chapter 4
Caroline stared at the box on her bed. Her hands shook from the strain of the long surgery throughout the afternoon and the decision she’d reached. But the box was unexpected. She hadn’t ordered anything.
She wanted to collapse and sleep the evening away, but there were guests she had to greet. As she’d handed the doctor tools, sopped up blood while blocking Jack’s view, and checked to see if he still breathed, anger had built in her. She had tolerated Mr. Broadhurst for years with the understanding she would be independently wealthy with a mill to run one day, but he had yanked the firmament from underneath her. Returning home, destitute or not, was always an option, but not one she liked. No, she wanted control of her future.
She would seduce one of the men Robert had so thoughtfully supplied. She would do it because she wanted to control her destiny and that of the mill. Allowing anyone else to control her, to denigrate decisions she knew were right, was no longer acceptable. With a baby, she would be in charge of her future and his.
That the only acceptable avenues for a woman of her class were wife or poor relation was so unfair. She was as capable as any man. If she weren’t so sick of her role as a model wife, she never would have decided to go along with Mr. Broadhurst’s Machiavellian plan.
Had his plan included a new dress for her too? He seemed to have engineered the smallest details.
An envelope was tucked in the strings. Recognizing her sister’s hand, she broke the seal and lifted out the single sheet of notepaper.
I thought these might come in handy. Amy
Frowning, Caroline untied the twine. Lifting the lid, she found a diaphanous nightgown and peignoir made of lace and chiffon.
Shoving the lid on the box, she drew back as if the thing might bite her. Never in a million years would she wear such a thing. Such garments weren’t decent. She didn’t even want the maid seeing them. Quickly she retied the twine.
Like Robert, Amy had probably thought she wanted to have an affair. How little her siblings knew her. But was that her fault? She saw them infrequently and couldn’t fill letters with her desire to be anywhere but with Mr. Broadhurst. During her visits to their houses, Mr. Broadhurst never left her side, so she was never in a position to exchange confidences. Perhaps that was by his design.
The connecting door to her husband’s room opened. Mr. Broadhurst stood in the opening. “Are you not dressed yet?”
Her stomach churned and tightened. He looked like the same man she’d spent the last fifteen years with, but she barely could stand the sight of him. “Really, Mr. Broadhurst. I cannot believe you would will everything to Mr. Granger.”
She pitched the box into the bottom of her armoire. When she had more time, she’d cast them on the fire. She tried to close the armoire, but the box jutted out, preventing her. She slammed it harder, distorting the pasteboard, but the door still refused to close. She shoved the box on its end and forced the armoire shut.
“Figured that would stick in your craw.” Mr. Broadhurst walked into the room and sat down in her reading chair. “But, I know he’ll do whatever it takes to keep the mill profitable.”
As if she would run it into the ground. Whatever improvements she made for workers’ safety would all be for naught if the mill closed its doors. She would never let that happen. But, if she had been in charge, the accident today never would have occurred. “Leave me, so I might get ready.”
“I’ll wait. Did you have new dresses delivered?”
“Amelia sent some things.” Would he just leave? Before she totally lost her temper and slapped him. The bloodthirsty urge surprised her. But violence never served.
“How unlike her,” murmured Mr. Broadhurst as his eyes followed her.
Caroline yanked open the armoire again and took out an evening gown suitable for a London dinner party. Then she wrestled the peignoir box out of the way again to slam the door shut. She jerked on the bellpull. “I need my maid.”
She could have dressed without her maid, but she didn’t want to be alone with her husband, not with the way she felt about him at the moment. Because if he decided to lay a finger on her, she just might snap it off.
“Have her do your hair with hanging curls, and don’t put a kerchief in your neckline.” Broadhurst nodded toward the low-cut gown, which she often wore with a lace chemisette to fill in the décolletage, for warmth as much as modesty.
Was she to be outfitted like a whore in the best brothel? She closed her eyes. With all the effort she put into learning to run the mill, she was still seen as nothing more than a brood mare. She really hated him. Hated him.
All her prayers for tolerance and admiration were wasted effort. Knowing that he believed he could manipulate anyone to do what he wanted might make him a great businessman, but it made him an awful person and a worse husband. But she had implied an agreement to the bargain so Jack could stay, so there was no point in railing like a fishwife.
“We are understood, Caroline. If you are agreed to do as I’ve asked, your patient can stay. Otherwise I will have him thrown out.”
Vibrating with anger, she clenched her jaw. “He was trying to save a child who should not have been in harm’s way in the first place.”
“Such a soft heart for the children. Don’t you want one of your own?” he cajoled.
It wasn’t fair. She’d wanted children. “Of course I do.”
“Then you will do as you are bid.”
“If you will have all the children under nine put out of the mill, I will . . . I shall . . . begin a flirtation tonight.” Her spine tightened and she resisted the urge to draw her shoulders up to her ears. God, did she even know how? She’d never been particularly skilled in social intercourse. And how could she seduce one of the guests?
Mr. Broadhurst scowled at her. “This is why I cannot leave the mill to you. You are too concerned with the plight of children that don’t matter.”
He had been one of those children who didn’t matter, but reminding him of that would only raise his ire. Instead she appealed to his greed. “Mr. Broadhurst, one of those little children caused the loss of a good worker. The only one who knew how to dismantle the machinery to get his leg out, I might add. The work completely stopped all because of one little girl who was too young to use good sense in where she walked.”
“Very well, ma’am. I shall ban from the mill any child under the age of nine, henceforth. And you are agreed to lie with one of the guests tonight.”
Her stomach cramped. “I cannot conduct every stage of an affair tonight. That isn’t how it is done.”
She didn’t know that she could manage the final stage, but if she could gain a few days—long enough for him to decree all young children wouldn’t be allowed to work—she could at least try to single out one of the men for an affair. By having a baby, she gained the mill and independence. A month of trying to get pregnant was better than another loveless marriage, or being a penniless dependent upon family members who neither understood her or she them.
Offering a rare concession, Mr. Broadhurst said, “Within the week, then, Mrs. Broadhurst, because these men cannot stay on forever.”
She nodded jerkily. Her hands shook as she tried to undo a button. She couldn’t have said if it was anger or fear or an odd mixture of both. “Really, sir. I need a few minutes to compose myself. And you should go down to offer our guests a cordial before dinner. You must spend time with them or their purpose for being here will be too obvious. I shall run the mill perfectly well while you are occupied with the guests.”
One side of his mouth lifted in the nearest thing her husband ever managed resembling a smile. “It won’t matter if you run the mill well for a month. Only a son will change the will’s provisions.”
Caroline blanched. Her heart thundered in her chest. “I need the practice for the day I will have to run it for our son.”
“Agreed.” Mr. Broadhurst pushed out of the chair. “I shall retire early to give you free hunting.”
She nodded. At least that way if she made a hash of a flirtation, he would not be there to criticize. Stars above, had she really agreed to have an extramarital affair? Her stomach churning, she fought the bile rising in her throat.
Jack Applegate stared at the tinwork ceiling of the dim room. A fire blazed in the fireplace, apparently just for him. The doctor had given him morphine, but it just took the edge off enough so he could breathe in something other than a pant.
He had dozed, but woke thrashing as he dreamed of getting sucked deep into the cogs of the machine, it chewing him up and spitting him out in little chunks.
The bed creaked as he moved to his elbows. The room spun around him and his stomach roiled in protest.
He scooted back against the wooden headboard of the bed brought down and assembled for him. Pain seared through his body and made him gasp so hard his throat dried out. He coughed with a dry heave that only made his leg scream with each jar.
The door clicked open, and silhouetted in the doorway was a woman in a full gown. “Are you all right?”
Ahh, his savior, Mrs. Broadhurst, Caro—although he could never call her by her given name. He didn’t know what she’d said to the doctor to convince him to save his leg, but he had no doubt she was the reason he remained in one piece.
Jack stifled the cough. He was far from all right. Even though the doctor told him the ankle had been repaired in a surgery that took hours, he also said it was unlikely he would ever walk again, and might still lose the leg if sepsis set in. And that he wouldn’t be able to attempt walking for two to three months.
If he couldn’t make it to London in two weeks, he’d never be all right again. But that wasn’t the thing to say to the woman who opened her house to him, washed the blood from his leg and arm—all while directing her servants to make the breakfast room into a invalid’s room for him. Curiously, she had taken care of him when she could have passed his care to her servants.
“I’ll do,” he managed, and then dissolved into a new spate of coughing.
He willed her to turn around and close the door. The last thing he wanted was her seeing him moaning or groaning in pain. She’d meant well. Weak as a mewling newborn kitten, he collapsed back against the head of the bed.
She crossed the room, bent to light a spill from the fire and then light the lamp on the table he’d been operated upon. The gore was gone. A slew of maids had cleaned the mess, while he watched the pile of red rags grow amazingly tall.
She leaned over him and put a cool hand to his forehead. But in doing so, she gave him a lovely glimpse of her bosom.
He gasped. He’d never seen Mrs. Broadhurst in anything that wasn’t buttoned to her neck, but this frilled and flounced, robin’s-egg-blue gown exposed her creamy white shoulders and the rounded tops of her breasts. A glittering blue-stone necklace fell away from her skin and dangled between them. Like a magpie, he wanted to grab it, to feel the heat from her in the gold, to let the back of his fingers graze her creamy skin underneath.
Jack closed his eyes. Never in a million years would she welcome his touch. Even if she had been sold into marriage with a rich old tradesman, she was as blue-blooded as they came. He was nothing better than a laborer. She’d never let him kiss her feet, let alone the things he wanted to do as he watched her from afar.
He’d thought if he could market his designs, he could one day have a chance at a woman like her.
“Where is the maid I left with you?” She pushed back hair that clung to his damp forehead.
Surprised at her touch, his eyes popped open. She pulled her hand back, and the loss was almost like losing a part of him.
“I asked her to leave me be,” answered Jack. He hadn’t wanted to restrain his cries any longer. As it was, he’d groaned into the pillow until the medicine cut the pain.
“You shouldn’t be alone.” Her voice was soothing, but her eyes were wide and her face pinched.
“I’d rather.” He searched her expression, trying to understand the source of her anxiety.
“Were you trying to sit? Do you need more pillows?” Without waiting for his answer she exited to the hall. Shortly afterward she returned with two small cushions and stood with them as if waiting for him to lean forward.
He couldn’t. Just getting up on his elbows made his arms shake with the effort. He should just lie back down, but he was afraid if he moved his leg, he wouldn’t be able to restrain a groan.
Helpless, he stared and saw her as he never had before.
Instead of the tight bun she habitually wore, her hair was done in a loose knot with curls on her crown and one long curl caressing her neck. He would love to press his lips to every part the dark hair touched. “You look beautiful.”
A flush spread over her chest and up her cheeks.
He winced. He should look away, but he couldn’t deny himself the small pleasure of looking at her. The medicine had loosened his tongue, and it certainly wasn’t his place to comment on her looks. “Beg pardon, ma’am.”
“You’ve likely never seen me dressed for guests before.” Her voice trembled and her mouth tightened, as if the “guests” were distasteful to her. She pressed the two pillows against her chest as if they provided armor.
It wasn’t the dress. He’d long ago noticed Mrs. Broadhurst. When he sat in church he stared at her dark hair swirled above her swanlike neck. Every chance he could he watched her enter or leave the mill office. He’d admired her efforts to educate the children of the millworkers, although he knew it was for the most part futile. Like him, most of them did what their parents before them had done and became millworkers.
He liked the way she would ponder a piece of machinery and ask, Wouldn’t the chain be less likely to catch a worker’s clothes if a metal guard were here?
She cared about their safety and education, unlike her husband who cared about his bottom line. She perhaps thought that some might want to rise above the circumstances of their birth. He took hope from that idea because it fit with what he wanted to believe about himself. But it was more than that with her. The way she occasionally tilted her chin down and looked up through her lashes sent shivers down his spine.
“I should get back. But do you need anything?”
Her. “No, ma’am.”
She glanced over her shoulder at the door. Then her gaze returned to his face. “Do you want these pillows?”
He nodded and reached out for one, but feeling unable to move, he pulled it to his chest.
Her eyebrows briefly lowered. “Do you need help sitting up?”
How could she possibly see him as anything other than a weakling? Jack sighed. “Perhaps one of the men could help me.”
She leaned over him again and slid her arm behind his back. “Here, I can assist you.”
She helped him forward and stuffed the pillows behind his shoulders. He bit his lip at the wave of dizziness and grasped her shoulder. He wanted to enjoy the lovely sight in front of him, but pain blasted him. It was all he could do to not cry out.
She eased him back. “Oh, I’m hurting you.”
“It’s nothing,” he managed to say as he uncurled his fingers from around her shoulder. He’d gripped her hard enough to blanch her fair skin. Bruising her would be a crime. “Beg pardon, ma’am.”
“Think nothing of it.” She looked over him for a long time, and he tried hard to erase any pain from his face, but he doubted he succeeded.
“Did you have any supper?”
“I don’t believe I could eat, ma’am,” he gritted out. Sweat beaded his forehead. Even though his mouth felt stuffed with cotton, he’d barely been able to drink half the glass of water the maid had poured for him.
Mrs. Broadhurst’s eyes narrowed. “You need to eat to get your strength back. We had a lovely beef consommé for dinner. Would you like to try some?”
No. He’d like her to leave before he did something stupid like touch her creamy shoulder. “I don’t know what that is.”
She smiled, the corners of her blue eyes crinkling just a second before the edges of her mouth lifted. “A clear beef soup of a sort.”
Even her language marked their differences. Perhaps she would leave him if he called for his supper, or perhaps she would smile more if he ate like a good invalid. “I could try it, ma’am.”
She tugged on a loop of material near the door and then pulled around the chair the maid had used, so she faced him. Arranging her wide skirts around her, she sat down.
A footman opened the door. “You rang, ma’am?”
“Yes, please ask Cook to send a bowl of the beef consommé and a bit of bread for our patient here, and please inform me when the gentlemen have left their port.”
The footman nodded.
“Oh, and fetch the extra pillows from my room for Mister . . .” She swiveled toward Jack. “I’m sorry I don’t know your last name.”
“Applegate. John Applegate.” He frowned, not knowing why he’d given his baptismal name. “But everyone calls me Jack.”
“Mr. Applegate.” The dip in her voice was like a lover’s tone.
“Jack,” he repeated. He shook his head. The medicine had made him befuddled. She wasn’t interested in anything more than his health, and no more than any of the hundreds of other workers in her husband’s mill. Or was she?
Caroline hated to leave Jack with the housekeeper, but the older woman would bully him into eating the consommé and drinking the sweetened orange water she had ordered for him. And perhaps Mrs. Burns was motherly enough that Jack would accept the comfort he refused from her.
His pain etched lines into his forehead and caused him to squint. The doctor had said there would be a lot of pain for the first two or three days.
Caroline tried to get her mind off Jack as she made a circuit of the drawing room. The gentlemen held cups of tea or snifters of brandy while discussing the upcoming days of hunting. She felt as out of place as a horse in a ballroom. Obviously she had dressed up for the occasion, while the gentlemen had settled into less formal country wear. However, if she was to attract one of them to her bed, she couldn’t exactly wear her usual sober dresses. With more warning she could have ordered less flamboyant evening gowns instead of having to use her London wardrobe.
Lord Tremont moved beside her and said, “I hear there was a bit of excitement this afternoon.”
“Yes, a bad accident. One of the workers had his ankle crushed in the machinery.” She wished the words back as soon as she said them. She should have said something banal like, I hope the noise did not disturb you. Or I’m sorry to not have greeted you in person when you arrived.
“Poor blighter.” Tremont lifted his brandy snifter and took a step away.
Caroline stiffened. She opened her mouth to defend Jack, but swallowed her words. Lord Tremont was supposed to be the man most likely to seduce her. With his curly golden hair and full brown mustache over an almost insolent grin, she imagined he had plenty of takers in the City.
“So tell me the latest news from London,” she said.
“Do you not get the papers?”
Steeling herself, she put her hand on his arm. Her touch felt awkward, whereas touching Jack earlier had seemed natural. But he was too ill and weak to even consider as a possible candidate for fatherhood. No, one of the gentlemen, who were for the most part well-favored, would have to suffice. “Yes, but I know so little of the gossip. Tell me who is the most fawned upon actress and who is her protector.”
He looked pointedly at her hand on his arm. “Oh that kind of gossip.”
She pulled her hand back, hardly knowing if she had touched him too long or too obviously. It all felt hopelessly forced to her.
He took another drink of his brandy and moved away from her. “I’m not sure it is suitable for your ears.”
Caroline could have screamed in frustration. “I am no innocent,” she murmured, barely keeping her tone coy.
“Or that your husband should want you to hear it,” he said under his breath. “He is looking daggers at me.”
Across the room, Mr. Broadhurst stood and set his teacup on a table with a clatter. “I’m afraid this old man must bid you good-night. I am certain Mrs. Broadhurst would love to entertain all of you for the remainder of the evening.”
Feeling the curious glances cast in her direction, Caroline studied the backs of her gloves as if they were stitched with great intricacy. All Mr. Broadhurst needed to do was add a wink and a nudge and his meaning couldn’t have been clearer. Although it wasn’t the first time he’d embarrassed her in polite company.
Tremont leaned toward her. “Does that mean you are not allowed to leave the room until we have all sought our beds?”
“Of course not.” She couldn’t bring herself to touch him again. Putting her arm around Jack to help him sit had seemed so easy. She had been testing herself a little, seeing if she could touch a man without picking up and running away. But Jack was safe. He was in no condition to molest her. Not that a man of his station would ever think of her that way. Unless, of course, he, like Mr. Broadhurst, rose above his birth and bought his way into society, bought a wife, and bought her bloodline as if she were a broodmare. Her jaw tightened.
“So I have heard tell of a certain young gentleman who frequents Lady Brennon’s drawing rooms of late.”
Caroline’s mouth fell open. Good God, Lady Brennon was her sister. Was Amelia so bold with her affairs she was the subject of gossip?
Tremont smiled as if amused. “Perhaps you did not wish to know of tales so close to home.”
“Is this gentleman an actor?” Amelia would never entertain an actor, but she was grasping for a titillating thing to say. Actresses and actors seemed so often involved in unseemly affairs.
Perhaps Amelia was trying to make her husband jealous or the caller wasn’t receiving encouragement from her. Caroline couldn’t fathom why her sister would willingly encourage the attentions of a man to whom she didn’t have to submit.
“No, he’s not,” Tremont replied. “You have a fondness for those who tread the boards?”
Caroline shifted her shoulders. She tried for a casual shrug but failed to carry it any better than her attempt to start a ribald conversation.
“I’ll admit to having tried my hand at a few amateur productions. I am told my voice is pleasing.”
“I’m sure it must be.” She winced. He’d offered a perfect opportunity to tell him she liked his voice and she’d missed it. He had a nice tenor, but Jack’s rough voice was better suited to her distinctly unmusical ear.
Tremont leaned close enough his breath tickled. “I have it on good authority that the Prince of Wales frequents the stews in Whitechapel.”
She gasped. The prince was hardly old enough, but then she rethought it. He must be in his late teens. Her face heated as she barely restrained herself from asking that he not gossip about the boy who would be king one day.
“Now I see I cannot find the right bit of gossip to please you,” Tremont said. “Perhaps if we talked of other things.”
Caroline drew a blank. She couldn’t ask him how the hunting was going, because they hadn’t been yet. The weather was too hackneyed a topic for her to throw out. She was absolutely certain Lord Tremont wouldn’t give a fig about the possible impact of the growing conflict in the Americas and how it might affect the price of cotton. She had no idea how to talk nonsense, as flirting seemed to require. She’d never done it.
Silence stretched between them until she reached out and put her hand on his sleeve. Desperately she searched for something to say, but words caught in her throat.
“I hear tell you are allowing this millworker to convalesce in your house,” said Tremont, putting his hand over hers.
She was trapped. “He really couldn’t be moved so soon after the operation. Mr. Broadhurst is not happy that I had the boy brought here.” Jack wasn’t a boy, but calling him one made her feel less exposed.
“Why did you? Does he not have a home? The village seems closer to the mill than your house.”
Caroline felt a twinge of uncertainty. “I do not know. In the moment, it seemed the right thing to do.”
Perhaps Jack’s concern over the little girl had slipped under her skin. Or the thought that he deserved better than to be left to a mother who seemed more upset about needing to care for him than she did about his injury. Or perhaps she’d been rebelling against her husband and his plan. If she were nursing an invalid and running the mill, she could hardly find the time to seduce one of the gentlemen. Except Jack’s injury only clarified why she should do everything she could to take over the mill.
“You seem the capable sort one would want about in an emergency.”
Caroline wondered if his observation was a veiled insult or a backhanded compliment. She pulled her hand back. “I’m not the swooning type.”
“I suppose you are a suffragette.”
Her chin went up. “I don’t see any reason why a woman cannot run a business even if she is more compassionate toward the workers.”
“Ah.” Tremont took a step back. “I have touched a sore spot.”
Caroline looked down at her clasped hands. “I apologize. I do believe a woman is happiest in the home.” Malarky! “I just—” Her words halted. She could hint that she longed for babies, but it hardly seemed like the right course to seduce Lord Tremont. “I know Mr. Broadhurst considers me too softhearted, and I fear my actions today have only confirmed his suspicions.”
Good heavens, if she meant to convince Mr. Broadhurst to allow her to run the mill after he passed, child or no child, her actions today had been all wrong. He’d said as much to her, but she hadn’t thought it through.
Steeling herself to endure Lord Tremont’s touch, she turned. Her skin crawled with the idea of allowing him the liberties Mr. Broadhurst had gained by right of marriage.
“ . . . visit your patient.”
“Yes.” She hadn’t been listening. “I plan to look in on him before I retire. My housekeeper is sitting with him now.”
“It seems the others are engaged in cards. Now would be as good a time as any, would it not?”
She nodded. The last thing she wanted to do was take Lord Tremont to Jack’s bedside.
Lord Tremont put his hand on the small of her back. She scuttled forward. Her throat tightened and she tried to tell herself she could endure a man’s embrace and copulation with him. She had endured it for years with Mr. Broadhurst. Only with a lover she not only had to endure, but pretend she enjoyed him. Her insides flopped and she only hoped she wouldn’t throw up.
They passed Robert. She stopped and turned toward him. “I’m taking Lord Tremont to see the young man who was hurt today.”
Robert nodded. His eyebrows came together. “By all means, do sit with the poor chap awhile. I will make your excuses.” He gave a slight negative shake of the head as if puzzled.
Caroline nodded as if a puppet master controlled her strings. She tried to smile, but it felt more like a grimace. Lord Tremont put his hand against her back and his touch jarred her forward.
Leading him out into the hallway, she kept trying to believe she could do this. She could let him grope her and slobber on her and do all the things that constituted the act that men loved and she hated, but a scream boiled inside her. Oh, God, she had to do this.
“He is downstairs in the breakfast room.” She headed toward the staircase.
Before she reached the steps, Lord Tremont pulled her back. “We don’t really need to go see the boy. I wouldn’t want to disturb his rest.”
“No, of course not.” Caroline trembled. She was to have no reprieve.
Lord Tremont slid his hand around her waist and eased her around. No servants loitered about. The other guests remained in the drawing room. They were completely alone. His knotted necktie was not as fascinating as her attention to it would warrant, but she couldn’t seem to look him in the eye. She swallowed hard.
He slid a finger under her chin. For a second she resisted letting him tilt her head. She silently prayed that in the dim light of the gaslights her repulsion would not show.
“Your brother informs me that you are lonely living out here in the middle of nowhere.”
“Lancashire is hardly the end of the earth,” she objected. Foolish, foolish girl. All she had to do was agree and supply him with a perfect excuse for her wanton behavior.
Lord Tremont searched her face, and his gaze dropped to her lips. Fighting to keep her mouth relaxed, she waited.
He pressed his lips to hers. Closing her eyes, she decided it was not so horrible. Unlike her husband, Lord Tremont’s breath was not fetid with teeth that should be pulled. He was not invading her mouth as if she hid treasure inside. Maybe she could get through this.
Tilting back, he whispered, “Are you lonely, Caroline?”
Her head moved in more of a circle than in the up and down motion she strived for.
He ran his fingers along the edge of her bodice, and it was all she could do not to squirm away. She hated the groping, the pinching and the twisting that left her nipples sore. She dreaded the bruises a man could make with his mouth and the tenderness left in her woman’s place.
His fingers insistent, he tilted up her head again. She hadn’t even realized she had lowered her chin. He turned his head in an assessing way she didn’t like. Suddenly nervous, she bounced up on her toes and pressed her lips to his. Their teeth clicked because of her clumsiness, but he adjusted and slid his tongue along her lips. She screwed her eyes shut and allowed him access.
Really, she would have much preferred to look in on Jack.