The Husband List

  She pushed back her chair. “If you’ll excuse me, Mama, I am feeling the need for some of that fresh air.”

  “Get your cape, first,” Mama said. “And take Pomeroy with you.”

  Caroline scooped up the dog and headed down the thickly carpeted hallway, past the corridor that led to her room, and outside to breathe freely. Evening had come, but it was far from dark as she took the deck. She set Pomeroy on his feet and smiled when he chose the rail instead of his designated spot as the place to leave his mark.

  “Let’s stay back from the edge,” she said to the little dog when he was done. “Mama would never forgive me if you went overboard.”

  “But if I did, she’d breathe easier.”

  Caroline turned. Jack was right behind her.

  “Well, hello,” she said. “Does this mean you’re through avoiding me?”

  Laughing, he held a hand to his broad chest. “A direct shot, Artemis.”

  “Of course,” she replied and then began to follow Pomeroy, who was heading toward his piece of home sod. “And I note you’re not denying the charge.”

  “I’m not,” he agreed as he pulled even with her. “But I have my reasons.”

  Caroline didn’t comment. They walked in silence until they had reached the bow, where Pomeroy was rolling with great abandon on his grass, paws in the air and a tiny canine smile on his face. Caroline rubbed her arms. Mama had been right about the cape. It might be July, but there was a bite to the air this far out at sea. It seemed to Caroline that it was growing rougher, too.

  “Here,” Jack said as he settled his black evening jacket coat over her shoulders. She wanted to draw it close to her face and see if it carried the tempting scent of male and sandalwood she recalled—and had dreamt of—since a week ago in Rosemeade’s conservatory. Instead she gave him a polite, but not too forgiving, thank you.

  “Bremerton was trying to harm me when he broke Eddie’s leg,” Jack said in a strangely calm tone. “None of what happened was an accident.”

  Caroline swung around to face him. “What? Do you have proof? If you do, you must tell Mama immediately.”

  Jack touched his hand to her face. “Sweetheart, if I had hard proof, we wouldn’t be on this ship.”

  Caroline had heard the bad news, but at that moment, she didn’t care. Her mind couldn’t seem to work past the fact that Jack had just called her sweetheart.

  “Sweetheart?” she asked.

  An expression close to regret passed across his face. “That’s what I said.”

  “You don’t seem very happy about it.”

  “What part of falling in love with a woman who’s being married off to an almost duke should make me happy?”

  Caroline couldn’t stop her smile from growing until it nearly hurt her face. “The love part?” She moved closer to him. “Doesn’t that make you even a little bit happy?”

  “If I could guarantee you’d smile like this every day for the rest of your life, it would make me damn happy.”

  “I will,” she said. “I promise.” Her heart raced with excitement. “How could I not? When we get to England, I’ll send a telegram to Papa and tell him I need him there immediately, and then we’ll…”

  Caroline trailed off. What would they do? If her mother had scoffed at the idea of Jack marrying Harriet Vandermeulen, she’d go apoplectic at the idea of him as a son-in-law. She would refuse, and Papa would let her have her way.

  Jack nodded. “That’s exactly where I run dry of ideas.”

  She reached out to settle her hand against Jack’s chest. She wanted to at least feel his heartbeat and let herself know this moment was real.

  He stepped back.

  “We can’t,” he said, tipping his head toward the port side of the ship. Peek stood there, far enough away that Caroline couldn’t complain that the governess was being obtrusive, yet close enough to stand guard.

  “I don’t care about her,” Caroline said. “Not anymore.”

  Jack moved away. “I don’t, either, but here is what I do care about.… I care to be close enough to you in London that I can help if Bremerton becomes dangerous. And if word gets to your mother that I am more than just Eddie’s friend, that won’t happen. I can’t risk that. Bremerton isn’t just some feckless lord, Caroline. He manipulates, and he believes he’s above all rules. If you cross him, he’ll strike back.”

  “I know,” she said, thinking of the way the Englishman had dragged her into Mrs. Longhorne’s folly for simply asking a few questions. “Truly, I do.”

  EIGHTEEN

  Thursday evening, Jack made his way down the hallway to his room. It wasn’t easy going. Last night’s increasing wind had turned out to be the outer edge of stormy seas, and tonight the Conqueror was working its way out the other side.

  Dinner had been a solitary affair with not a Maxwell in sight, and the soup course had been foregone. Now all Jack wanted was to read the book he’d borrowed from the ship’s library. He timed his reach for his door handle to the vessel’s roll and stepped inside.

  “Papa didn’t build this ship for rough seas,” Caroline said from her perch on the center of his bed. “And you don’t have any food in here.”

  Because he had no other option, Jack closed the door. “You’ll find the food in the dining room, though you’re underdressed for dinner.” She wore a ruffled, long-sleeved white cotton robe that covered her from chin to toes, and yet somehow she managed to look sensual.

  “I have ball gowns with half this amount of fabric.” She gave a wiggle of her bare toes. “Did you know that in France it was once the style for women to receive their male admirers en déshabille, wearing their finest night clothing? Flora told me all about it.”

  Jack set the book he carried on one of the room’s two armchairs. “I’ll bet she did. But you might have noticed that we’re not in France.”

  “We’re someplace better. According to my mother, we’re in a land of no laws.”

  Caroline’s dark hair had been plaited into a thick braid that lay over her right shoulder. Jack’s fingers twitched as he thought about slipping the braid from its thin bit of ribbon and seeing her hair fully down. “Much to my regret, there is no such place.”

  “There is, right here,” she said as she patted the burgundy-colored coverlet stretched across the bed.

  “What are you doing here, Caroline?” It was an obvious question, but he needed to hear her answer.

  “I’ve been waiting for you. You promised me a bed. One with just the two of us, and the rest of the world be damned. And that’s what we have, even if it’s one that pitches and rolls.”

  Jack shucked his evening jacket and threw it over the back of the armchair.

  “You need to go back to your room,” he said while he undid his white necktie and sent it to join his jacket. “Someone is going to find you here.”

  “No, they’re not. Mama’s love affair with the sea is over, and she has taken to her bed. Even Helen and Amelia aren’t leaving their rooms, and Annie tells me that Peek hasn’t been seen. And of course I spent all day playing shut-in so I could have some freedom.”

  “Only you,” he said.

  She smiled. “I know. But I realized last night after Pomeroy and I had left you on deck that I had forgotten to tell you something very important.”

  “Which is?” he asked as he settled into the other armchair.

  “I love you, Jack. And this time I’m not saying it out of frustration or anger, but only because it needs to be said.” Humor fled her eyes and was replaced by something more poignant. “I have loved you for as long as I can remember. I know it seems sudden, my being here like this, but you have no idea how long I’ve been waiting.”

  And she had no idea the effect her words were having on him. “We need to keep waiting.”

  “The night of the ball, Bremerton told me that after we are married and I give him an heir, I am to ask his permission to take a lover.”

  Jack didn’t want to begin to sort through
the levels of wrongness in that statement. “Bremerton is an idiot, and you’re not going to marry him.”

  She hesitated. “But what if we can’t find a way to stop this? I can’t turn my back on my family and what they expect of me, and I can’t bear the thought of not knowing what it’s like to make love with you.”

  His heart slammed at the thought, but someone had to remain in control. Unfortunately, that was him. “Unlike your almost duke, I’m discovering that I’m very traditional when it comes to you. Our first time making love will be after we’re married, and not before.” He stood and walked to the side of the tall bed and braced his palms on it to balance against the ship’s rocking. “And I give you permission to shoot me with that six-shooter of yours if I ever bring up the subject of taking lovers … not that either of us will have reason to want to.”

  “So you have no intention of making love to me tonight?”

  “None,” Jack said.

  She smiled. “Fine. Then take off your vest and shirt.”

  “What?”

  “One should always have a fall-back position when negotiating, and that’s mine.”

  Jack laughed. There was no woman on Earth he’d ever want more than Caroline.

  “What do you have to offer in exchange?” he asked. “I don’t drop shirts and vests for nothing.”

  “I’m on your bed. I’d consider that a more than adequate accommodation,” she replied.

  “Ah, but you were there before the dealing began.”

  “That was highly imprudent of me,” she said. “How about this?” She undid the top three buttons on her frilly robe, exposing more white cotton, pin-tucked, beneath.

  “That’s no gain at all,” he said. “Your hair. I want your hair down.”

  She played at deliberating for a moment. “In exchange, I will get both the vest and the shirt, correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “Fine.”

  Jack watched as she untied the thin white ribbon that bound her braid. Ribbon gone, she drew her fingers through her hair, and the braid unraveled like bands of dark silk.

  “There,” she said, once it was flowing over her shoulders. “Done.”

  She waited expectantly while his fingers, suddenly clumsy, worked at his vest buttons. He shrugged free of the garment and dropped it onto the bed.

  “Halfway there,” she said. “Let’s move it along.”

  Jack smiled. “As you wish. I’d hate to deprive you of the upper hand.” After a short struggle with his stiff collar and cuffs, he was quickly rid of the shirt.

  Caroline frowned at him. “I feel cheated,” she said as she took in his fine cotton undershirt. “I had expected much less beneath.”

  “It’s never wise to bargain without all the required information,” he replied. “But to prove I’m a generous man…” He unbuttoned the undershirt, drew the fabric free of his trousers, and pulled it over his head.

  Caroline’s mouth went dry. There were perfect marble contours of the male torso, created by a sculptor long dead, and then there was Jack. Warm, living, breathing Jack.

  “Very generous,” she said.

  She wanted to place her mouth against the pulse that was jumping in his throat. She wanted to touch the dusting of dark hair across the center of his chest. And she wanted to feel emotions she couldn’t even put words to.

  “Have we reached the end of our negotiations?” he asked.

  She shook her head no.

  He smiled. “What, then?”

  “Your shoes.”

  He glanced down at his feet and then back to her. “Really? Then your robe goes.”

  Caroline couldn’t hide her smile. “If it must.”

  She worked her way up to the bed’s ornately carved headboard so that she had something to hold on to. Disrobing would have been awkward in calm seas. An unsteady bed was making it worse. By the time she’d unbuttoned the robe the rest of the way and freed herself from its yards of fabric, Jack’s shoes were long gone.

  “And now?” he asked.

  “What would it take to get you on the bed?” she asked.

  “I’ll agree to that concession to move along the negotiations.”

  Jack was there before Caroline could even thank him for his consideration. He settled on the open spot next to her, head on the pillow and smile on his face. Caroline, who was still kneeling with one hand gripping the headboard, looked down at him. He would have appeared relaxed and companionable if she hadn’t been able to see the tension just beneath his skin. And what skin it was. She took after her mother and had a creamy hue, unlike her paler sisters. But Jack was darker yet, as though he’d spent time with nothing but air between himself and the sun.

  Caroline didn’t want to bargain anymore. She wanted to touch, and so she did. She let her fingers trail from his shoulder and across his collarbone. Jack drew in a deep breath, as though he was steeling himself for some trial.

  She settled her palm flat against his chest so she could feel the heartbeat she’d craved last night. His was strong and steady, not racing as she knew hers was.

  “You’re really quite amazing looking,” she said.

  His mouth turned upward in a brief smile. “Thank you.”

  She laughed. “No. Thank you.”

  Feeling bolder, Caroline ran her hand over the muscled strength of each arm, then traced down his ribs and the flat muscles of his stomach. His breath was coming faster, and she could see that he worked to keep himself still under her touch. One unsteady hand still on the headboard, she bent closer. Her hair swung free of her body, and Jack lifted his hand to touch it.

  “I knew it would be like silk,” he said.

  She bent down to kiss him, and everything changed. Jack moved quickly, settling her on the mattress as he rose above her.

  “I did better at holding still than I thought I would,” he said.

  And he was clearly done with that. His mouth met hers in a kiss that wasn’t gentle or patient, but made of sheer demand. Caroline answered with a few demands of her own, and it was both heaven and torture the way he touched her. His hands were quick and sure—a touch here, a touch there, but no one place long enough to satisfy her.

  “Jack,” she said between kisses. “Please.” And with him, asking wasn’t a form of debasement, as it felt with Bremerton. She was Jack’s equal. That made the asking a gift.

  “Please, what?”

  She shook her head. “Please … I don’t know. Please, everything.”

  He moved a little away, leaning on one elbow while he stroked her hair. She kept one hand on his arm, not wanting to lose contact with him.

  He looked down at her for a moment, then said, “It won’t be everything, sweetheart, but I’ll make it memorable.”

  Really, despite her earlier bold words, what he offered was as far as her ability to flout convention would allow her to go. “Yes.”

  He folded back the fabric and kissed her at the top of the valley between her breasts. He worked his way lower. She let her eyes slip closed so she could just feel. As the ship rolled and Jack worked his magic on her, time and the outside world went away. If she and Jack failed at losing Bremerton—if this was all she was to ever have with Jack—it would almost be enough.

  Caroline drew Jack’s mouth to hers and kissed him. “I believe I want a small wedding, and I’d like it very soon.”

  He framed her head with his hands and kissed her again before saying, “I don’t recall proposing, Miss Maxwell.”

  “You will,” she said with complete certainty. “Because otherwise, how I am ever going to learn you by touch?”

  * * *

  TWENTY MINUTES later, Caroline left Jack’s room. Even if she felt completely different, she’d taken the time to be sure she looked the same as she had earlier in the night. The hallway was quiet and her gait only a little crooked as the ship pushed its way through the last of the rough weather. She stopped at her mother’s double doors and listened. All was still. Caroline moved on. Two more d
oors, and she would safe. Then Amelia’s door swung open. Caroline jumped and Amelia yelped.

  “What are you doing?” Amelia asked, her eyes wide.

  “I was checking on Mama,” Caroline replied.

  “How is she?”

  “I don’t know. I put my ear to the door, and it was silent inside. I decided not to bother her.”

  Amelia gave her a very superior smile. “Maybe just like you, Mama’s out sneaking around in her nightclothes.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I went to visit you earlier, and your room was empty.”

  “I’ve been in the library.” It seemed a safe lie, since Amelia would never voluntarily enter that room.

  “In your nightclothes?”

  “No one saw me. They might, however, see both of us if we stand here chatting much longer.” Amelia was a smaller version of the white, ruffled confection Caroline knew she looked like.

  “Then come in,” her sister said. “I’m lonely, and there’s no one to talk to around here.”

  Caroline glanced longingly at her door. So close, yet so far.

  “Just for a few minutes,” she said.

  Amelia’s room was an homage to the color pink in its many riotous shades. Caroline found it unsettling, but it was her sister’s favorite hue.

  “So what would you like to talk about?” Caroline asked as she seated herself in a pale pink armchair embroidered with bright pink daisies.

  “It doesn’t matter what,” Amelia replied. She hopped up on the edge of her canopied bed. “I’m just tired of being the invisible Maxwell on this trip. Mama dotes on you, Helen is off in her own world, and you ignore me.”

  Apparently, Amelia was in a mood.

  “Why don’t you pick the topic?” Caroline suggested.

  “Fine. Have you ever been in love?”

  That was what she got for not driving the conversation, Caroline thought. “When I was five, I loved my first pony, Henry.”

  “I’m not talking about ponies,” Amelia said. “We’re well past that age. I mean with a gentleman. Are you in love with Lord Bremerton?”

  “No,” Caroline replied.

  “Why not? He’s handsome and polite, and he dotes on you, too.”