All About Seduction(90)
Halfway down he was sweating and cursing. His good leg shook with the unfamiliar use. All his life he’d been working toward this opportunity in London, but his thoughts wouldn’t leave the encounter last night. He didn’t know what he would tell Caroline, but he couldn’t bear a whole lot of nights like last night, with her in pain as he tried to impregnate her.
His fantasy had been more like a nightmare. He’d been reduced to being a stud for a very unwilling and uncomfortable woman. And how, if he too ignored Caroline’s pain, was he a better man than Broadhurst?
Even if he made a success of his life and returned home when the old man finally kicked the bucket, Caroline would likely have none of him. But he couldn’t help but envision a warm welcome upon a return as a man with accomplishments and wealth.
Feeling a bit like he was breaking out of a jail, he cast a backward glance over his shoulder to make certain he wasn’t being followed. But the servants were engaged in the flurry of morning activities, cleaning grates, toting coal and ash buckets up and down, hauling wash water and linens. He’d picked a moment when the hall cleared and made his escape.
At this rate he would never get to the village, let alone London. Swallowing his bitter pride, he plunked to his backside and thumped down the rest of the way. The jarring made his leg throb, but he gritted his teeth and continued.
By the time he arrived home, his arms were shaking, his good leg was on fire, and his head seemed likely to detach from his head and float away. The walk had taken him thrice the normal time, and he’d had to rest several times, leaning against a tree or on his crutches. He didn’t remember ever being this weak and mewling. Fine stud animal he made. If he were part of a herd, he’d be culled from the breeding stock for lack of fitness.
He opened the door to the familiar smell of cabbage and too many children crammed in a small house. Beth was in school, so three-year-old Daphne, her face full of grim concentration, rocked the baby in his cradle. Their father yelled from the bedroom, “Who’s there?”
Daphne popped up from her chair and shot across the room. “Jack!”
Her little face transformed into a smile and then melted into shock as she realized his leg was twice as thick as it should have been. She backed toward the soot-grayed wall. The wavy glass let in little light, but what did landed on her mouth rounded in an O.
“It’s still me,” he said with as much of a smile as he could manage. He suspected it was more of a grimace.
He crutched toward the vacated chair and sat, heedless of the cries emerging from the cradle. Years of practice making the movement automatic, he set his foot on the runner and restarted the rocking motion. He willed his youngest brother to sleep before his leg could no longer work.
Daphne stared at him. He suspected she would come around if he acted normal, but he no longer felt normal.
His father emerged from the single bedroom, stooped and shuffling across the scuffed wood floors in a way that made him look older than Mr. Broadhurst although he was decades younger. His eyes glistened with uncharacteristic moisture. “Martha isn’t going to want you here. Said you kept too much of what you made anyhow.”
Jack understood Martha wanting more of his wages—there was never enough. But that his father wouldn’t fight for his oldest son to stay left Jack feeling as if a rope had tightened around his chest. He had to get out of here. “I just came to get my things.”
His father heaved a sigh of relief. “How long you going to live up in the fancy house?”
“I was only staying until I can go to London,” Jack said.
Daphne patted his leg. He tilted his crutches against his side and curled his arm around her shoulder, moving her hand away from the throbbing ache in his leg.
“You always was lucky,” muttered his father. “Getting to stay up there.”
“I’d rather have not had my leg crushed,” said Jack.
“Mama got a new stove,” piped Daphne into the awkward silence.
Jack twisted toward the cooking area behind the main room. A big cast-iron affair had replaced the old rusted stove that had been in the house since he was little. How had Martha managed to . . . His stomach churned. He turned back toward his father and the evasive eyes, the dusky wash of red on his father’s sallow cheeks screaming shame told him everything.
Trying to hold back the wall of angry despair, he said, “Do I have anything left?”
Her brother stood in the entrance hall, and several of the gentlemen came down from the first floor. The butler had the silver salver with several letters on it and was holding it out to the men, but mostly Caroline noticed the closed breakfast room doors across from her. Her heart thumped erratically in her chest as she anticipated seeing Jack again, as if she hadn’t seen him just hours before.