carried into the room. Then there followed a stream of footmen arriving intermittently with newly crushed ice.
“What are they doing?”
“We need to stop you bleeding, Caro, and it is the only way I can think to do it.”
She nodded, the grip of her fingers tightening about his hand.
“Ahhhh.” She bit down on her lip to shut off her cry when the next contraction came. There were two footmen in the room.
Where was the bloody doctor? The ice bath maybe the best thing for Caro, but Rob had no idea how it might affect the child, and he wished them both alive.
“Sir, it is ready.”
Rob threw the covers back. More blood had come with her contraction. “Put your arms about my neck.”
When he put his hand beneath her legs, the blood on the cloth seeped from the cloth on to his arm and dripped onto the floor. God, help us please!
He was out of his depth and losing her. She could not bleed this much if she had hours of labour to endure—and live.
His heart raced as he carried her to the bath. “This will be cold, and it will hurt, sweetheart, but it must be done.”
Her head turned and her face buried into his shoulder as he knelt. It was freezing, burning cold, even though that was a stupid thing to think, that is what it felt like, a burn, on his arms, as he lowered her into the water. She gasped with a loud cry and began to shiver violently, but he could see the flow of blood had eased.
“Rob,” she clutched his shoulders as another contraction came.
“Is it this way?”
Rob heard the question reach from the hall. The doctor.
Rob looked up.
“Mr Marlow, Mrs Marlow. Good heavens!” The doctor set his bag down in a chair as the door shut behind him, then he stripped of his gloves.
“My wife is bleeding heavily and experiencing contractions. I did not know what to do. I have put her in ice only because I thought it would slow the bleeding and it has.”
Rob moved out of the way as the doctor nodded and came to kneel by Caro, with a horn in his hand to listen to the baby’s heart. “There is still a good strong beat. There is no harm done to the child, and we shall keep you in the cold, I am afraid, for a while, Mrs Marlow. I think your husband has been very sensible and is entirely right.”
