The Secret Love of a Gentleman. Jane Lark

was among them playing cricket as Mary sat on a blanket beneath a canopy watching him, with Iris in her arms.

      Many of the women held young children.

      Caro was the only parasite—unmarried and childless, sucking the blood from this family, hiding among them, dependent and clinging to her brother. She hated her reliance on Drew, it pressed into her side, a steel-hard pain. Sometimes she felt as though Albert’s hands were still about her neck, cutting off her breath and that she had not taken a breath since she’d left him three years before.

      Yet this family accepted her, all of them. She could not blame her misery on them. They were simply a constant reminder of what she had failed to possess, she had not succeeded in winning the love of her husband, or to bear his child. Guilt, shame and longing hung about her and whispered in her ears as constant companions.

      Caro sipped from the glass of lemonade she held. If the family had gathered at Drew’s house she would have retired to her rooms and found a book or embroidery to absorb her thoughts. But today she had been foolish enough to agree to travel with them. Yet Mary had asked specifically and refusing would have seemed too rude.

      “Throw!” The Duke of Pembroke yelled from his position behind the wicket, holding up his open hands. The ball was thrown to him and his uncle was caught out.

      Some of the women and children cheered and others booed, depending on who their allegiance lay with.

      The Duke slapped his uncle’s shoulder and his uncle laughed.

      The Pembrokes were a happy, harmonious clan, and Drew was now one of them. He’d thrown the ball to John.

      The crack of hard leather hitting willow echoed across the open space above the sound of conversation. Mary’s brother Robbie held the bat and ran.

      He was to stay at Drew’s for the summer.

      Caro watched him run from one wicket to the other. He was tall but lithe. He touched the bat to the ground, then ran back.

      Discomfort rippled through her nerves.

      “Papa! Uncle Bobbie!”

      Caro’s gaze turned to Drew’s son. He’d escaped the women and was running on his little legs to join the game.

      Before he’d run more than a dozen steps, Mary’s father caught him up and tossed the child, squealing, into the air.

      Drew’s children were the only part of Caro’s life that brought her happiness. She spent hours with her nephew and niece.

      Applause echoed over the lawn as Robbie ran his fourth length and beat the ball back to the wicket. He turned and braced himself to hit again, his dark-brown hair falling forward over his brow.

      He was different from most of the Pembrokes, and from most of Mary’s family. He looked like his father, not his mother. He did not have the Pembrokes’ dark hair or their pale-blue eyes.

      Drew had told her Robbie had seen her leave the house yesterday. Drew had said she’d made Robbie concerned about staying. Then Drew had waited as if he hoped she would say she did not mind Robbie coming.

      She had not answered. She did not wish to discuss her silent madness with her brother. Guilt and shame had eaten away at her in the last three years and she was not a whole woman; she could not simply snuff out her feelings like the flame of a candle. She did not understand it herself, so how could she discuss it anyway. He’d encouraged her to speak with doctors in the early years, and yet the only one she had told had offered her laudanum to calm her nerves—nothing else.

      She did not wish to feel ill as well as mad.

      Perhaps Drew ought to have her admitted to an asylum and be done with it. She felt as though she was trapped within a prison anyway—a glass gaol of her own making.

      A raucous cheer rang across the lawn outside as Robbie’s wicket was smashed by the bowling technique of one of his cousins. Once the cheering was over the men began to walk back up the hill towards the house.

      Her heartbeat pounded violently in her chest.

      Drew spotted her. Of course, he knew where to look. He knew she would not be outside among Mary’s family. He lifted his hand, peeling away from the others, who walked towards the women.

      Her brother was a man to match the Pembrokes, he was tall, athletic and handsome; brown-haired and hazel-eyed. He’d carried his own insecurity before he’d married Mary, but not now. Mary and her family had healed him—made him a complete man. He was at peace with himself, confident and in love with Mary. He deserved more than to have a sister who clung like a shackle about his neck.

      “Caro!” he called as he drew nearer. “Come and sit with Mary and me!”

      “I am happy here!” she called back.

      “Are you?” he responded with a smile. “You need not exclude yourself, though! Come!” He held out his hand as he walked closer.

      Unfortunately, he was also stubborn.

      Her lips trembled when she tried to smile.

      Then he was there, taking her hand, whether she willed it or not. He pulled her outside. “Kate will take it as an insult if you do not join us.”

      “She will not. The Duchess will not notice.” Yet Caro gave in to his urging rather than cause a scene.

      His hold on her hand was loose as he pulled her on.

      The only people she felt comfortable touching her were Drew and the children… and yet she craved touch. She felt starved of it at times. It was another anomaly of her madness.

      He flashed a smile across his shoulder. “She notices. They all do. But admittedly no one thinks ill of you, and yet you still hide.”

      She said nothing to that.

      The family groups were gathered about the refreshment tables. Some of the children ran between people’s legs, playing a game of chase, until one of the Duke’s uncles called a stop to the game. “Enough, children, you shall knock one of us over!” Caro flinched at the tone of his voice. It rattled through her nerves.

      “Come on.” Drew’s hold tightened on her hand as he felt her hesitation.

      Caro focused on Mary, her heart racing with the pace of a galloping horse. Her panic was irrational, there was no threat and yet every one of her senses tingled with a need to run. Fear hemmed her in and tightened in a heavy grip about her chest, making it difficult to breathe.

      Flashes of memory stirred, images sparking through her thoughts like flashes of lightning—there and then not.

      “Look what I found,” Drew said to Mary.

      Caro fought the growing pain in her chest when Drew let go of her hand and tried not to gasp for breath as her heart pounded out a wild rhythm.

      Mary smiled and patted a vacant space beside her on the blanket.

      Caro sat down.

      “Caro was in the house. I thought I’d bring her out here so that she could converse with you at least.”

      Caro’s gaze fell to Iris—her niece was asleep in Mary’s arms. Instantly the panic eased, replaced by love and longing.

      “Would you like to take her,” Mary offered.

      Mary was a few years younger than Drew, but she was so good for him, and good to Caro.

      “Thank you.” When Caro took Iris from Mary, the child stirred, her little hands opening as her eyes did.

      Drew’s fingers brushed his daughter’s cheek. Iris looked up at her papa.

      “Poppet,” he whispered.

      Iris gurgled in recognition.

      “Aun’ie Ca’o!” George barrelled into her side, tumbling onto the blanket with a roll. She clasped one arm about George while the other held Iris,