To Woo a Widow Read online

  She’d never done something so outrageous as slipping about her host’s home. As a debutante, she’d stood demurely and obediently at her mother’s side. As a wife, she’d spent more time in the country, confined to a bed, attempting to give her late husband his precious heir.

  With each step, a lightness filled her. A giddy sensation that threatened to carry her away from the misery of all these stilted affairs and her family’s oppressive attentions. Footsteps sounded from somewhere in the townhouse and her heart skipped a beat.

  Philippa made a grab for the nearest door handle, pressed it open, and slid inside. Heart hammering, she drew the door closed and leaned against the solid wood panel. She blinked, giving her eyes a moment to adjust to the darkened space; the broad, mahogany desk, the heavy, well-stocked sideboard. It may as well have been any other nobleman’s study.

  Some of the tension left her at the silence ringing in her ears and she strolled over to the crystal decanters lining the piece of furniture. Absently, Philippa picked up a bottle.

  …He does not drink and he does not wager… He’ll make you a proper husband…

  Her fingers shook with the remembrance of Gabriel’s assurances all those years ago and she quickly set the crystal down. How very erroneous he’d been. How utterly and absolutely flawed. To believe that Lord Winston, with all the right words and the proper image crafted by Society, was somehow honorable for that image. Hadn’t the Edgertons learned long ago that any nobleman could expertly present a façade to the world? Her lips twisted with bitter cynicism and she thrust aside the unwelcome memories of her childhood.

  There was no place for them. Just as there was no place for regrets. And with the dream she’d long carried, of having the love and kindness of a devoted husband, long since dead…the love of her children would forever be enough.

  For her.

  Philippa tightened her mouth. To Mother and those lecherous gentlemen eying her, they’d seen a woman alone and deduced that she desired something more.

  And since she was, for the first time in her life, being honest with herself, she admitted they were right.

  She wanted one night in Miles’ arms.

  Chapter 14

  Where in blazes had she gone?

  From over the top of his dance partner, Sybil Cunning’s head, he did a search for Philippa. Alas, she’d abandoned her position at the broad pillar. Had she been hiding there? Or was she even now waltzing in some other gentleman’s arms? He hardened his mouth and continued looking.

  “…Did you see my mother took flight in the middle of the ballroom…?”

  “Hmm?” Had some prospective suitor caught her notice or some rake with dishonorable intentions? Montfort mayhap?

  “Oh, yes. And she intends to overthrow the king and name herself monarch.”

  Miles blinked and yanked his attention down to Sybil. Plump, with full cheeks and a rounded form, she wore one of her patent smiles that always reached her eyes. In this moment, through the crystal lenses of her spectacles, mischief danced in their brown depths. He blinked several times. “Beg pardon, Sybil.”

  The young woman, in her twenty-eighth year, snorted. “In the whole of my life, I’ve never known you to woolgather.”

  No, he’d always been rather practical. There had been no reason to woolgather. And no woman to woolgather over. Until now.

  “You’re doing it again,” Sybil pointed out with a widening smile.

  He gave his head a hard shake. What spell had Philippa woven in these past days? Miles sighed. “Forgive me,” he apologized. “My mind was otherwise occupied.” As it had been since she’d stumbled down that walking path and into his life.

  “Is it Lady Winston, then?” Curiosity underscored Sybil’s inquiry.

  Miles stiffened.

  “The woman who’s at last captured your heart.”

  His mind came to a screeching halt. “I…” Had no suitable reply. For though there had been no spoken, or even unspoken, pledge between them, there had been a silent understanding among two children of friendly families.

  With another inelegant snort, Sybil slapped his arm. “Oh, come, Miles. I’ve known you since we were babes. Never before has your name filled the scandal sheets…until this week.”

  As he guided Sybil through the steps of the waltz, he carefully picked his way around, searching for a suitable reply. The actuality was, if he hadn’t met Philippa that day in the park, he would have married Sybil in two weeks’ time and they would have been happy. Politely so. There was not, nor would there ever have been passion, or this gripping mastery of his mind and heart that Philippa had managed.

  He sighed. Sybil deserved more of him than a public confession in the midst of Lord Essex’s ballroom and, yet, she deserved something of him. An explanation. “It is Lady Winston,” he conceded.

  “I knew it,” she said with another wide smile. She let out a long sigh. “Thank goodness.”

  He cocked his head. “Thank goodness?”

  “Surely you do not think me oblivious to our mothers’ scheming these years, hmm?”

  A flush climbed up his neck.

  She flashed him a wounded look. “I am disappointed, Miles. Knowing me as you once did and, yet, you think me so empty-headed that I’d be so oblivious to their frequent talks of us marrying.”

  Miles guided her in another smooth circle. “They wished to see us happy,” he said. That, however, did not excuse their mothers’ interfering in her life…or his. In making that pledge to his mother, he was just as guilty.

  “They wished to see us married,” she said bluntly. “But no one ever thought to my happiness.” She gave him a long look. “Not even you in offering to marry me…is it before your thirtieth birthday, hmm?”

  He managed a sheepish grin. “Yes, well, you are correct. Virtue can only flourish amongst equals.”

  Sybil flared her eyes. “Are you quoting Mrs. Wollstonecraft, now?”

  “I am, thanks to a wondrous, much needed influence in my life.” Philippa had changed him in ways he’d not known he needed changing.

  “Thank you,” Sybil said with a soft smile. “I am grateful for not only your offer, but also your wisdom in finally seeing what I desire matters just as much. I never wished to marry a man who did so for a sense of familial obligation. I’d rather marry a man who searched around the ballroom for a sight of me.” She dropped her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “She snuck out the back entrance.”

  He swiveled his head around and promptly missed a beat trampling his partner’s toes. “Forgive me,” he said quickly, restoring his attention. Where had she gone off to and for what end?

  As the orchestra ceased playing, Miles brought them to a halt. He passed his gaze over Sybil’s face. “Thank you,” he said quietly. “You deserved a far better husband than me, anyway.”

  She blushed. “Oh, hush. You were never one of those flirty sorts,” she said as he escorted her from the floor. “Just as you weren’t one of those scandalous sorts. For if you were, I’d expect you’d go after your lady.”

  Miles winked, earning a laugh. As her amusement faded, he gave her another look. “Thank—”

  “If you thank me again, I’m going to clout you over the head. Now go,” she said. “Go,” she repeated with a gentle insistence.

  With a bow, he turned on his heel and made his way through the guests. Slipping out the back entrance of the ballroom, he made his way down the darkened corridors. His footsteps silenced by the thick carpet, he did a quick search of the rooms along the hall. He pushed open another door and stopped. Moonlight filtered through the crack in the curtains and bathed the room in a soft glow.

  From where she stood at the sideboard, Philippa stared back. He ran his gaze over her slender frame, draped in shimmering purple satin. “Miles.” Surprise threaded her greeting.

  He stepped into the room and pulled the door closed behind him. “We meet again, my lady.”

  The last place Miles, the Marquess of Guilford, should be w
as in Lord Essex’s private study with the young widow and her midnight tresses. If they were discovered, there would be no expectations of marriage the way there would had she been an unmarried miss. There would, however, be assumptions—about her as a young widow and him as a still unmarried gentleman.

  Only, whenever Philippa was near, the world with all its staid expectations ceased to matter. He could only see her—just as he had from the moment she’d came racing down the riding trail in Hyde Park. Miles pushed away from the door and started over to her.

  *

  She should not be here. Given her meeting yesterday morning with Miles’ mother and her observation of him with the woman who would, no doubt, one day be his wife, they had no place being alone as they were now.

  For even as she wished to be with him, cared for him, desired him, she could not be one of those wanton women who would ever come between him and his eventual wife. Philippa studied the tips of her slippers. “You should not be here, Miles.”

  “Why?” His husky baritone wrapped around that question and sent heat spiraling inside.

  “Your Miss Cunning.” A woman, perfectly plump and golden blonde and all things an English lady should be. No doubt, she’d give Miles perfect, flawless babes and they’d be a laughing, joyous family, and… A spasm contorted her chest.

  She stiffened, as Miles dusted his knuckles along her cheek. “Is that the manner of man you take me for?” There was a hard, wounded edge to his question that brought her gaze snapping up to meet his. “Do you take me for a gentleman who’d seek out one woman while intending to betroth myself to another?”

  “No,” she said on a rush. “Of course not.” The oddity of it all was that, even knowing him just these few days, she could say beyond a doubt that Miles Brookfield was a man of honor. The woman fortunate to have him as her husband would have a devoted, loving man at her side. And God, how she despised that eventual lady.

  He continued stroking her cheek. “And yet, you believe I would be here if my intentions were to marry another?”

  …My intentions to marry another… Words that suggested his intentions to wed her. Philippa’s throat worked spasmodically. She would never have anything more to do with him. And that truth was not borne of his mother’s meddling, but rather a truth of who she was. In a Society where dutiful wives gave their husbands many babes, boys with which to carry on that distinguished title, she could never give him those things. Nor would she ask him to abandon those gifts that all men wanted.

  But she would know his kiss once more.

  Miles peered at her through thick, hooded lashes. “What are you thinking?”

  She trailed the tip of her tongue along her lower lip and his gaze went to that slight movement. Desire flared in the endless green depths of his eyes and a heady sense of feminine power gripped her. “I want you to kiss me,” she whispered.

  His body jerked as though he’d been struck and then with a long, agonized groan, he took her in his arms. With his mouth, he devoured hers in a meeting that was fierce and hard. He slanted his lips over hers again and again, a primitive male wishing to forever mark his mate, and a low moan slipped from her throat as her lips parted to allow the sound to escape. He took advantage of that slight movement and thrust his tongue into her mouth, where she tangled her tongue with his; sparring in a forbidden dance. With raspy breath filling the quiet of the room, Miles cupped his hands about her buttocks and dragged her close. The thick length of his desire prodded her belly, liquefying her with a white, hot heat.

  In this moment, Philippa forgot all the reasons there could never be anything more with him and, instead, took this gift of passion he offered. He drew his mouth back and she cried out softly at the loss of him, but he merely ran his lips down her neck, sucking and nipping, and finding her pulse pounding away at a maddening rhythm. With a ragged moan, she clasped her fingers reflexively in the silken tresses of his unfashionably long, ginger hair.

  “I want you, Philippa,” he breathed raggedly against her skin as he dragged his mouth on a scorching path from her neck to her décolletage. Her knees buckled and he guided her against the sideboard.

  “Miles,” she whimpered, as he freed her breasts from her gown. The cool night air slapped her heated skin in a delicious mix of hot and cold. He cupped the white mounds in his hands, pushing them together, and weighing them. Moisture pooled at her center and she reflexively arched her hips, needing this gift he held out—pleasure, desire, hunger—all those wickedly wonderful sensations she’d believed herself incapable of. Then he raised a breast to his mouth. His hot breath fanned the skin and the tip puckered under his mastery. She slid her eyes closed as he drew the bud between his lips and suckled. That skillfully seductive act pulled her into a sea of sensation where she was reduced to a bundle of thrumming nerves. Never, ever in any of the times Calvin had visited her bed and fumbled through their couplings had she burned with the need for his touch.

  She bit her lip to keep from crying out and tangled her fingers in his hair, anchoring him close, never wanting him to cease his delicious torment. “Please,” she managed to pant out.

  Miles showed no mercy. He dropped to his knees and slowly drew her skirts up, so that the air caressed her skin. “Let me love you,” he whispered, trailing kisses along her calf, up the sensitive flesh of her inner thigh. His hot breath stirred her core and she whimpered, burning in ways she’d never felt. Knowing only Miles could teach her.

  “Wh-what…?” she whispered as he put his mouth to her mound. His breath stirred the curls shielding her femininity and her entire body jerked. “Miles,” she rasped.

  He parted the curls and, with his lips, found her swollen nubbin. A low, tortured moan bubbled past her lips. She arched her hips toward him, aching for more of his wickedly wonderful ministrations. In the whole of her marriage, lovemaking had been mostly painful, always awkward, quick couplings she’d silently suffered through. With Miles, he’d awakened her to the truth that she was very much a woman; a woman capable of passion. And she wished to know all of his touch. Philippa let her legs fall open and she tangled her hands in his luxuriant hair as he thrust his tongue inside her.

  He swirled his expert tongue around, playing with the pleasure nub. Then the way he’d done with her nipples moments ago, he sucked that flesh between his teeth. Her breath coming hard and fast, Philippa thrust herself against him. Tension spiraled inside her and she gritted her teeth, her body climbing toward an unknown precipice. Then, he reached between them and his fingers found her sodden center. She flared her eyes and on a sharp cry, exploded in a wave of color and feeling. Waves of ecstasy went rippling through her with such force and she wept from the force of her climax, arching and twisting, wanting the moment to go on into forever. Miles continued suckling her nub, until he’d wrung every last bit of utter bliss from her. She slumped on the sideboard, faintly panting.

  Philippa slid her eyes closed, breathless from her exertions. As a wife, she’d been schooled by her miserable husband to believe their joining’s served only one purpose—to produce his precious heir. There had never been satisfaction. As such, given the lessons handed down by her mother before she’d married on her “dutiful obligations” in the marriage bed and the shamefulness of that act between husband and wife, she should be scandalized. She should be ashamed and mortified and all those proper responses ingrained into her from early on.

  Her breath settled into a smooth, even rhythm. And yet, in this, there was no shame. There was just a glorious sense of being alive and knowing the powerful wonder that her body was capable of. Pleasure she’d long believed herself incapable of knowing through a deficit in who she was as a woman. Miles placed a final kiss along the sensitive flesh of her inner thigh and drew back, adjusting her skirts and undergarments.

  A tear slid down her cheek. “Thank you,” she whispered. “I never knew… I never…” She sucked in another breath. “Thank you.”

  Miles caressed her cheek. “May I call on you tomorrow?”
he asked, his meaning clear.

  And just like that, reality intruded. The realness that was her life. She mustered a smile. “O-Of course.” He wished to court her. And were she any other woman, a wholly unbroken woman, she’d have reveled in his attentions. But she was not. And, as his mother had coldly reminded her, never would be. With frenzied movements, Philippa set to work righting her gown. She then gathered the strands that had sprung free of her once neat chignon and attempted to stuff them into a semblance of order. “I have to return.”

  “I know,” he whispered, touching his lips to her earlobe.

  She moaned and leaned back into his caress. He angled her around and found her mouth with his. Their tongues met in the same fiery explosion they’d shared since their first embrace at the lake. It was Miles who found the fortitude to draw back.

  Wordlessly, he turned her about once more, removed the butterfly combs from her hair, and reworked the tresses. Everything he did was done with such infinite gentleness and tenderness that the remaining parts of her heart that hadn’t already been claimed fell into his hands. “Until tomorrow,” he promised.

  With a shaky nod, Philippa rushed to the front of the room and left. Her heart thundered hard; the rapid beat filling her ears and as she fled, a panicky desperation filled her. She’d no doubt he would offer her his name and as she wanted him—all of him—she’d not force him to abandon what he required as a marquess.

  She bit her lip hard and rushed around the corridor nearly to the entrance of the ballroom and collided with a hard, thick wall. Philippa grunted and reeled back, but a pair of large, strong hands shot out and righted her.

  “Lady Philippa, how unexpected but utterly delightful meeting you here on the way to your assignation.” By the slight emphasis, they were two ships sailing in the night.