WidowsWickedWish (2 page)

Jack Bentley looked down at the woman sprawled in the deep
snowdrift. He’d thought the sledge held three boys when he’d turned to see it
flying through the air. While the legs splayed out before him were covered in
thick wool trousers, the dark coat had fallen open to reveal a pair of generous
breasts lifting and falling under a red knit jersey. Sable curls escaped from a
bulky knit hat, trailing down a long delicate neck to rest just under a pointed
little chin. Her skin was flushed with cold, her nose red. Her eyes were closed
and she had the sweetest smile upon her lips. The tiniest dimple hovered beside
her mouth.

As if she sensed his presence, her eyelids opened, and Jack
found himself staring into wide gray eyes, sparkling with laughter so that they
looked silver in the sunlight.

She lifted her hand to shade her eyes, her gaze sweeping
over his face. He saw the exact moment she recognized him, watched as her lips
parted and a small puff of breath escaped, immediately transforming into mist
in the winter air.

“Jack.”

Jack could only stare down at her. Little Lady Olivia, no
the Countess of Palmerton. He hadn’t been so near her, nor spoken to her since
the first year of her marriage to the earl. She had been eighteen, a lady from
her silk-slippered feet to the pearls that gleamed in her piled-high ringlets.
She’d looked up at him as they danced, her eyes no longer those of a worshipful
child, not yet those of a seasoned matron. She’d been suspended between two
worlds.

Unnerved by the mingled lust and anger that had simmered in
his blood as he’d whirled her around the dance floor, he’d never again dared to
approach the poised lady she’d become as she’d settled into her role as the
proper wife to a peer of the realm. Instead he’d watched her from a distance at
those few
ton
gatherings to which he’d been invited when he’d ventured
to Town.

Jack had imagined the day he would finally see her again a
hundred times in the year since he’d learned of her husband’s death. He’d thought
he would have to scheme and plot to find himself face-to-face with her in a
crowded ballroom, a box at the theater, or perhaps riding in Hyde Park. He had
never imagined finding her careening wildly through the snow to land like an
angel at his feet.

As she stared up at him in silence, Jack shook off his
surprise, bent from the waist and held out his hand.

Olivia placed her wool-covered hand into his and allowed him
to pull her to her feet.

“Let’s go again!” A small child bundled up against the cold
skipped up to Olivia.

Her daughter Lady Frances, no doubt. He looked past her to
the smaller child ambling disjointedly through the snow.

“Again!” Charles, the young Earl of Palmerton, launched
himself against his mother’s legs, nearly sending her back into the snowdrift.

Olivia lifted him into her arms and jiggled his bulky weight
onto her hip. She wrapped her other arm around her daughter’s shoulder and
pulled her against her side. “Welcome to Idyllwild,” she said with a smile. “Are
you lost or were we your destination?”

Jack smiled in spite of himself. Both, he wanted to say, but
instead he held out his arm. Justine came immediately to his side and Jack
rested his hand on her slender back.

“Lady Palmerton, may I present my daughter, Miss Justine
Bentley,” Jack said.

“It is a pleasure to meet you, Miss Bentley.” Olivia greeted
the girl, her eyes taking a quick inventory of her features.

Jack knew Justine’s appearance owed nothing to her father
and everything to her mother. She had Elizabeth’s wavy blonde hair and pale-green
eyes, her pretty little cupid’s-bow mouth, and her delicate, petite form.

“These are my children, Frances and Charles,” Olivia said.

“Lady Frances, Lord Palmerton.” Jack greeted the two
children with a slight bow.

“Oh there is no need…” Olivia began with a laugh.

“My name’s Fanny and that’s Charlie,” the little girl said
as she gripped her mother’s coat with one hand and dropped into a wobbly
curtsy. The boy tucked his head into the crook of his mother’s neck and stuck
his thumb in his mouth.

Justine stepped away from her father’s side to offer a
graceful curtsy, her gloved hands holding her fur-lined cape out of the snow. “It
is a pleasure to make your acquaintance,” she said, her words formal, the grin
on her face playful.

“Can we go back up?” Fanny demanded.

“Perhaps later this afternoon. I think for now we had best
get dry and warm. Did I see a carriage traveling with you?” Olivia asked as she
turned back to Jack.

“My father and his wife.”

“Oh, but how lovely. It has been years since I’ve seen Mr.
Bentley and I’ve never met your stepmother.”

“They have gone on ahead.” And thank God for that. He hadn’t
expected to find Lady Palmerton at the small estate on the London Road, had
stopped merely out of curiosity, having listened to Viscount Easton describe
the role it had played in his marriage. But if there was one thing that could
be said about Jack Bentley, it was that he never let an opportunity pass him
by.

He would hardly welcome his father and stepmother as
witnesses to the plan he was about to set in motion, a plan he’d been hatching
since the day he’d received Easton’s letter and learned that the lady was a
widow.

“Will you join us for luncheon?”

“Oh, yes, you must. Then you can go sledding with us this
afternoon.” Fanny looked up at Justine with obvious delight.

“Can we, Father?” Justine asked.

Jack did not need to think about it. He may not have
expected to find Olivia staying at the small estate, but now that he had, he
wasn’t going to waste the opportunity.

“Thank you,” he said to Olivia.

Jack held his hand out for her to precede him and watched in
fascination as her legs ate up the snow-covered ground. He couldn’t remember
ever seeing a lady in men’s trousers. He observed the way they hugged her legs
and wondered if they hugged her bottom as tightly. Unfortunately the coat she
wore covered her to mid-thigh. He dragged his eyes up to the back of her head. Her
gray wool hat was slipping to the side, showing him the back of her slender
neck. Her son turned his head and looked back over her shoulder at him with
steady gray eyes. Eyes just like his mother, Jack saw. The girl had inherited
her father’s blue eyes and her mother’s dark hair while the son was just the
opposite.

The party was met in the hall by two older ladies with
aprons tied over their dresses and a tall man in brown buckskins and a blue jersey.

“Mr. Jack Bentley and his daughter, Justine,” Olivia said,
lowering her son to the wood floor. “Jack, this is Mary Morgan and Molly and
Tom Jenkins.”

Jack bowed to the assembled group, all the while wondering
who they were and where the servants were hiding.

Coats, scarves, mittens and hats came off. Olivia gathered
them up where they fell and hung them on a series of wooden pegs that stretched
down the wall of the hall. Blue pegs for Charles, pink for Frances, gray for
Olivia. The rest of the pegs were hidden by other coats, scarves, and mittens.

How long had Olivia been at Idyllwild? Jack wondered as he
watched the well-orchestrated lining up of boots beneath the winter garments. This
was a family with an established routine.

“I’ll take the little ones up to change,” Molly said.

“Thank you, Molly.” Olivia turned to Jack and met his eyes
briefly before looking down at her own wet garments. “Are you and Justine dry?”

“Yes. Go ahead and change. I’m sure Mrs. Morgan and Mr.
Jenkins will keep us company. Can I put the horses in the stable?”

“I’ll see to it,” Mr. Jenkins offered.

“There’s no need, Mr. Jenkins.”

“Bosh, it’s just plain Tom. You and the girl go on into the
parlor where it’s warm.”

“Yes, please,” Mary Morgan urged them. “I’ll be right in
with a pot of tea. Or if you prefer, please help yourself to the brandy on the
sideboard.”

“It’s best to do as Mary says,” Olivia remarked with a smile
for the lady. “I’ll be right down.”

Jack tried not to appear obvious as he hesitated in the
hall, his eyes following Olivia when she turned toward the stairs. Damn, it
should be illegal for ladies to wear men’s trousers. The soft wool hugged her
trim waist and perfect, round ass. The sway of her hips was a thing of absolute
beauty.

He turned back to find Mary Morgan looking straight at him. She
smiled as he met her eyes and Jack felt his face flush.

“Do you live nearby?” Mary asked a few minutes later as she
poured tea for Justine. Jack sipped his brandy while he took in the cozy little
parlor with its crisp white wainscoting and sturdy furniture upholstered in
soft shades of green and blue.

“I’ve an estate near Sedgefield,” he replied casually,
tamping down the pride he felt in saying the words. He was damn proud of his
recently purchased estate for all that the house was a relic, the land only
just beginning to turn a profit.

“Oh, goodness, all the way up in Durham Shire? Why, you’re a
ways from home.” Jack heard the question in her quiet statement.

“We are traveling to London,” he explained.

“Oh, splendid,” she exclaimed. “Would you mind terribly
taking a package with you? Some jerseys and scarves we’ve knitted for my
daughter and her husband.”

“Of course,” he answered. So that was the source of all the
knitted outerwear hanging in the hall.

“Are you friends of the Hastings family?” she asked.

“Since I was a boy.”

“Then you know Simon? That is, Lord Easton.” Her blue eyes
sparkled with curiosity.

“Quite well. We attended Eton and Cambridge together.”

“But that’s wonderful! I am Beatrice’s mother.”

Jack looked at Mary Morgan in surprise. “I’m sorry. I had no
idea. But of course you and Lady Easton lived here for many years.” Good Lord,
he thought as the pieces of the puzzle snapped into place in his brain. What an
odd situation. The Countess of Palmerton was residing in the home of her
deceased father’s mistress.

“Beatrice was born here,” she answered with a laugh. “Has
Simon told you how they met?”

“Er, some, I believe.” He wasn’t sure just how much to admit
to knowing.

He turned to look at Olivia as she sailed into the room
laughing.

“Mary, don’t embarrass the poor man. And Jack, there are no
secrets here so you’ve no need to guard your words,” she said as she plopped,
really the Countess of Palmerton plopped, into a cushioned rocking chair by the
fire. She let out a small puff of air that lifted the curls resting on her
forehead, making them sway before coming to rest once more.

Olivia had changed into a dress of soft lavender wool that
hugged her curves and her long elegant arms. A knit shawl as white as snow lay
across her shoulders, the long ends wound around and around her arms. Jack had
never seen such a garment. It was nearly as big as a blanket and looked as soft
as down. On her feet she wore fluffy, white knit slippers.

“No point in guarding your words in this house,” Tom called
out as he came through the door with Charles in his arms. Molly and Fanny
followed him, a tray of what had to be fresh-baked sugar cookies in the little
girl’s hands.

“Auntie Mary will have you spilling your secrets in no time,”
Fanny told him with a giggle.

As Jack watched the inhabitants of Idyllwild Cottage
interact with one another over the next half hour, it became apparent that they
were comfortable together. More than comfortable. They finished each other’s
sentences. They laughed and smiled and talked over one another.

Jack looked down at his daughter sitting beside him on the
settee. Justine’s eyes were wide, a soft smile upon her lips as she too watched
the family. Jack felt a familiar pang in his chest. He would have liked to have
given Justine such a family. Instead she’d had a mother who rarely acknowledged
her existence, a grandfather too busy to spend time with her, a stepgrandmother
too self-absorbed to do more than pat her on the head awkwardly, and a father
who tried desperately to make up for it all.

When Mary and Molly left the parlor and disappeared down the
hall, Fanny turned to Justine. “Do you play draughts?”

And just like that his twelve-year-old daughter was embroiled
in a battle with a girl half her age.

Tom slept in an overstuffed chair, softly snoring.

Jack looked at Olivia to find her watching him with a smile.
She slowly rocked back and forth, one slippered foot gently pushing against the
floor. Charles lay curled in her lap, his blond head snuggled against her
breast, her arms holding him close.

What a picture she made sitting there, every inch of her a
testament to her contentment.

He rose and joined her by the fire, sitting in a matching
rocking chair. He pushed his booted feet and set the chair slowly moving.

“How long have you been here?” he asked.

“Just over a year,” she replied softly, turning her head to
look at him. Jack was struck by her delicate beauty. She’d been a shy little
girl, all skinny arms and legs and enormous eyes. As a young married lady, she
had been lovely in a cool, contained way. She had grown into a spectacular
woman. There was a softness to her features, a warmth in her eyes that gave her
the appearance of a woman happy in her life. “We came away after Palmerton
died. For a few weeks, just to get away from Town, but a few weeks turned into
a few months and then into a year.”

“I was sorry to hear of his passing,” Jack murmured. He’d
heard the rumors, even up north nearly to Scotland, he’d heard the stories.

“Thank you. I received the note you sent. It was very kind.”

“It was no more than you did for me when Elizabeth passed.”
Jack had been surprised to receive the kind words written in flowing female
script on soft cream paper with the Palmerton crest at the top.