WidowsWickedWish (15 page)

Olivia couldn’t very well dispute his words. She did worry
about curious eyes.

A lady is never alone, even when she is alone.

How many times had her mother cautioned her with those
words? A hundred? A thousand? Too many to count.

Olivia let loose a cry of surprise as Jack tossed her into
the air. She came down on her back in the middle of the softest, fluffiest bed
she’d ever encountered. She sank down into the mattress, bounced about in a
jumble of pillows.

“Live a little, Lady Palmerton.” Jack stood over her with
his hands on his hips, a wide grin spreading across his beautiful dark face.

Jack returned from the bathing room across the hall
expecting to find Olivia fast asleep. Isn’t that what women did? Cried until
they fell into a deep dreamless sleep? Lord knows, Elizabeth had always ended
every crying spree with hours of blissful slumber.

Olivia was sitting up in the ridiculously plush bed he’d
found in the master suite when he’d moved into the narrow town house on Bedford
Square, her back wedged against the mountain of pillows he tossed to the floor
each night only to find arrayed upon the bed again the next day.

Wearing a robe of black silk, he cautiously approached the
bed and the woman who watched him with swollen eyes and a red nose.

“I thought you’d be asleep,” he said, extending a second
robe to her.

Olivia took the garment, pulled the sumptuous blue velvet
against her cheek and continued to watch him silently. She snuggled into the
dark fabric, rubbed her cheek against it.

“Your gown was astounding,” he murmured and watched her eyes
widen. “I thought so before I even knew it was you wearing it, when I first saw
you at the top of the stairs turning toward your brother. All those buttons
running down the back, leading my eyes to your luscious derriere. I thought you
were Hastings’ latest conquest.”

Olivia laughed softly before hiding her mouth behind the
velvet robe.

“And when you turned around,” he continued softly. “I
thought your gown was miraculous. And you the most beautiful woman I’d ever
seen.”

“Oh, Jack,” she breathed into the velvet, her eyes blinking
until one lone tear trailed down her cheek.

“Livy,” he murmured, sitting beside her on the bed and
reaching forward to wipe the tear from her soft cheek. “It was déclassé of me
to flirt with another woman at your mother’s ball. Boorish, rude and stupid. I
was simply whiling away the time while I waited for you. I knew precisely four
people in the entire ballroom, so when a friendly lady approached me and
offered me a bit of amusement, I ran with it.”

“I thought…” she began on a trembling breath before falling
silent once more.

“You thought I wanted Madeline Dumfries.” He cupped her
head, ran his thumb over her cheek.

“You were laughing with her, leaning over her, focused on
her,” she replied, finally dropping the velvet from her lips, pulling the robe
against her chest. “I thought you meant to show me that you’d decided to end
things between us.”

“Jesus, Livy, the ideas you take into your head,” he replied
around a rasping laugh.

“How would I know?” she asked. “I’ve never taken a lover. I
don’t know the etiquette for ending an affair
de l’amour
.”

“You might have received me during any one of those one
hundred and sixty-six hours each week you are not at home,” he reminded her. “I
would have told you in no uncertain terms that I had no wish to end things
between us. Christ, I’ve been an impatient, snarling beast waiting for you to
return to Town.”

“Oh,” she replied before smiling shyly up at him.

Even red-nosed and swollen-eyed the Countess of Palmerton
was a beautiful sight lounging against the pillows on his bed. And one he’d
begun to despair of ever seeing again. Yet, here she was, soft and bedraggled
after the most amazing, quickest fuck he’d ever experienced followed by a bout
of crying.

“Come, let’s get you changed,” he urged her. “You can’t be
comfortable in that gown.”

“I can’t stay,” she replied earnestly.

“Not the night, no,” he agreed. “But it’s barely gone two.
We’ve plenty of time.”

“I don’t think my poor little cunny can handle your cock
just now,” she said, a soft blush rising from her neck to settle on her cheeks.

Jack groaned around a laugh. “The things you say, Livy.”

“You taught me the words,” she reminded him with trembling
smile.

“Let me teach you this, too.”

“What?” She tilted her head to the side in a way that he was
coming to find adorable.

“A man can invite a woman, even a luscious woman, to share
his bed without making love to her,” he said, hoping it was true.

“You want to sleep with me?”

“I want to lie about in bed with you, to idle away a sunny
afternoon with you in my arms.”

Olivia leaned up from the pillows at her back, dropping the
robe to her lap.

She sat, quiet and docile, while Jack made short work of the
twenty-two tiny buttons that marched from just below her neck to her waist. She
watched him, steadily, silently, as he peeled the gown from her shoulders and
down her long, slender arms. Jack ran his hands lightly over those arms, down
and back up again, enjoying the softness of her skin, the little breathy sigh
that pushed past her lips.

With gentle hands he slowly divested her of gown, stays,
shift, drawers, stockings and boots. Those lovely black boots whose heels had
dug into his backside while he’d fucked the lady up against a wall. Christ, she
was amazing. Who would have thought it?

He laughed beneath his breath at the wonder of the woman.

“What’s funny?”

He turned from where he stood draping her garments over a
gaudy chair covered in bright red, yellow and blue plaid to find Olivia
wiggling against the pillows behind her. She’d pulled the blue robe on over her
tempting curves and lay on his bed with her legs stretched out before her, her
ankles crossed.

“Where had you come from when I found you storming down the
street?” he asked rather than answer her softly spoken question. If they began
discussing their wild, almost violent coupling, he would make a liar of
himself. Just thinking about it had his cock twitching.

“My mother’s house,” she answered as he started toward the
bed.

“Lady Hastings is at home on Thursdays?” he guessed.

“I don’t really hate my mother,” she told him, her gaze
dropping to her hands clasped over at her waist.

“I know you don’t,” he replied, rounding the bed to crawl in
next to her.

“I think she might be…I don’t know…ailing in some way.”
Olivia turned to face him and promptly fell into the mountain of pillows, her
face and shoulders disappearing. She popped back up again with a huff of
laughter. “Do you sleep with all these pillows?

In answer Jack plucked them one at a time from the bed and
tossed them over the side until only two remained. Olivia settled down onto the
coverlet, one arm tucked under a pillow. Jack rolled over to face her, his
weight on his elbow, his head resting in his hand.

“Ailing in what way?” he asked.

“She’s lost so much weight,” she answered. “And she doesn’t
seem to stay within the natural order of time.”

“The natural order of time?” he repeated.

“Today I could swear she thought I was a young unmarried
girl,” she explained, a frown marring her forehead. “She spoke to me as if I’d
yet to marry, spoke of Belmont calling upon Uncle William.”

“Odd,” he murmured. He’d only encountered her mother once
since his wedding day, on the night of her ball. They’d barely greeted one
another as he passed through the receiving line. But she’d watched him with
pinched lips and slitted eyes.

“She asked me to deliver a note to her particular friend,
Connie,” she continued.

“And did you?”

“I’ve no idea who Connie is and before I could figure it out
she…well she came to herself, to the present, and snatched the note from my
hands before starting in on me with all the various ways I’ve disappointed her.
Never mind. I don’t want to talk about my mother.”

“I’m not surprised Fanny dislikes London,” he offered up
into the silence that fell between them, determined to get through the long
list of her troubles and set about solving them for her. “She’ll get over it in
a matter of weeks and when it’s time to return to the country she’ll be crying
that she hates the country.

Olivia laughed in responses, slowly shaking her head. “I
know you are right, but until she learns to enjoy Town she’s likely to drive me
to drink.”

“You?” he asked with a grin. “Deep in your cups? That I’d
like to see.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” she replied with a sassiness he
hadn’t seen in her since their time together at Idyllwild.

“What is wrong with Charlie’s foot?” he asked, his mind
traveling through the litany of her troubles as best as he could understand
them.

“Nothing is wrong with Charlie’s foot,” she answered
quickly.

Jack only fixed his gaze upon her and waited.

“He was injured at…when he was born,” she replied, her gaze
shifting away, fastening on some point over his shoulder.

“How?”

“Charlie was breech and when the physicians turned him they
somehow broke his foot. We didn’t realize at first.” She paused and took a deep
breath, her lashes fluttering. “I didn’t realize he’d been injured until weeks
later.”

“The physicians broke his foot?” he asked in mounting alarm.

“With their pincers,” she answered with a shiver.

“Forceps?”

“The forceps came later,” she replied. “They had this long
metal thing, this instrument with tiny pincers at the end and they used it to
turn him.”

“Wait a minute.” Jack rose to sit staring down at her and
Olivia rolled onto her back, her eyes fastened on his face. “They stuck this
instrument, these pincers into your womb?”

“Palmerton knew, somehow he knew the baby was a boy,” she
replied as if those few words explained it all.

“Jesus, Olivia,” he breathed in horror.

“Charlie is fine. Truly, he is fine. He limps,” she hurried
to assure him, laying a hand on his knee where his robe had fallen open, her
fingers trailing over his flesh in what he guessed was an unconscious gesture
of comfort. “A lot of people limp.”

“Is there nothing that can be done for him?”

“He’s seen more doctors than I can count. I was hoping to
have a Scottish physician examine him.”

Jack leaned forward and pulled the wide lapels of her robe
apart to her waist, exposing her breasts and the slope of her belly.

“Jack?” she whispered.

“Shh, I just want to see you in the sunlight, Livy,” he murmured.
“So this physician…”

“Dr. Goldman is reputed to be the best at diagnosing and
treating poorly healed breaks, resetting them so that they heal properly.”
Olivia’s hand wandered under his robe to his thigh. “But he retired some years
ago and now lives as something of a recluse.”

“Perhaps if I contacted him I might convince him to see
Charlie.”

“I doubt that very much. I’ve sent him dozens of letters. I
even polished up my title and tossed it about,” she replied with a rueful
smile. “He sent back a note informing me quite succinctly that he wouldn’t make
an exception for the prince regent himself.”

“A Scotsman named Goldman,” he murmured.

“I don’t care if he is a Hebrew. I’d allow an atheist to
treat my son if it might help him.”

“Of course,” he agreed quickly, his mind spinning. He knew a
Scotsman named Jacob Goldman. They’d attended university at the same time, had
even formed a tepid friendship. Two odd-men-out bonding for the duration of
their studies, before losing contact when they’d come down from Cambridge.
Could he be some relation to this physician?

Not wanting to raise her hopes, Jack opted for distracting
her while he continued to ferret out all the troubles that had brought her to
her knees in his front parlor. He shifted closer to her, leaned over and placed
his lips against the soft skin between her breasts.

“Your brother is a grown man, Olivia,” he murmured, smiling
when she shivered.

“I know,” she whispered, one hand coming up to sift through
the hairs at his nape. “But he will always be my little brother. I don’t know
why he has decided to play the rake…”

“I’d say Hastings has gone beyond playing the rake,” he
replied, trailing his lips over the slope of one breast. “He’s rumored to keep
two mistresses.”

“Two?” Olivia’s fingers dipped down beneath the collar of
his robe, drifted across one shoulder then the other. “And still he plays
hopscotch through half the bedchambers in Mayfair?”

Jack laughed, his breath blowing over one perfect nipple.
Olivia trembled in reaction, the pink pebble brushing over his bottom lip as
light as a butterfly’s wing.

“Palmerton kept a mistress,” she whispered, her voice laced
with shame. “A string of mistresses.”

“He was a fool.”

“How can men make love to so many women?” she asked on a
stuttering breath.

“I doubt there’s much lovemaking going on in such
relationships,” he replied before sliding his tongue around her nipple, slowly,
lightly, barely touching her warm skin.

Olivia rose into his touch with a soft sigh, her hand
wrapping around his neck, gently pulling his mouth closer. “If men are not
making love to such women, whatever are they doing?”

Jack flicked his tongue over her pebbled flesh, once, twice.

“Jack?”

“Rogering,” he breathed the word around her nipple before
pulling the peak between his lips to lightly suckle.

“Rogering?” Olivia’s fingers clenched around his neck as she
jerked beneath him.

“Swiving.” He released her nipple to drift his lips down the
slope of her breast and up the slope of the other.

“Oh,” she breathed, both hands moving to the back of his
head, gently leading his lips to her nipple. “Like we did earlier?”

Jack raised his head and met her curious gaze. “That was
more than swiving, more than rogering. That, my lady, was fucking.”

“Is that was fuck means?” she asked with a laugh. “I once heard
a man driving a cart tell a man who’d stepped out in front of the horses to go
fuck himself. I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what he meant.”

Jack laughed at her ready use of the word. Twice.

“What did that man mean? How might the other man have fucked
himself?”