chapter 15
Caroline couldn’t believe Jack had followed her up from the ground floor. If he interfered, he would ruin everything. At least she was able to shoo him off before he climbed the next flight of stairs to the bedrooms. If Mr. Broadhurst threw Jack out of the house, she wouldn’t be able to have him get her with child. Of course the point was probably moot, unless she happened on a gentleman who slept like the dead and didn’t wake when she entered his room. She could go in without knocking and hope for the best.
Her heart threatening to pound out of her chest, she walked by another door. Mr. Broadhurst’s eyes were burning holes in her back. His rage was a tangible thing that weighted the air. Nothing could have induced her to go back to him. But ahead was the horrible choice of one of the gentlemen.
Dear God, don’t let one of them rise to use the water closet. Her thoughts refused to hold together as she worked to remember the room assignments. If she could barely remember, would Mr. Broadhurst have any inkling? There was Ivero’s room on the left and Langley’s on the right. She jerked to a halt.
Lord Langley had gone home. His room was vacant. Without another thought she burst into it, whirled around while closing the door. She turned the key. Her heart was beating so hard she thought it might be audible to anyone near.
She stumbled through the pitch-black room, stubbing her toe on a chair. Biting back her yelp, she formulated a plan. Langley’s room connected to a dressing room, which lead out to the servant stairs. If she brought Jack from the first floor to the room . . .
At best it was a half-baked plan, but she didn’t dare leave him to be caught by her husband. Only she could barely see. She headed for the empty hearth and scrabbled around on the mantel shelf until she found matches. She lit one and found a stubby night-light. She managed to touch the match to the wick just before the match singed her fingers.
Holding the candle aloft, the light only emphasized how very near to naked she was. Crossing the room, she grabbed the counterpane and wrapped the yards of material around her and over one shoulder like a Roman toga, leaving one arm free. At least if the night porter or one of the gentlemen stumbled on her, she could maintain some dignity. Biting her lip so hard she tasted the coppery flavor of blood, she slipped into the dressing room. Her feet protested as she left the carpet for the frigid bare wood.
Resisting the urge to walk only on the less sensitive sides of her feet, she scurried through the darkness to stairs. Nearly putting out the flame in her haste, she raced down the steps. She set the candle on a riser before opening the door to the first floor. She couldn’t risk the candlelight being visible to Mr. Broadhurst.
Her heart thundering in the chest, she stepped out into the hallway.
Jack stood at the top of the main flight of stairs leading down to the ground floor.
“Jack,” she whispered.
He swiveled so fast she feared he would overset himself. He drew his gaze over her as she walked toward him, the counterpane dragging behind her. His forehead crinkled and a half smile lifted the corner of his mouth.
“What—”
She pushed her icy finger against her lips and shook her head.
He tilted, looking up the stairs.
Damn, she did not need Mr. Broadhurst seeing him.
She caught his arm to pull him toward the servant stairs. His heat radiating through the nightshirt scorched her, but then her hands were cold. Running around nearly naked in cool late October was hardly conducive for a successful measure of skin temperature, but she hoped he wasn’t developing a fever now.
He grunted softly as he planted his crutch to keep from being pulled off balance.
Realizing she couldn’t tug him around, she winced.
He tilted his head down and slowly swiveled toward the open doorway. As soon as she had him in the steep narrow stairwell, she inched the door shut until it latched with a click that sounded like a gunshot. The steps went down to the kitchen, or she could take him back upstairs.
Looking down, Jack sagged against his crutches, breathing heavily. He was far from well and fit.
What if Mr. Broadhurst had followed her down the hall and listened at the door? He would expect to hear—Oh Lord—he would expect to hear the sounds of her with a man, and if he didn’t . . .
She said sotto voce, “I need your help.”
Jack turned and tilted his head, his expression shifting to wide-eyed speculation. “In what way?”
Oh God, how would she ask him to get a child upon her? Her chilled cheeks flashed with sudden heat. “I’ll explain later. Can you make it up this flight of stairs?”
The flight was narrow, without a handrail, the steps twice as steep as the main stairs.
“Up will be easier than down,” he whispered.
He searched her face, and she wondered how much he had seen earlier. And was Mr. Broadhurst right in that all she had to do was present herself in the sheer negligee and a man would know what to do? Would Jack? Was he well enough?
Unable to meet his eyes with her thoughts racing on such lurid paths, she ducked her head. “Hurry, please,” she hissed.
He complied, his arms quivering under the strain. By the time she had him in the empty bedchamber, he breathed like a winded horse. He sagged against the crutches. “Need . . . rest,” he heaved.
“Here, lie down on the bed,” she whispered. Fearing he might collapse, she held onto his waist as he slowly rocked across the room.
He shook badly as he leaned against the edge of the stripped bare guest bed. Beads of perspiration dotted his forehead while he twisted and used the crutches to vault himself onto the high mattress. The bed creaked and he groaned.
She whimpered, fearing the exertion might make him develop an ague. And getting him back downstairs to his own bed before the night was over would strain him even more. Would he be capable of mating at all? She couldn’t ask it of him tonight. Or would she even have to ask?
The doorknob to the main hall rattled and both of them jerked their heads to see the distinct double break in the spill of gaslight under the door. A jolt of alarm made her heart flip in her chest. Stars above, if Mr. Broadhurst caught her with Jack . . .
The events of the night seemed so peculiar that Jack wasn’t sure if he was dreaming or riding the black mare. If this were his dream, Mrs. Broadhurst would be climbing into bed with him about now. Or if Mr. Broadhurst burst through the door, he would know it was a bad, bad nightmare.
He stared through the darkness at the door handle, seeing it twist just slightly but not enough to open. Mrs. Broadhurst must have had the foresight to turn the key.
Mrs. Broadhurst hid his crutches on the far side of the bed. While crawling over him, she unwound the bedcover. She jerked the spread to cover them and the bare mattress and unfortunately kept it over her.
He caught her arm, halting her frantic efforts. She jerked to pull away, but Jack had the advantage of seeing the terrorized way she stared at the shadows cast by two feet beyond the door. She feared what was on the other side worse than she feared anything he might do. He couldn’t see much by the light of the single candle, but he could see that. And it wasn’t any bogeyman standing at the door, but Broadhurst, who might be worse than any bogeyman.
“Hey,” Jack whispered.
Mrs. Broadhurst twisted and covered his mouth. Her eyes begged him to be quiet. But he couldn’t stop the grunt that left him as she bumped his broken leg in her haste to silence him. He wasn’t sure if terror left her hand as cold as a corpse’s or just the chill of an unheated room.
Her expression crumpled, but he shook his head and peeled her iciclelike fingers away. His breathing, still harsh from the rapid climb up the stairs, rasped in the quiet. He needed all the air he could suck into his lungs. He attempted to warm her hand by pressing it between his, but she snatched it away. After a second Jack twisted up to cup his hands around her closest ear.
“He wants one of the gentlemen to get you with child?”
She shuddered then pulled away, but her chin went down in a quick confirmatory nod. Then she wouldn’t meet his gaze. Instead she leaned across and blew out the candle, plunging them into darkness before he had a chance to truly glimpse the treasures revealed by the gauzy garment she wore.
Jack’s body pounded as he realized it was no dream, and he wanted her to reach across the expanse of the bed and touch him. He waited and waited. The darkness pressed him down.
She lay so still he wondered if she was breathing. He didn’t know why he hoped she might turn to him. He wasn’t a gentleman. He wasn’t even a whole man. She had probably never even considered asking him to help her in that way.
Fighting the laudanum, the exhaustion, and his disappointment, he pushed up on an elbow to watch for the shadows to move. What was Broadhurst waiting for?
Jack tensed, waiting now too.
Caroline had been sneaking down to his bedside night after night. Was what he’d seen and heard in the library her attempt at seduction? The night before the library, she’d been drinking. Had she tried to seduce one of the gentlemen then too? Seducing men she barely knew was probably awful for her.
She probably hadn’t been concerned about him at all. His room had been a safe place to go while pretending to follow her husband’s bizarre request—order—whatever it was.
The man probably wanted proof that she was following his dictates this time. The space between the shadows darkened, as if Broadhurst had leaned his ear against the door.
Jack groaned and shifted on the bed. He twisted until he could brace his foot on the floor and rocked the bed until it responded with a rhythmic squeak and thump of the headboard against the wall.
Mrs. Broadhurst gasped. Ignoring her, Jack forced the bed to produce a steady beat. The solid bed took a lot of work to move. Doubtful that any man could trowel so hard into a woman, but he made the bed hit the wall, doing all he could to make it sound as if Mrs. Broadhurst was getting dipped.
He moaned louder and hoped he sounded more like a man in the throes of passion rather than in pain. He didn’t dare murmur sweet nothings for fear Broadhurst might be able to identify his voice, but who could tell one man’s moans from another?
“He’s gone.” Her whisper cut through the night.
Jack gave one final push and tried to catch his breath. He was thoroughly exhausted and disgusted with himself. If he were a whole man, he’d march down the hall and beat the living daylights out of Mr. Broadhurst for sending his wife out like a cock bawd sends out his whores.
Only the idea that if he stayed he could persuade her to let a lowly mill worker get her with child trumped any real desire to punish Mr. Broadhurst. And with that thought he’d sunk to a new low.
She slid out of the bed but left the cover over him. He cursed the darkness that prevented him from seeing her.
“You should stay under the covers.” You should let me hold you.
She stopped moving.
Then, inexorably, the noises of her shuffling started again. Slowly, she rounded the bed. She patted the bedside table until she found the candle, and then crept away.
He had to stop thinking she saw him as anything more than a safe refuge. Even though she seemed like a woman who yearned for babies—the way she’d picked up Mattie in the mill, and her interaction with Beth, and her concerns about the young children working instead of being in school, all pointed to a woman who wanted a family—she’d never given any indication that she might consider him a possible candidate for fatherhood. Every time he tried to touch her, she’d jerked away as if he were scalding her.
She scrabbled on the mantel and then was back by his side. He stared into the darkness, wishing to see more than the thin white outline against the overcast midnight darkness. Where was the moon when it was needed?
The clicking next to him must be her teeth chattering.
The rasp of a match and the sudden flare had him throwing his hand over his eyes. He wanted to see her, not have his eyeballs burned. He squinted and shaded his eyes, but the flash of the match was imprinted in the center of his vision.
From what he could see, Mrs. Broadhurst was shaking like the last autumn leaf in a stiff breeze. He desperately wanted to make out her form under the nightgown, and in the corners of his vision the dark shadow at the juncture of her legs drew him, just before she wadded the material in front of her. Damn, if she didn’t want him to look, why had she lit the candle?
He closed his eyes briefly, trying to blot out the stain from the fire.
He didn’t dare reach for her again.
She shook so much the flame wavered. Then just as his eyes were beginning to function properly again, she twisted away. It wasn’t soon enough. Her nipples showed as rosy shadows. Her curves were outlined. Even the slight darkening that marked her navel drew him to want to dip his tongue there. Pings of excitement bounced through him and his mouth watered.
But she was chilled. He lifted the coverlet. “Take this,” he rasped.
“Keep under the covers, I don’t want you getting a fever now. I’ll light the fire.” Her voice was high and wavering, not the low tones of a seductress.
Damn. He didn’t need the covers. He was burning. The room was chill around him, but only seemed to magnify the heat of his skin. A low energy thrummed in him as she knelt in front of the fireplace with the candle in front of her.
She was the one who needed warmth, and it would take a bit of time to get the coal burning in the grate. Had she ever lit a fire before?
He swung to slide off the bed. “I’ll do it.”
She cast a tense look over her shoulder. “Stay there. You should rest before we have to get you back downstairs.”
What in the world was going on with her? Her husband wanted her to sleep with other men, she was cold and she wouldn’t stay under the covers next to him. Did she find him that repulsive? And was it because he was a laborer—a next to illiterate millworker?
Jack sighed, as if he could sort anything out when she was across the room from him, nearly naked. He couldn’t think about anything more than the glimpse of flesh he’d already had and wanting to see more. It wasn’t terribly gentlemanly of him, but there you had it. He’d never been delusional about what he wanted from her.
He lay back on the bed and stared at the underside of the bed canopy. The blood rushed in his ears, but he also felt the languor brought on by the dose of laudanum pulling him down.
So cold Caroline wondered if ice were forming in her organs, she could barely control her shaking long enough to hold the candle under the grate. Her eyes stung as she lit the crumpled newspaper beneath the coal that had been laid for Langley’s fire, obviously before the servants grew aware that he was leaving. She supposed she should be grateful for that.
But she wanted to crawl away to a dark hole and curl in a ball. All she’d had to do was show herself in the transparent gown—right. That worked so well. Jack had covered his eyes as if the sight of her might turn him into a salt pillar like Lot’s wife.
If Jack wasn’t interested, she didn’t know what she would do. The idea of going back to pursuing one of the gentlemen made her skin crawl. But she did want a baby, and Jack had rocked the bed in an imitation of the act she needed. A sob caught in her throat. She needed him to do the real thing, but he hadn’t given her any indication he was inclined to do more than fake it.
Now, if the medicine would just take effect, she could find a way to regain her equilibrium. She should have taken the coverlet when he offered.
The newspaper burnt out, the edges going orange then gray, and the coal just lay there not burning or glowing. She couldn’t light any kind of fire tonight. She shoved the candle under the grate and shifted away.
She should just complete her humiliation and ask Jack outright, but her voice was a disturbing three octaves higher than normal and she had no idea how to ask such a thing. She wasn’t pretty or blond or young like his Lucy.
The candle flame licked the coal. She watched it thinking it would never reach the coldness inside of her, which was like a black void of nothingness.
She would go back to her room and pretend to Mr. Broadhurst that she had done it, but before dawn she would have to get Jack back down to the breakfast room or there would be hell to pay.
An uncontrollable shudder rippled through her.
The bed creaked and she tensed. Something soft landed against her back.
“At least put that on if you won’t take the spread.”
He’d thrown his nightshirt at her. He wanted her to cover up. He didn’t even want to look at her in the negligee. She made a sound through her nose, almost like a laugh, certainly unladylike. Oh God, she was a miserable failure. Even a millworker didn’t want plain quiet Caroline.
Her hands shook as she opened the nightshirt and pulled it over her head. If she could run away, she would run until she couldn’t run anymore. But this was her life and she couldn’t get away from it, and damn Mr. Broadhurst for making her have to explain to Jack now, instead of in her own time, when he was further on the path to recovery.
She climbed onto the chair she’d stubbed her toe on earlier and pulled her legs up to her chest, the skin of her thighs cold and strange against her belly. Tucking as much of the material as she could get under her feet, she risked looking at Jack.
He was on his elbows, his undershirt baring his muscled arms. Her stomach tickled with apprehension at what she was about to ask him to do. She opened her mouth. The words wouldn’t come out.
She tucked her chin down. The nightshirt smelled of him. She closed her eyes and breathed in deeply as she tried to rub warmth into her arms.
He continued to regard her silently, as if waiting for the explanation she’d promised him.
“I’m so sorry for all this,” she said, and was pleased her voice wasn’t nearly as squeaky as before. “And that there aren’t any linens on the bed—or a fire in the grate—or just everything.”
Jack’s heart thumped irregularly as he watched her. Even in the minimal light of the room, the dusky color across her cheeks was apparent. And he regretted that he’d given her the nightshirt to cover up with, but he couldn’t think straight when she was nearly naked in front of him. But with the striped material tented around her, the ache in his groin hadn’t eased. Yet, she couldn’t have been any more clear about where he stood in regards to that.
“Do you want a child too, or is it only your husband who wants you pregnant?” he said conversationally. There was no other way to approach this.
Caroline’s arm rubbing jerked to a halt. She looked up, her eyes filled with hurt. She was desperately cold, but still wouldn’t turn to him for a basic need like warmth. He swallowed down his disappointment.
Her voice started barely audible but rose as she spoke. “I’ve always wanted a baby. But this unholy plan was not of my making.” She pushed her hand against her mouth as if she regretted what she had said.
Jack watched her struggle. Wondering if he dared offer to help and how she would take it. His crutches were out of reach, as if she wanted to keep as much distance between them as possible. She lowered her hand and lowered her legs, pulling them back and to the side and folding her hands in her lap. She straightened her spine and lifted her chin with the slightest toss of her head.
“It takes a strange man to loan out his wife to other men to get her with child.”
She closed her eyes and pressed her lips together. “He just wants a son to pass the mill on to. I know it seems odd . . .”
“Broadhurst can’t father children,” Jack offered.
She fisted the material at her neck. “How do you know that?”
Curious that she didn’t offer a denial.
“You are his third childless wife. It has to be him.” And his last wife had died by her own hand or his when she passed the age of childbearing.
Caroline looked down at the floor and spoke in a flat voice. “I always thought that it was my fault, and it is not as if I would have ever known different if he had not presented this plan. I almost hate him for making me hope again.”
“You want children.”
Caroline shook her head, but it wasn’t in disagreement, but as if the knowledge surprised her. “I suggested an adoption, but he is set on it being a child with blue blood and legitimate connections.”
“Your child.”
She nodded. Her eyes begged him to understand. “Broadhurst wants a child who has no doors closed to him due to the circumstances of his birth. One that will have a better life than he had.”
Perhaps the old man possessed a few human traits. Jack still wanted to kill him, but he understood better than he wanted. Perhaps his fascination with her or a woman like her was to help give his offspring—assuming he ever had any—advantages he hadn’t had. He ticked off things in his head: education, not needing to work at the age of five, plenty of food, a warm bed all his own. Her child would have everything.
“And you agreed to do this?” he asked.
She laughed, but sounded anything but amused. “I did. It’s wrong, I know.” Her mouth pursed but her eyes flashed.
Which still left him uncertain of what she wanted. “And what will he do to you when he discovers you are not in a gentleman’s bed?” Jack scooted back so his head did not loll as he tried to carry on a conversation with her. God help him, but he’d take being horsewhipped if it meant he could have her.
Her chin lowered and she turned away.
“And you have not found one of the men to your liking?”
“I find I am not cut out to be an adulteress.” Caroline’s hands fisted in the nightshirt. “If there were any other way . . .”
“There is only one way to conceive a child. What of the man from the library?” Jack shook his head, but couldn’t seem to stop himself. He wanted to solve the problem for her.
Spots of red appeared in her cheeks. “He assured me he will not do anything that might result in a pregnancy, and I am forbidden to suggest to him that Mr. Broadhurst is incapable of fathering a child. It wouldn’t do for all of society to know that he is not the father of any child I might bear.”
A twinge of regret passed through Jack as he thought of all the times he too had refused to commit the act that could lead to a pregnancy. Avoiding marriage hardly seemed a worthwhile goal, but then he’d hoped to better himself before choosing to marry. He squeezed his eyes shut. “You could tell him you are in an infertile time.”
She gaped at him. Then sputtered, “And how would any woman know when she is fertile? We don’t go into heat like cats and dogs.”
He didn’t want to help her lay with another man, but if she didn’t fulfill her husband’s demand, he feared she would end up like the second Mrs. Broadhurst. “If you are regular, two weeks before your flow and the days around that time.”
She gaped at him as her skin fired. “You would know this how?”
Jack struggled to sit up straighter, but his limbs were loose and not responding. “The midwife.” He shrugged, then added, “And it has worked for me. Avoiding that time, anyway.”
She continued to stare at him, but closed her mouth tightly.
“The days of a woman’s flow, the week before and only a day or two after are the safest if one means to avoid conception.” Not that he entirely relied on avoiding fertile periods; he also withdrew. But that method alone could fail.
He could see Caroline calculating in her head and her eyes widened. Was she even now in a fertile period?
“Do you want a child?” Jack asked softly.
“I thought I did.” She stood and picked up the poker, but there weren’t any coals to stir and she shoved the poker at the stand and ignored it when it clattered to the hearth. She paced away, her steps long and kicking the nightshirt that dragged on the floor as she walked. “But I cannot abide the pawing and . . . pinching.” She put a hand across her breasts as if to shield them. “I tried to get drunk—”
“I saw.”
She continued as if she hadn’t heard his interruption. “—but that just made me sick.”
He watched her agitated pacing.
“Apparently I am too plain to draw men to me. And I hate pretending to enjoy an act I despise.” Her passion made her nostrils flare as the long tail of her hair whipped behind her.
“You’re beautiful.” In spite of her rant, he couldn’t feel the same. He wanted her, even if she took gentle handling to awaken her desires.
She stopped. “You are kind to say so, but you do not have to lie to me. We are better . . . friends than that, aren’t we?”
Nothing would ever erase the image of her in that sheer material, but that probably wasn’t the reassurance of her beauty that she wanted or would understand. He only hated that she disliked an act that could be so enjoyable. But she’d been little more than a child when Broadhurst married her. Had the man ever tried to see to her pleasure? “We are friends.”
“When my husband stopped coming to my room, I thought I’d never have to endure a man’s touch again.” She halted and gripped the back of the chair as if she might break it. Her chest heaved and her eyes looked wild. “But to get a child . . .”
Bloody hell, he did not want to see her go to another man and f*ck him. “Did you ever think of asking me?”
Caroline’s mouth worked but no sound came out. She stared at him. Her head dropped.
She likely thought of him as less than a whole man. Or an encroaching toady to think he could be her stud. He was not of her class, her wealth, or even a gentleman, but he could offer one thing none of the guests could. He knew what she wanted, and she did not fear him.
“I could promise not to pinch or paw.” He lowered his voice. “You wouldn’t have to pretend.”
Caroline circled the chair and sat down hard. She still hadn’t said anything.
“I could repay you for all your care, in a way.” He plucked at the coverlet, waiting for a response beyond her astonishment.
“What about your engagement to Miss Dugan?”
“I’m not engaged to Lucy, and I never have been. Did she . . . ?” He didn’t need to finish the question. Of course Lucy had claimed an engagement. He sucked in a deep breath. Anger in the face of Caroline’s fear could only make matters worse. And God forgive him, he wanted Caroline bad enough to keep a leash on his temper. “I told her we were finished.”
Silence echoed in the room and her eyes seemed to widen as her mouth rounded.
He waited, the air thickening with each passing second. To push or attempt to persuade would be the wrong tack. Or would it?
“Are you certain you could?” she asked in a quavering voice.
Of course he could perform the act that brought children. “I broke my leg, not my—”
Her hand shot out, stopping him. “Have you any natural children?”
Her question was reasonable, but it took him to a place he didn’t want to examine.
She tilted her chin down and then looked through her lashes at him. A surge of wanting thrummed low in him, but he needed to reassure her the effort would not be wasted with him. “I would have a child, if its mother had not . . .”
Her gaze turned more direct and her brow furrowed.
Jack settled for a half-truth, “ . . . passed before the babe was due. I have been careful since.”
Her mouth tightened. She hadn’t repulsed him, but she hadn’t consented either. He tried not to press.
“How did she pass?”
Jack turned to look into the fireplace, where the coal was just starting to glow a little. “By her own hand, trying to rid herself of the baby.”
“I am sorry,” said Caroline.
Hoping to stave off more questions, he said, “We were young. I made mistakes. It was a long time ago.” He should have married her straight off, instead of refusing to believe the baby was his because he had withdrawn. It hadn’t taken more than a couple of days to realize he was being an idiot, but she had already drunk the entire concoction of pennyroyal and mugwort meant to be taken over several days.
Caroline folded her arms across her chest and made a sound. “Yes, I thought of you.”
His heart leapt and he thought he might float off the bed with happiness.
“I wanted to wait until you were more healed, before asking.” Under her haughty almost disdain he heard a vulnerability, as if she thought he might refuse.
“I’m healed enough.” Satisfied he sounded as businesslike about it as she did, it took a huge amount of willpower to keep from grinning like a fool.
“If you do this—” She turned her head as if she couldn’t bear to look at him. “—I don’t want you to touch me or kiss me or anything other than what is absolutely necessary.”
His spine knotted. “You don’t want me to hold you?”
She shook her head.
His stomach dropped. What she was describing was like most men’s fantasies: not having to worry about the woman’s pleasure, not having to spend a lot of time getting her ready, and just focusing on his release. Instead it sounded coldly mechanical—not what he’d envisioned. Not what he hoped. And not at all what he wanted.