All About Seduction(78)
What in the world was going on with her? Her husband wanted her to sleep with other men, she was cold and she wouldn’t stay under the covers next to him. Did she find him that repulsive? And was it because he was a laborer—a next to illiterate millworker?
Jack sighed, as if he could sort anything out when she was across the room from him, nearly naked. He couldn’t think about anything more than the glimpse of flesh he’d already had and wanting to see more. It wasn’t terribly gentlemanly of him, but there you had it. He’d never been delusional about what he wanted from her.
He lay back on the bed and stared at the underside of the bed canopy. The blood rushed in his ears, but he also felt the languor brought on by the dose of laudanum pulling him down.
So cold Caroline wondered if ice were forming in her organs, she could barely control her shaking long enough to hold the candle under the grate. Her eyes stung as she lit the crumpled newspaper beneath the coal that had been laid for Langley’s fire, obviously before the servants grew aware that he was leaving. She supposed she should be grateful for that.
But she wanted to crawl away to a dark hole and curl in a ball. All she’d had to do was show herself in the transparent gown—right. That worked so well. Jack had covered his eyes as if the sight of her might turn him into a salt pillar like Lot’s wife.
If Jack wasn’t interested, she didn’t know what she would do. The idea of going back to pursuing one of the gentlemen made her skin crawl. But she did want a baby, and Jack had rocked the bed in an imitation of the act she needed. A sob caught in her throat. She needed him to do the real thing, but he hadn’t given her any indication he was inclined to do more than fake it.
Now, if the medicine would just take effect, she could find a way to regain her equilibrium. She should have taken the coverlet when he offered.
The newspaper burnt out, the edges going orange then gray, and the coal just lay there not burning or glowing. She couldn’t light any kind of fire tonight. She shoved the candle under the grate and shifted away.
She should just complete her humiliation and ask Jack outright, but her voice was a disturbing three octaves higher than normal and she had no idea how to ask such a thing. She wasn’t pretty or blond or young like his Lucy.
The candle flame licked the coal. She watched it thinking it would never reach the coldness inside of her, which was like a black void of nothingness.
She would go back to her room and pretend to Mr. Broadhurst that she had done it, but before dawn she would have to get Jack back down to the breakfast room or there would be hell to pay.
An uncontrollable shudder rippled through her.
The bed creaked and she tensed. Something soft landed against her back.
“At least put that on if you won’t take the spread.”
He’d thrown his nightshirt at her. He wanted her to cover up. He didn’t even want to look at her in the negligee. She made a sound through her nose, almost like a laugh, certainly unladylike. Oh God, she was a miserable failure. Even a millworker didn’t want plain quiet Caroline.
Her hands shook as she opened the nightshirt and pulled it over her head. If she could run away, she would run until she couldn’t run anymore. But this was her life and she couldn’t get away from it, and damn Mr. Broadhurst for making her have to explain to Jack now, instead of in her own time, when he was further on the path to recovery.
She climbed onto the chair she’d stubbed her toe on earlier and pulled her legs up to her chest, the skin of her thighs cold and strange against her belly. Tucking as much of the material as she could get under her feet, she risked looking at Jack.
He was on his elbows, his undershirt baring his muscled arms. Her stomach tickled with apprehension at what she was about to ask him to do. She opened her mouth. The words wouldn’t come out.
She tucked her chin down. The nightshirt smelled of him. She closed her eyes and breathed in deeply as she tried to rub warmth into her arms.
He continued to regard her silently, as if waiting for the explanation she’d promised him.
“I’m so sorry for all this,” she said, and was pleased her voice wasn’t nearly as squeaky as before. “And that there aren’t any linens on the bed—or a fire in the grate—or just everything.”
Jack’s heart thumped irregularly as he watched her. Even in the minimal light of the room, the dusky color across her cheeks was apparent. And he regretted that he’d given her the nightshirt to cover up with, but he couldn’t think straight when she was nearly naked in front of him. But with the striped material tented around her, the ache in his groin hadn’t eased. Yet, she couldn’t have been any more clear about where he stood in regards to that.