Candice Hern

Copyright 2011 by Candice Hern

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This is a work of fiction. With the exception of real historical figures and events that may be mentioned, all names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

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London, April 1813

"How did I occupy my time during the winter?" Lady Gosforth spoke with a twinkle in her bright blue eyes as she addressed the other ladies in the room. "Delightfully, I assure you. I took a lover."

A collective gasp was followed by stunned silence. The Season's first meeting of the trustees of the Benevolent Widows Fund came to a dead halt.

Grace Marlowe, hostess of the gathering and chair of the Fund, spilled the tea she'd been pouring and her high-boned cheeks turned a horrified shade of pink. She quickly replaced the teapot on its stand, with a decided clatter, and covered her mouth with her hand. Lady Somerfield, a striking redhead in her mid-thirties, grew round-eyed and did not bother to hide a mouth that hung open in astonishment. She gripped the silver tongs in her hand so tightly that the lump of sugar they held was crushed into bits. The Duchess of Hertford, a handsome woman of indeterminate age with bright golden hair that might, or might not, have owed its brilliance to nature, chewed on her lower lip in an obvious attempt not to smile.

Mrs. Marianne Nesbitt, the youngest of the trustees at nine-and-twenty, simply stared. The bald announcement had so surprised her, she could have been knocked over with a feather,. It was not the sort of thing one discussed calmly over tea. Or at any other time, in Marianne's experience. And it was certainly not to be expected from a group of respectable widows who ran a charitable organization.

The trustees were widows of means and traveled in the highest levels of Society, where they were all, or almost all, recognized as pattern cards of dignity and respectability. Before They got down to the business of planning their annual series of charity balls, their first meeting had begun with lively conversation as they caught up on news and gossip. They had talked of house parties and family gatherings, of holiday celebrations and hunt meets, of children and mutual friends. But not lovers.

Lady Gosforth, a pretty woman of about thirty with a halo of chestnut curls, rolled her eyes and clucked her tongue. "Oh, don't all of you look so shocked. You would think I'd committed a murder, for heaven's sake. It is not a crime to take a lover, you know."

Marianne was the first to recover her wits enough to speak. "Of course not, Penelope. You just surprised us, that's all."

"It is a private matter," Grace said in a tremulous whisper as she wiped up the spilled tea. "We should not speak of such things."

"Among friends?" Penelope frowned and the twinkle in her eyes faded into disappointment. "It is not news I want bantered about town, to be sure, but I thought at least I could share my happiness with all of you. I have been almost bursting with the news."

Marianne felt pity for her friend. She reached across the tea table and patted Penelope's hand. "Then you must tell us all about him. He must be a very special gentleman for you to be willing to give up your independence."

Penelope's brow furrowed. "My independence? What are you talking about?"

"We all agreed," Marianne said, "did we not, that the financial independence we enjoy as widows was to be treasured? And none of us — least of all you, Penelope — was anxious to relinquish her purse strings to another husband. But of course, none of that matters, I suppose, when one falls in love."

"Who said anything about a husband?" Penelope asked. "Or falling in love?"

"Oh!" Marianne said. "I just assumed ..."

"Just because I take a man to my bed does not mean I'm going to marry him. Or that I'm in love."

Grace groaned and her elegant face scrunched up into a mask of flustered unease. "Penelope, please."

Marianne could not help but smile at Grace's discomposure. As the widow of a prominent bishop, Grace Marlowe was an exemplar of chaste propriety. The mention of a man and a bed in the same sentence must have been beyond mortifying for her.

Penelope clucked her tongue again. "Don't be such a prude, Grace. Women
do
take lovers now and then."

"Other women," Grace said. "Not us."

Marianne felt the same as she studied the other women seated comfortably around the tea table in Grace's elegant drawing room. Each of them was respected and admired, with an unblemished reputation. And then her gaze fell upon the duchess, who caught her eye. Marianne's cheeks flushed and she looked away.

The duchess cleared her throat. "Some of us do," she said.

Grace uttered a little squeak of distress. "I'm sorry, Wilhelmina. I did not mean —"

"You do not consider me as one of 'us.' I understand perfectly, my dear."

"Oh, no, that is not at all what I meant.
Of course
you are one of us. I just ... forgot. Penelope's talk of ... of such things has me all flustered. Forgive me. I meant no offense."

The Duchess of Hertford was the only trustee of the Benevolent Widows Fund who was not entirely respectable. Marianne knew, as all of Society did, that Wilhelmina had begun life as plain Wilma Jepp, daughter of a blacksmith. She was plain only in name and circumstance, however, and she'd set about to change both. Her incredible beauty had taken her far, eventually to a number of protectors that had included some of the highest-ranking members of the aristocracy, including, it was rumored, the Prince of Wales.

Her last and most loyal protector, the Duke of Hertford, had genuinely loved her. When his wife died, he married Wilhelmina, much to the shock and outrage of Society. If the Duke of Devonshire could marry his longtime mistress after the duchess died, then Hertford felt free to do the same. Or so Wilhelmina had once told Marianne. Hertford was dead now, but Wilhelmina still held the title and the fortune that came with it. She was reluctantly accepted at most
ton
events, though certain doors, as well as the court, were forever barred to her.

When Grace Marlowe had devised the plan for the Benevolent Widows Fund the year before, when the battlefields of the Peninsula had produced so many widows left destitute, she had shown remarkable open-mindedness in inviting the very rich dowager duchess to become a trustee. Marianne and all the others had welcomed Wilhelmina warmly, not only for her vast fortune, but because they sincerely liked her. The wit and kindness of the duchess charmed them all, and her worldliness fascinated Marianne.

"It is quite all right, Grace," the duchess said. "No offense was taken."

"Grace is right, though," Lady Somerfield said, brushing bits of crumbled sugar onto a plate. "Taking lovers is not the sort of thing we do. At least I don't think we do." She looked up. "Do we?"

Grace shook her head vehemently. Marianne did the same. Frankly, it had never occurred to her to seek out a lover. Once she had overcome the paralyzing grief of David's death just over two years ago, she had settled into a reasonably contented widowhood. She had never once entertained the idea of another marriage, and never would. It wasn't only about the independence she and her friends enjoyed. David had been the one great love of her life. He could never be replaced, in her heart or in her life, so a second husband was out of the question. It was important to Marianne to retain his name as a symbol of all he meant to her. But a lover? She had certainly never imagined sharing her bed with another man.

"We have our reputations to consider," Grace said. "And that of the Fund."

"For heaven's sake, Grace, no one beyond the four of you need ever know of my little indiscretion. He is not someone likely to show up at one of our balls."

"Who was he?" the duchess asked.

Penelope's face softened into a wistful smile. "He was the son of one of the guests at a house party in Dumfries. A perfectly gorgeous young man with a mane of golden red hair and a voice dripping in ripe vowels tinged with a delicious burr. I was lost the moment I set eyes on him. No, I did not fall in love, Marianne. It was pure ... lust."

Grace sucked in a sharp breath. "Oh, my."

"And I haven't felt so alive in years," Penelope said, "not since the early days of my marriage to Gosforth. That young man was like a tonic to me." She gave a little laugh. "The dear boy was built like a stallion. What he could do with his hands, and his tongue, and his ... my friends, it was positively sinful. I never had such powerful climaxes in all my life."

His tongue
?
Climaxes
? Marianne felt a blush color her cheeks, and she suddenly felt as prudish as Grace. She had never heard anyone speak so frankly about the intimate details of sexual relations. It embarrassed her, but also excited her interest. Her experience with David, the man she'd loved more than life, was nothing like what Penelope seemed to imply.

"I had almost forgotten," Penelope continued, "what it was like to be loved, physically loved, by a man. But I tell you, ladies, we should never forget. Yes, we all decided we would not allow ourselves to be bullied by our families or friends to marry again. None of us wants to sacrifice our financial freedom. But does that mean we must sacrifice everything else? Must we also forsake physical pleasure for the rest of our lives?"

"But our reputations," Grace said, "are our most precious possessions and should never be sacrificed."

Penelope rolled her eyes heavenward. "That was true when we were younger, to be sure, when our virtue was a requirement of marriage. But we are widows, not virgins. The expectations are not at all the same. And there is such a thing as discretion. I'd be willing to wager no one at the Dumfries house party knew about Alistair and me. We were exceedingly careful to keep our affair private. Though I suspect some of the guests may have wondered about that extra spring in my step, that special glow about me. I certainly felt as if I was lit from within. So to speak."

"You
are
looking rather radiant, my dear," the duchess said, and then laughed aloud. The others joined her. Even Grace stifled a giggle.

It was true. Marianne had never seen Penelope in such good looks. There was a luminous quality about her — her eyes, her skin, even her hair, seemed to shine with happiness. Had a love affair really done that, made that much of a change in her?

"Thank you, Wilhelmina," Penelope said, smiling again. "I do indeed feel radiant. Young. Alive. It was such a marvelous thing, you see, that I wanted to share it with all of you, with my closest friends, and to encourage each of you to do the same."

"What?" Lady Somerfield exclaimed, laughter coloring her voice. "You want all of us to take lovers, too?"

Impossible, Marianne thought. Penelope could not be serious. Could she?

"Of course," Penelope said. "Why not? We talk of relishing our independence, our freedom." She looked at Lady Somerfield. "You most especially, Beatrice. You were the one, after all, who encouraged our little agreement to stand together against social and family pressures to marry again. None of us wanted to lose the freedom we'd gained as widows. Yet we have not allowed ourselves to be free in every respect." Feverish excitement brightened Penelope's eyes as she spoke. "We've become too steeped in propriety, too wrapped up in our mantles of respectable widowhood. Our husbands may be dead, but
we
are not. We are alive, with many long years ahead of us, God willing. Why should the rest of our lives be empty of pleasure just because we've lost our husbands? Must we yoke ourselves to new husbands in order to experience sexual fulfillment again? Or must we sacrifice sexual pleasure for the financial independence we all enjoy? No, I say. No! We can have both. We can have everything!"

No one responded to this extraordinary speech. Marianne wondered if they were all, like her, intrigued, even a little titillated, by Penelope's suggestion. Could they really enjoy that sort of freedom?