The Wary Widow

The Wary Widow

Jerrica Knight Catania

This book is a work of fiction.

Names, characters, locations and events are either a product of the

author’s
imagination, fictitious or used fictitiously.

Any resemblance to any event, locale or person,

living
or dead, is purely coincidental.

The Wary Widow

Copyright 2011 by
Jerrica
Knight-Catania

All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or part in any format.

Cover design by Jerrica Knight-Catania

1820, London

Lord Andrew Wetherby stalked into
Eastleigh
House, determined to leave again as soon as was humanly possible. He clenched his fists as the nauseating smell of French perfume and gardenias invaded his nose.
God, how he hated these things.
His twin brother, Michael, identical in every way except the cut of his hair, stood at his side, looking just as determined to get the hell out of there.

“Good Lord, do they bathe in the stuff?” Michael asked, clearly trying to hold his breath against the scent of the elderly woman passing by.

Andrew cleared his throat. “One would think. Now remember our plan. You find Benjamin and the Lionesses while I dance with Lady Elizabeth.”

“Yes, I know the plan,” Michael assured him. “And then we’ll say goodnight to the family and be on our way. Believe me, the only thing on my mind right now is getting out of here.”

Andrew smiled at Michael and then took his leave to find his betrothed, Lady Elizabeth Crawley. The eldest daughter of the Earl of Devon, Elizabeth was a paragon of beauty and grace. Andrew admired her for her stunning looks, as did most gentlemen in London, including his brother. Much to Michael’s chagrin, Andrew had beaten him in the race for her hand.

Right now she was weaving in and out of a Scottish reel, looking as if she had invented the dance herself. Andrew leaned against the nearest column at the edge of the ballroom and waited until the dance was finished.

The waltz was next, after which he would say hello to his elder brother, Benjamin, and his sister-in-law, Phoebe. Then he and Michael would set off for a night of gaming, and who knew what else.

“Excuse me.” A small voice took him from his reverie.

He turned to his right to see a waif of a girl—well, woman, really—sitting on the bench next to him. Her hair was a fiery red, which was quite out of fashion, but her large brown eyes more than made up for that fact.

“May I help you?” he asked, not meaning to sound so arrogant.

The girl pursed her lips in annoyance. “You’re standing on my dress, sir.”

It took a moment for Andrew to process what she’d said. He’d been too focused on her luscious pink lips to comprehend immediately. “Oh!” he exclaimed, jumping off her gown as if it were on fire. “My sincerest apologies, Miss
..
.”

“Hawthorne.”

“My sincerest apologies, Miss Hawthorne,” he said with a smile, trying to put the odd girl at ease.

“And you are?”

Andrew swept her a bow. “Lord Andrew Wetherby, at your service.”

***

Chloe swallowed hard as all the color drained from her cheeks.
Oh, bugger!

She stood and took a step toward him. “Lord Andrew, did you say?” she repeated, feeling like a ninny for having done so. He had very clearly stated his name, even if he had been a bit overdramatic about it.

He gave her a wry smile and Chloe felt the heat rush back to her cheeks. “I did,” he finally answered.

“Oh, well, it is a pleasure to make your acquaintance, my lord. I daresay we’ll be seeing a great deal of one another in the future.”
Lord Andrew looked at her, clearly perplexed, which made him look quite adorable. She much preferred that to the arrogant eyebrow lift he’d already demonstrated seven times in the course of their short conversation.

“I am Lady Elizabeth’s cousin,” she continued. “I’ve just arrived from Essex to play chaperone to her for the Season.”

“Chaperone?” Lord Andrew predictably lifted his eyebrow again—the left one—and Chloe couldn’t help but be annoyed by it. She wondered if he might eventually get stuck in that position.

The thought tickled her, and she twisted her lips to keep from laughing.

“Something funny?”

“No, no, I just...it was nothing.” Chloe blushed and looked away, feeling every bit the fool.

Just then the music ended and Andrew turned away from her, clearly seeking out his bride-to-be. Chloe took the moment to regain her wits, chiding herself for being so flustered. It wasn’t as if she’d never seen a handsome man before.
Her own
husband had been quite attractive.

“Well, Miss Hawthorne, it was a pleasure making your acquaintance.” He gave her what one might consider a half-bow. “Now, if you will excuse me, I believe I shall seek out your cousin.”

Chloe nodded, returning his half-bow with a half curtsey. “Of course, my lord.”

And then she sat back down on her lonely little bench and watched Lord Andrew saunter gracefully across the ballroom.

“It’s going to be a very long evening,” she muttered to herself. “A very long evening indeed.”

***

“Well, well, my fiancé has finally shown his face at his own brother’s party.”

Elizabeth glided toward him with a cheeky smile, her blue eyes twinkling in the candlelight. Andrew bowed deeply over her hand and planted a light kiss to her gloved fingers.

“My apologies,” Andrew said, noting that was the second time in only fifteen minutes he’d apologized to a woman. That certainly didn’t happen often. “I was unavoidably detained.”

“Aren’t you always?” Elizabeth asked with a toss of her flaxen curls.

“The good news, my dear, is that I’m here now. Just in time for our waltz.”

“You’re not going to run off as soon as you’ve danced with me, are you?”

Andrew feigned shock at the
accusation,
annoyed that Elizabeth was clearly on to his tactics now.

“Spare me the dramatics, Andrew.” Elizabeth took his arm and steered him back in the direction he’d just come from. “I have someone I want you to meet.”

“No need,” he said, tugging her toward the dance floor. “I’ve already met her, and I’m brimming with questions.”

Elizabeth raised one delicate eyebrow at him. It made her look rather mannish and Andrew made a note to address the subject at a later date, hopefully with a modicum of tact. It never did to insult one’s betrothed by telling her she looked like a man.

“Might I ask how you came to make her acquaintance?”

“I didn’t request the introduction, if that’s what you’re asking,” he said flatly. “I stood on her dress. Accidentally, of course,” he clarified. “She asked me to remove my foot, I apologized and in the process, we exchanged names. She seemed to be quite acquainted with me, though I wonder why I've never heard of
her
.”

Elizabeth smiled and allowed him to lead her to the middle of the floor just as the waltz began.

“Chloe comes from Essex,” she explained after they’d settled into the dance. “She is going to play chaperone to me for the Season.”

“Yes, that much I know. But how can she play chaperone when the two of you are of an age?” he wondered.

“Because Chloe is a widow, of course.”
Andrew blinked several times and furrowed his brow. It was obvious the woman was in mourning, but she hadn't corrected him when he'd called her a miss. He just assumed she was mourning for a family member.

“Well, don’t look so distraught, Andrew,” Elizabeth chided as he pulled her into a turn. “She was only married for two weeks before the poor sap came down with a fever.”

Andrew cast a sidelong glance toward the bench where Mrs. Hawthorne sat. It was hard to believe someone so young was a widow, and he found himself wondering if she’d been in love with her husband.
 

He shook his head at the thought. What on earth did that matter?

“Did you know him?”

“Who, Sam? Yes, of course. They were childhood friends, so anytime I went to visit, I inevitably came in contact with him.”

“What happened to your Great Aunt Sally? I thought she was to chaperone again this year.”

“She claims that her gout is too much to bear and so she is spending the season in Bath to take the waters.”

“When did her husband die?” Andrew asked without thinking. He wasn’t even sure why he wanted to know.

Elizabeth wrinkled her brow in confusion. “Great Aunt Sally's?”

“No, of course not. Your cousin's husband.”

“Oh. It’s been more than a year. Not that anyone would be able to tell. She insists on wearing those awful black dresses and silly caps everywhere she goes.” Elizabeth
tsked
in what most would construe to be sympathy, but what Andrew knew to be embarrassment. Elizabeth didn’t want to be seen with anyone who might be considered unfashionable.

“Well, you mustn’t be uncharitable, darling,”
Andrew
suggested. “Perhaps she is simply without any suitable gowns.”
“Quite the contrary.” Elizabeth blinked her blue eyes up at him. “She has a whole trunk full of suitable gowns.”
“Then we must assume she is not ready to come out of mourning.”

Elizabeth pouted at this and Andrew thought it best to end the conversation before she truly started whining about the state of her cousin’s chosen wardrobe. Instead, he pulled her from the dance floor and led her to where his brothers and the rest of the family stood, chatting away like magpies with one another.

“You know, there are people here who you do
not
see on a daily basis,” he said to his sister, Katherine, the Duchess of Weston.

“Such as
you
,” she rejoined with a light smack to his arm. “Why, I don’t believe I’ve set eyes on my baby brothers for at least a fortnight now.”

“Must you be so melodramatic, Kat?” Michael asked, joining the conversation and leaning in to plant a kiss on Katherine's cheek. “We had dinner with you just last week.”

Katherine cocked her head in mock-annoyance. “If you think it counts to breeze into my dining room, stuff your faces with nary a word, and then run out again on a mission to further debauch yourselves, you are sadly mistaken, dear brother.”

Andrew exchanged a knowing glance with Michael, remembering just why they had left in such a hurry. Thankfully, Madam Stone had not disappointed that evening.

“But you are right, Michael,” Katherine agreed as she peeled Elizabeth from Andrew’s arm. “We must branch out beyond the family tonight. Come, Lady Elizabeth, I wish to be introduced to that lovely young lady you arrived with this evening.”