All About Seduction(98)

A cold miasma of dread shrouded her, and she couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t break the spell.

He shoved her back.

Gasping, she stumbled and then caught her balance. Keeping her eyes down, she slowly backed to the door. “I am going now.”

Had she betrayed her affection for Jack in her expression? She didn’t know. But she didn’t dare allow herself to feel any tenderness toward him. If Mr. Broadhurst had ordered Mr. Whitton killed, she was playing too dangerous a game with Jack. Mr. Whitton had friends and connections, and his murder would be investigated, but Jack had nothing to protect him. His family hadn’t the resources to fund an inquiry. No one would look deeply into his death.

Her heart skittering, Caroline hurried down the hall and swung into the room where she and Jack had been last night. She twisted the key in the lock and then went out through the dressing room, down the servant stairs, and then to the first floor.

Repeatedly checking over her shoulder didn’t reassure her she wasn’t being followed or watched. She darted around a corner and raced to a spiral staircase that reached the northern el of the house. All this cloak and dagger slipping around might be overkill, but she couldn’t risk Mr. Broadhurst learning that she was going to Jack.

When she first came to live here, she’d spent hours learning the layout of the house, always imagining which way she could go if she needed to escape. She’d told herself it was wise to know all exits in case of a fire, but in her mind she always envisioned running away from Mr. Broadhurst.

Until now that had never made sense. Her fear always seemed misplaced. Except for doing her duty, marriage to Mr. Broadhurst had not been onerous. Now, however, she didn’t know if he was the sometimes brusque older man she knew or a man who thought anything he wanted should be his because he could pay for it. Worse yet, he seemed to believe that anyone who stood in the way of what he wanted could be destroyed because he willed it.

Her breath held, she twisted the knob to Jack’s room and then slipped inside, pulling the door shut and twisting the key. She eased out her breath, half expecting Mr. Broadhurst to thwart her. The escritoire stood next to the window. A wardrobe occupied the far corner. Everything seemed normal and ordinary. As she stared into the darkened room, no shadow took a form it shouldn’t. All was as it should be.

The old-fashioned washstand with pitcher and bowl had been shifted close to the fire. The chair from the desk was beside it. She imagined Jack stripping down and washing while sitting there, and she shuddered. Not only was such a thought unseemly, but after Mr. Broadhurst’s unspoken threat she couldn’t allow herself to think that way.

A low fire burned in the fireplace behind a heavy screen. She turned toward the bed dominating the center of the room. Her pulse raced, fear still leaving a bitter copper tang in her mouth.

The lump in the middle was Jack. As her ragged breathing stopped clouding her ears, she heard the deep regular sound of him sleeping. Her shoulders dropped and she sighed.

Poor Jack had to be exhausted. The doctor had warned that he should not exercise for more than a few minutes at a time. She should let him sleep. She tiptoed toward the wing chair on the far side of the fire. The floor creaked and she froze.

“Caro, come to bed.” Jack’s voice was sleep roughened and moved through her like warm honey. Shifting to the far side, he pushed the covers back, exposing a plain unbleached nightshirt. His own sleeping garment, not Mr. Broadhurst’s.

She caught the post at the bottom of the bed, suddenly far too aware that she was very sore and her female flesh felt swollen and abused. “If you are very tired . . .”

“I’m not so tired I don’t want you.”

The words made her shiver. She brushed her dampening palms against her dressing gown and swallowed several times. Her heart was still fluttering and she took one last look over her shoulder at the door.

Jack leaned up on an elbow and watched her.

Caroline dropped her eyes. “I suppose we should get this over with.”

He sighed loudly and rolled to his back. “If that is what you want.”

The sooner it was done, the sooner she could relax. He would fall asleep, she could rest on the far side of the bed until dawn. She wasn’t going back to her room until she absolutely had to. As much as Mr. Broadhurst thought the servants needed to believe the pregnancy was his doing, she didn’t want to spend any more time alone with him than was necessary.

“It is what I want,” she said. But it wasn’t. The way Jack had touched her on the stairs awoke a need in her she didn’t know she had, but she couldn’t allow herself to feel affection for him. She was putting him in too much danger as it was.