All About Seduction(8)
“I should have known the letter was not your usual fare, but I thought you were finally revealing your innermost feelings.” Robert rubbed his face and his shoulders slumped. “Hell, any feelings.”
Caroline stiffened, her nails biting into her palms. “Just because I am reserved, does not mean I am without feelings.”
But if she poured out her private thoughts in letters, she would just give everyone a case of the doldrums. A lady didn’t complain about her circumstance, her loneliness, her isolation, or the lack of affection in her life. What good would complaints have done? So she wrote of inconsequential things like the weather and asked after her nieces and nephews.
“I thought it strange you commented twice on Sarah’s baby and the pages had the look of being pressed out after being crumpled. But I took it as your way of expressing your willingness to go along with Broadhurst’s plan,” said Robert.
“I may have had a moment of weakness when I wrote that, but I did not send it. Mr. Broadhurst must have.” She should have shredded the stupid missive or burned it. She stroked her index finger with her opposite thumb. “I want no part in his scheme. I am resigned to my condition. I just want the mill.”
“Caro. He wants a child, and you must want one too. Even if you did not mean for me to see that letter, I saw yearning in every word you wrote.”
Blackness ate at her insides. Was her brother to gang up on her too? “I will not speak of it anymore.”
Didn’t he understand it tore her apart to even think of a child? If she dwelt on how much she wanted a baby of her own, she wouldn’t be able to return to work. And the work fulfilled her. Robert wouldn’t understand, but running the mill was what got her out of bed every day.
She had thrown herself into learning the mill to fill the empty hours of her days, and perhaps a bit of her husband’s ambition had transferred to her. Her family would never understand her fascination with the manufactory.
She’d been raised to believe that people of quality did not sully their hands with industry, but such a foolish attitude was part of what brought her father to insolvency and forced him to trade one daughter for the funds to marry off the rest.
“We have to have this conversation, Caro, whether you will it or no.” Robert’s voice dropped low. “Broadhurst has not asked you to do anything so terrible.”
Caroline laughed, but it sounded more like glass breaking and she broke off midway. “No?”
“He wants a son and an heir. Is that so much to ask?”
“I have been a dutiful wife, but to command me to commit adultery is beyond the pale.” She folded her arms, proper deportment be damned. She’d never given her husband a reason to regret marrying her—other than not giving him children. And if the fault lay with him . . . she should not suffer for it.
Robert rubbed his face. “You have to, Caroline, we need his money. Papa . . . Papa mortgaged everything. Without the Broadhurst funds I would not survive. Nor would Mama. Sarah, Amelia, and the twins’ husbands all expect their payments.”
Were all her family members leeches to her marriage? Caroline’s throat constricted. She fought for the equanimity to deal with this too.
All her adult life had been filled with silent mantras about how a lady behaved. She did not shout, she did not rail, she pushed down any violent emotion until it no longer threatened her sanity. She’d been stifling her feelings so long, it was odd she couldn’t manage to now.
“You will not survive? Or will all of you have to stop going to Brighton in the summers, Newmarket in the fall, and London for the social season?” Her voice trembled under the strain of suppressing a shout. What kind of family did she have that they demanded again and again that she sacrifice for their comfort? “Mama will have to stay at inns in the Riviera instead of the best hotels? Amelia will have to settle for only ten new ball gowns?”
Robert blinked and took a step back. “Since Papa died, I alone have been to London to take my seat in Parliament. I let the London house and take rooms in Cheapside. Mama hasn’t been back to the continent. My wife complains that she and the children have nothing to wear.” He lifted his hand, patting the air. “Besides, our sisters know nothing of this arrangement. Hell’s bells, I knew nothing of it before inheriting. But there are loans on top of loans . . . mortgages on everything. I was counting on the payments to sort this out.”
“I should have thought the bride price Mr. Broadhurst paid for me would have taken care of the family finances.” Caroline’s anger curled tightly into a black ball in her stomach.