WidowsWickedWish (12 page)

In the days following what she liked to think of as her
second debut into London Society, Olivia set about creating a new life for
herself and her children. She hired Miss Amherst to act as Fanny’s governess,
toured a seemingly endless list of possible homes, and valiantly attempted to
put thoughts of dark alcoves and lazy, passion-filled afternoons from her mind.

Jack called at Palmerton House the day after her mother’s
ball. Olivia had taken the children to play at the park, returning to find a
lovely posy of wildflowers tucked in amid the roses and hothouse bouquets
lining the front hall and overflowing into the parlor.

She knew who they were from without having to look at the
card that sat propped against the cut-crystal vase. So she didn’t look, didn’t
stop to sniff their delicate fragrance, to caress their velvety petals.

She ignored them as best she could as she walked past them
on her way to change for dinner with Beatrice and Simon.

The following day she was immersed in her first violin
lesson, Mr. Cartwright patiently instructing her on the proper handling of the
instrument and gamely smiling as she drew the bow over the strings with
enthusiasm, sending frightfully discordant noise bouncing about the room.

“You’ve a caller, my lady,” Johnston informed her in his
customarily stoic manner.

“Thank goodness,” Mr. Cartwright murmured.

“I’m not at home,” Olivia replied without a moment’s
hesitation. She could not think of a single person she cared to receive at
half-past ten on a Monday morning.

“Very good, my lady.” The butler bowed and made to back out
of the room.

“Who is it?” Olivia asked in spite of herself.

“A Mr. Bentley, my lady.”

“I am most definitely not at home.”

“Perhaps you should receive him,” Mr. Cartwright suggested.

“Come now, good sir, surely you’ve encountered far worse
pupils than myself,” Olivia replied with a wry grin.

On the third day Olivia made certain to be away from home
from just past nine in the morning, an unfashionable hour to be out and about,
until it was time to change for a night at the theater with Henry.

Again she ignored the flowers, an outlandish display of tall
lilies and cattails that towered almost to the ceiling, and the cream card that
sat before them. She couldn’t think why he felt the need to call upon her
unless he intended to offer some explanation for his behavior at her mother’s
ball, an explanation that was neither necessary nor desired. Affairs ended
every day. Olivia could not image discussing the reason for the end of theirs
over tea and cakes.

Wednesday she was on pins and needles as she received one
caller after another into her formal parlor, groups of matrons in search of
gossip, shy debutants and their mothers in search of lofty connections, and a
surprising number of perfectly nice, perfectly respectable gentlemen in search
of a perfectly proper wife.

Jack Bentley was not among them and when the last of her
callers departed precisely as the tall clock in the foyer chimed twice Olivia
allowed herself to relax.

Clearly the man had given up in his attempts to see her. If
there was a dollop of sadness mingled with the relief she felt, Olivia chose to
ignore it just as she’d ignored the tears that had trailed over her cheeks in
the deepest hours of the night and the pangs of loneliness that greeted her
with the coming of dawn.

Jack wanted a wife.

Olivia could not, would not be that wife.

It was right and fitting that he’d come to accept her
refusal during the months they’d been apart. If she’d hoped to enjoy his
company throughout the Season, hoped to revel in the desire he evoked with his
fierce kisses, warm hands and amazing cock, he’d shown her quite effectively
she’d been pinning her hopes on nothing more substantial than mist.

And if she was left feeling restless and edgy in her good
moments and downright surly in her bad, she would grit her teeth and bear it.
She’d born far worse.

Including weekly calls upon her mother at her Portman Square
town house.

Olivia arrived at half-past eleven on Thursday, both
anticipating and dreading the time it would afford her alone with her mother.

Just as she alighted from her carriage and started toward
the stately gray stone mansion the front door flew open and a whirlwind of
lavender silk careened into her.

Olivia stumbled back, nearly losing her balance on the
cobblestone walkway.

Long, slender fingers ensconced in delicate white lace
gloves wrapped around her upper arms and Olivia looked up into eyes of the most
astonishing shade of periwinkle blue surrounded by impossibly long golden
lashes.

“Pardon me,” Olivia offered as her gaze wandered over the
face that contained those amazing eyes.

A dainty chin, coupled with flawless, pale skin and
delicately arched brows might have given her a certain pixie-like beauty, had
she not possessed a long thin blade of a nose with a bump just below the
bridge, sharp cheekbones over gaunt hollows, and a mouth that was simply too
wide.

Long tendrils of hair more orange than red drifted from
below an outrageous bonnet of white straw adorned with all manner of flowers,
feathers, and bows. Her gown was nearly as extraordinary as the bonnet. Yards
and yards of lavender- and white-striped silk draped over the woman’s tall,
willowy form, hugging her nearly flat chest and miniscule waist before belling
out around her hips and legs in froths of fabric and looping ribbons and lace.

It occurred to Olivia as she met the gaze of the woman
before her that the lady was conducting her own perusal of Olivia’s amber silk
day dress, her cropped tresses beneath a small black pillbox hat, and her gray
eyes, and committing the entirety of it to memory.

“I beg your pardon, my lady,” the woman said, her voice a
shockingly husky, soft drawl laced with a faint Scots burr.

Before Olivia could do more than gawk at that decadently
sensual sound emanating from such an odd-looking creature, the woman spun about
and strode down the street. Her long legs glided across the cobblestones, her
hips swaying in a way no lady would allow on the London streets in broad
daylight.

Olivia turned to find her mother’s butler silently holding
the door open for her.

“Dobbins, who was that woman?” she asked as she brushed by
the dour-faced man.

“No one of consequence,” he replied, his eyes trained on the
ceiling.

“What was she doing here?” she persisted.

“Calling upon her ladyship,” he answered after a pause.

“And Mother received her?” she asked in surprise. She
couldn’t imagine how her mother might know the tall, outlandishly dressed
woman.

“Who her ladyship receives is none of my concern.”

And none of hers either, apparently.

“Where is Mother?”

“She has not come down yet.”

Without another word to the butler who had served at
Hastings House for decades before he’d been shuffled off to her mother’s
residence, Olivia drew in a deep breath for courage and glided past him, taking
the stairs at a clip so as not to give herself time to rethink her decision.

She found her mother seated at a small desk in her sitting
room, her head bent over a letter she was composing, her quill flying across
the parchment.

“Mother?” she called out softly as she pushed the door
closed.

Her mother spun about on the delicate chair, her quill
dripping ink onto the polished wood floor. “Oh, good Lord, Olivia.”

“I’m sorry to startle you,” she replied carefully.

Her mother was dressed to receive callers in a pale-blue
muslin gown bound tight at her waist and trimmed in cream lace. Her maid had
yet to put up her hair. The brown and gray tresses floated free about her face
and shoulders, giving her the look of a much younger woman.

“You did startle me,” her mother agreed. “But I’m ever so
glad you’re here, daughter. You can take a note around to Connie for me just as
soon as I’ve finished it.”

“Connie?” Olivia repeated. “I’m afraid I don’t know who you
mean.”

“Of course you do,” her mother replied as she turned back to
her task. “Gracious me, Connie and I have been particular friends for years.”

At a loss, Olivia stood silently watching her mother
scribble line after line across the parchment.

“Connie was the belle of the ball when she came out,” her
mother continued. “Oh yes, the gentlemen flocked about her like bees to…well
to…” Her mother’s head whipped around and Olivia was surprised by the wide
smile that graced her mother’s thin lips.

“Honey?” Olivia suggested with an answering smile.

“She was honey, that she was,” her mother agreed with a
rather girlish giggle.

Olivia was struck dumb by the sound. She couldn’t remember
the last time she’d heard her mother laugh. And she’d certainly never heard her
giggle.

“Until she met that man.” Her mother’s wistful words floated
across the space that separated them.

“Which man was that?” Olivia asked.

“Not the Baron,” her mother replied with a wave of her hand.

Olivia jumped back, lifting her amber skirts out of the way
of the arch of tiny black drops that sailed across the room to splatter on the
pink and blue Turkish carpet.

“The one before, that charming rake, that seducer of
innocent ladies.”

“Connie was seduced by this man?” Olivia found herself
caught up in the tale, spellbound by the woman who looked like her mother but
spoke like a much younger, much happier lady.

“She could not resist him,” her mother agreed, her eyes
softening. “He broke her heart, of course he did. I warned her he would. But
did Connie listen? No. She was in love. Well, she paid the price for loving
him. And I paid the price for keeping her secret. We both did.”

“What price?” Olivia moved farther into the room, tossing
her reticule upon the bed and perching on a small settee before the open
window.

“And now the rooster has come home to…” her mother turned
back to her letter, her quill scraping across the parchment.

“Roost,” Olivia offered.

“Only she’s not a rooster at all,” her mother continued.
“Imagine that. I never looked, you see. Why should I? Connie said…but she’s a
hen, a tall red hen. Funny how she looks just like him and yet…he was beautiful
and she…she just looks odd.”

“Are you referring to the woman who just left your house?”
Olivia asked, though really there was no need. Surely the lady was the only
odd-looking, tall red hen in Portman Square, perhaps in all of London. “Who is
she, Mother?”

“The girl who was a boy.”

“The what?” Olivia asked in confusion.

But her mother said no more, only finished her letter and
signed it with a flourish, before spinning around to face Olivia. “You take
this note to Connie, Olivia. And mind you don’t read it.”

Her mother folded the parchment and folded it again before
holding it out to her daughter.

“But mother,” Olivia began, her fingers brushing over her
mother’s as she took the letter.

“Now, what are you doing here, Olivia, shouldn’t you be at
your studies?”

“My studies?” Olivia asked in confusion. “Oh, you’ve heard
of my violin lessons?”

“Violin?” her mother repeated. “No daughter of mine will
learn the violin. Good Lord, what would people think were you to take up such a
masculine instrument? No, you stick to the harp and pianoforte. You’ll land a
worthy husband that way.”

“But, Mother, I’ve told you I don’t intend to marry…”

“Not marry, what foolishness!” her mother cried as she rose
to her feet. “Of course you’ll marry. Why the Marquis of Belmont called upon
your Uncle William just yesterday…”

“The Marquis of…but Mother…”

“He’d make you a duchess one day, and imagine getting such
an offer before your first Season has closed.”

Olivia rose slowly to her feet, her heart pounding.

“Mother, I’ve already married…” she began carefully.

“Already married! Don’t be ridiculous, child!” her mother
cried.

“Palmerton died last year…”

“Who died? What are you going on about?”

Olivia watched as her mother seemed to wilt before her,
seemed to close in around herself, her arms wrapping around her waist and her
head falling forward.

“Mother, perhaps you should sit down,” she suggested as she
laid a hand upon her mother’s shoulder.

With a start, Lady Hastings’ head bobbed up and her gray
eyes blinked owlishly. She stepped back and Olivia’s hand fell to her side.

“Why are you here?”

“It’s Thursday,” Olivia replied lamely.

“Why are you above stairs? What is that you have in your
hand?” her mother inquired, her tone icy. “How dare you read my personal
correspondence?”

“I didn’t…you asked me to deliver it to Connie,” Olivia
began.

Before she could blink, her mother pried the letter from her
nerveless fingers and clutched it to her chest.

“Connie! How do you know about Connie?” Lady Hastings
twirled away, her bony shoulders hunched. “Go below stairs this instant.”

“Mother, please.”

“Wait for me in the parlor,” her mother hissed without
turning around. “And while you are waiting try to remember that I raised you to
be a lady, not a snooping busybody without a qualm about invading one’s
personal boudoir.”

“Mother, you’re being unfair, you invited me…” Olivia’s
voice faded. She hadn’t been invited, not truly, and yet her mother had been
happy to see her. Hadn’t she?

“I did no such thing!” Lady Hastings spun about.

Olivia took a step back at the malicious look in her
mother’s eyes.

“I would never invite you into my chamber,” her mother
hissed. “It is all I can do to invite you into my home. And make no mistake, I
only do so to forestall gossip.”