All About Seduction(80)

She gaped at him as her skin fired. “You would know this how?”

Jack struggled to sit up straighter, but his limbs were loose and not responding. “The midwife.” He shrugged, then added, “And it has worked for me. Avoiding that time, anyway.”

She continued to stare at him, but closed her mouth tightly.

“The days of a woman’s flow, the week before and only a day or two after are the safest if one means to avoid conception.” Not that he entirely relied on avoiding fertile periods; he also withdrew. But that method alone could fail.

He could see Caroline calculating in her head and her eyes widened. Was she even now in a fertile period?

“Do you want a child?” Jack asked softly.

“I thought I did.” She stood and picked up the poker, but there weren’t any coals to stir and she shoved the poker at the stand and ignored it when it clattered to the hearth. She paced away, her steps long and kicking the nightshirt that dragged on the floor as she walked. “But I cannot abide the pawing and . . . pinching.” She put a hand across her breasts as if to shield them. “I tried to get drunk—”

“I saw.”

She continued as if she hadn’t heard his interruption. “—but that just made me sick.”

He watched her agitated pacing.

“Apparently I am too plain to draw men to me. And I hate pretending to enjoy an act I despise.” Her passion made her nostrils flare as the long tail of her hair whipped behind her.

“You’re beautiful.” In spite of her rant, he couldn’t feel the same. He wanted her, even if she took gentle handling to awaken her desires.

She stopped. “You are kind to say so, but you do not have to lie to me. We are better . . . friends than that, aren’t we?”

Nothing would ever erase the image of her in that sheer material, but that probably wasn’t the reassurance of her beauty that she wanted or would understand. He only hated that she disliked an act that could be so enjoyable. But she’d been little more than a child when Broadhurst married her. Had the man ever tried to see to her pleasure? “We are friends.”

“When my husband stopped coming to my room, I thought I’d never have to endure a man’s touch again.” She halted and gripped the back of the chair as if she might break it. Her chest heaved and her eyes looked wild. “But to get a child . . .”

Bloody hell, he did not want to see her go to another man and f*ck him. “Did you ever think of asking me?”

Caroline’s mouth worked but no sound came out. She stared at him. Her head dropped.

She likely thought of him as less than a whole man. Or an encroaching toady to think he could be her stud. He was not of her class, her wealth, or even a gentleman, but he could offer one thing none of the guests could. He knew what she wanted, and she did not fear him.

“I could promise not to pinch or paw.” He lowered his voice. “You wouldn’t have to pretend.”

Caroline circled the chair and sat down hard. She still hadn’t said anything.

“I could repay you for all your care, in a way.” He plucked at the coverlet, waiting for a response beyond her astonishment.

“What about your engagement to Miss Dugan?”

“I’m not engaged to Lucy, and I never have been. Did she . . . ?” He didn’t need to finish the question. Of course Lucy had claimed an engagement. He sucked in a deep breath. Anger in the face of Caroline’s fear could only make matters worse. And God forgive him, he wanted Caroline bad enough to keep a leash on his temper. “I told her we were finished.”

Silence echoed in the room and her eyes seemed to widen as her mouth rounded.

He waited, the air thickening with each passing second. To push or attempt to persuade would be the wrong tack. Or would it?

“Are you certain you could?” she asked in a quavering voice.

Of course he could perform the act that brought children. “I broke my leg, not my—”

Her hand shot out, stopping him. “Have you any natural children?”

Her question was reasonable, but it took him to a place he didn’t want to examine.

She tilted her chin down and then looked through her lashes at him. A surge of wanting thrummed low in him, but he needed to reassure her the effort would not be wasted with him. “I would have a child, if its mother had not . . .”

Her gaze turned more direct and her brow furrowed.

Jack settled for a half-truth, “ . . . passed before the babe was due. I have been careful since.”