chapter 22
Caroline returned to her room just after dawn. She could no longer hold back her tears as she slipped through the door.
Mr. Broadhurst snorted and startled from the chair where he must have fallen asleep waiting for her return. If he ever suspected she was with Jack . . . well, urging Jack to go to London was the right thing, even if it ripped out her heart.
The time with Jack was magical, but it couldn’t continue indefinitely. And it broke her heart to tell him she didn’t want to think about what could or couldn’t be. She rumpled the covers on the unslept-in bed and punched the pillow to create indentations as if two heads had resided there for the night.
Mr. Broadhurst stood with a low groan and shuffled toward her. She stiffened.
“I’ve already rung for my maid.” Caroline planted her hands on her hips. “You should return to your own room.”
If she were to go with Jack, live in sin with him, her family would help, but would be tainted by her choice. Until and unless Jack could be successful, the two of them would be poor relations, an embarrassment. If he had to beg, or depend on her family, he would hate it, and perhaps grow to hate her. She would be so little help to him. The scandal would destroy her brother’s aspirations. If there were illegitimate children, they would suffer. The list of reasons why it was a bad idea went on and on. But she had desperately wanted to say she would follow him to the ends of the earth.
“Have you been crying?” asked Mr. Broadhurst.
“I hate this. You know how much I hate it.” She swiveled so her husband couldn’t see her face. She hated that she couldn’t be with Jack, now and forever.
He patted her shoulder. “There there. No need to cry, Caroline. It will all be over soon enough.”
She didn’t want the affair with Jack to end. Now that she found love, she wanted to bask in it forever. Jack’s tender touch, his gentle hold, his whispered entreaties, all contrived to make her feel whole, as if she had been nothing but an empty shell for twenty-nine years of her life.
She wished love was the only thing to consider, but to encourage Jack to believe they had a future was foolish. Even if she weren’t married, there were still so many reasons they couldn’t be together. But she was married. A sob bubbled out.
Mr. Broadhurst folded her in his arms, but it was a hollow embrace. She was neither comforted nor warmed by it. Now she knew what a man’s hold should be like. When Jack held her, she felt cared for. With Mr. Broadhurst she counted the seconds until she could back away.
“When you have a baby in your arms, it will all seem worth it,” he urged.
Would it? Would loving Jack’s baby mend the tear in her heart? Would the precious memories of the nights with Jack sustain her through the frigid wasteland of her life?
She took a deep breath. “I want the mill. I have worked hard to learn how to run it.” She had worked hard to find a purpose in her life, to have a reason to get out of bed every day, to make sense of why she had been married to this man. “I want a child, but this is awful.”
Mr. Broadhurst made a clucking sound. All she wanted was to shove him away, but she forced herself to accept the embrace.
Jack had to go to London. Their only real hope in the future was if he could make something of his life and she could run the mill and be answerable to no one. That was a slim hope.
Mr. Broadhurst continued to hold her, and she remained stiff and wooden in his arms until her maid arrived. As Mr. Broadhurst exited her room through the connecting door, she swore to herself that the first thing she would do after she got pregnant would be to have a lock installed, because she didn’t think she could ever bear her husband’s touch again.
Jack had to gain respectability and financial solvency. Only then would they be able to be together in some distant point in the future.
“He will see you now,” said the clerk.
His heart thumping madly, Jack leaned on his crutches. This was it. The owner of the company had let him sit for a long while.
Perhaps the sitting had been good. As exhausted as he was after crutching through the London streets from the train station, he’d needed to catch his breath. He was still a long way from well, but miles better than he had been the day he went to his father’s house. But his frailty frustrated him and had him cursing on more than one occasion that morning. As weak as he was, he had to convince the owner of the company he could work, and work hard. He had to do it not only for his own sake, but for Caroline too.
The last days with her had been bittersweet. The nights were filled with tender lovemaking. Long into the night he’d held her in his arms as she slept.
Still, he was here, and on a path to making a better life for himself, and one day maybe he would have enough to offer Caroline. When they talked of his appointment, she’d always bit her lip as if holding back. But her eyes had said it for her. She wanted him to succeed and come back to her. And a failure would extinguish the tiny flame of possibility that they could ever be together.
Still, Jack wasn’t certain leaving her with Broadhurst was the right thing. The man was vile. Caroline’s aristocratic family might not provide enough deterrent to keep Broadhurst from harming her. He could have stayed, been a clerk, and seen her every day. But seeing her and knowing he couldn’t touch her would be torture. No, he was better off here where the desire to see her again would fuel his efforts to succeed.
He crutched into the office.
The owner stood and came around his desk to shake his hand.
But Jack knew it was over when the man realized he was lame.
Jack had smiled and talked congenially of his designs, showed his schematic drawings, talked of how he had worked as a mechanic for nigh on a decade, but the company owner couldn’t seem to focus on anything other than his broken leg.
Nothing persuaded the man to believe he could weld or use a lathe while perching on a stool, or that he might not even need a stool once he was healed enough to walk again. The man had just kept repeating that he needed an able-bodied machinist, not a cripple on crutches.
Jack thought of Caroline and the baby they might have conceived and how desperately he needed to prove himself. He tried to persuade the owner long after he knew it was futile.
Finally, he stopped pushing.
He rose and curled his hands around his crutches to make his way out of the office. The wooden handles cut into his palms, and he wanted to slam the door the door or push everything off the ignorant man’s desk, but such actions would not persuade anyone to offer a job.
“I’m sorry you came all this way,” said the owner. Jack shook his head as he bent and scooped up his haversack filled with his few belongings that he’d left in the outer office. He had a dangerous second of teetering on his good leg as he swung the pack onto his back and pushed his arms through the straps. Fortunately he didn’t fall, but taking care with every motion he made was not easy when his blood was boiling.
“If you would have included in your telegraph the nature of the accident, I could have saved you the trip.”
“You’re making a mistake,” said Jack.
“Do you need money to get back home?”
“Don’t insult me. I earn my way,” Jack said in a low voice. He should have taken the money, but he grabbed his crutches again and headed outside before he said words he truly would regret. Did that bastard only see a beggar when he looked at a man with only one good leg?
He was so much more, and he wouldn’t let this turn him into a charity case. He couldn’t. As an indigent, he had no chance of ever having a future with Caroline.
He left the building and gripped his crutches so tight the wood bruised his palms. The panes of the window begged for him to knock the wood right through, but he resisted the destructive urge.
Crutching down the walkway, he stared at the brick facades of the buildings and tried to take stock of his prospects. He could design machinery and build it; he knew he could.
If he’d had the money that was stolen from him, he could have spent a few days looking into other machine shops, but as it was, he didn’t have enough for even a meal, let alone lodging. He didn’t want to face another prospective employer who would only look at his plaster cast. He was so tired and wretched after the walk from the train station, he likely wouldn’t be believed.
Every uneven paving stone threatened to pitch him to the ground, and the afternoon rain turned the byways slick and treacherous. Jack leaned against his crutches and breathed. The sooty London air offered him no relief. The bustle of the city, instead of invigorating him, made him leery of his leg being jostled. The knifing pain in his back began anew.
Why had he ever thought he could make a better life for himself?
Ahead, a tavern sign creaked. He made his way toward the pub and then spent the last of his money on a pint. He couldn’t even afford to get drunk, though that wasn’t a solution and would only temporarily ease the ache of failure. It wasn’t so much that he wanted a beer, but he needed to rest and he needed something in his stomach.
Jack sat in the corner booth of a tavern and slowly nursed the tankard until the buzz of conversation turned into a pleasant sound like the babble of a brook or the relentless waves of the ocean. He folded his arms and leaned into the wall.
The barkeep roused him in the wee hours of the morning to tell him the tavern was closing. Jack blinked, looking around at the empty room. The roaring fire was nothing more than gray ashes now.
He slid to the edge of the bench and started to stand, before he realized he’d left his crutches under the table hooked onto the seat. He scooted back, gathered his crutches, then slid out from behind the table. Without money to afford lodging or cab fare, he figured he’d crutch through the city at his own pace in the early morning hours. After all, he had miles to go and no more excitement and anticipation to fuel him. Perhaps he could make it to King’s Cross Station before the train left for Manchester.
A clerk job in the Broadhurst mill, even if it only lasted a few weeks, was better than no job at all. Once his leg healed enough to remove the plaster splint, he’d come back. He needed to regroup, and then marshal his resources. When he was fully healed and had a few pounds to his name, he would try again.
Surely other places would welcome his ideas and his abilities. Perhaps in Manchester he could find work and opportunity.
“What happened to your leg?” The stout barkeep dropped a wet rag on the tabletop and wiped his hands on a dirty towel slung over his shoulder. Wet swipes in lazy s’s marked the haphazard cleaning job the man was doing.
“Mill accident,” responded Jack.
“I ain’t seen you around here before.” The barkeep seemed more inclined to chat than do his cleanup.
“I’m from a village in Lancashire.”
“That where the mill was?”
Jack nodded.
“Why you in London?”
“I was offered a job.” Jack’s shoulders lifted, revealing what he didn’t want to say.
“Your accident was recent like?” said the man. “You don’t quite seem used to getting around.”
“Four weeks ago,” answered Jack.
“I take it the job didn’t work out.” The man cocked his head to the side. “You got anywhere to sleep?”
Jack shook his head.
“Tell you what, you wash up all them tankards, glasses, and the tables, then sweep the floor, you can sleep on a bench here.” The man’s face crinkled. “Can you manage that?”
“I’ll manage,” said Jack. “Thank you.”
It wasn’t charity. Then again he wasn’t being paid in coin either. But this time he wasn’t going to be so foolish as to turn down an offer of help, even though the offer cost the barkeep nothing.
Jack stood on the train platform and thrust out the leaky pewter tankard he’d filched from the tavern. It had taken him the better part of three hours to thoroughly clean the taproom. Sweeping one-handed was a nightmare, not to mention it looked as though the corners hadn’t seen the broom bristles in ages. He’d hoped when the barkeep saw how thoroughly clean the room was, he might offer a coin or breakfast, but he hadn’t.
As it was, Jack had no choice but to beg for enough money to get home. He consoled himself with the knowledge that the only reason he had to beg was because Martha and his father had stolen his money, but he felt lower than a worm.
He’d resorted to stealing the leaky mug to beg with. The splitting seam wouldn’t leak coins, if he got any. All the cadgers he’d seen in London had hats, baskets, or containers of a kind for the money to go into. He’d even seen one hunchback with a hollow wooden statue.
A man in a bowler with an ebony cane stared at him.
Jack lifted the mug.
The man stepped to the side.
Jack lowered the tankard. A few farthings and a penny or two had been dropped inside, but at this rate it would take him days to get enough to get back to Manchester. Sooner or later he’d have to eat. There were more than enough beggars around, ones who had no problem calling out for money. The best of them searched the faces of the crowd and seemed to know just which people to approach. Jack didn’t even want to look anyone in the eye.
A blow against his cast blasted pain through his body. He bit back the agonized shriek that threatened, but a yelp still left him. A black cane had struck the blow. Dear God, were there men who had nothing better to do than torment him. He crutched forward, spilling a few coins from the tankard. Helplessly, he stared at them as a small boy darted over to pick them up. Bending down and getting back up wasn’t a move Jack had mastered. It was hard enough to get up from a chair one-legged.
“Put ’em back in the cup, boy. They aren’t yours.”
Jack twisted around to see the man in the bowler with his ebony cane hooked over his arm.
The boy put a few coins in the cup, but kept at least half of them as he darted away.
Puzzled why the man would hit his leg, then come to his aid, Jack asked, “Why did you hit me?”
The man pulled out his purse from his vest pocket. “Just making sure you hadn’t put a plaster splint on a healthy leg. You had a guilty look about you.”
Furious at the idea that he’d fake his injury, Jack lifted his leg and yanked down his sock, revealing the angry red lines of his scars that disappeared under the cast. “My ankle was crushed.”
The man blanched.
Jack closed his eyes and heaved a deep breath. “Look, I’m just trying to get home.”
The man dropped the coin he had between his finger and thumb back into his purse.
The clink made Jack sag. He pulled up his sock. “I’m not a beggar.”
Only he was. He was just a very bad beggar. He wanted the coin, and he hated that he wanted it.
“You’ve family to take care of you at home?”
His hackles rising, Jack turned toward the train. “I have a job there.”
A ping in the tankard made him start.
Jack lifted it to find Queen Victoria’s profile on a half-inch gold coin. A sovereign?
He twisted.
The man in the bowler was walking away.
“This is more than I need,” Jack shouted.
The man turned, gave a wave and the ghost of a smile, then sidled between two people and was lost in the crowd.
Carefully, Jack emptied the coins into his palm and then put them in his pocket.
If he didn’t spend a lot of the money on food, he might be able to go to the Royal College of Physicians and see if they could give him any help with regaining feeling and the use of his foot before he returned to Manchester.
And as much as he wanted to see Caroline again, he didn’t know how he could face her with his disappointing results.
Caroline woke with an uneasy feeling in her stomach, not quite enough to claim sickness but enough so she would have preferred to roll over and go back to sleep rather than face the inevitable day.
She missed Jack, missed him in a way that went deep and bled the colors out of the world. He’d only been gone a fortnight, but it was if it had been years. If she had failed to conceive, they could try again. Wanting to have failed to conceive was a betrayal of her deepest wishes. Yet, there it was, a hope that bloomed in her every morning and was dashed every evening when her courses didn’t come. She was more than two weeks late. Almost three.
Her door opened and her maid tiptoed in.
Caroline gave up on getting more sleep. She needed to go into the mill office anyway. She pushed up to a sitting position.
“I brought you some weak tea and toast, ma’am.”
Caroline frowned.
“Just in case you’re feeling queasy.” The maid set the tray on the bed.
Caroline met the young woman’s eyes. They both suspected.
She supposed she had been waiting for one sure sign, a day when she knew for certain, but she wasn’t sure now. “It could just be the strain of having guests has upset my natural rhythms.”
Her maid pressed her lips together and removed linens from the clothes press. Her rigid posture spoke volumes. She knew, and Caroline couldn’t deny it any longer. She was with child.
Caroline waited for the joy to overwhelm her, but instead a keening loss at the idea of never again being with Jack took over.
“You been with your husband enough, he’ll think it is his.”
A jolt of dismay rocked through her, and Caroline jerked. “Of course it is—if I am with child—it is Mr. Broadhurst’s.”
Her maid flapped out a petticoat. “Mum’s the word, ma’am, but you ain’t slept in that bed but in the last fourteen days.”
Dear God, if her maid knew exactly when she’d started sleeping in her own bed, would she put it together with Jack’s leaving? Servants were always the bane of any secret.
“Mr. Broadhurst prefers his own bed. And that is the end of it,” said Caroline. Her stomach turned and she pressed a hand to her flat midsection.
“Never fear. My loyalty is to you. Now, eat the toast. It will help.”
Caroline nibbled on the toast and then found herself devouring the remaining crust. She was with child. Jack’s child. What they shared had been so perfect, a baby seemed the inevitable miracle to spring from their union.
She only wished she knew Jack was safe. She’d wanted to give him the direction and letters of introduction to the caretakers at her sisters’ London houses. But the expression on his face when she broached the subject suggested that he thought her offer implied a lack of confidence in him. So she held back, just as she’d held back the declarations of love that sprang to her lips with increasing frequency.
But she regretted her reticence. She might never see him again, and she’d failed to pour out what was in her heart. More than anything, successful or not, she wanted him to come back to her when it was safe for him to do so.