WidowsWickedWish (29 page)

“Oh, Jack,” she whispered on a huff of wobbly laughter.

“You were that life, you were what I lost all those years
ago,” he continued, the truth he’d been too foolish to recognize overtaking
him, his words tripping over themselves as each new realization dawned. “The
proper lady I dreamed of marrying was you. Or the woman I thought you were. But
you have turned out to be so much more, Olivia. More than I ever could have
imagined.”

“I…you must know…” blinking furiously, Olivia struggled to
form words but Jack wasn’t finished.

“Shh, let me say it all, love,” he crooned, gently turning
her in his arms. He lifted her chin with a hand that shook. “Getting you with
child, that was pure drivel. I honestly don’t care about having a son, having
children. I might have married again after Elizabeth died, produced a nursery
full of children. I had ample opportunity, neighbors throwing their daughters
my way, a widow in the village who made no secret of her interest. I never even
thought about marrying.”

“But—”

“Beyond my regret at condemning Justine to the same solitary
childhood I’d endured, I did not think about having children of my own. Then I
learned you’d been widowed and I fastened upon it as a way to win you, as a way
to coerce you, to force you to marry me if necessary. And it just took on a
life of its own, that yearning for a child. I built it up until it became all
important. But the truth is it was never about a child, an heir. It was ever
about you.”

“Truly?” Olivia whispered and Jack heard hope battling with
doubt in the simple word.

“I have always loved you, Livy,” he vowed. “I cannot
remember a time when my heart was not filled with you, with the possibility of
us.”

“Mine, too.” Jack watched her lips form the words, devoid of
sound beyond the softest breathy sigh.

Olivia wound her arms around his neck and pulled his head
down, fusing their lips together, telling him all he needed to know.

“You want me to do what?”

Jack tossed back his head and laughed at his wife’s dubious
expression. “Hop up and take the reins.”

“I don’t know how to drive a team…and where are the steps?”
she asked, her gaze darting over the side of the carriage perched high atop
tall wheels.

“It’s only the two,” he reminded her with a nod to the
placid horses waiting patiently, the groom holding fast to their harness.
“You’ve only to put your foot here on the stirrup and lift yourself up.”

Gingerly placing her booted foot on the leather strap
dangling from the frame painted gray and blue in honor of her family livery,
Olivia shot him a look from beneath the brim of her simple straw bonnet.

“That’s it,” Jack encouraged, placing one hand on her back
in support, both physical and emotional. He hadn’t missed the way her eyes had
widened when she’d spied the conveyance pulled up in the street. Equal parts
excitement and trepidation had shown in their depths. “Up you go.”

Olivia lifted her skirts out of the way and hoisted herself
onto the platform before plopping onto the narrow seat with a small sigh. “That
wasn’t nearly as difficult as it looks from the ground.”

Jack bounded up and bowed to her, a silly grin spreading
over his face, joy and anticipation spreading through him.

“What are you doing in the corner?” he asked. “You can’t
very well control the horses from there. Scoot to the middle.”

“But where will you sit?” she asked, doing his bidding
before carefully rearranging her skirts to drape just so.

“I’ll squeeze right here beside you,” he replied, setting
actions to words.

“Good gracious, we’re practically on top of one another.”

“Now that’s the best idea I’ve heard all day. Climb on my
lap.”

“Behave Mr. Bentley,” she whispered, peeking up at him from
beneath her bonnet brim.

“As you wish, Lady Bentley.” Jack took the reins from the
groom with a nod before placing them in his wife’s gloved hands. “Have you ever
driven a pair?”

“No,” she answered, shaking her head for emphasis. “I did
drive the farm wagon at Idyllwild. Of course there was only the one horse and
he was quite old and plodding.”

“Romeo, the shaggy beast?”

“How did you know?”

“Lucky guess,” he replied, remembering old Tom Jenkins
cautioning him to keep an eye on her ladyship. Jack was determined to give her
a day, hell a lifetime, filled with adventure. “It’s much the same. This pair
is likely as old and plodding as that draft horse. They’ve been a team for
years. One will follow the other. You’ve only to give them a bit of direction.”

“Perhaps you could take them, just until we’ve cleared the
square.” Olivia pushed the reins into his hands.

“Not a bit of that,” he admonished, wrapping the leather
straps lightly over her hands. “You’ll do fine.”

And she did. For the most part. There was only one small
mishap, a slight altercation with a beer wagon whose driver refused to yield to
the curricle at the intersection of Brown Street and Totten Court.

“What would have happened had I told that nasty man to go
fuck himself?” Olivia asked, darting a glance behind them at the offending
driver.

Jack chuckled and tossed his arm over her shoulders, pulling
her close as they left the worst of the congestion behind them. “I would have
undoubtedly found myself facing the man over fisticuffs.”

“Well then for that reason alone I am glad I refrained,” she
answered primly. “He was a rather large man.”

“You don’t think I could best him?”

“Of course you could. But he might mark your pretty face and
then I would be forced to truly give him a piece of my mind. Why, I might even
disparage his mother, or the size of his manhood.”

“The size of his manhood?” he repeated in mock horror.
“Surely you would never use such language on the street? In hearing of other
people?”

“I would if I was truly angry,” she replied without
hesitation. “If he harmed someone I loved.”

Jack suspected she didn’t even realize she’d admitted to
loving him. With a smile he leaned over her shoulder to buss her cheek beneath
the brim of her bonnet. “Take this next right turn, love.”

“Where are we going?” Olivia asked as she followed his
direction, effortlessly turning the matched pair onto a narrow side street
lined with oaks trees that dated back more than a hundred years. “This
neighborhood doesn’t look at all familiar.”

“Do you venture beyond Mayfair so often that you know one
street from the next?” Jack teased.

“I’ll have you know I volunteered at the Foundling Hospital
twice last week.”

“You did? How is it I didn’t know that?”

“Well, we weren’t conversing with one another beyond the
most mundane of topics,” she answered after a slight hesitation. “Do you mind?”

“Do I mind that we lost nearly a month together due to my
stupidity and your habit of taking ridiculous ideas into your head?”

“No, silly,” she replied with a giggle. “That’s all a bridge
under water.”

Jack smiled, only just barely refraining from correcting
her.

“Do you mind that I’ve committed myself to two afternoons
each week at the Foundling Hospital?”

“Not at all. You said you would,” he reminded her.

“You remember that conversation?” she asked in obvious
surprise and perhaps a bit of pleasure.

“I remember every conversation we’ve ever shared.”

Olivia opened her mouth to speak, no doubt to pepper him
with questions, apparently thought better, and stared straight ahead, her lower
lip pulled between her teeth.

“Don’t bruise that pretty mouth of yours, love,” Jack
admonished. “I’ll have need of it later.”

“Do you remember the conversation we shared over breakfast
that day?”

“What day? We haven’t eaten breakfast together since our
marriage. But yesterday over dinner we discussed Lady Marley’s upcoming ball
and the letter you’d received from Mrs. Smith welcoming Justine for the autumn
term. Last Wednesday we discussed whether or not you would call upon your
mother now that she is well enough to receive visitors to Hastings House. And
the Monday prior…let’s see…I believe we discussed names for Easton and
Beatrice’s baby girl.”

“The day mother found you in the stables with Elizabeth,”
she whispered the words as if loath to remind him.

Jack’s smile dimmed. “We needn’t discuss that day, that
time, Olivia. It’s water under the bridge.”

Olivia flashed a grin, there and gone, acknowledging his
teasing. He should have known his stubborn wife would not relent. She clearly
had something weighing on her mind.

“Do you remember?” she prodded.

He thought back to that morning. “Easton and I had joined
your family at Hastings House just as you were sitting down to breakfast.”

“Henry was away at school,” she corrected. “And father was
gone. He’d passed away the year prior. It was only Mother and me.”

“And she was inordinately pleased to see me standing at her
sideboard filling my plate. Now we know why.”

“You sat across from me, watching me until I suspected I’d
dribbled jam down the front of my gown,” she added with a soft sigh.

“You’d only just developed those luscious breasts of yours
and I couldn’t pry my eyes from them.”

“Do not attempt to sidetrack me with your naughty words,”
she chided. “What else do you remember?”

“You were going on and on about the new kittens in the
stables. You wanted to take me to see them after we’d eaten but your mother
said the stables were no place for a lady. When we’d finished eating your
mother asked Easton to help her with something in the study,” Jack murmured,
the memories tumbling over one another. “No, that’s not right. Your mother
asked you to go out to the garden.”

“To cut some roses that were nearly past their bloom,”
Olivia supplied. “Pink roses that did not live beyond a day cut from the bush.
To this day I cannot abide fat pink roses.”

“Yes, she sent you off for your bonnet before you’d finished
your chocolate,” Jack said, remembering the surly look she’d shot her mother
across the table and the smile she’d tossed at him as she’d exited the
breakfast room.

“Yes, what else?”

“It wasn’t until you were skipping up the stairs that Lady
Hastings asked Easton to join her in the study to take a look at some
discrepancy in the estate accounts.” Jack’s heart was beating fast and furious.
Uncertain he wanted to know what twisted path Olivia was leading him down with
her reminiscence, he attempted to turn the topic. “You aren’t going to argue
that as a proper young lady you would never have skipped through Hastings
House?”

“Did Mother suggest you wait for Simon in the stables?” Olivia
asked, clearly intent upon finishing the story, filling in the blanks, those of
his memory and those of the facts that had always eluded him.

“In her customarily forceful fashion,” he admitted. “Olivia,
we needn’t go down this path. We both know your mother set the trap,
intentionally removing me from your sphere. Slow up a bit, love. You want to
take this next left onto the square.”

Olivia brought the horses nearly to a halt before deftly
maneuvering them onto Raleigh Street. A small shady park spread out before
them. To the east of the park ran a row of two- and three-story town houses,
newly built at ground level and only a handful of steps from the street. To the
west a vast tract of overgrown land sprawled out behind a tall wrought iron
fence.

“This is a pretty little square,” Olivia murmured. “Might we
stop for a moment?”

“Of course,” he replied, pleased by the suggestion as they’d
reached their destination. “Pull the horses up a bit, away from the corner.
That’s right. Stop them in front of that drive.”

As she followed his instructions, Jack waited in
anticipation for her to look beyond the jungle that had sprouted within the
boundary of the fence. Instead she wrapped the reins around the brake handle
and turned on the seat to face him.

“Did you never wonder why Mother chose Elizabeth?” she asked
and it took him a moment to focus on her words, to realize she’d gone back to
that day.

“Until very recently I didn’t know your mother had laid a
trap for me. I thought you’d seen us and gone crying to her,” he reminded her,
hoping she wasn’t about admit to something else, knowing he would forgive her
regardless.

“That was her intention, I’m certain of it. Why else send me
to the garden so near the stables? But how could she know you would take
Elizabeth into your arms?”

“She couldn’t,” he agreed a bit sheepishly. “That part was
pure happenstance. Happenstance and raging lust heightened by the sight of your
nubile breasts across the breakfast table.”

“But now that you know it was a trap,” she prompted, ignoring
his bawdy talk but for a slight tinge of pink on her cheeks.

“Quite honestly I’ve had other things on my mind since you
enlightened me to that fact. Firstly making sure you arrived at the church and
secondly attempting to repair the mess I’d made of our marriage.”

“I must say you’ve done a fine job of it,” Olivia said,
laying her hand lightly on his knee. “Repairing our marriage, I mean. It’s
just…”

“What?” Jack prompted, watching as light and shadow from the
trees overhead flickered over Olivia’s face. “What’s amiss, love?”

“Why Elizabeth? I cannot imagine my mother knew her except
by sight.”

“She had something of a reputation,” Jack offered by way of
explanation.

“So did any number of ladies who came out that Season,” she
replied. “Gracious me, there was a veritable harem of ladies who barely escaped
ruination. Alice included.”

“Perhaps Lady Hastings knew Elizabeth was in trouble and
sought to kill two birds with one stone.”

“Mother helped her out of the goodness of her heart?”

“When put that way it does sound ludicrous,” Jack admitted.
“Are you suggesting your mother chose Elizabeth to…what? What are you
suggesting?”

“I’ve had quite a bit of time to think about that day,”
Olivia said, her fingers skimming over his knee in an absentminded manner.
“Mostly while sitting in one parlor or another pretending to listen to idle
chatter. And something my mother said to me has been bothering me.”

“What did she say?”

“She told me that she’d saved me once,” she began.

“Saved you from my nefarious clutches.”

“But then she said she’d gone to a great deal of trouble
only to have me disobey her and marry the lecher. Those were her exact words.”

Jack waited, not at all following where she obviously meant
to lead.

“Don’t you see, Jack?”

“I’m afraid not.”

“Mother never intended me to marry Palmerton,” she replied
slowly, as if giving him time to jump to the obvious conclusion.

“You aren’t suggesting that Palmerton was Elizabeth’s
mysterious lover? Justine’s father?”

Olivia shook her head slowly, her gaze pinned to him.
“Mother would have locked Palmerton in the stables with Elizabeth if that were
the case. Two birds, Jack.”

“Lady Hastings wanted me removed from your life and
Elizabeth removed from…”

She nodded in encouragement, her hand gripping his knee, her
nails digging into him through his trousers.

“She wanted Elizabeth removed from the life of the gentleman
she intended you to marry,” Jack muttered, finally catching up with her.

“Justine’s father is…was the Marquis of Belmont. She is the
granddaughter of the Duke of Ridgeway. Sister to the present Marquis.”

Olivia looked up at him expectantly, obviously waiting for
some reaction. A cry of shock perhaps? Maybe a bellow of rage? Tears of sorrow?

Jack felt none of that. In fact, beyond a modicum of
surprise and a bit of relief, he felt no different than he had before she’d
forced him to journey down memory lane.