All About Seduction(119)

Belatedly, he remembered that the blisters and raw spots from holding his crutches hadn’t entirely healed. He fisted his hand and pulled it back. She came around the desk and peeled open his fingers. She reached for the other hand and did the same.

“The crutches didn’t like me much,” he said lightly. “Took a lot of walking to get around London.” And home from Manchester. He’d hitched rides when he could and crutched when he couldn’t.

“I gave you money for cabs.”

Jack sighed. “That’s all I had to get to the city.”

She raised her head and stared at him.

“I saved over two hundred pounds, but my stepmother took it and bought a new stove and paid off the note on the house while I was recovering.” His jaw tightened.

“I could have given you more money.”

He shoved his hands in his pockets. “I don’t want your money. What good is success if another has bought it for you?”

“Jack,” she protested. “You should have let me help you. I can give you two hundred pounds. You could have stayed at one of my sisters’ houses. The cost would have been negligible to us.”

“It’s not negligible to me.” It had taken him a decade to save two hundred pounds. “I’ll be the best damn clerk the Broadhurst mill has ever seen. I’ll earn my keep and I’ll save again. I have lots of ideas. I don’t have to design mill machinery. I’ve been thinking about rubber.”

He wondered if coating the handles of his crutches would have saved his hands, not to mention coating the tips, which might have kept them from slipping so easily.

Her forehead puckered.

He pulled her against him. She resisted at first, her body tensing, but he let the fight drain out of her before he tightened his hold and pressed a kiss to her temple.

“Just believe in me, Caro. I need you to believe in me. I need to know that you will be mine when I am successful.” He wanted her to say that she would wait for him.

She tilted her head back. Then they were kissing and clinging to each other. Even if she wouldn’t say the words, her body said it for her. She moaned.

With her in his arms he was home. He could make it through the days of struggling to write and spell legibly, to cram as much learning into his head as it would hold, to hide his feelings from Broadhurst if he had this to look forward to at night.

She made a sound of protest and pulled back. With her hand planted firmly in the center of his chest, she pushed him back. He lost his balance, but fortunately only careened into the doorway while holding onto her arm to stay upright. Steadying his feet underneath him, he regained his equilibrium.

“Jack, we can’t do this.” Her blue eyes looked bruised and accusatory. “I can’t promise you anything. I’m married.” She looked down and her voice grew tinny. “I don’t need you anymore. I—I’m pregnant.”

In that, he’d succeeded. He looked at her belly, but of course she wasn’t showing yet. She was going to have his baby late next summer. His emotions bounced around. He was exhilarated. He was disappointed, yet proud. And he was concerned about her. “What the hell were you doing running?”

Her swimming blue eyes jerked back to his.

“You have to care for yourself.” He reeled her back into his arms and she didn’t resist.

Instead she trembled.

He held her loosely. “I was hoping we’d have to try some more.”

She stiffened.

He stroked her arm. “Don’t worry. I understand.”

“Do you, Jack? Because if Mr. Broadhurst finds out you’re the baby’s father, I don’t know what he’ll do. I have the protection of family and a brother who has the queen’s ear.”

He didn’t. He had a family who stole from him.

“I am certain he ordered Mr. Whitton killed after he had been with me. They say a highwayman in a greatcoat and pulled low hat shot him, and I saw a man dressed like that go into Mr. Broadhurst’s study the night Mr. Whitton left.”

The description niggled at a faint memory in Jack’s brain, but he was too intent on the stark despair on her face.

“We have to end this. I can’t see you anymore. It’s too dangerous.” Her voice quivered. “We have to pretend there is nothing between us and that there never was anything between us.”

“It’s all right, sweetheart.” She was breaking his heart, but at least she wasn’t rejecting him for being a failure.