All About Seduction(54)

Mr. Berkley adjusted his chair and brought her foot into his lap. His thumb pressed into her arch and massaged. She barely kept from jerking her foot back. She stared at him and then remembered the role she was supposed to be playing.

Letting her lips part, she let her eyelids sink to half-mast. It seemed a rather silly expression, but he leaned closer.

After a minute he yanked her foot farther into his lap and pressed it against a bulge. Goodness, was that what she thought it was?

Then again, perhaps she had chosen the right man this time. He wasn’t wasting time kissing her or perhaps even all that concerned with her response or lack of one.

He lifted his fork with his other hand as if he was no longer interested, but his fingers gripped her ankle firmly and rubbed her foot against his crotch.

“Is there anything you are reading now?” he asked, as if nothing were going on beneath the table.

“D-Dickens,” she stuttered.

The corners of his eyes crinkled and he set down his fork. He reached under the table with his right hand and slid it up until he found her garter and liberated her stocking.

His hand against the bare flesh of her leg stunned her. But she smiled. This might be easier than she thought.

At the far end of the table, Mr. Broadhurst stood. “Mrs. Broadhurst, you seem to be done eating. Isn’t it time you left us to our port?”

Caroline jerked her foot back, but Mr. Berkley didn’t immediately let her go. Her heart caught in her throat, she hissed at her captor, “Sir.”

An insolent sneer on his face, he released her. She searched with her bare toes for her slipper, but came up empty.

With as dignified a nod as she could manage, Caroline left the table. The footman opened the door and she scooted out, her bare sole protesting at the cold marble of the entry hall.

With a sigh of regret, she moved past the room housing Jack. Before she did anything more, she needed to put on a new stocking and shoes. Later, after the gentlemen joined her in the drawing room, she could return and retrieve her slipper, hopefully before the servants found it.

Jack groaned as he crutched around the room. Had he accused Mr. Broadhurst of murder earlier, or had it just been a bad dream? Bloody rot, he was staying in the man’s house, eating the man’s food, lusting after the man’s wife. What kind of gratitude was that?

He had to get out of here before he started to believe this luxury was his due, or that Caroline might ever see him as a man worthy of her affection. He cursed at himself. Either he wanted to be near her or to avoid the fear that he wouldn’t get the job in London. Neither reason was good. No, he had to go soon, before he made a fool of himself by revealing how much he wanted her.

The door clicked and he turned to see her enter. Her cheeks were faintly flushed and her dress dipped low on her chest, exposing her creamy skin. God, what he wouldn’t do to have the right to put his mouth there. His breath whooshed out of him.

“I only have a minute, but I wanted to see if you needed anything,” she said. Her hand remained on the doorknob.

“I’m fine.” He’d been fed before his minder left for her own dinner. Unable to stop himself, he took a few lurching steps closer to her.

“I wanted to let you know, I’ve gotten Mr. Broadhurst’s assurance that he will allow you to work as a clerk, until you are fully healed. Perhaps in a couple of weeks, you can come to the office.”

Jack bit back a profanity. He barely could write his letters and he’d spent an inordinate amount of time trying to decipher one lousy paragraph of the book she’d left by his side. He put his hand over his face rather than let his dismay show.

It was a brilliant plan, really, a job a man with a broken leg could do. No walking, carrying, or lifting anything heavier than a pen. But unless that chance included schooling, he couldn’t be a clerk.

He opened his mouth to outright refuse, but a bit of self-preservation reared its head. Jack seriously doubted he would be able to keep his appointment at the machine shop. If he couldn’t convince them to hire him in London, he would need work. “I’m not a clerk.”

“It’s really not hard. Mostly recording orders and shipments, payments, a bit of correspondence.” She frowned. “A lot of numbers. Adding and subtracting. It’s more tedious than taxing. Clerks always start with the most mundane of tasks.”

While his ciphering was better than most, he suspected what was done in the office was more than he could easily figure in his head. In a weird way, the opportunity was everything he’d hoped for, but he was so unprepared. He should have studied harder with his younger siblings. He should have spent more time learning what he could instead of sleeping—or spending time with Lucy. He couldn’t be a clerk. The clerks were educated men. Not to mention working mere feet from Mr. and Mrs. Broadhurst would be a dream and a nightmare all rolled into one.