All About Seduction(60)

She backed away. “I don’t know why I’m telling you these things.” A shadow crossed her face. “Are you steady on your feet—foot?”

“Yes. Thanks.” He turned back to take the rest of the stairs. “It hardly matters what you tell me. It’s not as if I’m going to tell anyone. Even if I did, people would think I made up stories.”

Her hands settled again at his waist, holding material but not touching him. “Why? Are you in the habit of telling false tales?”

“No, but no one would believe you picked me as a confidant. They’d probably believe that I dreamed it while on the laudanum.”

Her voice dropped to whisper. “Did you dream what you said earlier about Mr. Broadhurst’s previous wife?”

Jack winced. “I shouldn’t have said that.”

“You shouldn’t have said it because it was true or because it was a dream?” Her hands tightened in the material of his nightshirt.

He’d given her the perfect opportunity to brush off what he’d said as the delusions of a drugged state, but with quiet determination she had plowed ahead. Did anything scare her?

“Her death was suspicious, supposedly by her own hand,” Jack said in an undertone. “And he married you only a few weeks later.”

“It wasn’t a few weeks,” she muttered.

“That’s the way I remember it.” He took another step and she nearly unbalanced him by tugging back. Leaning forward, he waited until she realized what she was doing.

She moved her hands forward. “How old were you?”

“Nearly four and ten. Old enough to remember.” He wanted to turn and watch her face, but then perhaps she wouldn’t like that.

He took the last few steps and leaned his weight on the crutches, glad to be on a flat level again. She had yet to move her hands away, but he doubted her continued clutching of his nightshirt was to assist him.

“Mr. Broadhurst has worked hard all his life,” she said, but her voice wavered.

“That he has,” agreed Jack. His admiration for the man’s accomplishments hadn’t set well with his coworkers. But it was a double-edged sword. He understood. When the demands one placed on oneself were high, one was often disappointed in the lackluster efforts of others. Yet, he hoped that were he in the same position, he would not be as harsh as Mr. Broadhurst. Twisting, Jack began the process of turning around.

Her hands dropped away. “He has been generous with me and my family.”

“Very,” agreed Jack. “Would that he was as generous with those who make him wealthy.”

She stared at the floor. “Were he not concerned about how the difficulties in the Americas will affect the price of cotton, I could probably persuade him to raise wages. Although he would regard it as another mark of how I am too concerned for the welfare of the workers. Other mills employ more young women for they are cheaper labor.”

Jack had to think beyond the needs of his family and see it from the perspective of the Broadhursts. Working in the office as a clerk would give him valuable knowledge—more than the mechanical workings of machines—how a business worked, how money was managed, how goods were ordered.

He wanted to learn, but he knew once he revealed his lack of education, the opportunity to clerk would be withdrawn. To delay his application for the job in London might destroy his chances there. But he was torn. She factored too much into his decision and had no idea of the way he thought about her.

But if Caroline were using feminine powers of persuasion to get him a chance, he wanted her to stop. That another man had the right of her body scorched him. “Then don’t ask him,” he said.

She lifted her gaze to his face. For a second they stared at each other.

“I don’t understand what you want,” she said. “I thought you could help me to know how I could best improve the lives of our workers—how to give them opportunities and prevent poverty amongst them, but—”

“I want this.” Jack waved his arm around and then gripped his crutch.

“This?”

“To become wealthy like Mr. Broadhurst, to live well, to have a beautiful wife, like you.” But he’d never conceived of paying a king’s ransom for her or the mysterious woman who might eventually become his dream wife. A woman who looked like Caroline, had her poise and courage, and most of all had her generous heart. Hell, he wanted her. All along he’d wanted her, not some poor imitation of her.