WidowsWickedWish (30 page)

“Damn, you are clever,” Jack finally said.

“What?”

“My wife is by far the cleverest woman in all of England.”

“You are not reacting as I’d anticipated,” she said. “In fact
you are not reacting at all. Did you already suspect?”

“I hadn’t a clue,” he replied, lifting her hand from his
knee to kiss her lace-covered knuckles. “And we don’t know for a fact that the
Marquis of Belmont fathered Justine. It’s all supposition.”

“I could ask my mother,” she suggested.

“There is no need.”

“Don’t you want to know?” Olivia tilted her head in the way
he adored and he leaned down and planted a quick, hard kiss on her pouting
mouth.

“Aren’t you eaten up with curiosity,” she asked, her breath
brushing over his lips.

Jack cupped her cheeks, his fingers sifting through her
curls and setting her bonnet askew. “When Elizabeth told me she was carrying a
child I begged and bullied, coerced and threatened her in an attempt to force
her to tell me the identity of the father. But on the day Justine was born, the
moment the midwife placed her in my arms, she became my daughter.”

“And you’ve never allowed yourself to wonder? To speculate?”
she persisted.

“It does not matter to me. I am her father and she is my
daughter. It’s that simple.”

“You’re a better man than most,” Olivia replied.

“It is the same with Fanny and Charlie. The moment you
married me your children became my children. I love them already, will only
grow to love them more.”

“Oh, Jack,” she whispered, turning her head to nuzzle her
cheek against his palm.

“I would love them quite a bit more, and Justine as well, if
we weren’t all living atop one another in Mrs. Goode’s cramped little house,”
he continued with a grin.

“Surely we’ll be retiring to Sedgefield soon,” she replied.
“I’m quite excited to see your estate. Is the house very big?”

“Big enough. But what about next Season? I don’t relish the
idea of renting yet another house, and another until we see both of our
daughters married.”

Olivia huffed out an exasperated breath, just as he’d
intended.

“Or settled in the career of their choice,” he hurried to
add, lest she launch into a lecture on the street in what he hoped would be
their new neighborhood.

“And we’ve a few months yet before Beatrice’s daughter is
born,” he added. “You do want to remain in Town until the happy event?”

“How did you know?”

“Olivia, you love your family, every arrogant, mad,
debauched, irreverent one of them. I don’t need you to tell me you’d prefer to
wait until after your niece is born to journey north. I only need you to tell
me where we’ll be residing.”

“I haven’t the faintest idea,” she replied with a grimace.
“None of the houses I toured was right and in truth I’ve nearly given up
finding a home for us.”

“What do you think of this one?” With a nod Jack indicated
the house that sat nearly hidden within the overgrown garden surrounded by a
high wrought iron fence.

“What house?” Olivia twisted around on the seat. “Good
gracious me. Jack, there is a house in all those weeds and trees. A grand,
sprawling mansion. It must be two hundred years old. And just look at all that
land. Who do you suppose lives there?”

“At present only a handful of servants live there,” he
answered, jumping from the curricle to circle around behind. “Mr. Bartholomew
Raleigh passed on some years ago, leaving the house to his second wife.”

“And she has gone to join her husband?” Olivia barely
glanced at him as he helped her to the street, her gazed fixed on the red brick
house with its wide bow windows and twin turrets.

“A few months past.” Jack tucked her hand into the crook of
his arm. “Mr. Percival Raleigh inherited the house when his stepmother passed.”

“But how do you know all this?”

“The agent told me.”

“Agent?” She stopped on the walkway just before the tall
rusty gate that had been pushed open in anticipation of their arrival. “As in
land agent? This house is on the market? And you are thinking to purchase it?”

“If it meets with your approval,” he answered, his eyes on
her profile as she studied the house.

“If it…Lord above, Jack, it’s lovely. Simply divine. How
many rooms are there? What shape are the kitchens in? My word, I didn’t think
there were any homes on large plots of land left in London. However did you
find it? Can we go inside? Do you suppose the fountain works?”

Jack laughed as he followed his wife through the open gates
and along a cobblestone drive that wound around the front of the house before
disappearing to the stables beyond. Olivia tossed questions at him one after
the other, interspersed with squeals of pure delight, as they wandered through
the grand old mansion.

Two hours later Jack assisted his wife onto the high seat of
her new curricle, smiling as she took up the reins without urging. In his
breast pocket rested the deed to Raleigh’s Folly.

“Your bid,” Alice whispered with a gentle nudge of her elbow
against Olivia’s arm.

“I know, I’m thinking,” Olivia replied as she studied her
cards and thought back over the cards that had previously been played.

She looked from her hand to the growing pile of coins
precisely stacked by her elbow on the green baize table and from there to the
young man who sat on her other side, his gaze ricocheting between her bosom
swelling over the bodice of a sapphire-blue gown and her cousin’s all but
spilling from a pale-gray gown.

“I say, Lady Bentley, you appear to be on a winning streak.”

Olivia looked away from Lord Forrester’s flushed face and
shiny forehead beneath a mop of golden curls to the man who stood behind Alice,
a long black cheroot dangling from his lips.

“Mr. Clive,” Olivia greeted the handsome auburn-haired man.

“The lady is making the most of her beginner’s luck,” Alice
said with an arch of one dark brow. “And no, before you ask, you may not touch
her person to see if any of her luck might rub off on you. Be gone, Mr. Clive.”

“Alice,” Olivia softly admonished as she tossed two gold
coins into the pot at the center of the table.

Jasper Clive clamped his lips tight around his cheroot, a
long ash falling to land on his lapel. Without a word he spun about and stormed
away to the roulette wheel in the corner of the high-ceilinged main room of
McDonough’s Gaming House where Henry greeted him, shifting to make room at the
crowded rail.

“Jasper Clive is a miscreant of the worst sort,” Alice said.
“And he is as poor as a church mouse and frightfully lacking in both
intelligence and decorum. How your brother tolerates him I’ve no earthly idea.”

“Speaking of Henry, what do you suppose prompted him to
gather us all together for this night of gambling?” Olivia asked, her gaze
finding Beatrice and Simon watching the play of the wheel.

“You seem quite certain Hastings was the ringleader.”

“Do not say this was your idea. I’m quite certain my husband
already believes you to be a disreputable influence upon me.”

“To be sure,” Alice agreed. “I’ll remind him to thank me
when next I see him.”

“As long as you don’t see him any time soon,” Olivia
replied. “I cannot imagine what he will think when he discovers I spent the night
in a gaming house rather than at the theater.”

“Damn,” Alice muttered as the king of diamonds came to rest
before her. She tossed down her cards before signaling to a hovering servant.
“I would imagine Mr. Bentley is well aware of your present location. We’ve been
here nearly three hours, after all. Someone would have carried the tale to him
by now.”

Olivia flipped her cards over with a flourish.

“Twenty-one! Again!” Alice exclaimed with a laugh before
turning to take two glasses of champagne from the servant at her shoulder.
Olivia didn’t miss the way her cousin rubbed her finger over her own as she
handed one tall fluted crystal glass to her.

“Jack is not at home. He and his father traveled to
Westminster to meet with Lord Casterbury on some business having to do with the
railway,” Olivia replied as the dealer raked her winnings toward her. By her
calculations she was two hundred pounds richer than she’d been when Alice and
Henry had bullied and cajoled her into entering the gaming house.

“So if your husband were to walk beneath the famed arches,”
Alice nodded toward the pair of tall arches that graced the entrance to the
main gaming room, “it would be pure coincidence?”

Olivia swiveled in her seat and craned her neck for a better
view, breathing a sigh of relief when she saw half a dozen young bucks gathered
under the arches.

“Shame on you,” she chided. “You had me worried for a
moment.”

“Olivia, darling, what do you think your husband would do
were he to find you here?” Alice asked as the dealer began to shuffle the
cards, his fingers long and nimble. “Pull you kicking and screaming out into
the street? Paddle your bottom in his carriage?”

“I would step up to save you, my lady,” Forrester said,
lifting his gaze from her bosom.

Olivia waved off his words. “Nonsense, Forrester, you and
every other gentleman in the vicinity would laugh uproariously at the sight of
a husband dragging off his disobedient wife.”

“I’d not let any man touch your bum,” the young man mumbled,
his eyes dropping once more. “A right fine bum, it is.”

Olivia tilted her glass and drained the cool, sparkling
wine, daintily dabbing at her lips with her fingers, before leaning down to
whisper to Alice, “I believe Lord Forrester is sheets to three winds.”

“Three sheets to the wind,” Alice corrected, lowering her
voice. “Would your husband paddle your bottom?”

“Of course not.” Olivia watched another servant bearing down
on their table with more champagne. “Although he did deliver a stinging slap
just last night.”

“Did he? While you were in the throes of carnal pleasure?”

“Actually I was thrown over his shoulder.”

“Well, well, well. Mr. Bentley is full of surprises,” Alice
purred. “I take it you are not displeased by your marriage?”

“Jack says he loves me,” Olivia replied, remembering his
fierce lovemaking the night before and the earnestness in his eyes this morning
“He wants me. In his bed, in his life, as his wife. Me. Not Lady Olivia, not
the Countess of Palmerton. Me.”

“You sound as if you doubt his sincerity.”

“I am trying very hard to believe him, to believe in him, in
us.”

“What would it take?” Alice demanded a bit peevishly. “What
hoops must the man jump through to finally lay your doubts to rest? What do you
need in order to be happy?”

“But I am happy,” Olivia exclaimed. “I have never been
happier in my life.”

Alice studied her for a moment before lifting her glass of
champagne. “To happier unions the second time around.”

Olivia clinked her glass gently against her cousin’s and
smiled into gray eyes so like her own, surrounded by a pale face that was
thinner, more angular than the one she saw each day in the mirror.

“I envy you,” Alice said.

“You do?”

“Don’t get me wrong, I don’t wish Piedmont dead,” Alice
continued. “He’s harmless really, a silly old man who likes nothing more than
spending his time building miniature replicas of European castles and strolling
over his land with a dozen dogs nipping at his heels.”

“Does he still build castles on the front lawn of
Evergreen?” Olivia asked with a laugh.

“We’ve seven at last count,” Alice replied before lifting
her cards from the tabletop and peering at them quickly. She flipped three gold
coins into the small pot. “I only meant that you were widowed while you were
still young enough to capture the attention of a virile young man. Piedmont will
likely live to a ripe old age and by the time I gain my freedom I’ll be too old
to ensnare such a specimen.”

Olivia peeked at her cards and matched her cousin’s bid.

The volume of the voices in one corner of the room increased
to near glass-shattering intensity and both ladies looked over to see Jasper
Clive preening as Henry slapped him on the back.

“I suppose there will always be men like him,” Alice
muttered before turning back to her cousin.

Olivia arched a brow in question.

“Men without fortune who are only too happy to trade their
expertise in the bedchamber for a purse.” Alice nodded to the dealer for
another card before tossing her hand on the table with a sigh.

“Surely you are not implying that Jasper Clive is a…” Olivia
waved her hand about, searching for the correct word.

“Cicisbeo,” Alice supplied. “Since he first came down from
university, or so the story goes. Apparently he disappeared into the wilds of
Scotland where he hooked up with a nubile wench who taught him all manner of
bedroom tricks. He gave new meaning to the Grand Tour, tearing a swath through
the continent, leaving a trail of well-satisfied ladies in his wake, before
returning to London last month.”

“My goodness.”

“Rumor has it he has taken up with one of Hastings’
cast-offs. Although how that can be I’ve no idea. Cybil Farley hasn’t a privy
to piss in but for whatever she got for the trinkets your brother gifted her
during their time together.”

Olivia flipped her cards over, laughing at her cousin’s
irreverent words.

“I’ll be damned,” Forrester grumbled, dragging his gaze from
her breasts to her face.

“Twenty-one,” Alice cried. “You’ve the luck of the devil
tonight.”

“What fun.” Olivia clapped her hands in glee as the dealer
pushed her winnings across the table to join the ever growing pile before her.

“Beginner’s luck only comes around once.” Alice dug around
in her reticule, pulling forth a small silver case from which she withdrew a
slim black cheroot. “Enjoy it while you can.”

And enjoy it she did, her luck following her from
vingt-et-un to whist to the roulette wheel where she doubled her winnings on
her first bet. She barely looked up from the spinning wheel when Simon and
Beatrice made their farewells, all of her attention on the little ball that
spun over the smooth surface.

As there were no windows in the gaming rooms and her luck
took on a life of its own, calling her to place one wager after another, Olivia
lost all track of time.

So it came as quite a shock when she tucked her hand into
the crook of Henry’s elbow and allowed him to lead her out of the gaming house.

“Lord above, it’s morning!”

“It’s barely dawn,” Alice countered, covering a yawn with
one gloved hand.

“Shall we go to my humble house for a Cook’s eggs and
kippers?” Henry asked, leading the ladies to his waiting carriage.

“I must get home,” Olivia replied, anxiety lodging in her
belly. “Jack has surely realized I have not returned. He’ll be furious.”

“Egads, Alice did you not tell her?”

“If her husband had wanted her to know he might have told
her himself.”

“Tell me what?” Olivia demanded.

“Who precisely do you think orchestrated this amusing and,
for some, quite lucrative night?” Henry asked. “Up you go, Ollie. Mind you
don’t bump your head.”

Olivia scrambled into the carriage and fell against the
plush velvet seat. “I know Alice planned the night. What I want to know is what
you are not telling me, what my husband should have told me himself.”

“Taking credit where none is due?” Henry cast a chastising
look at Alice.

“I only steal recognition for misdeeds,” she countered,
climbing into the carriage and joining Olivia on the padded bench with a sigh.

“But you said…you agreed…”

“I agreed that your husband likely thinks me a bad influence
upon you.”

Henry took his seat across from the ladies. “You undoubtedly
are.”

“This was your idea?” Olivia asked her brother.

“It never occurred to me that the proper Lady Bentley might
like to venture into unchartered territory. Not until I received a summons this
morning.”

“What your brother is attempting to say, in his customary
bumbling fashion, is that your husband sent notes around to all of us.” Alice
kicked off her silk slippers, lifting her feet to wiggle her toes. “Asking us
to gift you with an adventure.”

“An adventure?” Olivia repeated, confusion giving way to
dawning wonder.

“You might have told me of your desire to gamble the night
away,” Henry said with a grin. “I’d have been only too happy to take you around
with me.”

“But why? Why did he keep it secret from me? And why did he
not join us?”

“You’ll have to ask your husband,” Alice replied, leaning
back and closing her eyes. “While you are at it you might consider asking the
man why he bought you a house when you’ve an overabundance of residences.”

“You know about Raleigh’s Folly?”

“And why he purchased that smart little curricle for you,”
Henry added. “And allowed you to take the reins and nearly get yourself killed
whipping around ale wagons in Bloomsbury.”

“How do you know about that altercation?”

“For goodness’ sake, darling,” Alice murmured sleepily.
“This is London. One hears about Lady Casterbury’s bowel movements over tea and
Jasper Clive’s sexual proclivities in retiring rooms all over Town.”

“What have you heard of Clive’s proclivities?” Henry asked.

“Only that he is an imaginative lover.”

“How imaginative?”

“Silk ties and superbly wrought toys. From what I’ve heard
your former paramour welcomes such attentions, which truly makes me wonder
about your inclinations and appetites.”

“I can assure you I have never needed to tie a woman down
and pleasure her with inanimate objects.”

“Never fear, your reputation as London’s greatest gift to
women is intact.”

Olivia allowed their teasing banter to wash over her as she
sank against the seat, her mind filled with the knowledge that Jack had sent
her off to dinner and the theater all the while knowing she would end the night
at London’s most opulent gaming house. He’d not only known, he’d planned the
entire adventure.

Jack’s chamber was pitch-dark when she stepped in and
silently closed the door behind her, carefully turning the key in the lock. She
waited for her eyes to adjust before tiptoeing to the bay window that
overlooked the garden. She pulled the heavy velvet drapes apart just enough to
allow a beam of lavender light to glide across the room and land upon the bed.

Jack lay on his back, his chest bare above a tangle of
covers bunched about his hips. His long, muscular legs were kicked out, his
toes pointing straight up in the air. A dozen pillows lay scattered about the
bed and on the floor and Olivia smiled in remembrance of her first time in his
too-soft bed and all the times since that day.

He muttered something unintelligible, his head rolling on
the pillow, his dark hair falling over his forehead. Then he lay still once
more, his breathing evening out to the quiet snores she remembered from their
early nights together.