All About Seduction(22)

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.”