WidowsWickedWish (18 page)

“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.

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 up
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 gearing 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.