All About Seduction(32)

Beth squirmed on the chair, reminding him she was there.

Jack sighed. “Do you want to go over your lessons with me?”

Soon she would be beyond the lessons he could help with.

Beth ran over to the door where she’d dropped her lunch pail and slate.

Mrs. Broadhurst frowned. “Does your mother know she is here?”

“My mother is dead. But no, Beth’s mother, Martha, my father’s second wife, probably doesn’t know where she is. Unless Beth is late for supper, she won’t be missed.”

Mrs. Broadhurst’s cheeks pinked. “I’ll make sure she is escorted back by then.”

“If she found her way here, she can find her way home.”

Mrs. Broadhurst stiffened. “Nevertheless, she is too young to be wandering about on her own. But I’ll let you get on with your visit, then. I’ll return when it is time for your medicine.”

Jack wished he could call his curt words back. “Hold.”

She turned and cast him such a disdainful expression he was reminded of his place. She wasn’t his to command and he had overstepped. He should have known better. From the satin drapes to the thick carpets and paintings on the walls, the cost of the furnishings in this room alone would keep a mill family in cozy comfort for decades. He’d do best to remember that she had no interest in him as a person, only as a means to further her scheme of getting better conditions in the mill.

“Wanting to educate the children is a noble thing,” he said.

“Noble, but not practical,” she said with bitterness.

Caroline looked down at her hands. Her arm had sparked with raw energy that coiled and tightened in the pit of her stomach and lower when Jack touched her. The unexpected jolt had made her jerk away.

In a cruel twist of irony, he might be the only man who had ever made her feel anything like that. But his injury was too severe to think he could perform the sex act anytime soon. Dr. Hein had said he’d be far too weak for more than lying about for days, perhaps weeks.

“It is just the families need to feed their bellies before they can feed their children’s minds,” he said gently.

“But the children earn so very little.”

Jack shrugged. “When the wages are so low, every ha’penny counts.”

Her husband was often accusing her of letting her heart get in the way of her head. Jack must think that true too. No wonder Mr. Broadhurst thought her too softhearted to run the business. She’d thought Jack understood the value of education, supported it. But she hadn’t realized the families were dependent on the piddling income of the children.

Even though she was nominally in control of the mill for the next month, to give the workers raises would only cement her husband’s conviction that she could not be in charge.

She headed for her husband’s study. She needed to give Mr. Broadhurst a report of the day’s business. She only hoped she was early enough that he was still out and she could leave a note. The less contact she had with him the better. Her anger at him hadn’t lessened. Since she learned of the provisions of the will, it had only grown like a monster inside her eating at her heart.

As she entered the room she drew up short. Mr. Broadhurst stared out the window. He turned toward her.

“Sir.” Caroline bowed her head. It was too late to retreat. “You did not go hunting with the men?”

“I do not understand such idle pursuits,” he said. “I returned early rather than spend all day traipsing through fields just to bring back more pheasants than can possibly be eaten before they spoil.”

Her husband had never understood recreation or sport for pleasure’s sake, and he deplored waste of any sort. “I believe the hunting is as much an excuse to experience the fresh air and company of men as anything.

“Did you need something?” he asked moving behind his desk.

Nervous that he would rail at her for her decision, she prevaricated, “I wanted to look at the books, and see how much the children were earning.”

She’d dismissed the sums paid to children as negligible, which to her they were, but she should understand how much a family might be expected to earn and if the children’s wages were vital to a family’s existence. Knowing the wages they paid were on par with what other mills paid was important to running a business, but she needed to delve deeper and look at it from the mill families’ perspective. She hoped Mr. Broadhurst didn’t ask her about her sudden curiosity, because she couldn’t admit she talked to a worker about such things.