All About Seduction(7)

Only thin clapboard separated the private office from the main one. Conversations could easily be overheard. If her husband wished privacy for business, he brought people to the house. The house was the last place she wanted to be right now.

“Perhaps we should take a stroll.” Caroline held her hand out toward the door. Robert was the sibling who closest resembled her, with his dark hair and blue eyes, but the resemblance was fading. Whereas age had sharpened her features, it had dulled his. His skin was pasty and his frame had turned stout. He looked as if he had aged a decade since she’d seen him at their father’s funeral a year and a half ago.

“What an ugly place,” said Robert as soon as the door closed behind them.

The three-story red brick building was built for function, not aesthetics. The bricks had been left bare both inside and out. Mr. Broadhurst did not believe in sparing expenses for comfort. Nonetheless there was a beauty in its starkness. “Mr. Broadhurst would say it’s a mill, not our home.”

“I see,” said Robert, huffing alongside her.

A horse was tied to a bush near the door. Even though the crisp fall weather seemed ideal for walking from the house, Robert must not have thought so. Her husband had made the ten-minute trek daily for most of his life. Only in the last few months had he taken to ordering the gig brought around.

“Would you like a tour?” Caroline offered. Even if Robert didn’t see the merits of the place, she was proud of the mill.

“I have no desire to see the workings, but we can walk along these paths,” he said. “Are you not curious about whom I have invited?”

“No.” She stepped onto a path leading to the canal providing power for the mill.

“I invited Tremont, he is a favorite with the ladies.” Robert twisted around, looking every which way except at what was probably a sour expression of distaste on her face. His voice dropped lower. “He has fathered at least one lady’s child. Whitton is said to have a half dozen by-blows. Berkley’s wife passed during childbirth.”

Caroline’s spine tightened as Robert listed the men he’d invited as if he were offering her a particularly delectable array of virile sweetmeats. “These are not your usual cronies.”

“No, I went to great length to invite men who might appeal to you, which was difficult enough. We hardly know you anymore, Caro.”

He should have known she wouldn’t have an affair. Her heart thumped oddly. Mr. Broadhurst had her brother the viscount acting the roll of procurer. She would have laughed at the absurdity of the situation were it not for the seriousness of it.

“You have only to let me know if you take a liking to any particular gentleman, and I will facilitate an alliance.”

Caroline stopped walking. The cold air burned her heated cheeks. “You are laboring under a misunderstanding. I have no intention of forming an alliance with any of the men you’ve invited.”

“You have another man in mind?”

“Of course not.” Barely restraining a sniff of impatience, Caroline resumed walking. Ahead of her a few millworkers filed out, swinging their dinner pails. As far as bloodlines went, one of them would be much closer to Mr. Broadhurst. She scanned for a particular man who always caught her eye. A heavy sigh left her when she didn’t see him. He’d been absent last week too. She hoped he wasn’t ill.

She lowered her voice. “I shall not do this. I will not. Mr. Broadhurst is mad to speak of it.”

Robert blinked once, then twice. “He assured me you wanted a child—that you were in agreement . . .”

She had wanted a child, she’d said so many times. It was the only thing that allowed her to get through nights with her husband without turning into a bedlamite. But it was not to be. “Not this way.”

“But you sent that letter saying that while you were overjoyed by the birth of Sarah’s latest, you couldn’t help but feel melancholic that you had not been so blessed.”

Caroline’s breath snagged. Mr. Broadhurst must have retrieved the sheets on which she’d poured out her anguish then tossed in the dustbin. She’d written a proper note expressing her felicitations, and not her disappointment. “I did not send that.”

Robert jerked her to a stop. “Did you write it?”

Knowing he had read the letter felt a bit like he’d pried open her deepest secrets and exposed them. A pang in her chest stole her breath as she shrugged away striving for nonchalance. “I wrote it, but I copied the parts I wanted to say in another letter. I threw that version away.” Months ago. How long had this scheme been in the works?