All About Seduction(40)

“You didn’t.” But was that why she could hear each heartbeat in her own ears? He had been close enough that she could feel his heat, smell his scent. Her head swirled, and she shook it off.

She turned slowly to face Jack. He had intended a transgression all the more egregious for his being a worker employed by her husband, and she had been about to allow it, encourage it possibly. But to use him as she would use one of the gentlemen felt as if she would taint what was between them. As she met his gaze, he only watched her with concern.

Had she imagined that he meant to kiss her? Her head was muddled.

“I must be feeling the spirits.” Surely her complete lapse of judgment could be blamed on that.

A flicker of unease crossed his features. He tilted his head sideways as if to question her.

She looked at his face—really looked. By any standards he was a handsome man, with his even features, lips neither too fat nor thin, a nose that was straight and regular, brown eyes that emitted warmth and sparkle when he was amused or seriousness like they did now, but it was more than the sum of the parts.

The air charged as they regarded each other. The tick of the mantel clock seemed to slow. He glanced toward the door, breaking the spell.

She sighed. Disappointment or relief, she wasn’t sure. Perhaps both. He was neither suitable for an affair nor well enough. He was just a millworker. Did she want intimacy with a man she’d have to see all the time at the mill? Certainly it wasn’t as if she could continue an affair with him afterward.

She liked the companionable comfort of reading to him as the night settled in around them.

Did she want to ruin that by encouraging him to have sex with her?

Jack sat down on the bed and gingerly swung up his legs. He was breathing hard and his forehead was glistening with perspiration. If what little energy he’d expended standing had drained him this much, he surely wouldn’t be up to the exertion needed to copulate. No, she’d already made arrangements for tonight.

Glancing at the clock, she wished the hands had ceased to move.

It was time to meet Mr. Whitton outside.

The whiskey burned in her stomach, not giving her the desired ease to go forward with her plan. She’d meant to sip more as she went along, but left most of the strong drink till the last. And Jack had tossed the last quarter of the glass’s contents.

She had told Mr. Whitton she liked to walk to clear her head before bed. The interest that flickered in his eyes was like letting loose a herd of spiders on her shoulders. “I have to go.”

“Don’t,” Jack said simply.

But his future rested on her success too. Everything rested on her ability to conceive. She looked for a reason to stay. The fire didn’t need tending, his pillows didn’t need plumping, and it wasn’t time for his medicine.

“I think I need a bit of air to clear my head,” she said, not that she owed him an explanation.

“Stay. Read another chapter,” he coaxed.

His low voice pulled her like a flicker of light in a window might beckon a weary traveler to a warm hearth.

Mr. Whitton was waiting.

Jack arranged the covers and leaned back with a sigh, but stars above, the idea of sliding in beside him was tempting. Except there weren’t any locks on the door and a servant could interrupt them at any minute. No, it would have to be one of the gentlemen.

The footman returned with her cloak draped over his arm.

“Good night, Mr. Applegate,” Caroline murmured, and turned toward the door. “Please make sure he gets his medicine at midnight.”

The footman nodded, and Caroline moved out into the entry hall. Before she could turn lily-livered, she marched across the marble expanse and out the front door.

The cool night air pounded her and made her gasp. She should slip back inside, the temperature too frigid to encourage a late night stroll.

At the foot of the stairs a round red orb like a single dragon’s eye glared at her. The steps seemed to stretch and tilt, even though she knew them to be shallow.

A form separated from the plinth where a stone lion perched. She held her breath, waiting for the dark beast with the single glowing eye to show its scales and pointed tail, but after a second she saw only a man. The eye become the tip of a cigar. Mr. Whitton.

He’d waited.

She’d hoped he had given up and returned inside to the warmth and sanity of the house. She couldn’t do this, she wanted to return back inside, but she had to.

Needing support for her shaky legs, she moved to the stone balustrade nearest him and began her descent.