WidowsWickedWish (28 page)

“Not want you?” He pressed the small nub, circled and
rubbed, matching the frantic stab of his cock until Olivia was writhing beneath
him. She stretched her arms out before her, curled her fingers around the edge
of the table and lifted her hips, meeting each driving thrust, taking him
deeper into her body.

“Jack,” she moaned, chasing an orgasm that lurked just
beyond her reach. “Oh God, Jack.”

“Yes,” he grunted, his breath warm on her neck. “Come for
me, love. Give me your passion. I need it, Livy, please don’t deny me.”

His voice, rough yet tender, demanding yet supplicating,
sent Olivia right over the edge into an abyss of pleasure so dark, so deep, she
only dimly heard Jack’s shout of exultation, vaguely felt him drive into her
one last time before finding his own release.

She thought she might have fainted, only came back to
herself as her husband collapsed onto her, his elbows planted beside her head
taking most of his weight. He hung his head down, his lips pressed to her
temple, his breath whispering across her cheek.

“Not want you?”

Olivia felt him shaking above her, his chest shuddering
against her back, and smiled.

“Jesus, Livy, the ideas you take into your head.”

Jack rolled over and opened his eyes to find the Earl of
Palmerton on his knees beside him, his cherubic face still flushed with sleep,
his gray eyes twinkling in the morning sunlight.

“You’re my pet father,” Charlie announced with a wide smile.

“Hmm.” Olivia snuggled against Jack’s shoulder, one long leg
looping over his waist and her hand coming up to curl around his neck.

“Mama’s sleeping,” Charlie said, one pudgy hand patting his
mother’s cheek.

“Let’s allow her to continue sleeping, shall we?” Jack
asked, careful to keep his voice low lest he wake his wife.

“Mama likes to cuddle with Bonny Prince Charlie in the
morning,” Fanny called out as she strolled into the room still dressed in her
night clothes, two dark braids resting on her shoulders. “Then she likes me to
call her to breakfast. You’d know this if you slept in her bedchamber more
often.”

In point of fact, Jack did know their morning routine. He’d
listened to it every morning for four weeks, his heart clenching in his chest
to be excluded from their cozy little family. Even Justine had been invited to
join the ritual, breaking her fast in the nursery most days, leaving him to eat
in the dining room with only his morning paper for company.

“Mr. Jack’s my pet father,” Charlie told his sister as she
rounded the bed to peer down at her mother.

“Stepfather,” Fanny corrected.

“Pet father,” Charlie insisted, his lower lip trembling.

“Shh.” Jack placed one finger over his lips.

“Mama has calls to make,” Fanny said. “She always has calls
to make. When I’m grown I won’t call upon anyone. I’ll sit in my castle and let
them all call upon me.”

“A wise decision,” Jack replied, starting to slide from
beneath Olivia’s winding limbs only to come up short when he remembered he was
naked beneath the bed covers. He tugged the sheet that lay twisted around his
waist higher, darting a quick glance to assure that all the necessary parts
were covered.

“You haven’t any night clothes on.” Fanny’s voice held equal
parts shock and curiosity.

“Come along Fanny and Charlie.”

Jack looked up from his stepdaughter’s frowning face to see
Justine standing in the open doorway dressed for the day in a yellow gown. In
her hands she held a straw bonnet decorated with white silk flowers and long
trailing ribbons.

“Good morning, daisy,” he greeted her, watching as her green
eyes widened at the endearment.

“You ought to sleep in Olivia’s room every night,” Justine
said. “You aren’t as grumpy as a bear this morning.”

“I’ll keep your advice in mind,” he replied, unable to stop
the smile that pulled at his lips.

“But try not to forget your night clothes,” Fanny cautioned.

“Come along, wee lordling.” Justine helped Charlie from the
bed and turned him toward the door. “Nurse Sophia has been looking for you.”

“I was with Mama and my pet father,” Charlie said.

“Stepfather,” Fanny corrected, her gaze still riveted to the
bed, bouncing between Jack and Olivia. “Why are you sleeping in my mother’s
bed? You’ve a perfectly good bed in your own chamber.”

“Sometimes husbands and wives sleep together,” Justine
called back over her shoulder. “That’s how babies are made. Or didn’t you know
that, lady smarty-petticoats?”

Olivia tensed beside him, her leg sliding from his waist and
her hand drifting over his neck and shoulder before dropping to the bed between
them.

“I know how babies are made,” Fanny answered, turning to
follow Justine from the room. “I’ll be seven next week and I’m—”

“Precocious,” Justine interrupted. “So you keep saying. Ad
nauseum.”

“What? What did you say about vomiting?”

Whatever reply his daughter made to Lady Frances’ outraged
question was lost as the door slammed behind the trio.

Olivia rolled away from him, giving him her back, and Jack
curled around her, his lips coasting over her nape.

“I thought I’d made myself quite clear last night,” he
whispered against her warm skin. “And this morning just before dawn. I don’t
give a fig about making babies, Olivia.”

“Yes, but…”

Jack waited to see if she would continue before wrapping his
arms around her and pulling her snug against him. “Between us we’ve got three
children and frankly that’s more than enough.”

“They are none of them your own,” she replied, her voice
muffled in the pillow she clutched.

“They are all my own,” he countered. “My own little family.”

“It’s kind of you to say so,” she replied. “Sweet, really.
But haven’t there been too many lies and half-truths between us.”

Jack gently turned her on her back before plucking the
pillow from her grasp and throwing it to the foot of the bed. “Listen to me,
Lady Bentley, and listen well, because I am only going to say this one more
time. Though if you ask very nicely I might show you time and again.”

Jack waited until she met his gaze, her eyes smoky gray and
somehow fierce in the morning light.

“I want you.”

“Right now?” she asked.

“Well, yes, right now,” he answered with a laugh. “But I
didn’t mean I want to make love to you. I want you. In my life. As my wife. As
my family. You and your frightfully intelligent daughter and too-damn-cute son.
And the rest of your surprisingly improper family. Your bed-hopping brother,
your irreverent sister, even your haughty, bawdy cousin, bless her tricks. I’ll
even welcome your mother if it means I get to keep you.”

“Keep me?” she repeated, her forehead wrinkling as she
frowned. “I’m your wife. Where would I go?”

“Wherever it is you’ve been since I made a colossal muck of
our marriage,” he replied, leaning over her to press a kiss to her lips. “I’m
more sorry than I can tell you for all of it.”

“You’ve nothing to apologize for,” she said, meeting his
kiss with one of her own.

“I should have realized when you told me of Charlie’s birth
that you hadn’t escaped the ordeal without injury.”

“I might have told you I was barren when we were together at
Idyllwild,” she argued, her hands coming up to sweep over his whiskered jaw.
“You could have gone on your merry way before it was too late.”

“It was too late twelve years ago when I returned from the
Grand Tour to find you had grown into a beautiful woman.” Jack dragged his lips
across her cheek and down over the delicate curve of her jaw. “Hell, it was too
late even before that, from the moment I looked down into your freckled face
when you were six years old.”

“I never had freckles,” she argued, her arms looping around
his neck.

“You had eleven of them dusting your nose and cheeks.”

“You counted my freckles?”

“I was fascinated, enchanted, ensnared in your web.”

“Oh, I like that,” she purred. “Imagine me ensnaring a man
like you.”

“A man like me?” he trailed his open mouth down the arch of
her throat, his cock hardening against her hip.

“Deliciously manly and beautiful and randy as a goat.”

“Beautiful?” he repeated skeptically as he tugged the sheet
down her body, following its descent with his hand. “You’ve no need to flatter
me. I’ll let you have your wicked way with me even without pretty words.”

“You are beautiful to me,” she vowed, arching her back when
his hand closed around her breast.

“Ah, Livy,” he breathed into the juncture of her shoulder.

The snap of the door latch had Jack whipping the sheet up
and over her breasts and looking over his shoulder.

“Oh, pardon me, Mr. Bentley.” Celeste hovered in the
doorway, a swathe of purple fabric draped over her arms. “I’m sorry. I saw the
children eating in the nursery and I thought her ladyship was awake. Of course
she is awake…I only meant…”

“It’s all right, Celeste.” Olivia squirmed to sitting, a
blush settling on her cheeks.

“I suppose that’s my cue,” Jack mumbled.

“Might you go next door for Mr. Bentley’s robe?” Olivia
asked the maid as she laid the dress over a chair back.

“Of course, my lady.”

“You don’t have to run off,” Olivia said when her maid had
disappeared into the hall.

“It’s just as well,” he answered, running a hand through his
hair and squinting at the clock on the mantel. “We’ve an appointment in two
hours.”

“We have?”

“Don’t dawdle, Lady Bentley. Dress for an adventure and join
me below stairs.”

“Yes, sir, Mr. Bentley,” she replied with a grin just as
Celeste returned.

“Here you are, Mr. Bentley.” The maid held out his robe, her
face turned away from the bed.

“Thank you.” Jack shrugged into the garment, wrestling it
closed before clambering from the bed and placing his hand over his loins to
hide the evidence of his arousal.

“What does a lady wear on an adventure?” Olivia called out
as he strode toward the door.

“That is your most adventurous attire?” Jack teased as his
wife descended the stairs an hour later dressed in an outrageous gown of
pale-lavender muslin. The bodice hugged her breasts beneath a scooped neckline
before disappearing beneath a wide white ribbon cinched tight about her waist.
Voluminous sleeves began at the drop of her shoulders, billowing out to just
above her elbows where the fabric was tucked and pleated to skim her arms to
the wrists. Her skirts belled out from her waist, looking like nothing so much
as the tiered layers of a cake festooned with dozens of bows, ribbons and lace.
The hemline was shorter than was customary, showing off the turn of her ankles
in tightly laced white half-boots.

“How many petticoats are you wearing under that thing?”

“Three,” she replied primly. “I saw a woman wearing just
such a dress leaving my mother’s house a few weeks ago.”

“And decided you had to have one just like it?”

“Actually I thought it quite outrageous,” she admitted with
a giggle. “There is so much of it, such a full skirt, so many ribbons and bows.
But when I visited my modiste before our wedding she showed me the latest
fashion plates from Paris and apparently full skirts and fussy trim are all the
rage just now.”

“I’ll have the devil’s own time getting under your skirts,”
he groused, watching as his wife breezed past him, what looked like a bouquet
of silk flowers and ribbons dangling from her gloved hands.

“Never mind getting under my skirts,” she replied, stopping
before the oval mirror above a side table. “You’ll have a devil of a time
reaching my bosom. I’m wearing a new corset and it quite cups my breasts.”

“I’d like to cup your breasts.” Jack stepped behind and did
just that, gratified by the throaty laugh that fell from her lips as she met
his eyes in the mirror.

“Shame on you, Mr. Bentley,” she said. “In the front hall
where anyone might see us. Now kindly step back so that I might arrange my
bonnet.”

Jack dutifully stepped back only to bark out a laugh when
she whipped the bouquet to her head and he realized it was a hat. A bonnet of
white straw with a wide brim and a veritable mountain of flowers adorning it.

“Do you find my attire amusing?” Olivia asked with an arch
of her brow.

“Not nearly as amusing as I will when it is strewn about the
floor of my bedchamber on our return.” Jack met her gaze in the mirror and gave
his best leer.

“Is this hat too…too…” she asked, studying the bonnet with a
critical eye.

“Too what? Too much? Too ridiculous?” he supplied, stepping
behind her once more.

Olivia leaned over the table, pressing her three petticoats
and her round ass against his crotch. “It is ridiculous, isn’t? Perhaps I
should run up and fetch another.”

“Perhaps I should assist you,” Jack offered, his hands
settling on her waist. “I’ve yet to see your dressing room. Is there a settee
or a chair handy?”

Olivia removed the towering confection of flowers, tossed it
to the table before her, and met his eyes in the mirror. “Only a small spindly
chair. I’m afraid it would break under our combined weight. And honestly if the
servants keep finding broken chairs all over the house, gossip will ensue.
There is a wall, four in fact. And a floor covered by the softest Turkish
carpet, but I’ve been warned of the possibility of carpet burn in unmentionable
places.”

Jack’s gaze drifted over her face, taking in the silver
sparkling in her eyes, the pretty pout gracing her ripe lips, and the pink
blush sweeping over her cheeks.

She was such a contradiction, his wife. Sweet and shy one
moment, stubborn and sassy the next. Prim and proper, giving way to passionate
and wanton in the blink of an eye. And always intelligent, loyal, curious,
courageous and kind.

And she was his. She’d always been his just as he’d always
been hers. When they were children playing together, when he’d grown into a man
and unconsciously waited for her to leave girlhood behind. Through all the
years when they’d been married to others, when he’d watched her from afar as
she’d blossomed into a poised lady.

It was a miracle he’d found her at Idyllwild, away from the
strictures of society, where she’d first allowed him to know the woman she’d
become, the woman she hoped to be as the years passed and she continued to grow
and transform.

“Jack?” Olivia tilted her head, her pouting lips lifting
into a tender smile.

“I love you.”

The words slipped out as naturally as taking his next
breath.

Olivia blinked, tears gathering in the corners of her eyes,
hovering like crystals on her lashes.

“I should have told you that day in the stables.” Jack
wrapped his arms around her, pulled her tight against his chest, against his
furiously beating heart, and spoke to her reflection. “When you asked me why I
wanted to marry you I should have simply told you that I love you instead of
spewing all that nonsense about the life I’d lost, the life you could return to
me.”