All About Seduction(44)
Jack caught the glances at the bottom of his bed, but ignored the blatant curiosity.
A maid came in carrying an ash bucket, and a footman followed with a coal bucket. The two bent and made quick work of cleaning the remains of last night’s fire and getting a new one flaring. The villagers watched and tried to stay out their way. The servants pretended they weren’t there and left without fanfare once their duty was discharged. But it had dampened conversation.
“Best be getting on before the horn blows.” One of the men ran his thumbs along the underside of his braces as if they had grown too tight. They needed to get to the mill before work started.
Jack didn’t protest. Instead he thanked everyone for coming and wished for another dose of laudanum. The gray wall between his pain and him had been lowering for hours, until it was just a thin wisp of nothingness.
They all filtered out while the footman looked uncertain as to whether he should hold the door. He settled for standing near, probably to make sure the silver salver or the vases on the table near the entrance didn’t exit with any of his visitors.
Lucy didn’t leave. Instead she sat down in Mrs. Broadhurst’s chair and reached for his hand.
“Would you be needing anything before I leave you, sir?” asked the footman.
“I’ll take care of him,” Lucy said before Jack got his mouth open.
The footman screwed up his face and then shut the door.
“Great. I need help to piss.” Jack sat up. He’d bet his last ha’penny Lucy wouldn’t help him.
She recoiled. “Jack!”
“Better call him back.” Jack reclined against the pillows.
“But—”
“Don’t you need to get to the mill?”
“I’m not working today. I’m here to take care of you.”
Jack ground his teeth. The last thing he needed was more people taking care of him. And he’d rather she wasn’t around when Mrs. Broadhurst checked in on him. Last night he was certain she would have allowed him to kiss her were it not for the interruption. He just hoped it wasn’t only the haze of intoxication offering him encouragement. “Lucy, go to work.”
Lucy reached to brush his hair away from his forehead, and he batted her hand away.
She scowled at him. “Why didn’t you take me to London with you?”
Jack closed his eyes. He’d postponed marriage and a family of his own partly to help out his stepmother and his father, but mostly to not have his future held hostage by a wife and children. Once a man was responsible for more mouths than his own, he couldn’t take risks. “Lucy, I don’t need you weighing me down.”
She patted his arm. “Looks to me like you’ll need my help when you go back to London now. Your sister told me you have a job there.”
He pushed her hand away. “Lucy—”
“I would go with you, Jack. I want to live in London.”
Did she plan on supporting him until he was healed? “In that case, you really should go to the mill. You’ll need the money for your fare, because I’m not taking you. You go to London on your own. We’re done.”
The whistle at the mill blew, announcing the workday had begun.
“You don’t mean that,” she said.
He did mean it, and he’d said it before. “Go to work, Lucy. I don’t want you anymore.”
She pouted and sulked, then stormed at him for leading her down the primrose path and not being willing to make an honest woman of her. He’d never lied to her or ever implied he’d marry her. Desperately, Jack tried to get her to leave. “I don’t know that I’ll ever be fit for work again. I’ll probably be a beggar from here on out.”
She looked around the room. “If this is the kind of charity you’ll receive, it may not be so bad.”
Hadn’t she heard him? Jack rolled his eyes. “Don’t count on it.”
Lucy cast him a skeptical look. “Mrs. Broadhurst has never taken such a special interest in any other accident victim.”
A flash of uneasy excitement raced through Jack. Last night, had she been hinting that he might have other benefits to recovering under her care? In the cold light of day it was too fantastic to believe she might stoop to a liaison with him. “She had her reasons. She wants the little ones out of the mill and in school.”
Perhaps she wanted an excuse to get away from her guests. Her staff were as confused as he was about her motives, but it hadn’t stopped them from speculating or grousing about the extra workload. “But I won’t be taking any more charity from her as soon as I’m back on my feet.”