WidowsWickedWish

by Lynne Barron

  “Do not say it,” Olivia interrupted heatedly. “If one more person reminds me that I am the Countess of Palmerton, London’s Darling, I will scream!”

  “A beautiful, sweet, intelligent woman who apparently manages twice, not once but twice, and sometimes thrice daily.” Beatrice finished as she fell into her chair. “Why won’t he marry you?”

  “He would,” Olivia assured her. “He proposed…”

  “When? When did he propose?” Beatrice demanded, clapping her hands in glee.

  “At Idyllwild, after our first night together…”

  “You invited him to your bed at Idyllwild?” her sister cried. “Mama must have loved that! Did she know?”

  “She knew,” Olivia admitted.

  “I don’t understand. If he proposed why is he still searching for a wife?”

  “I refused him, of course.”

  “But why?”

  “Beatrice, he wants children,” Olivia explained as calmly as possible, ignoring the pain that lanced through her chest. “He wants an heir to carry on the mining business he and his father run, to carry on his name. He wants a son of his own.”

  Beatrice wilted against the chair back, her eyes clouding, her hands going to her belly to rub the small bump beneath her pale-yellow dress. They sat together in silence, both lost in their thoughts of what might have been.

  With a shake of her blonde tresses, Beatrice leaned forward, her eyes pinning Olivia.

  “London’s Darling?” she asked with an arch of her brow. “I know your company is much sought-after, but really London’s Darling?”

  “The moniker was hung around my neck during my first Season,” Olivia answered with a rueful sigh, happy to follow her sister’s jump into another topic. “It seems someone has revived it this Season. Jack has even heard it, and he hardly moves in the highest circles.”

  “No wonder you worry you won’t live up to Society’s expectation,” Beatrice grumbled. “Good Lord, no lady could. No lady with any sense would even try. Why, if I’d been shackled with such a God-awful name, I would have immediately set about altering everyone’s expectations.”

  “What?” Olivia asked. “What did you say?”

  “That it’s a God-awful title to have looped about your neck,” Beatrice replied.

  “One that you would have tossed off and ground beneath your heels,” Olivia added.

  “I wouldn’t go that far,” her sister protested. “No, I would simply have set about changing the expectations that came with it, subtly altering them until I could happily live with them.”

  “I could do that,” Olivia breathed in dawning wonder. “I could subtly lower everyone’s expectations.”

  “Alter them,” Beatrice reminded her.

  “I could be London’s Daring Darling.”

  “As long as you don’t become London’s Debauched Darling,” Bea cautioned.

  “There is a wide path between daring and debauched,” Olivia replied. “I am a widow after all…”

  “With a widow’s freedom,” Beatrice finished for her with a laugh that invited Olivia to join in, to toss back her head and laugh up into the cloudless blue sky.

  Chapter Nineteen

  The annual charity ball that had been hosted for years by the Countess of Somerton and in more recent years by her daughter, the Countess of Piedmont, was in full swing when Jack arrived with his father and stepmother.

  “Ooh la,” Lucille exclaimed in wonder as their carriage pulled up before the brightly lit Grosvenor Square mansion. “Have you ever seen so many beautiful people in one place? Oh, look, it’s the Duke of Ridgeway and his grandson. Justine and I saw them at Gunter’s just yesterday and she was quite taken with the boy.”

  “Justine’s too young to be taken by any boy,” Jacob Bentley groused good-naturedly as a footman whipped open the carriage door.

  “I had a mad crush on one of Father’s grooms at twelve,” Lucille volunteered, stepping down to the walkway before the house. “Followed him about all moon-eyed until Mother sat me down and explained that Tom was beneath me and always would be.”

  “And you gave up just like that?” her husband asked with a chuckle that had Jack turning to look at him.

  Jacob Bentley was a barrel-chested man approaching sixty with shrewd eyes set in a face weathered and wrinkled from years spent working his in-laws’ sheep farm before he’d scraped up enough ready cash to mine the ore veins that crisscrossed their land. His steel-gray hair was cropped close to his head, lending him a distinguished air that was at odds with his ham-sized hands and booming voice.

  He’d been an exacting parent, demanding the best from his only child. He’d fought tooth and nail to send Jack to Eton and later to Cambridge, calling in all manner of favors and greasing as many palms as needed. He’d had high hopes for his son, visions of a well-connected marriage and a dozen well-bred grandchildren. Instead his son had been caught in the stables behind Hastings House with Elizabeth Portman in his arms and returned home married to a bitter lady who’d turned up her nose at the first sight of the farm, the mines and the neat little village his father had built to house his workers.

  And the only grandchild Jacob Bentley had dandled on his knee was a little girl not of his blood, but one that Jack knew he loved in his own blustering way.

  When his father had married Lucille Summers barely a year after his own wedding, Jack hoped that she would prove more fertile than his own mother, and better able to withstand the rigors of childbirth. By then he’d realized that Elizabeth would never allow him into her bed, would never give him children of his own, a son to carry on when he was gone.

  A decade of marriage without even an early miscarriage to show for their efforts, Jack knew the duty fell to him.

  “Now, Jacob, you know me better than that,” Lucille replied with a grin. “I trailed after that poor man like a lamb follows a ewe until Father finally sent him off to his sister’s estate in exchange for the oldest, homeliest groom that ever did serve at Twin Oaks.”

  “That’s my girl,” Jacob replied with another low chuckle as he tucked his wife’s hand into the crook of his elbow. “After you, Jack, seeing as how they’re your lofty friends.”

  “I’d hardly call the Earl of Somerton or Lady Piedmont my friends,” Jack answered as they entered the immense front hall and he took in the matching marble staircases that wound around the edges of the room before meeting on the second floor to form a wide open gallery from which dozens of London’s highest-stepping citizens watched the new arrivals. “I’ve only met the lady a handful of times and the lord not at all.”

  “I wasn’t referring to Somerton or Lady Piedmont,” his father replied without an ounce of awe for their surroundings showing on his smiling face. “Justine tells me you’re courting the lady’s cousin, Lady Palmerton.”

  “And you’ll catch her, too,” Lucille said as she looked about at the gleaming marble and crystal chandelier hanging from the domed ceiling. “Why from what I’ve heard, she quite welcomes your attentions.”

  “Who have you been listening to?” he asked in surprise.

  “Oh, I heard some talk at my sister’s this past week about all the time you spend with Lady Palmerton, escorting her to the theater, riding together at the park, and even a whisper of a kiss in Viscount Moorehead’s maze.”

  “Sounds like you’re making headway with the lady,” Jacob observed. “Though I can’t say she sounds like the proper lady you’ve been going on about these last months.”

  “She’s a widow,” Lucille reminded him. “Widows are given quite a lot of leeway.”

  “Freedom,” Jack added.

  “Just don’t allow her so much freedom that she decides she won’t give it up for marriage,” his father warned.

  “Bentley.”

  Jack turned at the greeting to find Simon, Viscount Easton, bearing down on him with a wide grin. On his arm was his delightfully rounded wife, stunning in a gown of crimson silk overlaid with black lace and caught u
p beneath her breasts by a matching velvet ribbon. Her honey-blonde hair was pulled back from her face and twisted at her nape, leaving her long neck bare but for a velvet choker from which dangled a small gold heart-shaped locket.

  “Lord Easton, Lady Easton,” Jack greeted them before turning to his father and stepmother. “Allow me to make known to you my father and his wife.”

  “Mrs. Bentley, a pleasure to meet you,” Simon replied as he bowed over Lucille’s hand. “Mr. Bentley, good to see you again.”

  “Hullo, the Bentleys,” Beatrice greeted in her customary friendly fashion. “Jack, you are looking ever so dashing, midnight-blue and silver are all the rage this evening. Mr. Bentley, my husband tells me you mine ore up in Durham Shire, but in truth I find the sheep of more interest. Perhaps you can convince Lord Easton that Winter Haven would benefit from a small herd. Mrs. Bentley, your gown is simply divine.”

  Lucille blinked in astonishment, her strawberry blonde curls shimmying as her head swiveled from the viscountess to the viscount and back again before she finally murmured a breathy, “Thank you, Lady Easton.”

  “Lady Piedmont’s found a lively string quartet for the evening,” Beatrice said. “Mr. Bentley, I hope you’ll claim a dance before the night is over. Jack, there a number of shy debutants lining the ball room. Kindly help Easton and Hastings to fill their dance cards.”

  She tucked her hand around Lucille’s arm and whisked her away with a murmured, “Let’s leave the gentlemen to their masculine pursuits while you tell me who dressed you in that divine gown.”

  All three men turned to watch the two ladies glide up the grand staircase.

  “You’ve a gem there, Lord Easton,” Jacob Bentley breathed in awe.

  “That I do,” Simon agreed with a smile, his hazel eyes flashing.

  “The sister, Lady Palmerton, is she cut from the same cloth?”

  “Father,” Jack rebuked softly.

  “Lady Palmerton is the very best of ladies,” Simon replied before leading them up the stairs. “My cousin is not quite as exuberant as my wife, but she’s quietly humorous and shyly intelligent and as loyal a woman as you will ever encounter.”

  “I’d forgotten you were cousin to the Earl of Hastings,” Jacob said as they reached the landing and he turned to look back over the elegant hall. “And the Earls Piedmont and Somerton as well, if I have it right.”

  “You have it right,” Simon agreed.

  “Quite a family,” Jacob murmured, peering at his son from the corner of his eye. “A man would be quite fortunate to marry into such a family.”

  “He would,” Simon agreed, smiling at the wry grimace Jack couldn’t hold back. “He would also be annoyed by their penchant for mischief, frustrated by their prolific spending, and baffled by their stubborn determination to cling to outdated beliefs in their inherent superiority.”

  “Arrogant lot, are they?” Jacob mused.

  “Some of them,” Simon agreed.

  “And your cousin?” Jacob asked slyly.

  “Which cousin?” Simon countered.

  “I say there, good to see you, Bentley,” Hastings called out, disentangling himself from a clinging brunette in an equally clinging pink gown. “Mr. Bentley, I presume?”

  Jack watched his father take the tall blond man’s measure, his gaze sweeping from his windswept hair, over a surprisingly somber black coat and gray waistcoat, down his long legs encased in perfectly tailored black trousers.

  “My cousin, the Earl of Hastings,” Simon supplied.

  “You’re the young earl we hear so much about?”

  Henry’s eyes widened.

  “My wife and granddaughter read about your exploits every morning over breakfast,” Jacob explained with a jovial smile.

  “I can assure you only half of what is printed bears any resemblance to the truth,” Hastings was quick to explain.

  “Half is it? Well, hell man, that is your lordship, even half of what I hear over my kippers and coddled eggs is impressive. The tale of your two mistresses coming to blows backstage at the theater, which half does that fall into?

  “Shall we find a spot of brandy?” Simon asked in an obvious attempt to end what promised to be a ribald conversation.

  “Whiskey would go down smoother,” Jacob answered.

  “I happen to know that Somerton keeps his best Scots whiskey in the billiards room,” Hastings offered with a wave toward the bowels of the immense mansion.

  Jack watched them go with a shake of his head before turning toward the double doors thrown open to his right, and the sounds of a lively string quartet drifting from the ballroom beyond.

  The ballroom was crowded, titled men and women effortlessly mixing with those cits wealthy enough to make a hefty donation to the Widows and Orphans Fund Lady Piedmont chaired. One wall was lined with young ladies fresh from the schoolroom just as Beatrice had suggested. The dance floor was a whirling mass of brightly adorned ladies and their equally colorful partners. A long bank of french doors were thrown open to the night, clusters of ladies and gentlemen milling about on the balcony.

  Jack searched the interior, his gaze lingering long enough on Lady Hastings to meet her glaring gray eyes, before moving over to the lady beside her. Lady Piedmont stood between her aunt and her husband, a short, rotund man in his fifth decade with thin gray hair combed over his shining head.

  Scanning the crowd, he concluded that he wouldn’t find Olivia among the dancers or wallflowers. He made his way to the french doors and out into the warm night.

  Dozens of torches illuminated the balcony, casting ladies and gentlemen into shadow and light, and drifting over the gardens beyond.

  Jack walked over to stand at the low balustrade, leaning over to peer into the deserted gardens laid out in precise geometric patterns. Tall hedges bordered straight paths dotted with stone benches and blooming rose bushes. With a shake of his head at the orderly arrangement of nature as harnessed by the Earl of Somerton, he turned back to the ball room and froze.

  Olivia stood at the threshold of a set of double doors. She was dressed in a flowing gown of silver silk trimmed in…he squinted in the darkness…yes, her gown was trimmed with midnight blue ribbon along the scalloped bodice and small sleeves that rested on her upper arms. Long gloves in the same dark shade hugged her arms to her elbows. In her hair, dozens of sapphires twinkled.

  Poised as she was between the shadowy night and the candlelit ballroom, her thin gown was nearly transparent, gifting him with a wondrous view of her curvy hips and long, shapely legs.

  “Oh, Mr. Bentley,” she purred, her voice low and smoky.

  “Lady Palmerton,” he murmured as he took the half-dozen steps that separated them.

  “Looking for someone?” she asked in that same breathy voice.

  “I believe I’ve found her,” he replied as he came to a stop close enough to touch her.

  “And what do you intend to do with her now you’ve found her?”

  “Anything she’ll allow.”

  “Anything?” she repeated with a slow, mysterious smile.

  “Anything,” he pledged.

  With a throaty laugh she stepped out into the night, brushing her hip against his thigh, trailing her hand down his arm. She clasped his hand and tugged him back out into the shadows, strolling along close to the house, pulling him in her wake.

  “Where are we going?” he asked as they stepped around two young ladies with their heads bent close together.

  “You’ll see,” she whispered over her shoulder.

  Jack followed her around the corner of the house, through a door hidden behind a large palm in a gilded pot and into a narrow hall entirely devoid of light.

  “Livy,” he protested weakly as he guessed her intent.

  In answer she tugged his hand, pulling him around a sharp corner. Blindly he followed her, torn between the desire to halt the madness of creeping through Somerton’s dark house while the ton frolicked close enough that he could hear the quartet gearin
g up for a quadrille and the desire to see just how daring his proper little lady would prove.

  Olivia rose above him and Jack realized they’d reached a small circular staircase.

  “Where does this lead?” he asked.

  “You’ll see,” she replied with another throaty laugh that echoed off the close walls as Jack took the first step into madness.

  Around and around they went, higher and higher, until he was nearly dizzy in the disorienting darkness. Finally they reached the top and another door which Olivia pushed open without hesitation. Jack followed and found himself surrounded by the night.

  “Good God,” he breathed in wonder as he stepped farther onto the small circular balcony that wrapped around the tower they’d ascended. London spread out around them, lights glinting and flickering as far as the eye could see, turning the dirty city into a fairy land of twisting roads and secret passageways beneath a nearly black sky.

  “Alice and I used to sneak up here on summer nights with our blankets and pillows to sleep under the stars,” Olivia whispered as she danced across the gray stones. “This tower and balcony are the only features that remain from the original house.”

  Jack followed her to the hip-high stone balustrade that ran the circumference of the balcony.

  Olivia turned to him, a small, secretive smile coasting over her lips. “This balcony cannot be seen from below. Not from the street and certainly not from the house or gardens.”

  Jack laughed at her audacity and her cunning.

  “Our own dark alcove,” she drawled, her hands rising to tug at his cravat.

  “And here I’d intended to search the house for a dark alcove to lure you into,” he said as he removed one glove then the other. He placed his bare hands on her hips, skimmed lightly over her waist, and along her sides, eliciting a soft trembling sigh.

  “Did you really?” she asked breathlessly.

  “You wanted dark alcoves and sunny afternoons,” he murmured as his hands drifted along her bodice, his fingers dipping down to trail over the swell of her breasts. “We’ve enjoyed many sunny afternoons together, but dark alcoves are a bit trickier.”