All About Seduction(72)

“Are you with child?” he demanded.

Cringing, she tried to get him to lower his voice by patting his chest. “I don’t know,” but even as she said the words, her head moved back and forth in a negative motion. She had never been good at deception.

Jack’s crutches thumping toward the door had her heart skittering in her throat. The last thing she needed was Jack interfering. She had made the bargain so he might stay, so he might work as a clerk, although mostly so she could be free of having a master one day. Her throat closing, she tried to soothe Mr. Broadhurst. “I will do as I promised. I have a plan.”

“Dammit, Caroline, I thought . . .” He shook his head. “I find you reading. Reading to that . . . common son of bitch.” Mr. Broadhurst shook her. “With all those men abovestairs of your class. You will not hide in his room anymore. If I catch you down here, I will have him horsewhipped.”

The door opened.

Caroline leaned around Mr. Broadhurst. The last thing she needed was Jack coming to her defense. In his weakened state, he was not capable of helping her. Mr. Broadhurst would have him thrown out, wounded or not. She deliberately suppressed the nerves in her voice. “Please go back to bed, Mr. Applegate. This doesn’t concern you.”

He stared at her as if trying to discern the risk.

Mr. Broadhurst hissed, “Horsewhipped.” He dropped his hands and folded his arms across his chest.

Caroline dipped her head and skirted around her husband. “Please, Mr. Applegate, you need to get back to bed before you fall again.”

Jack shot her a dirty look as she held out her hand as if she would steer him. She didn’t dare touch him, not while Mr. Broadhurst was watching. She mouthed the word Please.

She waited, her breath held until, Jack finally began to pivot around. “Thank you,” she whispered.

Jack cast one look over his shoulder, but Caroline followed him into the room and bent to blow out the lamp as he settled on the bed.

“Are you sure you’re all right?” he asked in a low voice.

“Of course I am all right.”

“Would you call out for help you if you were not?” Jack asked in a low voice.

His concern filtered through her alarm, like a candle put in the window to welcome home a weary traveler, but she feared his interference could only make things much worse. “I assure you, with a house full of gentlemen including my brother, I am in no danger.”

She hoped she wasn’t in danger. Icy fingers tracked down her spine. If Mr. Broadhurst really had killed his last wife, what was to stop him from doing it again? No, she had to appease him, or neither of them were safe.

Jack searched her face with narrowed eyes.

Her shoulders stiff, she went to the door and murmured a good-night before closing the door.

Mr. Broadhurst grabbed her upper arm and propelled her toward the stairs.

“I can walk on my own.”

“Walk faster.” His hand bruised her as he forced her up the stairs.

When he got Caroline to her room, he shoved her through the doorway. Following her in, he shut the door, turned the key in the lock and removed it. “Strip.”

“Wh-What?” whispered Caroline.

“I said, strip. Take off that dressing gown.”

Caroline unfastened the buttons holding the heavy robe closed. She wouldn’t need it for bed.

“The night is still young enough,” Mr. Broadhurst muttered.

“I will arrange another tryst tomorrow.” She draped the robe over the foot of her bed.

Mr. Broadhurst’s eyes raked over her. They were cold and hard. “Your family understands the importance of this.”

“But—”

“I’ll have that bastard sleeping in my house whipped, broken leg or not.”

Jack hadn’t done anything to deserve her husband’s wrath. She reached for the covers of her bed, only to be jerked back.

“I’ve had enough of your games. I always thought you were an honorable woman, Caroline. That you would adhere to any bargain you made. It appears nobility of breeding is no indication of character.”

Caroline’s mouth worked. But the trouble was, she couldn’t find the heart to object to what he said. She had welshed on her promise; not that she should have been asked to commit adultery in the pursuit of offspring. Nor could she claim failing to fulfill a bargain as the weakness of her sex—not when he would take it as another reason she could not run the mill. And seducing a gentleman and getting him to impregnate her wasn’t as easy as he thought it was. It wasn’t as if she were beautiful like her blond sisters. She was far from every man’s ideal.