The Merry Widow Read online

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  The Merry Widow The Merry Widow: Chapter 1

  The Merry Widow: Chapter 2

  The Merry Widow: Chapter 3

  The Merry Widow: Chapter 4

  The Merry Widow: Chapter 5

  The Merry Widow: Chapter 6

  The Merry Widow: Chapter 7

  The Merry Widow: Chapter 8

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  An eRedSage Publishing Publication

  This book is a work of complete fiction. Any names, places, incidents, characters are products of the author’s imagination and creativity or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is fully coincidental.

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  The Merry Widow

  An eRed Sage Publication • All Rights Reserved • Copyright © 2009

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  Published by arrangement with the authors and copyright holders of the individual works as follows:

  The Merry Widow © 2009 By Koko Brown

  Cover © 2009 by Rae Monet, Inc.

  Printed in the U.S.A.

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  The Merry Widow

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  by Koko Brown

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  To My Reader:

  This is my first attempt at writing an historical erotic romance and hopefully I’ve allowed you to escape the doldrums of everyday life with my slice of fiction.

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  The Merry Widow: Chapter 1

  “I heard he’s hung like a horse.”

  Phillipa Jones’s violet eyes swung up from the stack of missives in front of her to settle disapprovingly on her office clerk. Despite celebrating her fourth year anniversary at the job this past summer, Lucy never ceased to amaze. Her brand of frankness was more suited to the docklands than a place of business. “Miss Pemberton, I’m sure that piece of information may be of interest to those within your own set, but—”

  “Pardon me, ma’am,” Lucy said with dignity, “but it’s not just me set. It’s the entire ton that knows it as well. Why, just last week, I read in the Evening Marlborough about him fuck—I mean having a dalliance with a certain Italian duchess at the opera.”

  Phillipa pursed her lips at the mention of the daily newspaper, which had become popular for its weekly gossip column, the “Ruffler of Victorian Feathers.” As if she didn’t have enough to worry about as a female business owner. She also had to worry about her recent decision being uncovered by the ‘all knowing and all seeing’ Lady Cherbourg.

  “O’ course, they ain’t mentioned his name for they never do, but everyone knows who the honorable Viscount of Equine is.”

  “Viscount of Equine?” Phillipa’s lips twitched in bridled amusement.

  “Yes, it’s a reference to his cock. Like I said, hung like a— ” Lucy didn’t finish, but her brassy curls bounced around her face as she nodded in excitement.

  Phillipa was not entirely unfamiliar with the male sex organ, but she couldn’t help the blush staining her cheeks. Proper ladies just didn’t speak so freely on such a subject, not even in intimate circles. Once again, she questioned her hiring of her young charge in order to provide her with a better opportunity than the one she would have faced working on her back or eking out a pittance as a washwoman.

  “Despite Lord Bellomont’s special attributes, Miss Pemberton, I will not see him,” Phillipa replied brusquely. “Furthermore, I know very well that this is his third visit, but I am not interested and will never be interested in anything he has to say. Harry and I built this shipping company from one small frigate to the five steam liners we have today all with the sweat off our backs. And I will not see it lain to waste regardless of the large purse he’s offering. Now please go back out there and tell his Lordship good day.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Lucy turned to do her bidding but came back around, a queer look etched on her face. “Mrs. Jones, I almost forgot. Your coach is ‘ere. Oscar arrived right before the Viscount came calling.”

  Phillipa looked up so suddenly her spectacles slipped down her nose. “My coach? What time is it?” she asked, reaching inside her jacket pocket.

  “It’s a quarter past three, ma’am.”

  Phillipa confirmed the time on the silver pocket watch Harry had given her thirteen years earlier, on her 25th birthday. Despite its age, it still told accurate time.

  Hell’s bells! she groaned. She’d been so busy with making sure the books would be closed by the end of the month she’d almost forgotten what was happening tonight.

  “While you tidy up your loose ends, I’ll get rid of ’is Lordship.”

  “Thank you, Lucy.” Phillipa snapped the watch closed, the click resounded loudly in the quiet room. It was even more quiet now because she no longer shared it with Harry. Yet despite his passing and her subsequent taking over of the business, her routine had not changed. She always started work promptly at eight o’clock and she never left her offices before six o’clock. Her driver arriving three hours early was due to only one thing—this was the evening of her first visit from Madame Valant’s stable of young gentlemen.

  Rising from her desk, she walked over to the coat tree in the corner and removed the black bonnet hanging from the branch. As she tied the grosgrain ribbons under her chin, her fingers shook with nervous excitement.

  Ironically, she’d read about the Madame and her notorious “stable of studs” in the Evening Malborough. The prime attraction was that the Madame, or at least her stable, made house calls, for Phillipa doubted that she would have had the nerve to visit the infamous Pall Mall and its stretch of gentleman’s clubs.

  Not really knowing what to expect, she had been surprised by the middle-aged woman who floated into her home a month ago. Petite of stature with pale blonde hair and strikingly beautiful, Madame was a ray of light in the dark room.

  “For now, all you want is a companion?” Madame Valant regarded Phillipa closely over the rim of the delicate tea service.

  Phillipa took a deep breath and replied, “Yes. Although Harry died over three years ago, I am not eager to enter into the confines of a conventional marriage. I just want the company of a man to brighten the halls of this home again, even if it’s just for a few hours,” she added quietly, unable to meet the other woman’s gaze. Instead, she looked down at her dress and straightened her tartan skirt for the hundredth time across the mahogany sofa.

  “I truly understand, ma chérie. When my benefactor died, I was surprised at how much I missed not only him, but his very maleness, and the security and protection that his mere presence provided. And perhaps one day you will feel comfortable enough with one of mes garçons that you might be willing to quench your baser needs.”

  Phillipa opened her mouth to refute that prediction, but Madame Valant leaned over and placed a creamy, heavily bejeweled hand on her knee. “Tut, tut, cherie. You are a woman in your prime. And one that I assume was well loved and was used to the pleasures between a man and woman. If yo
u were not, you would never have called me. Sooner or later, I hope you will indulge in my fine stock to satisfy all your womanly needs.”

  And tonight might be that night, Phillipa mused as her coach ambled through the crowded streets of inner London. Over the course of a few short weeks—while the Madame searched for a suitable placement—her initial disquiet had turned into one of anticipation.

  Like a connoisseur of fine wine, Madame Valant had supposedly chosen her bevy of male companions well. Not only were they rumored to be handsome, but well educated as well, many of them the bastard children of the nobility.

  So even if her visits remained innocent in nature, such as sharing the occasional evening meal, playing backgammon or even discussing the evening papers, she had the option of tasting from the Madame’s stock if she was sorely tempted. And considering her heightened eagerness for her unconventional company, sooner might be now rather than later.

  The Merry Widow: Chapter 2

  Although Reginald, Viscount Bellomont, knew what he was about to do was asinine and totally improper, he couldn’t help himself. When he was hell-bent on something, it was hard for him to give up without at least exercising all of his options.

  And many of them had already dried up, for Widow Jones had turned out be a true anomaly by directly competing with him for the lucrative Canadian timber route. As the son of a wastrel earl, forced to amass his own considerable fortune, Reggie found the current situation intolerable.

  Pushing his reservations aside, he climbed two at a time the steps to the three-story home at No 4 Pembridge Square, and lifted the lion-head doorknocker.

  With startling efficiency, the door opened, flooding the stoop with a warm glow. A stout woman dressed in the customary servant’s uniform filled the doorway. Her gray eyes looked him up and down, and he suspected that she found him wanting. That was an unusual occurrence for him, considering his combined holdings brought in over twenty-two thousand pounds annually.

  “Is Mrs. Jones home?” he asked as the woman looked past him to the street beyond.

  “Yes! And you’re late!” she huffed. “She’s been waiting for you nigh two hours now.”

  Unsure of what to do, he hesitated on the stoop. She obviously had him mixed up with another someone her employer was expecting. The woman stepped aside and motioned for him to enter. “Are you coming in, or are you going to continue twiddling your thumbs on the doorstep?”

  Even though he felt uneasy about entering the widow’s home under false pretenses, Reggie knew this would probably be the only time he would be granted an unprejudiced audience with the stalwart Mrs. Jones.

  “Your hat and your gloves, sir.”

  Reggie waited patiently by the door while she placed his effects next to an Egyptian vase on a nearby sideboard.

  “Rather fine garments for a man in your line of work,” she sniffed.

  “Excuse me?”

  But she ignored him as she walked towards the stairs. Without any by-your-leave, she climbed them ahead of him. Reminding himself one more time why he was there, Reggie caught up with her before she cleared the first landing.

  “My lady is awaiting you in her private parlor, so you will not be disturbed,” she declared while leading him down a narrow passageway. He quickly surmised that Mrs. Jones favored the slender, elegant lines of the Regency period, for the furniture they passed matched the demilune table downstairs in the front foyer. Although thirty or forty years out of date, the decor perfectly suited what he had heard of the owner’s no-nonsense style.

  “And make sure you apologize for your tardiness,” the housekeeper directed as if scolding a child. She finally stopped at a set of double doors and knocked softly.

  “Come in!” called a feminine voice on the other side.

  Reggie braced himself as the servant twisted the brass handle fixtures and gave the doors a healthy push inward.

  “Mrs. Jones, your gentleman caller is here,” the housekeeper announced with the gravity she might use if he were a doctor making a house call.

  “Go on. You can go in. She won’t bite.” The housekeeper stepped out of the way.

  Reggie was no stranger to a woman’s private chambers, having been the invited guest on many occasions, but somehow he now found himself wavering on the threshold. Then he saw Mrs. Jones sitting on a couch of sage green chintz, pretending to read a book. He knew she was only pretending because she flipped through the pages of the worn volume as if it were the most recent issue of Queen.

  As he entered the room, his boot heels clicked on the mahogany floors, drawing her attention. She turned her head in his direction and immediately laid the book aside. As he closed the distance between them, she stood to greet him, a polite smile playing on her unusually full lips.

  So the rumors were true, he thought. Phillipa Jones was not the raving beauty so in vogue today, which favored delicate blondes with milky white-skin so fragile they looked like they might break at the slightest provocation. Instead, she was uncommonly tall, possessed of a smooth olive complexion allegedly inherited from an East Indian ancestor, and her ebony mane rippled over one shoulder to her knees. With this and her voluptuous figure accented by a lavender dressing gown, she was far from unremarkable.

  When he finally came to stand next to her, she held out her hands in greeting. Reflexively, he enveloped them in his own and then brought them to his lips. As he pressed his mouth to her slightly trembling fingers, he glanced up and was instantly jarred by the unusual color of her eyes. From across the room he had guessed them to be light in color, possibly blue. But he was mistaken. They were a startling shade of violet, similar to the fields of pansies he played in as a child in Lincolnshire.

  At that moment, Reggie wondered if the proper Mrs. Jones, so unyielding in business, would be agreeable to him laying her back in a bed of such flowers and hiking up her skirts as he burrowed his head between her creamy thighs and feasted on her sex until the countryside filled with her screams.

  Unfortunately, his vision was broken when she slipped her hands from his. She retook her seat and carefully situated her skirts, but he noticed she’d left enough room for him on the couch to join her. When he did, a sudden whiff of her perfume drifted to him, a mixture of patchouli, lavender and something else he couldn’t quite name.

  Something exotic, much like its owner.

  “You must excuse me if I seem rather nervous,” she volunteered, her voice a husky contralto, its timbre almost bordering on the masculine. But not quite, he surmised as his cock twitched with every enunciated syllable.

  She continued, “I almost sent a missive to Madame Valant to cancel the entire thing. Alas, care killed the care. And now I’m happy you are here, for I suspect your company will be far from unpleasant. So, what shall I call you?” She fixed him with a pensive look.

  Reggie stiffened. He could barely believe his own ears. The virtuous widow was a patron of the infamous Madame Valant, the grand dame of Pall Mall, legendary for satisfying the secret desires of the ton or anyone else who could pay her price?

  It clarified everything! It explained the housekeeper allowing an unannounced guest into her mistress’s home and leading him upstairs to her mistress’s quarters, where the lady had welcomed him in her private salon wearing nothing but a dressing gown.

  Yes, Mrs. Phillipa Jones was very, very far from being unremarkable!

  The Merry Widow: Chapter 3

  If it wasn’t for the spark of intelligence she discerned in the depths of his brown eyes, she might have thought him dense, Phillipa mused as she patiently waited for him to offer his name. What a shame it would be if he was unintelligent. In appearance he was the Byronic hero come to life, dark, foreboding, and full of sexual energy.

  He was much younger than her thirty-eight years, probably just entering his thirties. And from the looks of him, he’d been designed for his chosen profession. Thankfully, this was a clandestine meeting. She inwardly cringed at the possible headlines for Lady Cherbourg’s next
column, were they to be seen in public. The article would call her a cradle-robber, and the headline would probably read something like “Weary, Lovelorn Widow of the Grand Surry Docks Finds Perfect Gift for Her Newest Paramour. A Beautiful New Silver Cross Pram.”

  “You may call me Reggie. All my friends and family do.”

  Reggie. The name suited him perfectly, she conceded. Despite the fact that he was essentially the god Apollo come to life, he had an odd mix of devil-may-care attitude and a youthful exuberance about him that only a man named Reggie could pull off.

  “Well, Reggie, you may call me Phillipa,” she offered in return. “Normally, such impropriety would not be warranted, especially since we just met. But as we are meeting under special circumstances, I think it appropriate.”

  “And what special circumstances are we meeting under?” he interjected.

  Phillipa frowned. He should know the reason he was here. It would become awkward if he expected much more than a friendly game of checkers. However, she had no time to ponder his motives because he suddenly leaned forward. She tensed when he lifted his hand and placed a finger against her brow. But when he proceeded to rub his finger back and forth across the delicate skin between her eyebrows, she relaxed along with the muscles untightening under his present care.

  His ministrations put her so at ease that she didn’t notice when he’d edged closer to her. His thigh brushed her hip, and for the first time since she’d lost Harry, she felt the telltale tingling in her breasts. The tiny bud between her legs jumped spasmodically and filled with a rising heat.

  As she allowed the long-buried sensations to resurface, her eyes fluttered closed and she leaned into him.

  “You really shouldn’t frown like that,” he murmured, his warm breath teasing the skin on her cheek.

  Her eyes popped open as she bristled at the mentioning of the tiny lines beginning to rear their ugly heads against her otherwise smooth brow. “Why?” Although she thought there couldn’t be any way he could put a damper on her rising ardor, he’d done just that. There was nothing more deflating than having a beautiful young man call attention to time’s ravages, no matter how minute. Suddenly feeling inadequate, she made to move away from him. But he reached out and forestalled her with a touch of his hand on her arm.