WidowsWickedWish

by Lynne Barron

  Jack had dreamed of a different life for himself, one in which he worked alongside his father to make the mines a success and only then returned to London to choose a bride. He’d imagined choosing a proper lady from the debutantes, one whose family had perhaps found their coffers in want of replenishing. He would marry a pretty young lady who would smile at him across the breakfast table and welcome him shyly into her bed. And his sons would be gentlemen, welcomed into Society with open arms, rather than barely tolerated as he had been.

  Of course there had never been any question that Lady Olivia, the Earl of Hastings’ daughter, could ever be his chosen bride. Even had she somehow remained unmarried long enough for him to make his fortune and return to Town, her family was one of the oldest, wealthiest and most revered in England. While her parents had accepted his presence in their home, they would never have condescended to allow him, a miner’s son, to sully either their daughter’s or their name.

  But when Jack had imagined his future bride, she had shyly smiled up at him as if he hung the moon. She had gazed at him with solemn silver-gray eyes. Her voice had been soft and sweet. And the hair that had spread out upon his pillow had been a luminous cascade of lustrous sable waves.

  Now just such a lady lay beside him. She was different than the girl he remembered, her smile softer, mysterious and tranquil, her gray eyes warm and direct, her voice darker, huskier, her dark tresses cropped short to hug her head and tease a man to wrap a wayward curl around and around his finger. Even so, Jack thought she would still make an ideal wife, an ideal mother to his daughter and his future children.

  The Countess of Palmerton was now a widow and independent in a way that unmarried ladies could never be. She was in control of her life, her future. She could marry where she chose. She could marry the wealthy son of a successful miner, the grandson of sheep farmers, father of a twelve-year-old girl. Olivia could marry Jack and give him back the life he had dreamed of living.

  Olivia murmured and rolled onto her back. As Jack watched, her lips lifted into a gentle smile and her lashes trembled. She sighed softly and lay still once more. For all of two seconds, then she frowned and opened her eyes, blinked once, twice and locked her startled gaze upon Jack where he leaned over her on his elbow.

  “Oh my God!” she whispered, her eyes widening. “You’re still here! What are you doing here?”

  “Where else should I be?” he asked as he bent his head to capture her lips.

  Two small but strong hands landed on his bare chest and pushed. “In your room,” she whispered, turning her head away, withholding the kiss he wanted. “You should be in your room.”

  “Not just yet, sweetheart,” he murmured as he kissed a path down her exposed neck. Her skin was warm, musky.

  “Now,” she insisted. “You must go now.”

  Olivia shrugged, dislodging his lips that had wandered down to feast upon the sprinkling of freckles he discovered on her shoulder. “Jack, really, I don’t mean to be rude.”

  “Rude?” he asked in surprise as he sat up.

  “You really must go. Now.” Then she pushed him and made little motions with her hands, those small delicate hands with unlikely calluses on them, shooing motions one might use to herd a small child hither and yon.

  Jack laughed, the sound rusty in his ears.

  “Are you attempting to get rid of me, Lady Palmerton?”

  “Shhh,” she whispered and then more forcefully, “Get out. Please”

  She was serious. She was tossing him from her bed like last night’s leftovers. Jack couldn’t decide whether to be insulted or amused. He chose amused and laughed again as he rose naked from her bed. He found his robe and wrestled his arms into it, all the while aware of her eyes upon him.

  “I can’t seem to find the belt to my robe.” He turned to find Olivia just rising from the bed and he froze. He hadn’t been able to see much of her the previous night, what with only the warm glow from the fire to light the room, but he had touched her, ran his hands and his lips over her curves and valleys and known she was beautiful, perfect. In the soft yellow haze of the dawn, he could see that she was even lovelier than he could have imagined, softer, rounder, more womanly.

  She did not shy away from his gaze as he might have expected. She stood still for one, two slow beats, allowing him to quickly take in her long firm legs and the swell of her hips, her tiny waist and sumptuous breasts with their pink tips, her long sinewy arms and swanlike neck. Then she was in motion, sprinting across the chilly room to grab a nightgown from the dresser.

  “Hurry,” she whispered urgently, her words muffled by the flannel as she pulled the gown over her head.

  “My belt,” he reminded her and watched as her head whipped around the room in search of the missing item.

  “I don’t see it,” she wailed. “I’ll find it later and return it to you. You must go.”

  Jack strode across the room, grasped her flannel-covered shoulders and pressed one quick, hard kiss upon her startled lips. “Good morning to you too,” he whispered before he walked from the room.

  He’d barely closed the door to his room across the hall when he heard little feet running down the hall. He cracked the door just enough to see Charlie toddling unsteadily over to his mother’s door.

  “Mama,” the boy called as he pushed the door open.

  “Come in here and cuddle with your mother, Bonny Prince Charlie,” Olivia sang to her son, her voice warm and happy.

  Yes, Mr. Jack Bentley thought as he crawled into his own cold bed, Lady Olivia Palmerton would make an ideal wife and mother.

  Chapter Five

  Olivia tucked her mittened hand around Jack’s arm as they trudged through the last of the snow, now a wet slushy mess on the lawn. The snow was melting at an alarming rate. The roads would surely be passable tomorrow. And then he would leave, he would ride out of her life as suddenly as he had ridden into it.

  The children walked ahead of them, Justine in the lead, her hand firmly holding Charlie’s, while Fanny skipped along at her side, chattering away about the pony Tom Jenkins promised would come in the spring.

  “From inside Mirabel’s tummy,” she told Justine authoritatively. “Did you know that ponies came from a mare’s belly?”

  “Of course,” the older girl replied. “I am twelve. There isn’t anything you know that I didn’t learn years ago.”

  “Huh,” Fanny said with a laugh. “I know all sorts of things. I’m precocious, you know.”

  Jack laughed and Olivia looked up at him through her lashes.

  “She certainly is,” he said. “You are likely in for trouble with her.”

  “Yes,” Olivia agreed. “I plan to begin searching for a governess for her when we return to London.”

  “A governess?” Jack repeated in surprise. “Surely she has a few more years before she requires a governess.”

  “I’ve already begun saving to send her to school,” Olivia continued, undaunted by his skepticism. She was quite accustomed to it, having heard it from every member of her family. “She’ll need more than a governess to satisfy her thirst for knowledge.”

  “Saving?” Jack asked with a frown.

  “Palmerton did not leave us as comfortable as he might have,” she replied, seeing no reason to withhold what she suspected was common knowledge in Town.

  “Surely Hastings helps you?” Simon asked.

  “Palmerton named Henry as Charlie’s guardian and he has assisted me greatly, most especially when I first learned of our shrunken circumstances. But I have since learned more than I ever thought to know of estate management and how to invest what profits we earn. We are nearly on an even keel now.”

  Jack did not respond. He continued to look out over the snowy fields of Idyllwild, his face pensive.

  Olivia was no longer horrified by the condition in which she’d found the Palmerton estate upon her husband’s death. Those had been dark days, days in which she had reeled at the injustice of finding that even in d
eath he had shamed and humiliated her. After ten years of marriage to a man who had cared nothing for her, to learn that her children would not inherit a financially secure future had infuriated her. Instead the inheritance had been gambled and whored and smoked away in every card room, brothel and opium den in London.

  Thank God Palmerton’s will had named Henry as guardian to his heir. Henry, who’d never shown any interest or aptitude for running his own estates had not only stepped up to the challenge of setting Palmerton’s affairs in order, he’d also insisted Olivia participate in every decision. Together they had waded through the mire left in the earl’s wake, selling nearly all of the un-entailed property. Olivia had gone on to investigate various businesses and funds in which to invest the proceeds. She was finally beginning to see small returns on the investments Henry had made at her direction. Best of all, she had discovered just how gratifying it was to stand on her own, to trust her own judgment, to reap her own rewards.

  “I’m sorry Palmerton left you in dire straits,” Jack finally said. Olivia was disconcerted to see the smallest of smiles upon his lips.

  “Dire straits?” she asked with a laugh. “We are hardly in dire straits.”

  “Having to put aside pennies to send Fanny to school sounds like dire straits.”

  “Oh, Jack. Not pennies. Pounds and sovereigns. I’m not thinking of Mrs. Smith’s School for Gently Bred Ladies in Bath. Fanny will go abroad, to Munich or Stockholm perhaps. It’s 1830 for goodness’ sake. The world is changing for women. Did you know that in Sweden and Germany there are female physicians? In France women are permitted to join the guild of tailors. And in Massachusetts the trade profession is open to women. Fanny must have as good an education as her brother, one that will provide her with real knowledge and choices for her future.”

  “Choices?” Jack asked in surprise. “She is the daughter of an earl. She will marry well.”

  “Marry well?” Olivia asked in frustration. “As I did?”

  “You will choose a better man for Fanny.”

  “I don’t intend to choose my daughter’s husband for her,” Olivia replied. She could feel her face heating. Did no one understand? “Nor do I intend to choose her path in life. It is her life and when she is a grown woman she will choose for herself.”

  “Pretty words,” he said. “I doubt you will feel the same way if someday she comes to you and tells you she intends to marry the village blacksmith and set up a candle-making shop in a lean-to behind the smithy.”

  “A candle-making shop…” she spluttered, dropping her hand from his arm. Her mitten fell to the ground to land in a puddle of melting snow. “You have missed the point…missed the point entirely…a candle…oh!”

  She bent and retrieved the wet mitten and shoved it at him, hitting him squarely in the chest. She held her hand there against the sopping, cold wool, ground her palm against his white shirt.

  Jack jumped back, away from the wet mitten. Olivia followed him, smacking him first on one arm then the other with the soggy wool. His eyes were as wide as saucers, his mouth slack.

  “Who do you think you are?” she growled. “Pretty words? From an empty-headed pretty lady? I take my duty to my children, to both of my children seriously! If by some absurd twist of fate Fanny should choose, after years of study and independence and self-govern, to marry a blacksmith and spend her days stirring vats of candle wax, then that will be her choice. Hers. Not mine. Not Society’s. And certainly not yours.”

  The look of shock upon his face disappeared. He calmly grabbed the offending mitten in mid-swing and tossed it aside. “Olivia, you are behaving entirely inappropriately. You are a lady, not a fishwife on the docks.”

  A fishwife? Olivia felt her face flush. Good Lord, she’d just hit him with an icy mitten!

  “I will not tolerate a shrew for a wife.” His voice was quiet and precise, cool and controlled.

  “I beg your pardon,” she whispered. Then his words penetrated her mind. “Wife?”

  “Of course,” he replied. “Did you think I came to your bed with the intention of making you my mistress?”

  Olivia spun away from Jack, away from his dispassionate voice, his calm eyes and proud bearing. Wife. The words screamed in her head. Wife. Wife. Wife.

  She looked out over the hills of Idyllwild. This place was her refuge, the home of her heart. It was a world away from London, from the prying eyes and wagging tongues of the ton. She had thought she could do anything here, dare anything.

  “I am a fool,” she whispered to herself.

  What she would not have given to hear that word upon his lips all those years ago, a lifetime ago. Now, though, it may as well have been the meanest of curses. She could not, would not be any man’s wife. Not even Jack’s. Especially not Jack’s.

  “I apologize.” Jack stepped up behind her, laid his hand carefully upon her shoulder. Olivia shivered, shrugged and his hand dropped away. “I did not intend to broach the subject in quite this way. You’re angry. I don’t know why precisely. But that is neither here nor there. The fact is I intend to marry you, Lady Palmerton. I would not have bedded you had I not.”

  “What of my intentions?” she asked.

  “Your intentions?” he echoed. “I assumed your intentions were the same. Why else invite me to your bed?”

  “I see,” she replied. And she did. “I am a lady and therefore to bed me is to wed me.”

  “Mama, I’m cold.”

  Olivia turned and found Charlie walking toward her, his lower lip trembling, his limp more pronounced than usual. “Fanny pushed me in the snow and my bottom’s all wet.”

  “Hush,” she soothed, lifting him into her arms, tucking his head into the crook of her neck and his cold bottom onto her hip. “We’ll get you warmed up.”

  She avoided Jack’s eyes, turning back the way they had come as she called over her shoulder, “Frances Marie! Come along, it’s time for tea.”

  Olivia felt Jack’s eyes on her throughout tea and as she carried Charlie upstairs for a nap while Fanny trotted along beside her.

  “I’m not the least bit sleepy,” the girl declared with a decisive shake of her dark curls. “I’m six, much too old for naps.”

  “I’m twenty-eight,” her mother replied. “And I intend to have a nap.”

  “Still,” Fanny persisted as she bounced hard upon the seventh step that squeaked. “I’d much rather stay below and help Molly with dinner.”

  “Go then,” Olivia relented. “But mind you help rather than hinder.”

  “Hurray! I’m free. I’m free!” Fanny sang as she hopped back down the stairs. “Justine! Let’s play draughts!”

  Chapter Six

  Olivia sat next to Charlie’s bed as he drifted to sleep, her hand rhythmically smoothing his pale curls from his forehead. The motion, the normal, everydayness of it, soothed her jingling nerves, calmed her ragged heart rate.

  I intend to marry you, Lady Palmerton.

  The words, the way in which he’d said them, the dispassionate certainty, hurt. It pierced her heart in a way she had not expected and could not identify. Yesterday morning he’d ridden in to her life, unleashed her passion and now he calmly told her he intended to marry her. When had he decided she would be his wife?

  I intend to marry you, Lady Palmerton. I would not have bedded you had I not.

  He had already decided to marry her when he made love to her?

  Why?

  And what had she been thinking screaming at him that way? Ridiculous. What did it matter if Jack, like everyone else of her acquaintance, thought her plans for Fanny were naïve and foolish. None of them controlled her. They could neither help nor hinder her desire to give her daughter the best possible education, every advantage available to her. She simply wanted her daughter to have a different life than the one she had lived for twenty-eight years.

  Pretty words.

  Olivia thought of the first year of her marriage and the innumerable times she had attempted to share her ideas
and opinions with her husband only to have him smile, pat her hand and tell her not to worry her pretty little head. She had never lost her temper with Palmerton, never raised her voice, not once in ten long, miserable years. She’d been serene, poised and composed. And what had it gotten her? An empty marriage to a philandering husband whose financial shenanigans had nearly landed her in the poorhouse.

  No more.

  You are a lady, not a fishwife on the docks.

  “A lady,” she whispered to her sleeping son. “Is that all I am?”

  Olivia dreaded the inevitable return to London, to the town house she had shared with her faithless husband, to an endless round of entertainments that were anything but entertaining. Her mother, the Countess of Hastings, was fast at work drawing up lists of eligible gentlemen for her to marry. Even her brother, Henry, her ally in all things, did not understand her desire to remain unmarried. Only Beatrice seemed to understand, to appreciate the nightmare her marriage had been. Beatrice, her free-spirited half-sister, her best friend, her confidant. Beatrice agreed with her, believed her when she said she would happily remain a widow for the remainder of her life.

  “Olivia.”

  She turned to find Jack standing in the open doorway, one hand resting on the knob, the other restlessly rubbing his thigh. He looked wonderful, casual and slightly mussed, in one of Tom’s hand-knitted jerseys, a bright blue that matched his eyes, and buff trousers. On his feet he wore a pair of green knit slippers.

  “Come in,” she said and she couldn’t help the smile or the laugh that accompanied her words. “It’s safe. I won’t bite.” She waited for him to step forward before continuing, “I make no promises in regards to wet mittens.”

  Jack chuckled as he came to stand behind her, his hands on her shoulders. It was the most natural thing in the world for her to lean her head back against his hard chest, to rub her head against the warm wool until electricity tingled along her scalp.