WidowsWickedWish (19 page)

“Alice and I used to sneak up here on summer nights with our
blankets and pillows to sleep under the stars,” Olivia whispered as she danced
across the gray stones. “This tower and balcony are the only features that
remain from the original house.”

Jack followed her to the hip-high stone balustrade that ran
the circumference of the balcony.

Olivia turned to him, a small, secretive smile coasting over
her lips. “This balcony cannot be seen from below. Not from the street and
certainly not from the house or gardens.”

Jack laughed at her audacity and her cunning.

“Our own dark alcove,” she drawled, her hands rising to tug
at his cravat.

“And here I’d intended to search the house for a dark alcove
to lure you into,” he said as he removed one glove then the other. He placed
his bare hands on her hips, skimmed lightly over her waist, and along her
sides, eliciting a soft trembling sigh.

“Did you really?” she asked breathlessly.

“You wanted dark alcoves and sunny afternoons,” he murmured
as his hands drifted along her bodice, his fingers dipping down to trail over
the swell of her breasts. “We’ve enjoyed many sunny afternoons together, but
dark alcoves are a bit trickier.”

“And riskier,” she purred as his cravat gave way to her
nimble fingers.

“There is that,” he agreed on a low groan when she twined
her arms around his shoulders and reached up to press her lips to his neck just
below his ear. Her tongue game out to taste him, to softly explore.

“Touch me,” she whispered against his neck.

Jack cupped her breasts, smiled as she arched into his
hands, her nipples hardening against his palms. Gently he squeezed the soft
globes, lifted them, pushed them together, while her lips drifted from his neck
to his ear. She drew his lobe into her warm mouth, suckled him, lightly nibbled
and Jack’s cock twitched in anticipation.

Olivia’s hands caressed his shoulders and down his chest,
pushing his coat open. With a laughing groan, Jack released her breasts to
shrug out of the confining garment before pulling her hard against his chest
and into his arms. His mouth claimed hers, his tongue driving into her heat,
circling, parrying with hers. He dragged his hands down her back to cup her
bottom, lifting her hard against his straining cock.

He rocked against her, his hands kneading her soft, round
ass, and Olivia strained onto her toes, rubbing her breasts against his chest,
a soft hum vibrating from her lips to his. Jack nibbled her full bottom lip,
sucked the soft flesh into his mouth, before releasing it to spear his tongue
deep into her warmth. He set up a tempo with his tongue plunging into her
mouth, his hands grasping her ass, and his shaft thrusting against her mound.

He was rock-hard, arousal coursing through his blood, the
only thought in his mind to bury his cock in her tight little cunny. He lifted
her, his hands firm on her ass, and turned to put her onto the edge of the
balustrade. Her legs fell open and he stepped into the space created, holding
her steady and dragging his aching shaft along the apex of her thighs.

“Jack,” she purred against his mouth before her head fell
back in invitation.

Jack wrapped one arm around her back and dragged his lips
down the arch of her throat, all the while holding her hard against his pulsing
cock, thrusting against her, working his shaft over her clit until she was
trembling and panting.

“Oh, God, please.” Olivia leaned back in his embrace, her
hands coming up to tug at the bodice of her gown, to pull it down until her
breasts were bared to the night. Jack groaned as he watched her perfect pink
nipples harden, begging for his touch.

He swooped down, sucking one pebbled peak deep into his
mouth, scraping his teeth along her flesh. Her hips bucked against him, her
legs lifting to wrap around his waist, her ankles locking at the base of his
spine. She twined her arms around his neck and leaned farther back, the motion
pushing her mound harder against his cock. She undulated against him, her hips
swiveling and twisting, rubbing against his shaft to the rhythm of his mouth on
her breast.

It occurred to Jack that his passionate Olivia was on the
brink of orgasm, that he could make her come with only his mouth on her breast
and his cock riding her clit. But he wanted, needed to feel her hot quim clench
around him.

“Release my cock,” he growled against her breast before
abandoning her nipple to take the other between his lips, to swirl his tongue
around the burgeoning bud, to nibble, to suck her flesh deep into his mouth.

Olivia fumbled between their bodies, pulling her skirts up
to bunch at her waist before attacking the buttons of his breeches, her fingers
clumsily nudging and bumping along his rigid length until he thought he might
go mad with the need to be inside her.

He felt the night air on his shaft a moment before she took
him in her hand, gripping him firmly at the base, her fingers squeezing and
milking as she trailed the fat head through her curls to the tight bud beneath.
She stopped there, twirled the tip of his cock around her clit, a fractured
moan tumbling from her lips.

Tilting her hips up, she dragged the engorged head to the
opening of her body.

With one last strong pull of his mouth, Jack released her
nipple and raced his lips over her neck, along her jaw, to her lips. He clamped
his mouth over hers as he nudged his hips forward, barely penetrating her.

“Fill me,” Olivia whispered into his mouth.

Jack tightened his arm around her back, flexed the fingers
against the silk covering her delectable ass, and thrust into her waiting heat.

“Oh, Jack, yes,” she cried, tearing her mouth from his,
arching her neck back, and wrapping her arms around his shoulders, her fingers
clawing at his back.

He buried his cock fully within her tight quim. Immediately
he felt the first tremors of her release, her moist wet flesh quivering along
the length of his shaft.

“God, your cock,” she moaned into the night as her legs
tightened around him, pulling him hard against her. “Fill me with your cock, oh
Jack.”

“Christ, Livy,” Jack growled against her neck.

He rocked against her, withdrawing an inch, two, before
delving deep once more, grinding himself between her splayed thighs with each
jabbing thrust, giving her his entire pulsing length and the hard pressure she
craved against her clit.

His orgasm took him by surprise, so quickly was it upon him.
Olivia let out a long, guttural growl, her inner walls clenching around his
shaft just as his balls tightened in exquisite agony and he spilled into her
pulsating cunny.

“So big, so hard,” she chanted, her nails scourging his back
through waistcoat and shirt as he pumped wildly into her squeezing, clasping
sheath.

Jack buried his face in the juncture of her shoulder, his
breath sawing in and out of his open mouth, her fingers rhythmically clenching
and relaxing against his back, her legs trembling around his waist. They stayed
that way, his cock still buried deep in her gently spasming cunny, one of his
hands flexing against her ass, the other spread between her shoulder blades,
holding her tight to him.

When his breathing slowed to soft panting breaths, Jack
lifted his head to find Olivia looking back at him through dazed eyes.

“Don’t let me go,” she murmured with a wispy laugh, her
fingers tightening on his back.

It was then that Jack realized that Olivia was dangling over
the wall, her pretty little derriere perched precariously on the edge.

Jack huffed out a shocked laugh, dragged her off the stone
banister and against his chest. With his arms wrapped around her back and her
legs entwined around his waist, Jack spun in a slow circle, pulling a tinkling
giggle from Olivia as the night sky flew past them. Again and again he twirled
her about, until he was dizzy with the motion, dizzy with the wonder of the
woman in his arms, dizzy with the myriad possibilities for their future.

Olivia blinked against the bright candlelight as she stepped
into the ballroom with Jack at her side. The room was buzzing with noise,
laughter and conversation rising over the string quartet that played in one
corner. She felt disoriented and lightheaded returning to her cousin’s ball
after the passionate interlude atop the tall tower.

And wonderfully sated and drowsy.

“I’d like to find a bed,” she whispered to the man who’d
plundered her cunny with his cock, nearly toppling her from the tower.

“You are insatiable,” Jack whispered back, his voice raspy.

“In which to sleep,” she replied around a huff of laughter.

“Don’t tell me I wore you out.”

“Quite, Mr. Bentley.”

“You’d best find a quiet place to rest. I’m not finished
with you for the night.”

“And you name me insatiable.”

Jack barked out a laugh that caused heads to turn. Olivia
raised her chin and glided around the dance floor, ignoring the pointed looks
sent their way. They might speculate, but they didn’t know, she reminded
herself. And even if they did, she did not care. She was London’s Daring
Darling.

She smiled at the thought.

“Keep smiling like that and everyone will suspect I’ve
swived you silly,” Jack said with a grin.

“And if they do?” she asked with an arch of her brow.

“I don’t want to ruin your reputation,” he replied promptly.

“Don’t be silly. I’m a widow. Suspicion alone won’t ruin my
reputation. They suspect every young widow of rogering her footmen,” she
answered with a wave of her hand. “You’d have to kiss me silly in front of the
queen, or a duchess at the least. Or announce to all and sundry that you’ve had
your wicked way with me.”

“Would a duke do?” he asked with a nod across the room.

Olivia followed the gesture to find the Duke of Ridgeway
napping in a high-backed chair beside the cold hearth, his pretty grandson
standing watch over him.

“His Grace isn’t one to gossip,” she answered. “But if said
duke was accompanied by a few of the tabbies, he’d have to demand satisfaction.
His honor would demand it.”

“I can’t see the Duke of Ridgeway challenging me to a duel,”
Jack replied doubtfully.

“Not that sort of satisfaction,” she replied with a giggle.

“There you are.”

Olivia spun around at the whispered words.

“Lady Piedmont,” Jack greeted with a slight nod. “Lady
Palmerton, would you care for a glass of champagne?”

“Why thank you, Mr. Bentley,” Olivia replied with
exaggerated courtesy.

“Where on earth have you been?” Alice asked, her eyes on
Jack’s retreating back. “Never mind. Father has been looking for you.”

“Uncle Robert? Whatever for?” Olivia asked in surprise. “I
saw him not an hour ago. I even let him push me around the dance floor.”

“I’ve no idea. But I’m guessing it has something to do with
your handsome friend.” She nodded to Jack who’d stopped to allow three young
ladies to pass in front of him. “Your mother was filling Father’s ears with her
usual vitriol when she arrived.”

“I’m really not in the proper frame of mind to listen to one
of your father’s halfhearted lectures,” Olivia replied.

“Best to just get it over with,” Alice said, her gaze
lifting over Olivia’s shoulder. “You’ve no choice in the matter anyway. Here he
comes.”

Olivia turned to watch her uncle plow his way through the
matrons gathered around the refreshment table, his barrel chest heaving and his
blue eyes bulging.

“She’s worked him into quite a lather,” Alice drawled. “I
wouldn’t want to be in your shoes.”

“Uncle Robert,” Olivia greeted the man who’d been a second
father to her all her life.

“By God, there are too many blasted people here,” he barked
at his daughter. “I’ll not be hosting this ball next year if you don’t limit
the number of invitations.”

“The invitations are sold, Father, and for a good cause, one
that was dear to Mother’s heart,” Alice replied.

“Bah, you only bring up your mother to put me in my place,”
the Earl of Somerton groused.

“Is it working?” his daughter asked with a cheeky grin.

“None of that, girl. Go bedevil your husband and allow me a
moment with my niece.”

“Yes, Father,” Alice replied before spinning about and
wandering away in the opposite direction from where her husband stood with his
cronies.

“You wanted to see me?” Olivia asked, her eyes finding Jack
who’d been waylaid by an older man with steel-gray hair and a pretty lady
dressed in yards of flowing pink silk that should have clashed with her
pale-red hair but didn’t.

“Quit making eyes at that young pup and come with me,” Uncle
Robert demanded in a whisper loud enough to turn a few heads.

Olivia dutifully followed her uncle from the ballroom,
immeasurably grateful to leave the swirling crowd and noise behind.

“Close the door, that’s a good girl,” the Earl of Somerton
muttered when they’d entered his study, a room Olivia had always liked.

“This is my favorite room in the house,” she said as she
watched him march to the row of decanters on the sideboard.

“It’s the only room in the house I enjoy,” he tossed over
his shoulder. “Your aunt turned the rest of them into women’s rooms, all
spindly furniture and pastel walls. Wine?”

“Thank you.” Olivia lowered herself into a soft leather
chair and kicked off her silver slippers.

“You’re to look properly chastised when you leave this
room,” Uncle Robert said, handing her a glass of deep red wine.

“What precisely will I have been chastised for?” The wine
was good, rich and bold, and slid over her tongue and down her throat, warming
her right down to her stockinged toes.

“The miner’s son,” he answered as he dropped his bulk into
the chair behind his desk.

“Jack Bentley is more than a miner’s son,” Olivia responded.
“He is actually a miner himself. He and his father own the Sedgefield Mining
Company together.”

Robert waved one blunt-fingered hand in the air. “Your
mother’s taken it into her head that you’re to marry Ridgeway’s grandson.
What’s his name?”

“Belmont,” Olivia supplied. “Have you not met him?”

“How would I know? There are too many bloody people in my
house.”

“You can’t miss him,” Olivia replied. “He’s the too-pretty
boy who follows the duke around like a shadow.”

“Boy?” Uncle Robert barked.

“He’s yet to reach his majority, or his full height for that
matter,” she assured him.

The Earl groaned before downing his whiskey in one loud
gulp.

“I have no intention of marrying Belmont,” Olivia said.

“Of course not,” her uncle agreed. “But you can’t marry the
miner.”

“Actually, I could,” Olivia replied. “I am a grown woman,
independent and in control of both my finances and my future.”

“The Earl of Palmerton cannot have a commoner for his
stepfather,” Uncle Robert argued with what she knew was meant to be a
reasonable, even apologetic tone to his words.

“I don’t see why not,” Olivia answered. “The Countess of
Singleton, my cousin, married Mr. Simms last year and that worthy gentleman is
now stepfather to the young earl.”

“The Singleton earldom was only trumped up two generations
back as a reward for services rendered to the crown,” he pointed out.

“We could argue the point until dawn, Uncle, but truly there
is no need. I have no intention of marrying Mr. Bentley.” Olivia ignored the
pang she felt in the vicinity of her heart as she uttered the words.

“No?”

“I don’t intend to marry any man.”

“Bah, you’re young and only just out of mourning,” her Uncle
replied. “In time you’ll change your mind.”

“No, I will not,” Olivia said with as much patience as she
could muster. “Mother will simply have to accept the fact that her only
daughter intends to remain a widow forever.”

“I won’t be the one to tell Lydia that,” Robert grumbled.

“There is no need for you to tell Mother. I’ve told her. Repeatedly.
I imagine I will go on telling her until I am old and gray and she finally
gives up.”

“You know what she’s like when she gets a bee in her
bonnet.”

“I do.”

“You’d best tread carefully,” he cautioned. “Don’t allow
yourself to be locked in a room with the boy.”

Olivia laughed at the notion. “I doubt very much Belmont
would know what to do if he found himself alone with me.”

“Still,” he mumbled before falling silent, his gaze drifting
over her face, and a fond smile pulling at his lips.

“Simon tells me you’ve attempted to have Dr. Nelson examine
Mother,” she said into the silence.

“She won’t see him,” Uncle Robert replied.

“She’s been acting peculiar,” Olivia said.

“Your mother has been acting peculiar for most of her life.”

“Do you know a lady by the name of Connie?”

“Connie? Where on earth did you hear that name?” he asked in
surprise.

“Mother was talking about her, about some scandal with a
handsome seducer of innocent ladies,” Olivia explained. “Who is the lady?”

“Your mother had a friend by that name years ago. I don’t
remember her full name,” he replied. “She was a pretty little thing who’d only
just come out when Lydia took it into her head to befriend her. She used to do
that sort of thing. Choose some shy young miss to usher through the pitfalls of
a first Season.”

“Mother did?” she asked in some surprise.

“I always wondered if she didn’t feel a bit of pity for the
quiet ones, the ones who were pretty enough but unused to the ways of Town.”

“And this Connie was one of them?”

“The last one that I can remember. It must have been twenty
years ago now. They had some sort of falling out and Lydia stopped taking the
angels under her wing.”

“Angels?”

Robert came to his feet with a grunt, his hands resting on
his desk. “That’s what we called them, your father, your Uncle William and me.
Oh, and Mountjoy. We called them Lydia’s angels. We used to place wagers at the
beginning of the Season as to which of the ladies would take her fancy. It
seems to me Mountjoy won the pot that year.”

“What happened to this Connie?” Olivia asked.

“I’ve no idea. She likely went back to whatever country
estate her father owned and married a baronet or some such.”

Knowing the conversation had come to a close, Olivia rose to
her feet. “Might you top up my glass before I brave the hordes once more?”

“Right you are,” her uncle said before proceeding to fill
her glass nearly to the rim and replenishing his own. He turned back to her
with a smile. “You were a good girl, Olivia, and an exemplary wife, considering
what you had to work with. No one will begrudge you if you’d like to have a bit
of fun now. Mind you just don’t get caught up in any real mischief.”

“Thank you, Uncle Robert,” Olivia whispered as she rose up
to kiss his cheek.

“Off with you, girl.” He shooed her from his study, his gaze
lingering fondly on her as she pulled the door closed behind her.

“Well?” Alice sat in a spindly chair in the hall, her skirts
hiked up to her knees. She massaged one foot while she stretched out the other,
wiggling her stocking-clad toes. Elegantly dressed ladies and gentlemen milled
about the space.

“You were the right of it,” Olivia answered.

“I had the right of it,” her cousin corrected with a smile. “And?”

“I’ve assured your father I have no intention of marrying
Jack Bentley.”

“And Belmont?”

“Nor him.”

“Good for you, Olivia.” Alice pushed her feet back into her
slippers and motioned Olivia ahead of her down the hall toward the ballroom.

“Good God!”

Olivia spun around at her cousin’s cry, her wine lapping
over the rim of her glass.

“You silly girl,” Alice said around a husky laugh as she
stepped up to her. “Give me that wine.”

“You’ve only to ask if you want a sip,” Olivia replied as
she handed over the glass.

“Now turn around.”

“Alice,” Olivia protested with an arch of her brow.

“Turn around I say,” Alice ordered, an impish glint in her
eyes.

With a huff that was in no way ladylike, Olivia spun about,
her silver skirts belling out around her.

A cool blast of liquid hit her lower back, bottom and
thighs.

Olivia spun back around with an outraged cry to find her
cousin holding the empty glass and grinning like a mad woman.

“Terribly sorry, darling,” Alice cooed.

“My goodness!”

Olivia looked over her shoulder to find an aging matron
standing with one gloved hand to her mouth, behind her a dozen people stared at
her, more precisely at the red wine spreading over the delicate silk of her
gown and dribbling down her thighs.

“I suppose I shouldn’t have accepted that last glass,” Alice
replied with an airy wave of the hand still holding the offending glass. Little
droplets of wine flew about, spotting both Olivia’s bosom and her own. “I can
be so clumsy when in my cups.”

“Alice,” Olivia grated out between clenched teeth.

“Lucky we are the same size, relatively speaking,” Alice
replied cheerfully, her laughing eyes sweeping over Olivia’s bosom. “I’m sure I
can find you something to wear that covers your charms. Come along, my lady. I
shall play your lady’s maid.”

“Alice, why did you…” Olivia began as her cousin tugged her
down the hall toward the servants’ stairs at the back of the house.

“Shh,” Alice hissed. “A lady is never alone…”

“Even when she is alone.” Olivia finished for her.

The ladies wound their way up the narrow, dimly lit
stairwell and along the wide hall above in silence.

“You, I’m sorry, I cannot remember your name,” Alice called
out to a pretty maid in a simple black dress and starched white apron.

“Sarah, my lady,” the girl answered with a quick bob.