Kitabı oku: «The Secret Love of a Gentleman»

Chapter 1

Life is cruel.

A piercing pain struck Caroline’s jaw as the sharp edge of Albert’s signet ring cut her skin. Her head snapped back and her gaze left the blue of her husband’s eyes. He was a villain, this man she loved.

Her hand lifted to protect her face from another blow while she grasped the back of a chair to stop herself from falling. “Please. No. I did nothing wrong.”

“Nothing…” He growled at her through teeth gritted in bitter anger.

His hand lifted again.

She covered her face with both hands, to avoid the next strike. It hit her across the side of her head, a hard slap. Tears flooded her eyes as she fell.

“What have I done?” Caro cried, her hands gripping her head and her body curling on the wooden floor into a position that sought to protect, and yet it was childlike. She longed for comfort, for kindness

“Lived, while my son died!” The accusation rang about her bedchamber. A curse. She was cursed. She could not carry a child, could not give him the heir he needed. He leaned over her, every muscle in his body taut with accusation.

She loved him, regardless.

He hated her.

“Your doctor spoke to me today. He believes you may never bear a child. He believes your womb is damaged.”

Caro swallowed back the tears catching in her throat. She knew. She had been told. Yet did it justify such brutality and bitter hatred? He hates me, and I have always loved him…

There was nothing to say in her defence. She had lost another child, his child, and she might never be able to carry an infant full-term. Tears flooded her eyes. How many times? How many children? How long could she endure this?

“I need a son! Give me a son, Caro! That is all I ask. You are capable of conceiving, you must be capable of giving birth!”

She lifted a hand so she could look at him. His gaze softened.

His eyes were like azure stones, an entrancing blue. Even in his vicious moods, when he was cold and callous, she still saw the man she’d married, the man who’d given her months of happiness and hope.

But each time he behaved like this, a little more of her hope died.

He turned away and walked across the room.

How could she love and hate the same man? How could she love a man who terrified her?

She struggled to her feet. “I am trying to give you a son.” Yet she no longer believed she could. She had lost five children.

He stopped and turned, his eyes expressing pain, pity and disappointment.

Long ago, once upon a time, Caro had believed him in love and her marriage a happy-ever-after, like a fairytale. There had been gifts and balls, and their gazes holding across rooms, and gentle touches on her waist and her back as they walked together, which said, silently, I love you. But it was damned—doomed.

“Trying is not enough. I need a son. You will do your duty.” He turned again and walked away.

She stared at the door when it shut behind him.

Before their marriage, and after it, throughout the first year, Albert had seemed love-struck. He’d begged the Marquis of Framlington for her hand, and the marriage had been arranged swiftly so he could be rid of his wife’s illegitimate daughter.

Albert had been attentive, walking and standing close to her wherever they went, and devouring her body at night, but it had not been love, it had been obsession, and when she’d become pregnant and sickly, his interest had waned. He’d found a mistress and ceased to come to her bed. It had broken her heart. Especially when he continued to touch her and look at her as though love hung between them in the day and at balls. Then she’d lost the child.

That was when the beatings and the hatred had begun. He would not forgive her for the loss of their first child and now when she was with child he was so used to beating her he would not even think of her condition.

Yet the old Albert still shone through: the handsome, powerful man who’d entranced her in the beginning. Every night she had an unbearable reminder of how things should be between them, of how they had been. Even when he was angry with her, when he came to her bed he still joined with her as though he cared. That sense of being loved was still there—when in her childhood she had known so little love. She’d clung to the moments of intimacy and affection for years.

She cared for him.

“Ma’am, may I help you retire.”

Caro had forgotten the maid was even in the room. “Yes, and please bring some fresh water.” To wash the blood from her cheek and her lip. Albert would expect her to look well when he came to her later.

~

Sunset had passed long ago when Albert returned to the house, and Caro’s bedchamber was entirely dark when he entered. He’d not brought a candle.

His footsteps quietly crossed the room, then the sheets beside her lifted. The mattress dipped when he lay down.

“Caro,” he whispered as his hand reached for her waist and pulled her to him. The scent of brandy carried on his breath. His lips pressed onto hers and his hand slid to her breast, gentle now.

His kiss eased away all the pain from the blows. The thoughtfulness he showed her at night wrapped about her soul and held her heart as his prisoner. The Albert she’d fallen in love with was here.

This was how it was with him—cruel, heartless, beautiful love. He would beat her and then he would devour her tenderly.

His fingers rubbed and gripped her breast through the cloth of her nightgown for a while, then he unbuttoned it.

He was passionate in all respects, in anger, in admiration, and in bed. Yet where his heart ought to be, there was a lump of stone.

His fingers slipped inside her open nightgown and skimmed over her skin, searching out her nipple. He teased it to a peak.

She yearned for more than this, she yearned for love. Her palm rested on his shoulder then slid down across his warm, naked chest. Soft skin covered the firm muscle beneath.

His hand began drawing up the hem of her nightgown and his lips left her mouth to kiss the bruise beside it, then kiss across the bruises on her neck, where his fingers had gripped earlier.

He did this every day, ripped her apart and then put her back together at night, and she did not even think it deliberate or mean, he was simply cold-blooded. She truly believed he had no idea how his behaviour hurt her.

When the hem of her nightgown reached her waist, his fingers touched her between her legs, gently caressing and calling to her body.

The magnetism in his character, his presence, his touch, pulled her to do things for him, to wish to be near him, to love him.

When he entered her she was damp between her legs and hot, and his intrusion was hard and fast, yet not painful. This was always how he loved her, with a force and strength that sent her reeling.

The little death swept over her in moments, and in a few more moments he spilled his seed inside her. Another minute’s tick of the mechanism of the clock on the mantle above the hearth and he was withdrawing, disengaging, mentally and physically denying her again.

The pain of her bruises flooded her senses, while the pain of his lack of care filled her soul.

He kissed her cheek. “Thank you. God willing there will be a child soon.” Then he got up and returned to his rooms. His departure ripped another little hole in her heart.

When Caro rose in the morning she had her maid carefully powder her face and neck, and she chose a gown with long sleeves. They hid the bruises, but not the swelling about her lip. She tried to hide that with rouge. It was not the worst it had been.

Her stomach trembled, along with her hands, as she walked down to break her fast with Albert before he left. The marble-lined hallway was cold.

A footman bowed his head when she reached the door of the morning room. He held the door open for her.

Her stomach tumbled over. Every servant in the house must know how she was treated.

Albert looked up. He’d been reading the paper while eating scrambled eggs, his fork lowered to the plate.

She longed to see that old look of want and reverence that used to hover in his brown eyes, but instead he stared at her as though she was an oddity in a village fair.

A sharp and violent sensation raced through her blood, reaching into her limbs—terror. She hoped it did not show on her face. Had she done anything wrong today? He did not only beat her for her lack of ability to breed; everything that went wrong in the house was her fault, a fork out of place, a glass broken, something he did not like on a menu. The servants were her responsibility and therefore their errors were hers.

“Caro.” He stood up and gave her a shallow bow. “Good morning.” Then he sat again.

She took her seat at the far end of the table, her fingers shaking when she accepted her food.

Albert was a dozen years older than her. His maturity and strength of character had seemed a blessing to her younger self when they’d met, when he’d been adoring and attentive. She’d felt sheltered by him then.

Now, this was their day; they would take breakfast together and then he would leave, and perhaps return to dine with her, or to accompany her to a ball, or ask her to entertain his political friends. Then at night he would lay with her, at whatever hour he returned home from his mistress, or mistresses.

“I shan’t be home for dinner.” Albert set his napkin down and rose.

Caro looked up. There was no emotion in his blue eyes.

She had tried. She had tried to be a good wife. She loved him. She had tried to give him children. She could not. She had failed.

The blood from her torn heart dried at little more, just as the blood had dried on the cut his ring had ripped in the flesh of her face last night.

How much longer could she live like this? If she lost another child…

In the last six weeks he’d beaten her a dozen times.

After the loss of the last child he’d left her in bed a day later, unable to move, her face grotesquely swollen.

If she lost another child would he kill her?

Would anyone care?

Her brother would care. Drew. He would. Like her, he’d been a cuckoo in the Marquis of Framlington’s nest, and their parents’ rejection had forged a bond, which had held. She’d clung to Drew for security as a child, for the love and attention their parents never gave. Drew was the only person who had returned her love.

Her closeness to her brother was the only thing in her life that had lasted.

She finished the last mouthful on her plate to make it appear to the servants that all was well, then rose and left the room, passing through the cold, austere marble hallway.

Drew had begged her to leave Albert. He had offered to keep her. He’d recently married a woman with money and he’d said he would buy Caro a property somewhere in the country where she would be safe. But how could she run from someone with the power of the seventh Marquis of Kilbride, and how could she leave when she still loved him, and yet… How do I stay?

The blood about her heart congealed and the bruises in her soul ached.

If she stayed there would be more beatings and more children lost.

Drew had promised her security.

Her fingers slid along the stone banister as she climbed the stairs to her rooms.

If she stayed nothing would change. Nothing would become better, it could only be worse. The doctor had said she would never have a child and she would always have to look into the eyes she loved, which had once held a look of adulation and were now hollow windows, which merely acknowledged her existence.

She would run. She had to leave Albert. Yet if she did, she would leave herself here, her soul and her heart. They might be wounded but they were not dead, and they still loved Albert with a loyalty that she did not think would end. She had been so starved of love, to have known what she had with Albert, even for a year, would stay with her forever.

But there was no other choice than to leave. This was a poisoned marriage. He would kill her in the end.