WidowsWickedWish

by Lynne Barron

  Olivia lay motionless for a moment while her children wiggled about disentangling themselves and rolling away.

  “Are you all right?” she asked, lifting her head to see Fanny helping Charlie to his feet.

  “That was fun!” Fanny wiped one mitten-covered hand across her nose. “Can we do it again?”

  “Again! Again! Again!” Charlie jumped up and down clapping.

  Olivia allowed her head to roll back into the snow and closed her eyes. She smiled at her children’s exuberance. Again, indeed.

  A shadow drifted across her, blocking the sun that had been shifting beneath her closed lids. The riders!

  She opened her eyes to find a man standing over her, his greatcoat open and whipping around his tall, broad form like a crow’s wings beating against the cloudy winter sky. Beneath he wore a crisp white shirt open at the neck and dark breeches tucked into mud-spattered boots.

  His hair was dark as midnight but for silver streaks at his temples, and longer than was fashionable, unruly curls falling over his forehead to dance over thick, winged brows.

  Olivia raised one hand to shield the sun from her eyes and studied his face, a spark of recognition lighting.

  It was an interesting face, though by no means would he be considered handsome. He was too rugged, too masculine for anything as common as handsome. His features were constructed of blunt angles, from his cheekbones that looked as if they’d been carved from granite, to his nose that might have been considered patrician but for the fact that it had obviously been broken at some time and now sported a bump on the bridge and a subtle shift to the left. His chin was firm and square below a mouth that was…well, quite lovely, in fact, with an upper lip perfectly bowed in the middle and a full lower lip that looked terribly…soft, she decided.

  As the spark of recognition ignited into a blaze, Olivia remembered the wish she’d cast to the stars all those long years ago. Between the space of one heartbeat and the next, she silently sent it soaring to the heavens once more.

  Chapter Two

  Jack Bentley looked down at the woman sprawled in the deep snowdrift. He’d thought the sledge held three boys when he’d turned to see it flying through the air. While the legs splayed out before him were covered in thick wool trousers, the dark coat had fallen open to reveal a pair of generous breasts lifting and falling under a red knit jersey. Sable curls escaped from a bulky knit hat, trailing down a long delicate neck to rest just under a pointed little chin. Her skin was flushed with cold, her nose red. Her eyes were closed and she had the sweetest smile upon her lips. The tiniest dimple hovered beside her mouth.

  As if she sensed his presence, her eyelids opened, and Jack found himself staring into wide gray eyes, sparkling with laughter so that they looked silver in the sunlight.

  She lifted her hand to shade her eyes, her gaze sweeping over his face. He saw the exact moment she recognized him, watched as her lips parted and a small puff of breath escaped, immediately transforming into mist in the winter air.

  “Jack.”

  Jack could only stare down at her. Little Lady Olivia, no the Countess of Palmerton. He hadn’t been so near her, nor spoken to her since the first year of her marriage to the earl. She had been eighteen, a lady from her silk-slippered feet to the pearls that gleamed in her piled-high ringlets. She’d looked up at him as they danced, her eyes no longer those of a worshipful child, not yet those of a seasoned matron. She’d been suspended between two worlds.

  Unnerved by the mingled lust and anger that had simmered in his blood as he’d whirled her around the dance floor, he’d never again dared to approach the poised lady she’d become as she’d settled into her role as the proper wife to a peer of the realm. Instead he’d watched her from a distance at those few ton gatherings to which he’d been invited when he’d ventured to Town.

  Jack had imagined the day he would finally see her again a hundred times in the year since he’d learned of her husband’s death. He’d thought he would have to scheme and plot to find himself face-to-face with her in a crowded ballroom, a box at the theater, or perhaps riding in Hyde Park. He had never imagined finding her careening wildly through the snow to land like an angel at his feet.

  As she stared up at him in silence, Jack shook off his surprise, bent from the waist and held out his hand.

  Olivia placed her wool-covered hand into his and allowed him to pull her to her feet.

  “Let’s go again!” A small child bundled up against the cold skipped up to Olivia.

  Her daughter Lady Frances, no doubt. He looked past her to the smaller child ambling disjointedly through the snow.

  “Again!” Charles, the young Earl of Palmerton, launched himself against his mother’s legs, nearly sending her back into the snowdrift.

  Olivia lifted him into her arms and jiggled his bulky weight onto her hip. She wrapped her other arm around her daughter’s shoulder and pulled her against her side. “Welcome to Idyllwild,” she said with a smile. “Are you lost or were we your destination?”

  Jack smiled in spite of himself. Both, he wanted to say, but instead he held out his arm. Justine came immediately to his side and Jack rested his hand on her slender back.

  “Lady Palmerton, may I present my daughter, Miss Justine Bentley,” Jack said.

  “It is a pleasure to meet you, Miss Bentley.” Olivia greeted the girl, her eyes taking a quick inventory of her features.

  Jack knew Justine’s appearance owed nothing to her father and everything to her mother. She had Elizabeth’s wavy blonde hair and pale-green eyes, her pretty little cupid’s-bow mouth, and her delicate, petite form.

  “These are my children, Frances and Charles,” Olivia said.

  “Lady Frances, Lord Palmerton.” Jack greeted the two children with a slight bow.

  “Oh there is no need…” Olivia began with a laugh.

  “My name’s Fanny and that’s Charlie,” the little girl said as she gripped her mother’s coat with one hand and dropped into a wobbly curtsy. The boy tucked his head into the crook of his mother’s neck and stuck his thumb in his mouth.

  Justine stepped away from her father’s side to offer a graceful curtsy, her gloved hands holding her fur-lined cape out of the snow. “It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance,” she said, her words formal, the grin on her face playful.

  “Can we go back up?” Fanny demanded.

  “Perhaps later this afternoon. I think for now we had best get dry and warm. Did I see a carriage traveling with you?” Olivia asked as she turned back to Jack.

  “My father and his wife.”

  “Oh, but how lovely. It has been years since I’ve seen Mr. Bentley and I’ve never met your stepmother.”

  “They have gone on ahead.” And thank God for that. He hadn’t expected to find Lady Palmerton at the small estate on the London Road, had stopped merely out of curiosity, having listened to Viscount Easton describe the role it had played in his marriage. But if there was one thing that could be said about Jack Bentley, it was that he never let an opportunity pass him by.

  He would hardly welcome his father and stepmother as witnesses to the plan he was about to set in motion, a plan he’d been hatching since the day he’d received Easton’s letter and learned that the lady was a widow.

  “Will you join us for luncheon?”

  “Oh, yes, you must. Then you can go sledding with us this afternoon.” Fanny looked up at Justine with obvious delight.

  “Can we, Father?” Justine asked.

  Jack did not need to think about it. He may not have expected to find Olivia staying at the small estate, but now that he had, he wasn’t going to waste the opportunity.

  “Thank you,” he said to Olivia.

  Jack held his hand out for her to precede him and watched in fascination as her legs ate up the snow-covered ground. He couldn’t remember ever seeing a lady in men’s trousers. He observed the way they hugged her legs and wondered if they hugged her bottom as tightly. Unfortunately the coat she wore covered
her to mid-thigh. He dragged his eyes up to the back of her head. Her gray wool hat was slipping to the side, showing him the back of her slender neck. Her son turned his head and looked back over her shoulder at him with steady gray eyes. Eyes just like his mother, Jack saw. The girl had inherited her father’s blue eyes and her mother’s dark hair while the son was just the opposite.

  The party was met in the hall by two older ladies with aprons tied over their dresses and a tall man in brown buckskins and a blue jersey.

  “Mr. Jack Bentley and his daughter, Justine,” Olivia said, lowering her son to the wood floor. “Jack, this is Mary Morgan and Molly and Tom Jenkins.”

  Jack bowed to the assembled group, all the while wondering who they were and where the servants were hiding.

  Coats, scarves, mittens and hats came off. Olivia gathered them up where they fell and hung them on a series of wooden pegs that stretched down the wall of the hall. Blue pegs for Charles, pink for Frances, gray for Olivia. The rest of the pegs were hidden by other coats, scarves, and mittens.

  How long had Olivia been at Idyllwild? Jack wondered as he watched the well-orchestrated lining up of boots beneath the winter garments. This was a family with an established routine.

  “I’ll take the little ones up to change,” Molly said.

  “Thank you, Molly.” Olivia turned to Jack and met his eyes briefly before looking down at her own wet garments. “Are you and Justine dry?”

  “Yes. Go ahead and change. I’m sure Mrs. Morgan and Mr. Jenkins will keep us company. Can I put the horses in the stable?”

  “I’ll see to it,” Mr. Jenkins offered.

  “There’s no need, Mr. Jenkins.”

  “Bosh, it’s just plain Tom. You and the girl go on into the parlor where it’s warm.”

  “Yes, please,” Mary Morgan urged them. “I’ll be right in with a pot of tea. Or if you prefer, please help yourself to the brandy on the sideboard.”

  “It’s best to do as Mary says,” Olivia remarked with a smile for the lady. “I’ll be right down.”

  Jack tried not to appear obvious as he hesitated in the hall, his eyes following Olivia when she turned toward the stairs. Damn, it should be illegal for ladies to wear men’s trousers. The soft wool hugged her trim waist and perfect, round ass. The sway of her hips was a thing of absolute beauty.

  He turned back to find Mary Morgan looking straight at him. She smiled as he met her eyes and Jack felt his face flush.

  “Do you live nearby?” Mary asked a few minutes later as she poured tea for Justine. Jack sipped his brandy while he took in the cozy little parlor with its crisp white wainscoting and sturdy furniture upholstered in soft shades of green and blue.

  “I’ve an estate near Sedgefield,” he replied casually, tamping down the pride he felt in saying the words. He was damn proud of his recently purchased estate for all that the house was a relic, the land only just beginning to turn a profit.

  “Oh, goodness, all the way up in Durham Shire? Why, you’re a ways from home.” Jack heard the question in her quiet statement.

  “We are traveling to London,” he explained.

  “Oh, splendid,” she exclaimed. “Would you mind terribly taking a package with you? Some jerseys and scarves we’ve knitted for my daughter and her husband.”

  “Of course,” he answered. So that was the source of all the knitted outerwear hanging in the hall.

  “Are you friends of the Hastings family?” she asked.

  “Since I was a boy.”

  “Then you know Simon? That is, Lord Easton.” Her blue eyes sparkled with curiosity.

  “Quite well. We attended Eton and Cambridge together.”

  “But that’s wonderful! I am Beatrice’s mother.”

  Jack looked at Mary Morgan in surprise. “I’m sorry. I had no idea. But of course you and Lady Easton lived here for many years.” Good Lord, he thought as the pieces of the puzzle snapped into place in his brain. What an odd situation. The Countess of Palmerton was residing in the home of her deceased father’s mistress.

  “Beatrice was born here,” she answered with a laugh. “Has Simon told you how they met?”

  “Er, some, I believe.” He wasn’t sure just how much to admit to knowing.

  He turned to look at Olivia as she sailed into the room laughing.

  “Mary, don’t embarrass the poor man. And Jack, there are no secrets here so you’ve no need to guard your words,” she said as she plopped, really the Countess of Palmerton plopped, into a cushioned rocking chair by the fire. She let out a small puff of air that lifted the curls resting on her forehead, making them sway before coming to rest once more.

  Olivia had changed into a dress of soft lavender wool that hugged her curves and her long elegant arms. A knit shawl as white as snow lay across her shoulders, the long ends wound around and around her arms. Jack had never seen such a garment. It was nearly as big as a blanket and looked as soft as down. On her feet she wore fluffy, white knit slippers.

  “No point in guarding your words in this house,” Tom called out as he came through the door with Charles in his arms. Molly and Fanny followed him, a tray of what had to be fresh-baked sugar cookies in the little girl’s hands.

  “Auntie Mary will have you spilling your secrets in no time,” Fanny told him with a giggle.

  As Jack watched the inhabitants of Idyllwild Cottage interact with one another over the next half hour, it became apparent that they were comfortable together. More than comfortable. They finished each other’s sentences. They laughed and smiled and talked over one another.

  Jack looked down at his daughter sitting beside him on the settee. Justine’s eyes were wide, a soft smile upon her lips as she too watched the family. Jack felt a familiar pang in his chest. He would have liked to have given Justine such a family. Instead she’d had a mother who rarely acknowledged her existence, a grandfather too busy to spend time with her, a stepgrandmother too self-absorbed to do more than pat her on the head awkwardly, and a father who tried desperately to make up for it all.

  When Mary and Molly left the parlor and disappeared down the hall, Fanny turned to Justine. “Do you play draughts?”

  And just like that his twelve-year-old daughter was embroiled in a battle with a girl half her age.

  Tom slept in an overstuffed chair, softly snoring.

  Jack looked at Olivia to find her watching him with a smile. She slowly rocked back and forth, one slippered foot gently pushing against the floor. Charles lay curled in her lap, his blond head snuggled against her breast, her arms holding him close.

  What a picture she made sitting there, every inch of her a testament to her contentment.

  He rose and joined her by the fire, sitting in a matching rocking chair. He pushed his booted feet and set the chair slowly moving.

  “How long have you been here?” he asked.

  “Just over a year,” she replied softly, turning her head to look at him. Jack was struck by her delicate beauty. She’d been a shy little girl, all skinny arms and legs and enormous eyes. As a young married lady, she had been lovely in a cool, contained way. She had grown into a spectacular woman. There was a softness to her features, a warmth in her eyes that gave her the appearance of a woman happy in her life. “We came away after Palmerton died. For a few weeks, just to get away from Town, but a few weeks turned into a few months and then into a year.”

  “I was sorry to hear of his passing,” Jack murmured. He’d heard the rumors, even up north nearly to Scotland, he’d heard the stories.

  “Thank you. I received the note you sent. It was very kind.”

  “It was no more than you did for me when Elizabeth passed.” Jack had been surprised to receive the kind words written in flowing female script on soft cream paper with the Palmerton crest at the top.

  “Yes,” she agreed. “Justine was what, four when her mother passed?”

  “Five.”

  “That must have been difficult for her. And for you, of course.” Olivia looked away
, her gaze falling to the boy sleeping in her arms. “I imagine it still is.”

  “Justine barely remembers her mother,” he replied after a pause.

  “Surely not,” Olivia said. “At five she must have been quite attached, must have a treasure trove of memories stashed away.”

  He watched as she tightened her arms around her son, bringing him closer against her, before leaning down to plant a kiss upon his wispy curls.

  “Elizabeth wasn’t the most demonstrative of mothers,” he explained carefully.

  “I find it odd,” she murmured.

  “What?” Jack asked.

  “Oh, I don’t know… I guess I don’t understand mothers who do not hold their children close to them… Not that I am saying…I wouldn’t dream of suggesting…”

  Jack smiled sadly when her words trailed off.

  “I think it is more odd, and I mean odd as in rare, to see mothers who do hold their children close,” he whispered as he watched her cuddle her son.

  “Yes,” she said softly. “They don’t know what they are missing.”

  “Was Palmerton…?” Jack found himself unable to continue. It was none of his business what kind of father the earl had been, or what kind of husband.

  “No,” she said. “He was as I imagine most fathers are…distant. It’s funny. Do you know that Beatrice, Lady Easton, and I share a father?”

  Surprised by the question, Jack nodded.

  “Good, that saves a bit of awkwardness,” Olivia replied without an ounce of shame.

  “What is funny?” he asked.

  “I suppose it’s not truly funny, but when Beatrice and I talk of him, we might be talking about two different men, two different fathers.”

  “How so?” Jack remembered the Earl of Hastings as a kind man with a rumbling voice and a booming laugh.

  Olivia looked down, her hand absently caressing her son’s cheek. “Father was kind, but he wasn’t the sort of father to play with us, to get down on the floor and join in our games. We saw him every day, when he was in Town, but we didn’t spend time with him.”