All About Seduction(56)

Pulling her chair back from her place at the foot of the table, she waited for her eyes to adjust to the nearly complete blackness.

She dropped to her knees and swept with her hands, looking for the missing shoe. Her fingers encountered nothing but the woolen strands of the carpet. Perhaps one of the servants had found it and returned it to her room. She crawled farther under the table, still searching.

“Looking for this, Cinderella?” said Mr. Berkley. “Or perhaps this?”

She twisted, looking behind her. One of the double doors to the hall stood wide open, allowing a spill of light to illuminate the white stocking he held. Her slipper dangled from the finger of his other hand.

“Yes,” she muttered. “Both.”

“What will you do to retrieve them?” he asked with an amused lilt to his voice.

Caroline pressed her lips together and then parted them. “Anything you desire.”

“Oh but I am a man with great desires.”

“I am but a woman who doesn’t want the servants to discover my clothes where they don’t belong.” She backed out from under the table. Her stomach lurched. This was what she wanted, but she’d thought she would find her shoe, sit with Jack awhile, and then go to bed.

“Ah, it is a concern, when one leaves clothing in places one shouldn’t.”

Caroline rose to her feet. “I don’t make a habit of it.”

“Really? Tremont seemed to think you might.”

Alarm knifed through her. Had they been discussing her?

“Now what I want to know is why Whitton thought it expedient to leave so soon.”

“I’m sure I don’t know.”

“Don’t you?” asked Mr. Berkley, setting the shoe and stocking in her chair.

She eyed them. Would he stop her if she grabbed them and dashed to her room? But she should take advantage of this opportunity. She stepped closer to Mr. Berkley, close enough that her skirts brushed his legs. “No, I don’t. Do you?”

“I do find it curious that he was closeted with your husband before he left.”

What on earth had been said? Had Mr. Broadhurst known nothing of consequence happened before he confronted her about her tryst? Her head whirled. “I can’t imagine what they would have had to say to each other.”

Mr. Berkley pulled the door shut behind him. The snick was as loud as a rifle shot in the blackened room. He stepped closer and it was everything Caroline could do to stand her ground.

His voice lowered. “I think a bored wife with too much time on her hands is a dangerous thing.”

She screwed her eyes shut and searched for a response. “I adore my husband, but he is not the man he once was.”

Mr. Berkley caught her elbows and pulled her against him. “Perhaps the physician can right whatever ails him.”

“I am not terribly hopeful,” she said. “Not much cures an advancement of years.”

Mr. Berkley chuckled. “But perhaps we should be concerned with what ails you.”

She puzzled a bit at that one, but could only make out a silhouette of his head and not his expression. But as the seconds ticked by, she finally managed a “Please.”

She brought her hands up to cup his elbows. He kissed her on the cheek and then moved to her neck. “Yes, I’d like to please you. And might I say you are looking quite lovely tonight?”

“You might,” she whispered. It was as close as she could come to thanking him for the insincere compliment. She should reply in kind, but her mind swirled with dread and sick anticipation.

His mouth slid down her neck and she was both relieved he wasn’t kissing her on the mouth and appalled at the open wet trail left behind, as if he were slavering on her like a dog might. She closed her eyes and tilted her head back, giving him more access.

She couldn’t stand like a statue or he would know how little she liked such things. Almost as if she stepped outside of herself, but could still issue commands, she slid her hands up his arms. They were not as firmly muscled as Jack’s were. Disappointment registered, although she wondered at it. Had Jack become her physical ideal of a perfect man?

Because Mr. Berkley seemed to like it earlier, she toed off her slippers and tentatively slid her toes along his calf.

He whipped them around and she nearly fell. Then he pushed her against the closed door and his fingers dug into her derrière. He lifted her at the same time he ground his pelvis against her. A moan of protest left her mouth before she could stop it, but it only seemed to inflame him more.