Winning Lord West (18 page)

“Aren’t you well, darling?” Vernon asked in
concern.

Helena licked dry lips and struggled to form
reassuring words, but Fenella beat her to it. “Of course she’s
well. But now she’s in a delicate condition, she needs to stop
bounding around like an overexcited kangaroo.”

“Delicate—”

Helena returned to herself in time to see his
puzzlement vanish under a flood of delight. “Another baby?”

She nodded, overjoyed with his joy. “In late
August, I think.”

“My love, you make me so damned happy.”
Despite their audience, he caught her up in his arms and kissed her
until she was dizzier than ever.

THE END

Don’t miss the
first two installments in Anna Campbell’s sizzling Dashing Widows
series,
The Seduction of
Lord Stone
and
Tempting Mr.
Townsend
.

Continue reading for an excerpt from:

Book 1 in
the
Dashing Widows
series

* * *

For this
reckless widow, love is the most dangerous game of all.

Caroline, Lady
Beaumont, arrives in London seeking excitement after ten dreary
years of marriage and an even drearier year of mourning. That means
conquering society, dancing like there’s no tomorrow, and taking a
lover to provide passion without promises. Promises, in this
dashing widow’s dictionary, equal prison. So what is an adventurous
lady to do when she loses her heart to a notorious rake who, for
the first time in his life, wants forever?

Devilish Silas
Nash, Viscount Stone is in love at last—with a beautiful,
headstrong widow bent on playing the field. Worse, she’s enlisted
his help to set her up with his disreputable best friend. No
red-blooded man takes such a challenge lying down, and Silas
schemes to seduce his darling into his arms, warm, willing and
besotted. But will his passionate plots come undone against a woman
determined to act the mistress, but never the wife?

Grosvenor Square, London, February 1820

The world expected a widow to be sad.

The world expected a widow to be lonely.

The world didn’t expect a widow to be bored
to the point of throwing a brick through a window, just to shatter
the endless monotony of her prescribed year of mourning.

Outside the opulent drawing room, fashionable
Grosvenor Square presented a bleak view. Leafless trees, gray
skies, people scurrying past wrapped up beyond recognition as they
rushed to be indoors again. Even inside, the winter air kept its
edge. The bitter weather reflected the chill inside Caroline, Lady
Beaumont; the endless fear that she sacrificed her youth to
stultifying convention. She sighed heavily and flattened one palm
on the cold glass, wondering if there would always be a barrier
between her and freedom.

“You’re out of sorts today, Caro,” Fenella,
Lady Deerham, said softly from where she presided over the tea
table. While Caroline was this afternoon’s hostess, habit—and good
sense—saw Fenella dispensing refreshments. She was neat and
efficient in her movements, unlike Caroline who tended to
gesticulate when something caught her attention. Fenella would
never spill tea over the priceless Aubusson carpet.

“It’s so blasted miserable out there.”
Caroline still stared discontentedly at the deserted square. “I
don’t think I’ve seen the sun in three months.”

“Now, you know that’s an exaggeration,”
Helena, Countess of Crewe, said from the gold brocade sofa beside
the roaring fire.

How like Helena to stick to facts. On their
first meeting, this intellectual, sophisticated woman had terrified
Caroline. She’d since learned to appreciate Helena’s incisive mind
and plain speaking—most of the time.

Nor would anyone have predicted Caroline’s
friendship with Fenella. Fenella was gentle and sweet, and at
first, Caroline had dismissed her as a bit of a fool. But after a
year’s acquaintance, she recognized Fenella’s kindness as strength
not weakness, a strength that threw an unforgiving light on her own
occasional lack of generosity.

She’d met Helena Wade and Fenella Deerham at
one of the dull all-female gatherings designated suitable
entertainment for women grieving the loss of a spouse. Their
youth—all three were under thirty—had drawn them together rather
than any immediate affinity. But somehow, despite their
differences, or perhaps because of them, Caroline now counted these
two disparate ladies as her closest friends.

With another sigh, Caroline turned to face
the room. “I doubt I’d have survived my mourning without you
two.”

Helena paused in sipping her tea, her
striking dark-eyed face with its imperious Roman nose expressing
puzzlement. “That sounds discomfitingly like a farewell. Do you
plan to abandon us for more exciting company once your official
year is up?”

Fenella regarded Helena with rare reproach.
“Don’t tease her. She’s only saying what’s true for all of us.”

“Exactly, Fen.” Caroline sent the pretty
blonde in the plain gray dress a grateful smile. “Trust our
resident dragon to puncture my sentimental bubble.”

Helena, slender and elegant in her widow’s
weeds—Caroline envied her friend’s ability to create style from
crepe and bombazine—watched her thoughtfully, not noticeably
gratified by the declaration. “Nonetheless your seclusion ends next
month. No wonder you’re champing at the bit.”

Horsy terms littered Helena’s conversation.
She was by reputation a punishing rider, although bereavement had
curtailed her exercise.

“Aren’t you?” Caroline crossed to extend her
delicate Meissen cup for more tea.

“Devoting a year of my life to the memory of
a brute like Crewe is hypocritical at the very least. Not to
mention an infernal waste of time in the saddle.”

“Seclusion must chafe when you didn’t love
your husband,” Caroline said, taking a sip.

Helena’s gaze didn’t waver. “You didn’t love
yours either.”

Caroline wanted to protest, but the sad truth
was that Helena was right. Freddie had been a stranger when she’d
married him, and their years together hadn’t done much to increase
the intimacy. Marriage was a cruel yoke, uniting such an
incompatible pair. Even crueler that she’d been forced to follow
Freddie’s dictates as to where they lived and what they did.
Mourning him was the last obligation she owed her late husband.
Once the year was over, she meant to enjoy her independence and
never surrender it again.

“Helena!” Fenella said repressively as she
refilled the other cups. “We both know Caro was fond of
Beaumont.”

Helena’s laugh was grim. “The way she’s fond
of a dog, Fen?”

In the stark afternoon light, Fenella’s
beauty was ethereal. “You’re unkind.”

Helena shook her glossy dark head. “No, I’m
honest. Surely after all these months, it’s time we spoke openly to
one another.” A trace of warmth softened her cool, precise voice.
“Because you’ve both proven my salvation, too. I would have run mad
without you to remind me that other people have feelings, Fen.
Caro, I never have to pretend with you. And for some reason you
both seem to like me anyway.”

Helena generally steered clear of emotion.
This was the closest she’d ever ventured to confidences. Surprised,
Caroline studied her, seeing more than she ever had before. At
last, she glimpsed the deep reserves of feeling lurking beneath
that self-assured exterior.

“Mostly,” she said in a dry tone, knowing
Helena would take the response the way it was meant.

“So did you love Frederick Beaumont?” Helena
persisted.

Poor Freddie, saddled with a weak
constitution and an unloving helpmeet. Hatred would have been a
greater tribute than his wife’s indifference. How sad for a decent,
if tedious man to die so young. Sadder that nobody in particular
cared that he’d gone.

“No,” she said hollowly, at last voicing the
shameful truth. “Although he was a good man and he deserved better
from me than he got.”

Freddie should have married a stolid farmer’s
wife, not a restless, curious, volatile creature who dreamed of the
social whirl instead of milk yields and barley prices. By the end
of Caroline’s ten years in Lincolnshire, she’d felt like she
drowned in mud. She sucked in a breath of London air, reminding
herself that now she was free.

“Well, Crewe deserved considerably less than
he got from me,” Helena said sourly. “He wasn’t even any good in
bed. If a woman must wed a degenerate rake, the least she should
expect is physical satisfaction.”

Fenella was blushing. She always looked about
sixteen when she was embarrassed. “Well, I loved Henry. And he
loved me.” She sounded uncharacteristically defiant. “I’ll always
miss him.”

Fenella’s happy marriage always filled
Caroline with a mixture of envy and disbelief—and guilt that she
couldn’t mourn Freddie with an ounce of the same sincerity. But if
she needed an example of the dangers of a close union, she merely
needed to glimpse the sorrow in Fen’s fine blue eyes.

Helena regarded Fenella with fond impatience.
“You were lucky to have a good man, Fen. But Waterloo was five
years ago, and you’re still wearing half mourning. Isn’t it time to
start living again?”

Fenella paled at Helena’s unprecedented
candor. She rarely heard a word of criticism. Caroline had long ago
noticed that Fenella’s air of fragility made people treat her like
glass, ready to shatter at the slightest rough treatment.

“You don’t understand. It’s different for
me,” Fenella stammered.

“Because of your son?” Caroline asked,
wondering for the thousandth time how different her marriage might
have been if God had granted her children. Would she have felt so
trapped, so frustrated, so useless? Who knew?

“Brandon’s only ten. He needs me.”

“And you’re only twenty-nine,” Helena
retorted. “You need to look for love again.”

“I don’t want love,” Fenella said stiffly.
She bit her lip and turned a tragic gaze on her friends. “It hurts
too much to lose it.”

With that stark statement, confirming
Caroline’s doubts about even a loving marriage, the spate of
confidences slammed to a shuddering halt. A desolate silence
descended on the luxurious room. Only the crackling fire and a
spatter of raindrops on the windows broke the quiet.

Eventually Helena smiled, but Caroline saw
the effort it took. “I’m sorry, Fen. I’m as blue-deviled as Caro.
It must be the weather. I have no right to harangue you.”

Caroline gestured, sloshing her tea into the
saucer, and spoke with sudden urgency. “We all have the right to
offer our opinion. It’s what people do when they care.”

Annoyance banished Fenella’s distress, thank
goodness. For a few moments there, Caroline had worried that her
usually serene friend might dissolve into tears. “So you too
believe I should forget the best person I’ve ever known, a faithful
husband, a loving father, a brave soldier?”

For safety’s sake, Caroline set her cup on
the tea table before she slid into the chair beside Fenella’s. When
she took Fenella’s hand, she wasn’t surprised to find it trembling.
“You’ll never forget him. And neither you should. But Henry
wouldn’t want you to hide away from the outside world, not when
you’re young and beautiful with so much to give. The man you’ve
described would never be so mean spirited.”

Fenella’s grip tightened. “I’m not brave like
you and Helena. I’m comfortable in my rut. The truth is that I’m
afraid of facing the world again, especially without Henry by my
side.”

“It’s brave to admit your fear,” Helena said
from the sofa in an unusually subdued voice. “And you’re wrong
about my courage. I might act as if I’m ready to take on the world,
but I’ve already had one disastrous marriage. Choosing a pig like
Crewe, especially when I defied my parents to have him, puts my
judgment in serious question.”

“Oh, Helena.” Fenella’s lovely face softened
with compassion. “You’ve learned from your mistakes. And you were
so young then.”

“We were all young,” Caroline said in a low
voice. “We’re still young.”

Freddie had been young, too. But at least
he’d led the life he chose. Until illness struck him down, he’d
been blissfully happy in the muck and mire of his fields. Caroline
realized that if she died tomorrow, she’d never done a single thing
she wanted. That seemed even more of a waste than Freddie’s
lingering death. She’d devoted three long years to nursing him.
She’d emerged from those harrowing days painfully aware of life’s
brevity and how easily the years could slip away with nothing to
show for them but drudgery.