chapter 21
“I shouldn’t have said anything.” Caroline’s chest tightened.
Jack’s fingers dug into her hips. His jaw was like granite. He started to lift her, but she sat up and let her weight bear down on him. His self-condemnation was so misplaced she’d slipped.
His eyes looked through her. The violence coursing through him seeped into her as if she could absorb his emotions through her skin. She shuddered.
She had to distract him. In his present state, Jack would be no match for her husband. Or at any time in the future. “Jack, I want to stay with you tonight. Sleep in your bed where I feel safe.”
“I’ll kill him,” Jack gritted out.
“No. If he were to die today, I’d be left with nothing. Not the mill, not his wealth, not the house. I need this baby. I need you to help me.”
His brown eyes flicked back to her as if remembering she was there, sitting on his lap, their privates pressed together if not yet engaged. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying I want more than my freedom from him.” Her voice was heated. “I could go back home if that was all I wanted. I want all that he would deny me. All that for which I have endured fifteen years of marriage. He will not live forever, but I have to have a baby to secure everything.”
Jack’s mouth tightened and his nostrils flared.
“You cannot do anything rash. I need you.” The word “love” pounded in her brain, but she held it back. Now was not the time. There might never be a time. She reached down and touched his stomach. “I want you.”
He manacled her hand, his eyes narrowed. “You want a child.”
“Your child, with your smile, your kindness, intelligence, and determination.” As she said the words, she knew it was so. No matter whose name the child bore, the baby would always be Jack’s, and she would forever cherish this time with him. “You were the first man I thought of when he proposed his wicked scheme. The only man.”
His eyes widened. His grip on her wrist relaxed. “Caro.”
“With you is where I want to be, even if there never is a child.” So much had to fall in line for her to be with Jack: Mr. Broadhurst’s inability to father a child, her desire and his for one, Jack’s accident, the disagreement with his stepmother. “It is as if the Fates have conspired to bring us together.”
He turned his face to the side. “And keep us together,” he muttered.
“I wish that could be so,” she murmured. “I wish there was nothing left but us in this room and all the rest of the world would go away.”
She took the hand that had manacled her wrist. If he wouldn’t let her touch him, then . . . She slipped her wrist from his fingers and brought his hand up against her breast.
His fingers cupped her, lifted the weight of her breast and then held steady. He watched her, his brown eyes softening as the anger faded. Heat built in her, coiling and releasing. Impatience too, but he seemed to be waiting for a sign from her.
“Show me. Show me how this should be,” she whispered. Her heart pounded, waiting for him to do more than hold her, praying she wouldn’t wince if she felt a twinge. She wanted so much to be his in every way. “Please, Jack.”
“Do you trust me?” he asked.
“As much as I can trust anyone.”
His brow furled, but he said, “Fair enough.”
He reached for her left hand, pulled the ring from her finger and hurled the wedding band. It pinged on the wood floor and then hit the wall. “When we are together, before God, you are my wife.” His voice held a fierce determination.
“Jack,” she sighed. They could never be married.
“I know I would have much to gain by such an alliance, but I don’t mean it that way.” He held her gaze, his brown eyes shining with an intensity that heated her to her toes. He stroked her hair away from her face. “Just you and me, a man and a woman together as God intended. I promise to cherish and honor you for as long as we both shall live.”
He had with a single vow taken away her defenses and left her exposed and vulnerable.
“And I would prefer you came to me with nothing, than anything you gained through that bastard. Now, take off your nightgown.”
A shiver slid down her spine. She wasn’t certain she wanted Jack being demanding, but she reached for the buttons at her neck. He undid the tiny buttons at her wrists and then rubbed one knuckle in the opening she’d made.
Steeling her resolve, she pulled the nightgown over her head. Jack met her eyes and held her gaze for a long time as heat flashed over her face. Then slowly, like a caress, he looked down at her nakedness. Her elbows pressed into her side and it was all she could do to not cross her arms.
“You’re beautiful, Caroline. I knew you would be. But you are more beautiful than even I imagined.” With the pads of his fingertips, he traced the path his gaze had taken, down the center of her chest, just barely exploring the inner curves of her breasts, down her midsection and to her abdomen. Her skin tingled in the wake of his leisurely exploration. He trailed his fingers across the top of her nether curls and her flesh quivered.
He looked her in the eye again and his nostrils flared. Pulling her down on top of him, he made a soft sound of pleasure. “I have wanted to feel your skin against mine, forever.”
He pushed back her hair and stroked the long locks down her back. Slowly, he moved his hands over her skin, exploring, molding, cupping her flesh. He never once grabbed or squeezed, and she relaxed into his tender ministrations.
Just as her body felt liquid and languorous, he rolled her to the side and then pushed her down against the mattress. She whimpered at the space he put between them and reached to pull him back down to her. He slid her hand from his shoulder to his mouth and kissed the inside of her wrist. Tremors of excitement raced up her arm and along her skin.
“I need to see your face,” he rasped.
She wanted to duck away, to pull him back into doing the things she knew, but he shook his head and put her hand over his heart. The steady beat fascinated her, and she rested her palm there.
Then he kissed her, first only on the lips. When she thought she’d go mad for wanting more, he deepened the kiss. His tongue danced with hers, coaxing responses that she didn’t know she had in her. A tight coiling centered in her core.
After a few minutes he pulled back, stroked his fingers down the side of her face and asked, “Still hate being kissed?”
She shook her head. “Not when it is you, not when it is like that.” Not when she loved him.
He smiled and her breath caught. His fingers trailed down the side of her face, down her neck and along the outer curve of her breast.
Tensing, she waited for the inevitable torturing of her nipples, but Jack was intent on other things. He leaned close and whispered across her lips, “Relax, I’m not going to hurt you.”
And he didn’t.
Every moment was filled with exquisite tenderness as he kissed her until they both breathed like heavy trains chugging out of the station. Her lips grew sensitized until his kiss was like nirvana, on her lips, but also lower in her body, and deep in her soul. With one hand he cradled her to him, while tracing slow meaningless patterns over her skin with the other.
Her breasts tingled, although he only teased the outer flesh with light touches. She too tested the corded strength of his muscles, first in his shoulders and chest, then in his stomach, which leapt under her touch.
He slid lower and explored below her waist. She tensed as he pulled up her knee and rubbed tantalizing circles on the sensitive inner flesh of her thigh. The circles migrated up her leg until he brushed the curls at the apex. Her mind was spinning out of control until she could only think of him, smell him and feel him. She whimpered, wanting . . . wanting more . . . wanting him there.
While pressing his lips to her neck, he slid his hand along her hip, over her ribs, and cupped her breast. The tips had tightened to tight buds, and she arched, thrusting her breasts up into his hand. “Jack,” she whispered frantically.
She didn’t understand this aching need, or the tight coiling pressure low in her. Reaching down, she brushed the silken softness over iron that marked his erection. He groaned and leaned his head back, eyes closed. The darkness across his cheeks, the flare of his nostrils, the deep sound from low in his throat sent shivers down her spine.
She curled her fingers around his thick rod and stroked. Jack gripped her wrist and pulled her hand away. He tucked his head against his shoulder and sucked in deep breaths. “Too good,” he finally rasped.
Shifting lower, he took himself out of her reach. Dropping kisses across her shoulders, he cupped her breast and then bent his head over her. She braced for pain, yet a part of her yearned for his mouth on her breast. He touched the tip of his tongue to her beaded nipple.
A starburst of sensation exploded within her. Her nether muscles clenched as blasts of molten power reached and tingled at the split in her mons.
His breath whispered across her damp nipple, making it tauten, poking up higher as if reaching for his attention. He seemed to be waiting for a sign from her. Threading her fingers through his hair, she pulled him back down to her breast.
Trust, Love, Faith. The words swirled in her head, not really words but concepts all tied to this man.
His lips closed around her nipple and the intense sensation flashed. She looked for the pain, but it wasn’t there. He flicked with his tongue, shooting shards of pleasure through her. Her hips twisted and the energy she’d never before experienced built in her.
Jack knew exactly where the intensity burned, and his nimble fingers found the ending place and the source of such intensity. Her legs shook each time he tapped. Allowing her no rest, his finger and thumb closed around the fleshy hood and tugged in the same rhythm as his tongue flicked across her nipple.
Her legs shook and she cried out, “Jack!”
He lifted his head and looked her in the eyes. “Let it happen, Caro. Just come apart for me and let me catch you,” he urged, his voice burred with intensity.
She coiled tighter and tighter until she couldn’t anymore. Then she fell or shattered or soared, she didn’t know how to describe the most exquisite pleasure that built to a place that resembled heaven and then had her tumbling and trembling through wave after wave of bliss.
She only knew it was Jack who brought her to this earth-shattering ecstasy. Jack who was patient enough to let her sensations build, Jack who knew how to touch her in ways that made her body come alive.
He slid up and brought his lips to hers. At first his kisses were gentle, but then grew more urgent. She welcomed the hard probe of his instrument at her feminine entrance, although she could hardly do more than lay in a glorious, mindless, boneless stupor. Her body resisted commands to move. All she could do was hold onto him as he thrust inside her.
She gasped as a new wave overtook her and brought the rapture back to a new dizzying height. “Jack,” she moaned.
He lifted and watched her face as he thrust again.
She cupped his cheek. He turned and pressed a kiss into her palm. Then he rolled them until she sprawled on top of him. She tried desperately to gather herself together to provide the motion for Jack—awareness of his weakened state in the back of her mind. He thrust up into her. A new aftershock threatened to make her come undone.
He groaned, and she pressed kisses on the corner of his lips, his cheeks, and on his neck. His body was hard with tension and she urged him to the place he’d just shown her. Then his face transfixed. He met her eyes as the powerful throbs of his climax had her dissolving in a new spate of pleasurable throbs.
They lay panting with their bodies intertwined in the still room. Caroline didn’t know if she could move, her bones felt as if they had dissolved. But every breath Jack drew, she drew one too. Each time his heart beat sounded under her ear, a corresponding thump occurred in her chest. This must be what love felt like, to be so in tune with the other person that their hearts beat in tandem.
His hold was loose but secure. And she’d never felt more complete in her life. She pressed a kiss on the damp skin of his chest. He tasted slightly salty, and she pressed her lips to him once more.
“Caro,” he sighed. “Don’t get me started again.”
Could she arouse him again? But the coals in the fire and the deep stillness let her know it was late in the night. “I know you need your rest.”
“You do too, sweetheart.” The gravelly tone of his voice wrapped around her like a caress. Was she his sweetheart?
She rubbed her fingers across the firm expanse of his chest. “Is it always like this?”
“You know it is seldom like this,” he said roughly. But he leisurely caressed her.
Mr. Broadhurst had certainly never evoked this kind of wanton desire and heated pleasure, but neither had Tremont, Whitton, or Berkley. Was it because she loved Jack?
She raised her head and studied his face. He lowered his lashes, but not before she’d seen the flatness in his eyes.
Her heart jolted.
“Did we hurt your leg?”
He scowled. “My leg is no worse than before.”
The connection between them was waning far faster than she liked. A moment ago she felt as if she couldn’t separate from him, but now their breathing no longer matched. Their hearts weren’t beating as one. A wave of sadness swamped her. Reality would intrude to split them soon enough. The idea of pretending Jack meant nothing to her during the daylight hours ripped at her very soul.
She brushed her fingers across his cheek. Capturing her hand in his, he turned and pressed a light kiss on her fingertips. “Go to sleep, Caroline.”
More than exhaustion was going on. He seemed . . . flattened since his return. She had been so wrapped in her own concerns she hadn’t probed too learn what had happened to him.
“Jack . . .” She hesitated. “Why did you agree with me about today—or rather yesterday—being a horrid day?”
His eyes popped open, but he didn’t look at her and he said nothing.
“You said you went to your father’s house. You have always called it home before. Aren’t we good enough . . . friends that you can tell me what happened?” They had gone far past being friends, but they couldn’t continue as lovers. Not after she conceived anyway.
He stroked her hair back from her face.
Sensing he needed time to compose his thoughts, she waited.
“I had an appointment in London for a job, this Friday.”
“Had?”
He blew out. “I can’t make it now.” His mouth tightened.
“Of course you can’t,” she blurted. He wasn’t healed. London was hundreds of miles away. “You aren’t ready to go gadding about.”
Disappointment flickered on his face before his lips lifted in a sad smile. “I know.”
Her thoughts whirled, his talk of going to London and making his fortune, his drawings, his unexplained absence at the mill. “Is that where you were the week before the accident?”
“Yes. I took the train from Manchester to London.”
She pushed up on a straight arm. His gaze dropped to her chest. A lingering thrill trilled through her, but they had serious matters to discuss, and she was no longer certain of him. Her nightgown was on the floor and her dressing gown was over by the chair. She reached for the sheet to cover her nakedness. But the sheet didn’t make her feel less exposed.
He couldn’t leave her.
Keeping an arm around her, Jack shifted her to his side.
“It doesn’t matter,” he mumbled.
But clearly it did. She searched his face, and his gaze slid away.
Her heart twisted.
“What kind of a job?” She was relieved she sounded calm, even though her blood singed her veins.
“Building mill machinery.” He shrugged. “Engineering it eventually.”
She could fill in what he didn’t say: Designing new equipment, patenting it, receiving the royalties. “I know you would be good at it.”
He met her gaze. “We’ll never know now.”
This was his dream, his way of rising above the circumstances of his birth. His striving to rise out of the lower orders was part of the reason she loved him. How could she watch him give it up?
If he left for London, she only imagined endless days of her useless existence stretching out forever. She wanted him near, working in the mill office where she could see him daily, perhaps show him his child. But how could she do that to Jack?
He feared his education wasn’t adequate to working in a mill office, and if Mr. Broadhurst ever suspected there was anything between them, Jack would be in grave danger.
She had to let him go. Worse than that, she had to encourage him to go. She never wanted to do anything less.
Rather than let him see the struggle within her, she sat up and faced away from him. Pulling her knees to her chest, she wrapped her arms around them. She wanted to tell him she loved him, beg him to stay with her, but that wish was doomed. “I shall send a telegram letting them know you have been delayed by a mill accident. I’ll tell them you can keep your appointment the Friday after next.”
Jack drew in a stiff breath. Caroline’s offer hung in the air between them, a tantalizing offer, but one that would do him little good. Even if his appointment was pushed back two weeks, he had no money, no way to get to London, and little hope of navigating around the city.
Her pale shoulder shifted. “Either I will have conceived by then, or I will know I have not. Besides, you will be stronger. You are stronger every day.”
He closed his eyes. “I can’t.”
“Yes, you can. I will help you.”
He knew she would. If he told her about his life savings, she would probably replace what his family had taken from him. Likely it would be an insignificant sum to her. “Caroline, I walked to Manchester. I walked all about London. Even if I could get to the city, I cannot get around so well now. It took me well over an hour to get to the village.” And longer to return, not to mention his back had been killing him the second half of the day.
“I can have you driven to Manchester, and you will have to hire hackney cabs in London,” she said on a low note. “Much as I will hate to see you go, this may be for the best.”
“I cannot afford—”
“I will give you cab fare. Don’t refuse for prideful reasons.” Her voice was tight.
If the cab fare was enough for the train, he could figure out a way to make it work. He’d demand the difference from Martha, borrow from his sisters, or sell his soul. This opportunity was everything he ever wanted, except as he stared at the slope of Caroline’s shoulders, the knobs of her spine peeking through the dark strands of her hair, and the sweet dimples above her bum, he felt hollow. He wanted to be with her.
It went to her question earlier. This kind of lovemaking was rare and special. Making love to her was like nothing he’d ever experienced before. He had wanted her for as long as he could remember, and that had been aphrodisiac enough.
But her responsiveness had been more intoxicating than any love potion. He’d guessed if a man could ply her sensitive body correctly, sex would be fantastic for her. But to be the only one who’d unlocked her response made him feel like a king, yet humbled him too.
“I shall say I am sending you to Manchester to be seen by a specialist.”
Once she allowed him to truly make love to her, he’d been more patient and gentler than he’d thought he could manage. He wasn’t sure he could match his efforts when he was well and his urges would be stronger, but damn, he wanted to try. Except now she was all business. Perhaps she was eager to send him on his way when his usefulness was done. “All right.”
“Did you even intend to come back yesterday?” Her voice warbled.
He hadn’t intended to. He pushed up to sit and reached for her shoulder.
She shrugged away from him.
“You have to understand,” he said. “Last night, you took my dreams of being with you and spit on them.” He smoothed the dark hair away from her nape and pressed his lips there.
Her shoulders straightened and she leaned forward, away from him. “I’m sorry it was so horrible for you.”
“I wouldn’t have left the village without telling you.” He’d dreaded talking to her. “Besides, I made the appointment long before I agreed to get you in the family way.”
“You could have told me.”
“Yes, but would you have agreed to be with me if I had?” He pressed another kiss to the back of her neck.
She shivered.
He touched his lips lower, between her shoulder blades. Her head tilted back and she moaned softly. His blood stirred, but he knew better. Even if he hadn’t caused it, she was sore. Pulling her back against his chest, he wrapped his arm around her middle.
How could he bear to leave her? “I want to stay with you too.”
“It will be best for you to go as far away as possible—” Her voice broke. “If it proves necessary, I can find you in London.”
He would have to leave her here with a man who’d killed at least one wife, perhaps two. That, and just being without her, wrenched at him. Even though he’d skated all around declaring his feelings for her, he couldn’t hold back the plea. “Come with me. Let me take care of you.”
Hell, he didn’t even know if he could take care of himself. Certainly he’d be a far cry from providing for her in a manner she was accustomed to. But he’d find a way. “I’ll do whatever it takes.” He might have to beg, borrow, or steal. He closed his eyes. He’d be in dire straights before he’d resort to thievery, no one he knew had enough to borrow from, and that only left an emasculating choice. “Beg, if I have to.”