Читать книгу The Secret Love of a Gentleman - Jane Lark - Страница 12

When Rob walked into the drawing room, in time for the dinner gong, he hoped Caroline would be there.

She was not.

He’d not seen her since they’d spoken in the garden and it would be hard to make a friend of her, to the point that he might make her laugh and dance, if she was never about.

“You are late, Robbie. Did my son exhaust you?” Drew walked forward and grasped Rob’s arm, turning him around so they could go to the dining room, leaving Mary to walk behind them for a moment.

Rob glanced back at Mary, wondering what Caroline did in the evening when she did not come down to dinner. “Did Drew tell you, your son is a natural with a bat. He quite surprised me. By the end of the afternoon I had him hitting nearly every ball Drew threw.”

“When I am sure they were very carefully thrown to hit his bat.” Mary smiled at Drew.

He let go of Rob’s arm, turned back and took her hand. “Perhaps.”

The two of them walked beside Rob as they continued.

Rob longed to ask Drew more about Caroline. He wished to understand her.

“Caro. I did not think you were coming down.”

Rob looked forward when Drew spoke. Caroline stood at the foot of the stairs to the second floor. Her fingers were clasped together at her waist. She had not been there when he’d come from his rooms a moment ago.

She wore a shimmering amber silk dress. It drew out the variety of colours in her hazel eyes, and in her blonde hair too. Nothing about her was one shade. One lock of gold hair fell to her throat and a necklace with a single amber cross pendant lay in the cleft between her breasts.

A moment ago, as he’d made his way to the drawing room, a dozen topics to encourage her into talking had been spinning in his head. There were no words there at all now. He swallowed against the dryness in his mouth. He was thirsty tonight.

“I changed my mind,” she answered Drew, only looking at Drew.

“Caroline,” Rob stated, as she walked nearer.

She looked at him and dropped a very slight curtsy, then turned to walk beside her brother. There was not room for them to walk four astride, so Rob held back and Mary let go of Drew’s hand, then dropped back to walk beside Rob.

How many times had Mary given up her husband for the comfort of his sister? It seemed an odd scenario. Surely Caroline could not enjoy such a life.

When they reached the dining room, Drew pulled out a chair for Caroline. “Caro.”

A footman pulled Mary’s chair out and Rob walked about the table to sit opposite Caroline, while Mary sat at the other end of the table to Drew. It was not like dining at John’s. Drew’s manor was small, and their dining table arranged for a small family, not a stately affair.

Once seated, Rob leaned back to allow the footman to pour him a glass of white wine, and across the table, although he kept his gaze lowered, he could see Caroline’s slender fingers reaching for a small fork and spoon as she was served muscles in a cream sauce. Her hands shook.

Rob lifted his glass of wine and took a sip as Mary and then Drew were served, and then he leant back as he was too, the glass still in his hand, his eyes turning to the footman.

It was hard to avoid looking at Caroline, especially when he was so pleased she had come downstairs. Yet he did not wish to do anything that might upset her and dissuade her from coming down again.

When the footman finished dishing up the mussels, Rob looked up. He caught Caroline watching him. She looked down at her meal, her cheeks colouring a little.

Friends. He hoped they could achieve it. He thought it would be good for her, and it was a good foundation on which to build the hope of making her laugh and dance with him.

His gaze followed her hand as she freed a mussel from its shell and lifted it to her mouth. Then his gaze ran from her wrist up to the hem of the short sleeve of her gown. She was so very slender, frail and vulnerable in appearance. Yet she’d borne beatings. Had she suffered broken bones? He would probably never know the answer.

He looked at Drew. How much did Drew know?

Drew spoke about where they would go tomorrow and who he would take Rob to meet.

Rob looked at Mary. Did Caro confide in her?

Caro looked up and met his gaze. He swallowed against the dryness in his throat once more, then took a sip of wine to clear it and smiled, trying to make his smile as warm and unthreatening as he could. Her lips lifted at the edges, and they seemed to lift a little more than they’d done yesterday.

He looked at Drew and asked some questions about Drew’s tenants, suspecting that Drew was keener on showing off his son than he was on entertaining Rob. But Rob would not fault him for it. George was a sweet bundle of boyish energy whom Drew should be proud of.

When Rob finished his mussels he left his cutlery resting on the rim of the bowl and looked over the table once more. Caroline had finished eating too.

He tried to think of questions he might ask to draw her into the conversation, but his mind remained blank.

She leaned back to let a footman clear her place. Then on the next plate she was served fish terrine, chicken in aspic and sliced venison.

He lifted his glass and took a sip of wine, as she did, and their gazes collided. He smiled. In the candlelight her eyes were more matt than they were in daylight, but there was still a warm glow in the colour about the wide onyx circles at their centre.

She looked at Mary, her skin turning a deep red. “What will you do tomorrow, Mary?”

“We could drive to Maidstone if you’d like, Caro, and visit some of the shops?”

“That would be pleasant.”

~

As Caro listened to Mary speak of the things she would buy tomorrow, she took a deep breath and let it out slowly, trying to slow the beat of her heart and loosen the vice tightening about her chest. She was too aware of Robbie, of the way his dark-blue eyes studied her. Yet he was sitting opposite, it was only natural for him to look at her, and she had watched him too. It had been mean to ask him not to stare.

Friends. He had proposed this morning. Friends! And she had said that would be nice. But she’d never had a friend. Mary, perhaps, was the closest person to such a thing, but Mary was Drew’s confidante and Caro had deliberately avoided interfering too deeply in their closeness.

Caro thought of Albert and heard Robbie’s words. Do you think it might be possible that by the end of the summer we will be friends, Caroline?

Even from the beginning, when Albert may have adored her and admired her, he’d never treated her as an equal. He would never have considered a woman his friend.

She looked at Robbie and he smiled as he leant back to let a footman serve him. His smiles were swift, open and warm. There was no malice or artifice in him. He was a kind man. Thoughtful.

Friends. The idea appealed to her, and terrified her. She could not have seen it as a possibility if he’d asked in the company of his extended family. But here… She could imagine they might achieve it when it was the four of them. He was likeable.

He lifted his wine glass. She could see how gently his fingers gripped the stem, as they’d touched her twice. She could not see his hands about a woman’s throat. They were hands designed for creativity, writing, art or music, or honest labour.

He was different from his cousins and his younger brother, not brash and assertive, simply confident. Drew at his age had been an inferno of aggressive, defensive anger, fighting against the world. But Robbie seemed to sit back and watch it.

She tried to imagine Albert at Robbie’s age. Albert had been handsome, but not in the way Robbie was. Robbie had a masculine beauty, not simply a handsome face. The women in his family had a beauty that was breathtaking, and in Robbie it was striking, he had elements of his father’s angled features, marked with the Pembrokes’ large eyes and full lips.

He spoke to her brother, joining in a conversation Drew and Mary were having about George.

Robbie laughed as Drew admitted that he intended to pamper George in everything. It was a deep, low sound.

He glanced at her, as if he knew she’d been watching him, and smiled again, even more warmly.

His dark-blue eyes glittered in the candlelight.

She smiled again too, weakly, then looked at Mary and tried to join the conversation, her heart thumping steadily. She was not wholly comfortable, yet she did not feel the onset of panic.