chapter 18
Jack made his way to the midwife’s apothecary shop. He struggled to open the door without toppling over. The pack on his back containing all his worldly goods exacerbated the precariousness of his balance. The bell jangled and clanked as the door swung closed on him. A shooting pain radiated down to the bone of his broken leg. Gritting his teeth, he held back a cry. Shoving the door off his leg and crutch took almost more strength than he possessed. To make everything worse, except for the change tied in the handkerchief, he was flat broke.
Years of savings—gone in a week. He wouldn’t make it to London in time for his appointment. Hell, without wages he might never make it, might never get out of this mill town, might never be his own man. His only choice now was to go back to the Broadhurst house and hope that Mr. Broadhurst had no immediate plans to rid the world of one useless cripple. Jack had poured out the laudanum just in case.
The midwife arranged bottles on a shelf behind a counter. Brushing back a strand of salt and pepper hair, she turned. Her eyes widened, “Jack Applegate.”
“Mrs. Goode,” he acknowledged. He didn’t know if she’d ever been married, but a woman of her age and stature in the community was accorded respect.
“Can’t say I expected to see you so soon.” She pulled a small dark bottle from a crate packed with straw and stood on her toes to put the glass jar on a high shelf.
Jack crutched over to the stool in the corner and jogged around until he could sit. Maneuvering on crutches was still a learning experience. He expected at any time to pitch onto his face. More than once he’d had to grab whatever was near to stay upright.
“What can I do for you?” She scraped a bit of straw back into the crate and moved it to the floor.
He opened his mouth to ask for laudanum, but the image in his head of his father, bleary-eyed and unrepentant, tipping up the bottle of gin, stopped the request on his lips. “I need a crock of honeymoon ointment.”
Mrs. Goode swung around, her lips pressed into a disapproving line. “For heaven’s sake, Jack, are you already at one of the housemaids?”
“No. Don’t think any of the housemaids would be interested in a cripple.” Mrs. Broadhurst wasn’t interested in him as a lover either, just for his potential to sire a baby. He tilted his head down and sighed.
Mrs. Goode eyed him sharply. He could have told her that when he was bent on seduction, he didn’t need help from ointments. But that wasn’t true with Mrs. Broadhurst. Nor was it the sort of thing one said to a woman—even if she was a midwife who knew things about him no one else knew.
He met Mrs. Goode’s gaze doing his best to look guileless. “I need it for . . . my scars. Dr. Hein says I have to make sure the skin doesn’t dry out and crack.”
“I can just give you the lanolin that would go in it. That’s all you’ll need to keep the skin supple.”
“I want the ointment. Need help with soothing the soreness too.”
Watching him speculatively, Mrs. Goode tilted her head.
Jack twisted putting his crutches together and leaning them against the wall. He might not have known about the honeymoon ointment—good for dryness after childbirth too—if not for his five married sisters’ low conversations to each other. Unlike in the Broadhurst house, where everyone was separated, few secrets were possible in the Applegate home. He pulled out the handkerchief, untied it and pulled out a shilling. “How much?”
She startled and rubbed her back. “It will take me a few minutes to mix it. And I might be called away. Parson’s wife was having pains this morning.”
“I could use the rest while I wait.” Jack wondered if he could even make it back to the Broadhursts’.
She gave him another sideways look and then reached around to pull a few jars and crocks off the shelf. Hell, would she remember this conversation if Caroline eventually delivered his child? Jack squeezed his eyes shut and hoped he hadn’t let the cat out of the bag.
“Do you have something for pain besides laudanum? I don’t want to keep taking that. I need to be more aware.” He would be going back into a situation where he didn’t trust his host; not at all.
She turned, pulled a bottle from a shelf and poured a small amount in a metal cup and brought it to him. “You look exhausted.”
Jack was more than exhausted; he was bone-tired and world-weary. Everything he had worked to achieve had gone up in smoke. He’d saved for a decade to have enough funds to move to London and see his ideas into fruition. His family had stolen his life savings. Caroline had offered him the one thing he might have stayed here for and turned it into a nightmare, and the mill machinery had crushed his leg. It was as if the entire world and all the stars in the heavens were lining up against him.
After downing the bitter liquid, he loosened the pack he had made from a burlap bag. Setting the sack on the floor at his feet, he scooted the stool closer to the wall and leaned against it. Crossing his arms, he closed his eyes. He would damn near give his right arm to lie down and rest.
Mrs. Goode hadn’t moved.
He opened his eyes. Her faded eyes bored into his.
“Do you know what you’re doing, Jack?”
He blinked at her. “It’s for my leg, really.”
The corners of her lips pulled back—not a smile—but more a rueful acceptance. “Come, there is a cot in my workroom. You can rest there while I get the ointment made up for you.”
“That sounds heavenly,” he said, reaching for his crutches. Much as Mrs. Goode might disapprove of him, he wouldn’t have to sleep with one eye open.
One of the footmen leaned close and whispered in Caroline’s ear. “You said to tell you if Mr. Applegate returns. He is coming up the drive.”
Knowing Jack was safe sent a rush of relief through her.
Where had he been? Caroline fisted her napkin in her lap. She needed to see him to ease her mind. “Thank you. Please tell Mrs. Burns to see me in my sitting room.”
Dinner was only half served, but she had no appetite. She looked around the glum faces of the gentlemen at the table and pushed back her chair. “If you will excuse me, gentlemen. There is a matter I must see to.”
They stood and half of them refused to meet her eyes. The other half glared in her direction as if she had ordered Whitton murdered. She was numb. Her heart refused to believe that Whitton’s death had anything to do with her or the hunting party, but doubts kept niggling at her. And she’d been so afraid that a similar fate had befallen Jack.
“A problem, my dear?” Mr. Broadhurst’s eyes narrowed.
“Just a domestic issue I must address. Nothing of concern.”
He watched her as she made her way into the hall. She couldn’t linger or she would raise his suspicions. But until she saw Jack with her own eyes, she couldn’t be easy.
Once in her sitting room she peeked out through the drapes and saw the figure on crutches at the far end of the drive. He seemed to be moving ever so slowly, but there was no doubt, even at this distance, the figure was Jack. Her stomach danced and it was all she could do not to run out to him.
The housekeeper entered the room. “You wished to see me, ma’am?”
Caroline reluctantly turned around. “It seems our patient has returned after all.”
Mrs. Burns pressed her lips into a thin line, but she didn’t bat an eye as she asked, “Would you like the bed returned to the breakfast room?”
The breakfast room, while segregated from the rest of the sleeping area, had no locks on the doors. “No, he is capable of managing stairs, so I think it best we put him in one of the far bedchambers. Out of the way of the guests.” One of the rooms had an escritoire where Jack could practice his writing and arithmetic. “Perhaps the northernmost chamber of the east el. The one attached to the nursery.” It was a room designated for a tutor, should there ever be a need for one.
The housekeeper sniffed.
“I would put him in one of the servant rooms, but I think it is best he has a fire for now.” Caroline felt her face heating and turned to look out the window, lest her expression betray her. She didn’t know why she was explaining to the housekeeper, except the woman seemed to disapprove. “In spite of his jaunt today, Mr. Applegate still has a long journey to recovery.”
“Very good, ma’am.”
Where in heaven’s name had Jack gone today? And why? After last night, she would have thought he would stay put. Her stomach turned.
When the housekeeper didn’t leave, Caroline turned to face her. “Is there something you wish to say, Mrs. Burns?”
Caroline dreaded dealing with an objection. The woman had been here almost as long as she had, and they had a good understanding. But housing a millworker on the same floor as people of quality had to seem odd, even if he was tucked in the remotest corner.
“I need to tell you, ma’am, that one of the empty guest rooms was disturbed last night. It looks as though there may have been a bit of havey-cavey business going on.”
Caroline drew in a sharp breath as her muscles tensed. For once she wished her housekeeper were less efficient. She’d left the ashes in the grate and the bed disturbed, but hadn’t expected anyone to have any reason to go into the room, at least not for a few days. Fearing she was on the verge of being discovered, her hands shook. “I’m certain things will settle down when the guests leave.”
“If I determine which of the servants might have been in there, I will dismiss them.”
“I would hope that if one of the gentlemen persuaded one of the maids to misbehave, he at least compensated her well.” The last thing she wanted was the servants speculating about who had been in the room.
“I can’t think it was one of the gentlemen, ma’am. If it were, why wouldn’t it be in his own room?”
Her deception coiled tighter around Caroline and wouldn’t let her breathe. “I’m certain I don’t wish to know the machinations of the guests.” And the last thing she wanted was the housekeeper investigating. “Let it go for now, Mrs. Burns. With all the needs of the guests, you don’t have time to waste. If it becomes an ongoing problem, we’ll deal with it.”
The sour expression on Mrs. Burns face showed she didn’t agree, but she didn’t argue as she left the sitting room to prepare for Jack’s arrival.
Caroline took one last look out the window. Jack had only progressed a few yards. He leaned against his crutches, not moving at all. He was returning, wasn’t he? Winged creatures in her stomach took flight.
As if aware of her gaze on him, he raised his face toward the house. Perhaps he needed help. She hurried downstairs to the entry hall.
Caution slowed her headlong progress. She should send a footman out to help him.
The hall was empty and no amount of pacing around it made it less so. The footmen were engaged in serving dinner, and the wait wound her tighter than a coiled spring. She finally opened the front door and looked out. Jack remained slumped over his crutches.
Slowly, he raised his face and started toward her. In the dusky evening, she couldn’t make out his expression, but she could no longer bear to remain standing, waiting. Without thinking, she was down the stairs and striding toward him, the train of her evening gown dragging in the pressed gravel.
“Where have you been?” she spit in an undertone as she neared him. The words were like a fishwife’s or a jilted lover. She was neither, and she wished she could call the words back.
Jack stopped and looked wearily at her. His chest heaved and, in spite of the chilly air, beads of perspiration dotted his forehead. “I went to my father’s house.”
She couldn’t seem to stop herself as a wave of anger rose in her. Her nails bit into her palms and her stomach burned. “What were you thinking? I have been worried sick. I thought we had a bargain.”
His eyes tightened and his mouth flattened. “I’m here, aren’t I?”
A flatness in his tone told her that he wasn’t happy about being here. It stung and drained the anger from her, leaving her raw and exposed. Why not? She was sore on the inside, might as well be aching all over. She turned her head toward the horizon, fighting the burn in her eyes and the dryness at the back of her throat.
She couldn’t fall apart now. And Jack shouldn’t have the power to hurt her. He was just . . . just a man she was using to get pregnant. Certainly no lady ever raised her voice at a . . . laborer or a friend—whatever he was.
It didn’t matter what he was, beyond that he was the man she needed to father her child. More than that, he was the man she wanted to father her child.
God, last night had changed everything. She couldn’t think of him as simply a friend. They’d been intimate—in a manner of speaking—and as much as she’d tried to keep it on a practical level, her feelings were in a knot. Suddenly she was very aware of the chaffing in her female core. She’d almost convinced herself a night’s reprieve was what she needed, but it wasn’t what she wanted. She’d wanted to see Jack, to share the quiet hours of the night alone with him.
Perhaps tonight they could work on his reading, but she needed the other to get a baby. A shiver of anticipation ran down her spine. Part of her wanted to engage in intimacy, though she’d always found it repulsive before. It was different with Jack. He seemed to want more than the physical, and didn’t want his pleasure to come at her expense. She had disappointed him, but she didn’t know if she could ever fully desire a man. A part of her wanted to try. For him she wanted to try.
She swiveled toward him. Lines of weariness and pain were etched into his face. He swung the crutches forward and took a careful step. His arms quivered as they bore his weight. He must be exhausted and had likely overtaxed his weakened body.
Chagrin made her shoulders drop. He didn’t need anger from her. He couldn’t know the news of Whitton’s murder and her suspicions, fears, downright terror that he’d fallen victim to Mr. Broadhurst’s ire. The burlap sack anchored to his back told of a man getting his things, not a man running away. She drew in a deep breath and straightened her fingers.
“We need to get you to bed,” she said softly. Only his bed likely wasn’t ready yet.
“Yes.” He planted the crutches and leaned forward onto them. Slowly, he twisted to look at her.
For a reason beyond her ken, his look called to mind the night before, and her cheeks fired and her body tingled. All her thoughts scattered. For the first time in her life she was looking forward to the night’s activities.
She was turning into a wicked adulteress. She tried to tell herself it was just that she was eager to have a family, a baby, but even she didn’t believe that. She wanted to be with Jack and be done with all the gentlemen in her house. And she sure didn’t want to be anywhere near Mr. Broadhurst during the night.
Jack thought he might fall over at any minute. His good leg protested the exertion. A week ago he’d walked over fifteen miles in a day with little ill effect, and today he couldn’t manage a couple of miles. But there it was.
His underarms stung where the crutches rubbed. His shoulders and arms were rubbery with fatigue. Worst of all it felt as if a knife had lodged in his lower back and twisted with each step he took. And the heavy cast chafed his foot. He was fairly certain every movement would be the last he could manage.
Caroline stood beside him, looking angry and hurt and all kinds of things that didn’t make sense coupled with her efforts to keep him at arm’s length. But women never made a lot of sense when they had their dander up.
She also looked refined, elegant, and so beautiful his breath caught. The way her hair gleamed, clean and shiny, the long curl caressing parts of her neck and cleavage he was forbidden to touch, made his heart beat a little faster. Her skin was so pale he could see a tracing of blue veins under it. Blue blood ran in those veins. Yet, he, a red-blooded worker, was being given the opportunity to create a child with her. He wanted the tie to her, a blood connection that could never be broken.
He could tell himself it was for all the advantages that could be wrought by having a member of a noble family willing to patronize him. He doubted she would let him starve, if it ever came to that. And she might open doors for him. That alone might be worth having a child he could never claim.
But it wasn’t that. Besides, the tie might forever be secret. No, he wanted her bound to him forever, and he didn’t even understand why. Something deep in his soul was drawn to the way she bore up under the strain of being married to a man who didn’t deserve her. Yet, she wanted to provide the opportunity for anyone who wanted to be successful like her husband.
God, if she only wanted him a tenth as much as he wanted her, he could . . . Nothing. He could give her nothing that a man wants to give a woman he cares about. He couldn’t give her the world or provide for her in any meaningful way. The best he could do was give her a child.
Jack took another step, because he didn’t want her to witness him failing. He didn’t want to fail at one more thing today, but he didn’t know if he had the strength to make it up the stairs that loomed in front of him.
“Let me take your sack.”
He was too tired to protest. He let her untuck it from his braces. Each time her hands brushed him, he wanted to beg her to just hold onto him, but he held back the words. She already saw him as inferior; he didn’t want her to think of him as weak too.
“Would you like me to fetch the footmen to assist you up the stairs?”
“No. I can do it.” He would make it up the stairs, inside, and collapse in his bed until midnight. By then he hoped he would feel well enough to provide stud service to Caroline.
“Jack,” she said on a sigh.
He pivoted toward her, angry that she would question his determination and ability, and more angry that she was right to think he couldn’t make it on his own. A bitter taste lingered in his mouth when she hadn’t reached for his waist or moved in to put her arm around him as she had before. “What? Are you worried I won’t be able manage tonight?”
She recoiled, but her words came out clipped and haughty. “Should I be?”
Honestly, maybe she should be, because he was worried. If it was a repeat of last night, he might have trouble. Or surely that had been the laudanum, the ache in his unhealed leg and knowing she was hurting. He wouldn’t take the laudanum, the honeymoon cream should ease her discomfort—and his pain he’d ignore.
Her forehead crinkled. “If you need to rest tonight . . .” She looked down.
His heart thumped erratically. He didn’t want her to stay away from him. Certainly, he didn’t want her finding her way into one of the gentlemen’s beds, pretending to enjoy something she hated. She needed a man who could coax her through and didn’t ignore her discomfort. Years of Mr. Broadhurst’s abuse wouldn’t be undone in a day. He sighed. Patience would win her if he’d let it. Surely he could get her to not hate the act, perhaps learn to like it.
Had she hated every minute with him? He was certain the tenor of their encounter had changed toward the end—or he’d needed to believe he was getting under her skin to complete the act.
But she was a passionate woman underneath. He knew that, had seen glimpses of it, watched her struggle to hide it. If he could just get through to the passion inside her, he could tempt her into letting loose. She hid her emotions with manners and correctness and a mild voice, except a minute ago she’d exposed her anger at his being gone. Now, while her passions were near the surface, was the time to seduce her.
He glanced up toward the closed doors. The sides of the staircase would block the view from most of the windows, except the ones directly above the entry. If Broadhurst saw him, he would be dead before morning, but he had to risk being seen to break through her resistance.
Jack reached out and traced his finger along the edge of the long curl. She drew in a deep breath through her nose. Her eyes widened. Slowly, he pushed the pads of his fingers against her skin and ran them along the edge of her low neckline, feeling the softness of the upper curve of her breast, the hard bone under her sternum, and then up to the hollow at the base of her throat where her pulse fluttered wildly. “I don’t want to rest. I want you.”
Her blue eyes darkened and her nostrils flared as her lips parted. Under his fingers her chest rose and fell with her rapid breathing. Pink spread from under her bodice, coloring her chest and then her face. Belatedly, she grabbed his fingers, crushing them with a desperate grip. “You promised not to touch me.”
“Only during the act, Caro.” His voice was rough as he added, “Which we are not at present engaged in.”
He moved in close enough he could feel her breath whisper across his lips. Their hands were trapped between them, her knuckles brushing his chest. His pain receded and his interest rose. She was so damn beautiful, and skittish as a doe with fawns.
Just as she tilted toward him, he eased back. Always better to leave a woman hungry for more.
She dropped his hand and stared at him as if he’d grown a horn in the center of his head. But she’d already betrayed her desire for him. She might not like it, or might think she was incapable, but clearly she wasn’t.
If she responded tonight with half the interest she’d just shown, he would more than manage. “So you will come to me tonight?”
She nodded and swallowed. Her eyes darted to the each side as if she’d stolen something.
He rather preferred that she was unpracticed in the ways of adultery. Now, all he had to do was make it up the entry stairs across the hall and into bed and then rest up so he would be fit enough.
He was halfway up, arms quivering, back and good leg aching, when she said, “I’ve put you in a room on the second floor at the far end.”
Not only the rest of these stairs, but two more flights and a passageway to negotiate. “Are you trying to be the death of me?”
She raised her chin. “You are the one who thought you could traipse all over. I am the one who thought you should remain in the house close to bed for at least another week.”
He closed his eyes. She was right. He was weak, and frustrated with his weakness. “It didn’t seem like a great distance when I left.”
“There is no shame in needing time to heal, Jack. I cannot see it as a fault, but I fear your determination to get better may make you overextend yourself,” she said softly. “I do not know of another man who would push himself so hard.”
“I hate being a cripple.”
“If you had insisted upon visiting your family, I could have arranged for a carriage, or a pony cart if you would have found that less ostentatious, so you didn’t have to walk the entire way.”
Would she feel so generous about offering him conveyance to Manchester? Was there a way he could still make it to London? But then he’d need to walk miles to get from the station to the manufacturing district and to the inn where he would stay. Even if he could make it to London on time—assuming he could find the money for the train—he didn’t know if he could get to his appointment.
She went up the last of the stairs and turned to look over her shoulder. “I will send servants to help you the rest of the way. I wouldn’t want you to be too drained. You need your strength for later. Besides, the bedchamber abovestairs has doors that lock. The breakfast room does not.”
Her face colored red, and she darted through the door, leaving it open above him. He wanted to call her back, but her reference to his stamina had him feeling lighter and more determined than ever to make it to his new room with locks on the door. Because if he achieved nothing else, he was going to make sure Caroline was well pleasured. In that way if in no other, he could assure himself he was worthy of her in a way no other man was.