Wanton Widows: Three Short Regency Romps
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Authors: Isabella Hargreaves
Wanton Widows
three short Regency romps
by Isabella Hargreaves
Copyright © Isabella Hargreaves 2015
ISBN 978-0-9943671-0-5
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hard work of this author.
This novel is a work of fiction. Names,
characters, places and incidents are
either the product of the author’s imagination
or are used fictitiously. Any
resemblance to actual events, locales,
organisations, or persons living or
dead is entirely coincidental and beyond the
intent of the author.
Find out more about Isabella Hargreaves and her
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Foreword
These short stories are a departure from my
usual historical romances in that they are erotic romances. I challenged myself
to write at this heat level, but even so they are best described as “naughty
but nice”. Each is very different – saucy, intriguing, humorous – but united by
their theme of Regency-era widows finding new partners in unconventional ways,
and by their genre.
My thanks to my wonderful writing group
friends: Noelle Clark, Anthea Jones, Tania Joyce and Kendall Talbot for their
valuable comments on the drafts.
I hope you enjoy reading these stories as much
as I enjoyed writing them.
Isabella Hargreaves
By Isabella Hargreaves
The young Dowager Lady Caroline Newberry, like
all the debutants at Lord and Lady Massey’s ball, was dressed in her best
finery and on the hunt for a man. Not just any man. A specific type of man. He
didn’t need wealth or power or to be in need of a wife.
He
did
need to be available, well-made
and good in bed. He didn’t even need to be forward. She was more than willing
to make all the advances to signal her desire for nothing more or less than
intercourse – not after marriage or after engagement, or next year, or next
month, or next week, or tomorrow - but tonight, as close to now as possible.
She scanned the crowded ballroom, hung with
chandeliers and baskets of cascading flowers, for her quarry. Her eyes flicked
over the elderly, the married, the weak-chinned, the effeminate.
It was one whole, long year since her husband
had passed away and she wanted a man, needed a man, yearned for a man.
Her husband may have been dead a year, but it
had been nine whole, long years before then that she had found out, at age
eighteen on her wedding night, and every night thereafter, that her husband was
impotent. Completely. Nothing had stirred his lifeless limb. Ever.
The realisation had been a surprise … a relief
because he wasn’t a young, attractive man and … as the years mounted up, a
frustration that never died.
So, for ten weary years she’d been trying to
deny her needs, her desires, her yearnings. In that time she had created a long
list of fantasies of how and where she would like to lose her virginity.
In the last year she had planned for, and
dreamed of, this very night - her first ball of her first season since she made
her come-out at age eighteen.
Ten years ago, she had been prime meat and her
family had quickly and easily married her off to Lord Newberry, a fifty-year
old father of eight who had already put two wives into the family grave in
distant Yorkshire.
She had expected to be the mother of another
eight of his children by now, but time had diminished his ability and it was
not to be.
She took another slow turn around the ballroom
with Harriet, her staid step-daughter-in-law, nodding to acquaintances as she
walked and assessing the male merchandise. By the end of the second set of
dances she had narrowed the choice to Lord Quigley or Sir Robert Townley.
Caroline managed to engineer a set with each of the men and flirted
outrageously. Her mother, God rest her soul, would have been well and truly
shocked by her behaviour. Lord Quigley’s only deficit was his incredible bad
breath, while Sir Robert was young and bumptious. But beggars, it appeared,
could not be choosers. There was no-one else!
Then she saw him.
He was the cliché of tall, dark and handsome –
except his handsome was of the cynical, dangerous type.
A whisper from her companion, dear prim Harriet,
told her who he was.
Sir Nicholas De Courcey was not someone the
mothers of the debutants wanted dancing with their daughters. He was not
eligible. He was
utterly
ineligible. He was married … and separated …
and rumoured to have divorce on his mind … maybe. Until such time as he was
divorced, he was in limbo and a danger to the debutants, who seemed stricken
with him wherever he went.
He avoided them of course, as she saw for
herself. Who could blame him? He had married one of their kind once, and look
what had happened. That was what she was told.
But, he didn’t need to avoid
her
, did
he?
She asked her starchy step-son to introduce
her to him and he grimaced at her request, then obliged, to stop her vexing him
further.
“Sir Nicholas, I’m delighted to make your
acquaintance,” she said.
He looked at her with polite interest and
perhaps something more suggestive. “And I yours, Lady Caroline. My condolences
on the passing of your husband.” His voice was deep and smooth.
She inclined her head in acknowledgement of
his words and waited, unmoving and pointedly, for him to invite her to dance in
the waltz set that was assembling behind them.
He took her hint and responded as she wished.
She placed her hand on his black-clad arm. Beneath her fingers was solid
muscle. Promising.
The music commenced and she slid her hand up
his arm to rest it upon his shoulder. It was wide and unpadded. Mmmm.
He took her right hand in his, while his other
hand, on her waist, heated her skin through the silk of her dress. He spun them
around the ballroom, skilfully keeping her safe from the other dancers.
She must make her move now or lose her nerve. “You
dance very well, Sir Nicholas. What else do you excel at?”
“There are many sports at which I am
proficient,” he replied disinterestedly.
“Do you have a preference? Which sports do you
love?”
“Riding, hunting, fishing…” Still a polite,
indifferent response.
“You must be most accomplished.”
“At most things.” He gave a faint smile that
died quickly.
“There is one past-time I would like to share
with you.”
“Indeed?” He raised and lowered a brow.
“Would you like to guess its name and play?”
He twirled her around the dance floor again
before answering.
“What if I try and fail in my attempt?”
“I’m sure you’ve never failed in any of your
attempts at this past-time.”
He directed a long look at her for the first
time. “Now I’m curious.” He paused. “Is it chess?”
She chuckled. “Too intellectual.”
“Horse racing?” he said with scepticism,
accompanied by a matching expression.
“Too public.” She dismissed it with a wave of
her left hand.
“Gaming?”
“Too expensive.”
“Charades?”
Her voice deepened to a throaty purr. “Too
many participants.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Draughts?”
Hah! “Too tame.”
His other eyebrow joined its mate. She had
surprised him. She smiled to herself.
“Is this a game for two, performed in
private?” His voice was low and velvety.
She looked boldly into his eyes. “It is best
done that way, indeed.”
“And you would like to play this game with me,
Lady Caroline?” He affected boredom.
“I am considering issuing you with a
challenge.” She smiled up at him.
His look was long and piercing. She bravely
held his gaze and risked a come-hither smile.
Instead of responding, he danced them through
the French doors, onto the balcony overlooking the garden. The brightness of
the ballroom spilled onto the outside tiles. He whirled her along the balcony
in tight circles, halting only when they reached a shadowed stone seat at the
farthest end.
“Now, my dazzling beauty, we’re private. Let’s
try your game?”
“There’s still not enough privacy for the game
I have in mind.”
“Really?” He stepped closer. “Does it go like
this?” He bent his head and kissed her lips gently and lingeringly, giving her
the opportunity to retreat from his advance. When she made no move to stop him,
he deepened it. He tasted of the champagne they had sipped upon arrival, in
celebration of the launch of the Masseys’ youngest daughter into the adult world
as a debutant. Her heartbeat ratcheted higher.
Then, he leant away. Caroline opened her eyes
to peer up at him in the darkness. He watched her.
“It starts like that,” she said and stepped
closer. “But it doesn’t end there.”
She wanted him to know her intent, so stood on
tiptoe to kiss him open-mouthed, her hands on his waist to help her balance.
He responded by drawing her into a tight
embrace and kissing her fiercely. Her heart raced. A shaft of desire turned her
nipples hard and plunged through her belly to flare between her legs. She had
to have him soon. She was ready to have him now.
He whispered fiercely. “Come with me. Let’s
leave here now.” He nibbled her lips. “Meet me in the foyer in ten minutes.”
“No.” Her voice was adamant.
He froze, then stepped away from her. When he
spoke, his voice was no longer mellow and compelling, but laced with cynicism
to suit the world-weary guise that he presented to the world. “Have you changed
your mind and wish to return to the humdrum of respectability?” He sketched a
deep bow of mock homage. “Let me escort you to your step-son. I’m sure he’s
anxious for the return of his mama.”
She could have stamped her foot with
frustration but instead Caroline slapped his face. It was a ringing crack in
the night air, loud to her ears even though the ballroom’s hum of noise still
billowed onto the balcony.
He looked at her with his hooded eyes. She
knew not what he thought. She didn’t care. She had his attention now. She
stretched her arms out, grabbed his lapels and pulled him towards her. She
kissed him ravenously. Nothing was going to stop her having him. His stiff lips
gradually became pliant and responsive.
“We can’t stay here.” He muttered against her
lips. “We risk discovery.” He kissed her again. “We must leave.”
She moaned in response. She wanted him right
here and now.
He broke their kiss, a look of frustration on
his face. “Someone must be sensible … if it isn’t you, it must be me.”
He tested the door nearby. Unlocked. He
steered her through into the darkened room. In a fog of desire she followed
him. He led them to the rear of the house through the door that opened to the
servants’ area, but instead of heading downwards, he pulled her onwards. At the
foot of the bare, rear stairs leading to the top floor, he dropped her hand and
turned to her. “Now is the time to go back to your family and resume your
blameless life. Do you want to do that?”
She didn’t answer. Couldn’t.
He turned to retrace their steps.
Caroline seized his hand. The staircase to the
top floor loomed above her, narrow and steep, but she knew that at its giddy
height was an empty nursery and beds aplenty. She hitched her dress in her left
hand and ploughed forward, attacking the stairway with an energy driven by her
lust.
Sir Nicholas didn’t follow behind her like a
schoolboy being led to his first taste of pleasure by an older woman. He surged
past her on the stairs, drawing her along in his wake. When she faltered with
heaving chest and gasping breath, he stopped to put his arm around her waist
and assist her up the last flight of stairs.
At the top he halted. So did she – to drag
huge desperate breaths into her lungs. But not for long. Still puffing she
urged him towards the first door. It gave way as she turned the handle, into a
dark room lit only by the moonlight through its open curtains.
That light revealed a narrow bed. She would
have hurried towards it but he halted her momentum. “I think you’re forgetting
something, Lady Caroline.”
He pulled the door closed and turned her
against it, crowding her with his body. His lips sought hers in an open mouthed
kiss. Surprised, her lips pliant, his tongue took the advantage to meet hers,
to parry and lick. Desire ignited in her womb.
She pulled him closer by his coat collar. The
warm, fresh scent of him, the feel of his newly-shaved face rasping her soft
skin, had her shivering. The sound of their panting breaths, the suck of their
lips, were loud in the still, silent air of the room. Her hands plunged beneath
his coat, only to encounter his waistcoat blocking her from reaching his skin.
His muscles rippled under her hands while he smoothed and kneaded her buttocks,
bringing her ever closer to his hard arousal until it rested firm against her
belly.
He broke their kiss. “Now my lady.” His
fingers on her thighs slid the silk of her dress upwards. The cool night air of
the room whispered around her ankles, calves, thighs. Higher and higher the
gossamer material rose. His hands held it bunched around her buttocks, then
abandoned it for her skin, sliding over her bottom, trekking towards her fanny
instead. He found it unerringly. He was a master of his art. She moaned in
appreciation. He returned to kissing her while his hands achieved their magic.
Her hands
fumbled at his buttons, desperate to release them so she could shed his
clothes, to touch his skin as he was touching hers. She pushed at his coat,
briefly distracting him from pleasuring her, while he helped shuck it off onto
the floor. She whimpered in frustration until the waistcoat buttons came undone
and followed the coat to the ground.
Caroline skimmed her hands up his muscled
arms, revelling in the solid mass under her fingers. They tracked across his
chest, tangling in the light hair that dusted his sternum and led downwards.
Her quest blocked by his waistband, Caroline groaned. Locating the buttons, she
flicked them from their holes and the fall of his breeches sagged down, helped
by his unrestrained erection, which emerged from the slit of his drawers.