chapter 14
Caroline pushed the papers to the side and tried to keep her scratchy lids open. With her nightly excursions, she wasn’t getting near enough sleep. Every night at midnight she crept down the stairs and read to Jack, her finger following the words, so he could trail along with his gaze.
On Saturday after work she’d taken the gig to the bookstore in Warrington and purchased a couple of children’s books and a dictionary for him to study when she was working. Each night she questioned her sanity.
Just because he had been concerned about her didn’t mean any great thing. He’d been “concerned” enough about Mattie to keep her from being hit by a broken belt.
For goodness sake he was an engaged man.
“Ma’am, the doctor’s here,” said Mr. Smythe. “Would you like for him to wait?”
“Yes.” She popped out of the chair and reached for her cloak before she thought. Her eagerness gave her pause. It was as if seeing Jack was the best part of her day.
Hurrying outside, she tied her hat under her chin.
After they dispensed with pleasantries, Caroline felt that, outwardly at least, she had regained control of her emotions. Inside, she quivered like a pennant flapping in a gale.
Dr. Hein handed her up into his curricle. “How is our patient, today?”
“He was sleeping soundly when I last saw him this morning.” Caroline settled on the seat. Jack was getting better and increasingly restless. He kept asking for clothes and she kept staving him off. Which was silly. If she didn’t mean to use him to father a baby then there was no reason to keep him at the house, except he provided a safe haven when she was sneaking about pretending to conduct an affair. “But I can tell you, he is quite anxious to use his crutches more.”
“As he should. He will need to rebuild his strength.” The physician climbed into his gig and unwrapped the reins from the brake handle. “Has he been able to move his toes?”
Caroline shook her head. The inability to move his foot concerned Jack.
The doctor sighed. “I suppose he must have damaged a nerve in the accident.”
“Will it heal?”
“It is in God’s hands.” The doctor shrugged. “He may never have full use of his foot. Or it might fully heal. Only time will tell. At least he seems to have escaped sepsis.”
If his ankle didn’t heal properly, Jack might need to work as a clerk permanently.
Dr. Hein slapped the reins, starting the horse forward. “And our other patient? He has been taking the foxglove a few days, long enough to see improvement.”
Caroline frowned. His words didn’t seem to make sense in her head.
“Is your husband feeling better?” asked the doctor anxiously. “Perhaps I should look in on him first.”
Goodness, was she so concerned about Jack, she’d forgotten Mr. Broadhurst? “He has been well.”
“Remember, your husband must not take too much of the foxglove, but exactly as I prescribed it,” the doctor was saying. “Those who think the prescribed amount makes them feel so well that more would make them feel better are sadly disabused of the notion. Too much can make a heart stop.”
Caroline turned to the doctor. “You told Mr. Broadhurst this, did you not?”
“Yes, of course, and I reiterated the dosing instructions with your brother, as you had gone to the mill, but I find with men it is often their wives that mind the details of their lives.”
“Perhaps he shouldn’t take it at all if it is so dangerous,” she said.
“I don’t wish to alarm you, but his heart is weak. The foxglove will help, but his heart could give out at any time. All this activity with his visitors might be too much for a man in his condition. He is not hale.”
Her fingers curled in until her nails bit her palms through her gloves. She might not have years to build a nest egg or work at persuading Mr. Broadhurst to change his mind about leaving her with nothing. She had to go back to her original plan of getting pregnant. Her heart thundered in her chest. She couldn’t tiptoe around anymore. Either she had to solicit Jack or apply herself to seducing one of the remaining gentlemen.
“Are you all right, Mrs. Broadhurst?” asked the doctor.
“I’m fine,” she said in a wooden voice.
“I know it must be hard news—”
“Mrs. Broadhurst! Oh, Mrs. Broadhurst, Doctor, do stop.”
Caroline swiveled to see Lucy running after them. Her skirts were caught up in one hand and her black stockings flashed beneath white petticoats as she chased them. In her other hand she held a tied bundle.
The doctor stopped the horse.
Lucy caught the side of the vehicle and stood panting. A stray strand of blond hair curled over her rosy cheek and she pushed it back. “Would you give . . . these to Jack?” She held out the cloth bundle. “I baked him a batch of his favorite shortbread.”
And then there was Lucy, bright-eyed, pretty blond Lucy, Jack’s future wife. Caroline silently moaned. She couldn’t make use of Jack when he was going to marry this girl, not do that with him and then work within feet of him in the mill office, knowing he would be going home to Lucy.
“You can have some too,” the girl said cheekily to the doctor. “And give Jack my love. I have to get back before the foreman realizes I left.” Her guileless eyes landed on Caroline. “Another girl’s watching my spot, but you understand, don’t you, Mrs. Broadhurst.”
Not trusting her voice, Caroline nodded.
Oh God, she couldn’t use Jack knowing this sweet girl was to be his wife.
Jack sat at the table writing on the sheaf of papers Mrs. Broadhurst had left him. Would she come to him tonight? She had for the last three nights and it was torture to have her so near, yet be unable to do anything more than listen as she read to him or talked about her idea to offer meals at the school so the families wouldn’t feel the loss of wages so keenly.
He wanted her badly enough that if he didn’t get out of here soon, he’d embarrass them both by pulling her into his bed. But he had no clothes and his boots had disappeared. He didn’t want to brave the cold with just stockings and a nightshirt, although it might come to that.
The door clicked open behind him, and he tried to mask his stiff intake of breath.
She drew near and his senses swirled with her soft scent. His blood fired. But she hovered just out of reach.
He didn’t know where he stood with her. She’d tolerated his probing questions, but had not always answered them. Occasionally it seemed as if she were baring her soul and glad to have him as a confidant. He didn’t dare question why, for fear she wouldn’t like the answer and would stop coming to him in the night.
Which would be a good thing, he told himself sternly. If their shoulders brushed as she read to him, she’d stiffen and move away. Not exactly the response that would lead him to believe she’d allow more contact. By the time she left in the early morning hours, he’d be randy as a goat, but trying to keep her from seeing how much being near her affected him.
And there was no telling what Broadhurst would do if he found her in a laborer’s room. Broadhurst might have come from nothing, but to him the line between a mill owner and millworkers was demarcated in stone.
“What’s this?” she asked, picking up his drawing of wheels connected to a mechanized shaft.
Jack tapped his pencil on the table. He should have been working on his words. The dictionary she’d brought him was full of so many it seemed it would take him a lifetime to learn to spell them all. “I’ve been trying to figure out the right wheel configuration for horseless carriages.”
She frowned. “These don’t look like train wheels.”
“They’re not. It is just a matter of time before someone figures out how to make carriages that run on roads, not tracks, but the wheels are a problem.” Needing to put some space between them so he could clear his head, he reached for his crutches and stood.
She blinked her crystal blue eyes. Eyes he wanted to drown in. “Regular wheels won’t work?”
He dropped his gaze to her lips. Which was worse—or better. To touch his lips to hers would be heaven.
She lowered her gaze and put the paper down with jerky movements. Sidling to the chair beside his bed, she picked up the book and held it in front of her chest like a shield.
What would it take to get her to yield to him? At times it seemed like maybe she wanted him to touch her, but he was too uncertain to risk it. At first he wouldn’t have placed that much importance on it, but now he didn’t want to hurt her. Just two nights ago she had let him see her vulnerability, when she admitted that his willingness to intercede with her brother had affected her. Not that he could have done much more than interrupt their conversation. A conversation Caroline had waved off as a silly family matter when he asked what her brother had said to upset her.
She seemed skittish tonight. Uncertain. Instead of stepping closer, he held up the drawing. “With a carriage, you want as little friction with the road to make it easier for a horse to draw it, but with a mechanized carriage, you would need the wheels to transfer the power from the engine to the road. They would have to be wider for more friction and made out of a different material so as to not tear up the roads.”
She stared at him, her lips parting. A jolt shot straight to his groin.
He took a few steps toward the bed. Would she allow him to hold her?
She skittered toward the fireplace, the book against her chest.
His crutching around left him tired, and he couldn’t follow her as she darted around the room. He crutched to the bed and sat with a thump. “Will you read?”
“Jack . . .” She bit her lower lip and turned her head.
He waited, hoping there would be a word of encouragement that she was as aware of the sizzle in the air as he was.
Her gaze fastened on the tied bundle of treats resting on the sideboard. “You didn’t eat the shortbread?”
He shrugged. “I had one. I’ll send the rest home with Beth tomorrow. The children will enjoy them.”
“It was very thoughtful of Miss Dugan to send them,” she said.
No it wasn’t. It was Lucy’s effort to continue to claim him, when he’d told her that they were done. “She shouldn’t have bothered.”
Caroline’s eyebrows knit.
Jack pushed the crutches to the side and lifted his heavy cast and leg onto the bed. His damn leg was starting its usual nightly burn.
“Do you need your medicine?” she asked.
The laudanum would ease the fire in his blood and the pain in his leg. He nodded, and she spent the next few minutes mixing it with water and sugar. He deliberately put his hand around hers as he took the glass. Her fingers were freezing. Perhaps she didn’t feel the heat between them.
“Would you like me to warm your hands?”
She hesitated.
His heart thundered.
“I’ll just stir up the fire a bit,” she finally said.
His disappointment thick, he swallowed the bitter medicine and set the glass on the side table.
After she poked the fire a couple of times, she settled into the chair beside his bed and opened the book. His reading had improved but was a long way from her easy deciphering of the text. He tilted up to follow the words as she spoke them.
The door crashed open and they both jumped.
“What are you doing?” Mr. Broadhurst filled the door frame. His glower transferred from Caroline to him and back to her.
Bloody hell.
“I am sitting with the patient.” Caroline closed the book and stood.
Mr. Broadhurst glared at her. “This is where you are going every night? To sit and read to this . . . this bastard.”
His blood running cold, Jack shot up to sit. Caroline held her hand out stopping him. “He is recovering. Nights are always the worst when one is in pain.”
Mr. Broadhurst paced across the room. “This is where you have been sneaking off to,” he muttered. “I have asked one thing of you in all our marriage and this is how you repay me?”
What had he asked of her?
“Sir—” Caroline tried to interrupt.
“After all I have done for you and your family, and your promises—need I remind you of your promises and all the bargains you struck?” He slashed at the air as if it impeded him, and paced faster and harder.
Jack frowned and tilted his head.
She stepped to block his view of Broadhurst or Broadhurst’s view of him, he wasn’t sure which.
Jack pushed at the covers. What could he do if Broadhurst was intent on hurting her? “Sir—”
“Stay out of this,” said Broadhurst.
“Please, do not upset yourself, Mr. Broadhurst. It cannot be good for you,” Caroline cajoled.
“I have had enough of your lies.” He turned and made a chopping motion with his hand.
“Sir, she has only been a kind nurse,” Jack said. For as much as he wanted more, nothing had ever happened between them.
“You, shut your mouth,” said Broadhurst.
Jack reached for his crutches. He couldn’t let the man abuse her.
“Sir, the patient is not well, please do not take out your wrath on him. I am the one with whom you are angry.” Caroline’s spine straightened and she moved toward the door. “And we should discuss this elsewhere.”
Damn it, did she intend to throw herself to the lion?
The old man looked close to frothing at the lips. After a dark glare, Broadhurst stormed after her. Even though Caroline turned her palm toward him, Jack couldn’t let her go off alone with Broadhurst. Not and live with himself. He might ruin everything for his family, because the man could be vengeful, but if Broadhurst hurt her, he could never forgive himself.
After closing the door on Jack’s worried expression, Caroline crossed the hall, heading for the library, but Mr. Broadhurst grabbed her arm and yanked her back. “I have done everything I can to make this easy for you. I brought in all these men. Is it so much to ask that you—”
“Sir! We will discuss this in private.”
“There is nothing to discuss.” Mr. Broadhurst yanked her toward the stairs. “You will do as you’re bid or I will toss you out on your ear.”
She twisted her arm away and spun to face him. The hall wasn’t the best place to discuss their bargain. “I have tried,” she whispered.
“Are you with child?” he demanded.
Cringing, she tried to get him to lower his voice by patting his chest. “I don’t know,” but even as she said the words, her head moved back and forth in a negative motion. She had never been good at deception.
Jack’s crutches thumping toward the door had her heart skittering in her throat. The last thing she needed was Jack interfering. She had made the bargain so he might stay, so he might work as a clerk, although mostly so she could be free of having a master one day. Her throat closing, she tried to soothe Mr. Broadhurst. “I will do as I promised. I have a plan.”
“Dammit, Caroline, I thought . . .” He shook his head. “I find you reading. Reading to that . . . common son of bitch.” Mr. Broadhurst shook her. “With all those men abovestairs of your class. You will not hide in his room anymore. If I catch you down here, I will have him horsewhipped.”
The door opened.
Caroline leaned around Mr. Broadhurst. The last thing she needed was Jack coming to her defense. In his weakened state, he was not capable of helping her. Mr. Broadhurst would have him thrown out, wounded or not. She deliberately suppressed the nerves in her voice. “Please go back to bed, Mr. Applegate. This doesn’t concern you.”
He stared at her as if trying to discern the risk.
Mr. Broadhurst hissed, “Horsewhipped.” He dropped his hands and folded his arms across his chest.
Caroline dipped her head and skirted around her husband. “Please, Mr. Applegate, you need to get back to bed before you fall again.”
Jack shot her a dirty look as she held out her hand as if she would steer him. She didn’t dare touch him, not while Mr. Broadhurst was watching. She mouthed the word Please.
She waited, her breath held until, Jack finally began to pivot around. “Thank you,” she whispered.
Jack cast one look over his shoulder, but Caroline followed him into the room and bent to blow out the lamp as he settled on the bed.
“Are you sure you’re all right?” he asked in a low voice.
“Of course I am all right.”
“Would you call out for help you if you were not?” Jack asked in a low voice.
His concern filtered through her alarm, like a candle put in the window to welcome home a weary traveler, but she feared his interference could only make things much worse. “I assure you, with a house full of gentlemen including my brother, I am in no danger.”
She hoped she wasn’t in danger. Icy fingers tracked down her spine. If Mr. Broadhurst really had killed his last wife, what was to stop him from doing it again? No, she had to appease him, or neither of them were safe.
Jack searched her face with narrowed eyes.
Her shoulders stiff, she went to the door and murmured a good-night before closing the door.
Mr. Broadhurst grabbed her upper arm and propelled her toward the stairs.
“I can walk on my own.”
“Walk faster.” His hand bruised her as he forced her up the stairs.
When he got Caroline to her room, he shoved her through the doorway. Following her in, he shut the door, turned the key in the lock and removed it. “Strip.”
“Wh-What?” whispered Caroline.
“I said, strip. Take off that dressing gown.”
Caroline unfastened the buttons holding the heavy robe closed. She wouldn’t need it for bed.
“The night is still young enough,” Mr. Broadhurst muttered.
“I will arrange another tryst tomorrow.” She draped the robe over the foot of her bed.
Mr. Broadhurst’s eyes raked over her. They were cold and hard. “Your family understands the importance of this.”
“But—”
“I’ll have that bastard sleeping in my house whipped, broken leg or not.”
Jack hadn’t done anything to deserve her husband’s wrath. She reached for the covers of her bed, only to be jerked back.
“I’ve had enough of your games. I always thought you were an honorable woman, Caroline. That you would adhere to any bargain you made. It appears nobility of breeding is no indication of character.”
Caroline’s mouth worked. But the trouble was, she couldn’t find the heart to object to what he said. She had welshed on her promise; not that she should have been asked to commit adultery in the pursuit of offspring. Nor could she claim failing to fulfill a bargain as the weakness of her sex—not when he would take it as another reason she could not run the mill. And seducing a gentleman and getting him to impregnate her wasn’t as easy as he thought it was. It wasn’t as if she were beautiful like her blond sisters. She was far from every man’s ideal.
Mr. Broadhurst marched to her wardrobe, drew out the dressmaker’s box and tossed it on the bed. “Take off that damn unsightly nightgown and put this on.”
“No,” she whispered, but her protest was barely audible.
“You knock on any one of our guest’s doors wearing that and he’ll know what to do.”
A squeak of alarm left her, but icy fear ran in cold rivulets down her spine. She had determined that she would ask Jack when he was well enough, but she couldn’t tell Mr. Broadhurst that.
Mr. Broadhurst pulled a penknife from his pocket and opened the blade. “If I have to cut that nightgown off of you, I’ll send you out in nothing. Your choice, Caroline.”
Her mind raced. How could she get out of this? But it would happen again and again until she played her part of this impure bargain. She straightened and reached for her buttons. “You will not horsewhip Jack. He is not a part of this.”
He moved closer with the open blade. “You made him part when you bargained for a position for him.” He sliced the twine around the box, but instead of closing the blade, he used it to emphasize his next words.
Shivers ran down her spine. If Mr. Broadhurst learned she planned to use Jack, he would not hesitate to hurt him. Doubly so if he thought it might hurt her too.
“And I swear, Caroline, I do not want you spending any more time with him. You will be spending the nights getting with child by one of the men your brother provided. All of your undergarments too.”
“Sir,” she protested. “That’s indecent.” She opened the box and was reminded of how very sheer the chiffon was.
“Your own sister sent you that. She understands. Now, I want results. Sleep with every man in this house, but do not—” He emphasized his point with the knife. “Do not tell any more of them you want a child because I cannot give you one.”
Caroline went light-headed. He knew what she said to Mr. Whitton.
“Hurry up. You will not be allowed back in this room until you have fulfilled your nightly part of the bargain.”
The servants were up before dawn, stirring fires to life, the valets carrying hot water to their gentlemen for shaving, the footmen preparing the dining room for breakfast. She couldn’t be flitting around in the sheer negligee and lacy wrap. She should have burned them when she had a chance. “The men are hunting tomorrow, they will want their sleep.”
“A man will give up sleep for a moment’s pleasure.” Mr. Broadhurst stepped closer and grabbed the wrapper. “You won’t need this.”
“I’ll freeze.”
“If you don’t find a warm bed.”
“I have a plan. There is no need to send me out like a whore displaying her wares.”
Mr. Broadhurst’s gaze was reptilian. “You will do this tonight and the next and the next.” He raised his arm as if to slap her, but it still contained the knife.
He was mad. Did he even remember he had the blade in his hand or was he in such a state of anger he would use it? Shaking, she shed the last of her undergarments and pulled the gossamer nightgown over her head. Even as the material whispered against her skin, it felt like nothing. She wanted to defy her husband, but standing in front of him nearly naked, her courage fled.
Mr. Broadhurst’s nostrils flared. His voice softened, but it chilled her worse than his threats. “Come, darling, you want a child. I know you do. You used to say so.”
She had wanted a child, desperately. Her mother had told her to think of that as she endured Mr. Broadhurst’s visits. A woman had to submit in order to have a family. She had only to make herself available and think of conceiving, but that hadn’t been true with Mr. Berkley, or Mr. Broadhurst. She no longer believed it could happen, not really.
She was tired of submitting, tired of the notion that the man was the head of the household and must be obeyed, tired of being nothing more than his servant. She wanted a child, but she’d be the one to decide when and how it was conceived. He might send her out like a harlot, but she would not go to one of the gentlemen.
“Now take down your hair, but use the ribbon to tie it back. No hiding like Lady Godiva for you.”
She removed the pins that held up her night braid and unplaited the strands. As good as naked, her fingers trembled while she followed his order, as her mind spun down useless tracks to avoid this travesty.
Mr. Broadhurst looked her up and down. “You’ve a fine figure. No man would turn you away.”
Would Jack? Did she dare go back down the stairs to him?
In the moment of her hesitation, her husband grabbed her arm and pulled her to the door. He gave her a little shove as he followed, closed the door, pulled out the key and locked it.
She stumbled and caught herself. He stood by her door and folded his arms. “Go. I will return to your room and wait.”
Caroline took a step down the hall, toward the rooms housing their guests. Her legs were weak and she fisted her hands in the material, trying to cover the darkness at the apex of her thighs. Her stomach clenched.
The unheated corridor terrified her. She couldn’t tell if her skin was colder than her insides. Oh God, she couldn’t do this again. But she had no choice. She couldn’t go downstairs to Jack while Mr. Broadhurst watched her. Horsewhipping would be the least of it, if she were caught with him.
Her teeth chattered and her entire body shook as she neared the first doors. Her mind spun as she tried to remember which man was in the first room.
“Stop stalling,” hissed Mr. Broadhurst.
She looked at the doors. First was Lord Edward’s room. She passed Lord Tremont’s door. Ahead was Mr. Berkley’s room. He would at least not be shocked by her appearance at his door, although she had been careful to not be alone with him. However, without revealing her husband wanted to be cuckolded, she doubted she could convince him to do what was needed to impregnate her.
She cast a glance over her shoulder. Mr. Broadhurst glared at her. She closed her eyes. Independence could be the reward for this. Her bravado disappeared in light of what Jack had said about the previous Mrs. Broadhurst, about her husband’s threat to have Jack horsewhipped, and about her own shame at making a bargain and then failing.
Jack listened for sounds that Caroline needed help. If she were in trouble, would she scream or just suffer in silence with quiet dignity? Either way, he wanted to check on her, but she would find the intrusion into her personal life insolent and disrespectful. Lying in the bed, he felt useless. He was no more than her patient.
He pushed back the covers and sat. Dizziness assailed him. The laudanum was winding him down. He would have to go slowly, but he was determined to be certain she was not following in the path of Broadhurst’s two previous wives.
He reached for his crutches and positioned them under his arms. Moving as quietly as he could, he moved out into the cavern of the entry hall and across the marble. His foot protested at the cold of the unheated stone, but he feared for Caroline.
The staircase loomed before him, but he’d taken the steps before. One flight up were the drawing rooms, music room, and unused ballroom. The bedrooms were two flights above him. He planted the crutches on the first stair and began the steady journey up into the parts of the house where his kind weren’t allowed.
His heart thumping and his breathing harsh, he took each step until he reached the silent landing of the first floor. He heard a whisper and jerked his head trying to hear more. He took a couple of the risers. His chest heaved and beads of perspiration dotted his forehead. God, even if he could get to her, what could he do?
But he continued on. Just out of his line of vision a thin white thing went by. Now he was seeing ghosts. He shook his head and grabbed for the banister, barely hanging onto his crutch.
The form returned to the top of the stairs. “Do not follow me,” she said in a low hiss. She wasn’t looking down the stairs, but back down the hall from whence she came. What the hell was she wearing?
“Do not think of going down those stairs,” was the answer in Broadhurst’s creaky whisper, but the menace in his tone chilled Jack’s blood.
Jack blinked and wondered if the laudanum was playing a trick on him, or if he’d gone to sleep and was dreaming, because it appeared that Mrs. Broadhurst wore a gown he could see through. The jut of her breast, the line of the thigh, dear God, the curve of her bum were all discernable. Behind her back, she made a shooing motion he almost missed because he was staring so hard at her sweet form.
He swallowed several times.
She turned on her heel and disappeared from sight. Jack stared into the darkness, wanting a chance to look longer and wondering if he had really seen her at all—and heard Broadhurst. But he was sure of it, none of the other men in the house would have raised his hackles the way Broadhurst did.
What on earth was going on? Just to think, Jack had to shake off the image that seemed forever locked in his brain. His thoughts moved as if through pudding and came out muddled. It couldn’t be. The conclusion he reached was preposterous, but he ran through everything in his mind again and came to the same result.
Broadhurst wanted Caroline to have sex with the men staying in the house.