by Jen YatesNZ
The
Virgin Widow
‘Lords of the Matrix Club’ Series Book 1.
An Erotic Romance set in the Regency Era.
~~~*~~~
JEN YATESNZ
Title: The Virgin Widow
Author Name: JEN YATESNZ
Publisher: Gyneva Books
Genre: Sexy Regency Romance
Copyright Notice: Copyright© 2017 by Jen Yates
Cover Design: Visual Evolution, NZ.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, scanning to a computer disc, or by any other informational storage and retrieval system without express permission in writing from the author and publisher. This work is protected under the statutes of the copyright act.
Disclaimer
The characters and events in this book are the creation of the author, and resemblance to persons, whether living or dead, is strictly coincidental. Towns and places are used as settings and have no relation to any event or actual happening outside the author’s imagination.
Dedication:
To Lizzie H.
You are an inspiration.
So very grateful our paths met and merged.
CONTENTS
Also by Jen YatesNZ
Newsletter
Chapter 1.
Chapter 2.
Chapter 3.
Chapter 4.
Chapter 5.
Chapter 6.
Chapter 7.
Chapter 8.
Chapter 9.
Chapter 10.
Chapter 11.
Chapter 12.
Chapter 13.
Chapter 14.
Chapter 15.
Chapter 16.
Chapter 17.
Chapter 18.
Author’s Note
Sneak Peek at ‘Her Dark Lord’ Bk.4. in the series.
Acknowledgements
Also by Jen YatesNZ
Other books in ‘Lords of the Matrix Club’ series:
Prequel & Sequel to: Lords of the Matrix Club’ series – www.amazon.com/dp/B07DTHGT2W[JY1]
The Earl of Windermere Takes a Wife – http://www.amazon.com/dp/B01ENSMA2A[JY2]
The Perfect Duchess.-.
www.amazon.com/dp/B01MSBW42C
Her Dark Lord.-.
www.amazon.com/dp/B079C4NGJ6
Contemporary Romance set in New Zealand
A Deal with the Devil.-.
www.amazon.com/dp/1517592739
Fallen Angel.-.
www.amazon.com/dp/B014NB9PWA
Token Bay.-.
www.amazon.com/dp/B015Y80P9I
Anthology of Short Erotic Romance.-. www.amazon.com/dp/B01BHE3GFS
NEWSLETTER
If you want to join JEN YATESNZ’s email list to be informed when a new book is due out, send your details to: [email protected]
You will receive a free, 30,000 word, Regency Romantica novella, ‘Lord Devil’s Bond-Maiden’.
This slightly wicked novella is set on the Isle of Wight where piracy and smuggling were a way of life, and where rules could be ‘bent’ and values were a little different to those upheld by members of the best society in London.
Lord Deverill Buchanan, aka Devil/The Pirate, rues the day he’d committed a dishonorable act with one sister in the youthfully mistaken belief he was behaving honorably towards the younger. Maturity, the hungering of his heart, and her brother’s fear for Lady Gypsophila’s safety causes him to concoct an elaborate tissue of lies, the only way either of them can think to prevail upon Gypsy to even speak to the man who devastated her 16 year old heart.
After that, it’s down to the fall of the cards—or is it?
Chapter 1
‘That, my Lord, could throw a rub in the way of your plans to be back in London for Lady Baxendene’s drum.’
‘Proof I know how to pick a good horse, Fosse.’
Haden Maxwell Delacourte, 10th Earl of Baxendene, slanted his man a wide grin.
‘True. Her Ladyship can’t rightly ring a peal over your head if your horse goes lame.’
‘Aye, she would. Apparently I’ve been too aware of my own consequence since I inherited the title at seven years old! Jason was a saint in comparison.’
‘He was,’ Fosse muttered, a frown clouding his brow. ‘Not that I don’t appreciate working for you, my Lord. The Captain was a good man. I miss him.’
‘Aye, he was,’ Bax muttered, swallowing past the constriction in his throat at thought of his twin, and mounting up again. ‘He married as he ought, fathered two sons for the succession, and gave his life for his country.’
‘While you swan around town like a toff with naught on his mind but ladybirds and gambling. Beats me why you don’t tell your Lady Mother about your projects at Bancombe Park and The Chase.’
Fosse had been his brother’s batman and brought the Captain’s effects home after he was killed at Vimeiro and been glad to fill a position in the Earl’s life in a similar all-encompassing capacity. To Bax, he’d come to stand as proxy for Jason and he found himself treating him more as the brother he’d lost than a servant. Setting the pace at a gentle amble, he answered Fosse’s comment.
‘It suits me for her to think thus. The less my Lady Mother knows about my activities the better. We’ll detour to Pountney Hall. My sister will house us better than anything we could find hereabouts and Pountney’s smith will shoe Hawk and we can be on our way. Tomorrow. Too late for Mama’s circus.’
He patted the big black’s neck.
‘Well, done, Hawk old fellow. You might not be the beautiful Zeus, but you’re a champion nevertheless.’
And since he’d no intention of allowing annoyance at himself over the loss of Zeus to rankle his appreciation of the turn of events, he began quizzing Fosse on mental disorders that could haunt a man after battle. There had to be some way of reaching the man behind the vacant eyes of the otherwise physically healthy Captain Dorset at The Chase, one of the retreats he’d set up for officers incapacitated by the war.
But finding a strange carriage drawn up before Pountney Hall, Bax wondered whether he might have traded one circus for another.
‘I’ve a bad feeling about this, Fosse,’ he muttered. ‘My sister doesn’t usually entertain. She’s more often indisposed—or breeding.’
‘Might just be afternoon callers, my Lord.’
‘Not with all that luggage aboard. I think we’ll ride round to the stables. If there are visitors Pountney is probably lurking out there anyway. And I need to speak to his man about Hawk.’
Richard Carstairs, Lord Pountney, was indeed at the stables, supervising a lad grooming a large grey mare.
‘Bax! Were we expecting you?’
‘Hawk’s thrown a shoe and since we weren’t far from here I thought your facilities preferable to some village inn and smith.’
‘Glad to help, old man, but sad to think you’d not have called else. Your sister frets at how little she sees of you—considering you must ride within a mile of us whenever you head to The Dene.’
‘You know damned well why I don’t call as often as I might, Dick,’ Bax growled. ‘Celia takes up where Mama leaves off. There’s no stemming the tide of their complaints at my disinterest in taking a wife and my excessive interest in other activities which don’t meet with their approval. Since I don’t plan on making any changes, it’s best if my visits are kept strictly to necessity. Besides, your household poses a serious risk to my health. The certainty of tripping over a crawling brat and breaking my neck increases with every year! How many are there now?’
‘Eight. And Celia’s increasing again,’ Pountney smirked, puffing out his skinny chest.
<
br /> ‘Dammit, man! Why don’t you get a mistress and give my sister a rest?’
‘She’d skelp me for sure,’ Pountney declared.
Bax snorted with disgust.
‘Petticoat rule! I tell you, Dick, you need more backbone.’
Pountney grinned comfortably up at Bax, who towered over him as he did over most people, by at least a head.
‘Your sister and I are content with our life,’ he declared. ‘Shall we go in?’
‘Might as well. Though there’s a carriage out front. It would appear someone else has arrived and Celia’s probably entertaining at the moment.’
‘Holly has offered to have Selena in London for the season and she’s inveigled an old friend of hers to act as chaperone. Celia’s not up to it and Holly’s increasing again.’
Holly, the youngest of his three sisters, was his favorite. Not afflicted with the moodiness occasionally suffered by the rest of Georgiana’s black-haired off-spring, himself included, presumably she’d acquired her sunny nature and constant sangfroid from her sire.
And whoever he might have been, their mother wasn’t saying. Popular belief among the ton said Holly was a cuckoo in the Baxendene nest. No one believed big, dark and sinfully handsome Harry Delacourte, 9th Earl of Baxendene, could’ve fathered a blonde, blue-eyed fairy like Holly on Georgiana, a tall, black-haired, green-eyed Beresford.
‘Holly’s breeding again, you say? Gad, soon it won’t be safe to go there either.’
Proving his point, a small figure with black pigtails flying, raced round the corner of the building, mouth wide open and squealing as only small girl children could. Bax shuddered. Then a lad appeared, his head a riot of black Beresford curls inherited from his mother and face filled with the kind of mischievous glee Bax was certain had often graced his own youthful visage. In his hand squirmed a large brown toad.
‘Papa! Papa! Tell Dickon to stop!’ squealed the miniature bundle of skirts before hurling herself bodily into her father’s arms.
With the warmest of smiles, Pountney hoisted the lass upwards, told her to hush and sent Dickon to return the toad to pond and make sure he washed his hands. All without slowing his step towards the house. Bax was impressed.
‘Where’s Nurse?’ Pountney questioned his now-smiling off-spring. Her limpid green eyes went round with innocence and a thumb stole into her mouth. Beresford to her core. Georgiana’s blood ran strong through most of her progeny—and theirs. Black curls, green eyes and a temperament mixed in the Devil’s Crucible. Bax himself had escaped only the green eyes.
Pountney shrugged.
‘Say hello to Uncle Bax, Mary.’
The black pigtails almost whipped Pountney’s nose and the child squealed again.
‘Uncle Bax! Uncle Bax! Papa! I want to go to Uncle Bax. He’s sooo big! Uncle Bax, plee-ease can I ride on you?’
Bax sighed. He’d made the mistake years ago of allowing one of her older siblings to ride on his shoulders.
Peering about the gardens, he said, ‘I only carry very quiet little girls on my shoulders and I don’t see any of them hereabouts, only something squealing like a piglet. And Earls don’t carry piglets on their shoulders,’ he finished in a deep gruff voice.
Emitting a merry peel of laughter, the child threw herself into his arms. With an easy swing he settled her high on his shoulders and followed Pountney into the house, ducking through the doorways to the accompaniment of high-pitched giggles. She was clutching great fistfuls of his hair and squealing again as he dipped her through the last doorway. Dropping her forwards over his head, he caught her in his arms before placing her on her feet beside her mother’s chair.
‘God’s teeth, Cel! Why do you keep making squealing creatures like that? I doubt I’ll hear another thing you say to me—ever,’ he declared, bussing his sister’s pale cheek.
‘Haden! Why didn’t you let us know you were coming?’
She started to rise and Bax pressed her back in her chair.
‘I couldn’t let you know, m’dear, because I had no idea of it myself.’
At her puzzled frown, Pountney said, ‘His horse threw a shoe so he sought the comforts of the Hall rather than a strange bed at an inn.’
‘Which means you can’t possibly be back in town in time for Mama’s drum!’
‘I’ve ordered my horse extra rations as a reward for throwing a shoe!’
‘Hello, Uncle Bax. I think his arrival is perfect, Mama. He can escort us to London,’ said an attractive young lady with the trademark coal black curls and eyes more blue than green.
The perfect distraction from his sister’s exasperated frown.
‘Miss Selena?’ Bax queried, pretending astonishment. ‘It must be an age since I was here last. I distinctly remember you as hoydenish as the Piglet. And here,’ he said, winking at Mary who now leant against her mother with her thumb in her mouth, scowling at him, ‘I find you an elegant young lady about to set out in search of a husband. At least, so your Papa tells me.’
Reaching for her hand, he made her an elegant leg and pressed the lightest of kisses to her fingertips.
‘I don’t think I want a husband yet,’ the young beauty remarked, retrieving her hand with perfect aplomb, ‘but I do mean to have a wonderful time.—This is Lady Rotherby,’ she continued, indicating the woman at her side. ‘She’s to accompany me to London and help with chaperone duties.’
‘Very prettily done, Selena.’
‘Thank you, Uncle Bax, though I’m really not sure I should introduce you to Lady Rotherby. She’s respectable, you see.’
‘Meaning I’m not?’ he shot back at her, delighted with the rush of color to her youthful cheeks. ‘I might consider my praise of your manners a little premature—if your—insinuations—were not so perfectly accurate. Respectability is greatly over-rated, you know.’
‘Haden!’ Celia snapped. ‘You will not encourage my daughter in her forwardness!’
Bax allowed a small smile to soften his mouth.
‘Sorry, Cel,’ he said in the dulcet tones that usually gained him forgiveness from the fairer sex. ‘Being constantly proper is dashed boring.’
Everything was boring at the moment. Boredom was directly responsible for the strained cordiality between him and his cousin, the Duke of Wolverton, and for the fact the Duke now owned Zeus, his prized palomino stallion—
‘So—a dozen years on and nothing’s changed. Still Hell-bent Hades, as the old stable master at The Dene used to call you.’
The elegantly tall, exquisitely formed paragon of womanhood who stood with her hand out-stretched wasn’t the image associated with that unusually deep and husky voice. It was the only alluring thing about her as a teenager. For the first time Bax found himself facing a woman without a single word of empty flattery, heated seduction or any other of his armory of tactics with females, anywhere in his mind.
‘You’re not—can’t be Angular Jane!’ he blurted with no hint of blasé charm.
Her throaty laugh danced over every nerve ending in his body and before he could think to apologize, let alone speak another word, she stole his last shred of suavity by drawing his attention to the very fact he was trying to ignore.
‘No, I’m not angular any more. That’s one epithet you can no longer tease me with.’
Get your tongue unstuck, Baxendene! There’s never yet been a woman who could throw you off your stride, and certainly not Angela Jane Bracewell. Lord, she’d been a skinny, gangly tomboy, all legs and arms, wild red hair and huge golden eyes. There wasn’t a hint of correlation between the youngest daughter of the Vicar of Baxter Village and this exquisitely formed woman who was—laughing at him!
Somehow he dragged his eyes from the evidence of that lack of angularity, bent his head and knee, reached for her hand and air-kissed a mere inch above her glove with at least some evidence of his famed gallantry.
But when he straightened and she retrieved her hand, he found her hazel-gold eyes still shimmering with amusement. She’d lo
ved to tease and taunt him and Jason, for they’d been more gangly and ungainly than she as adolescents. But at five years older he’d considered himself a young man about town while she’d still been a schoolroom chit giggling in corners with his youngest sister, Holly.
Cat eyes. Another name he’d called her, for even then he’d been aware of their singular golden sparkle, and it seemed he hadn’t kept that memory to himself either.
‘Are we reverting to our adolescent habit of name-calling, Bax the Axe? I prefer to be called Jane these days.’
‘You know each other?’ Selena asked with astonishment.
Finally regaining something of his usual sangfroid around women, Bax laughed outright.
‘Apart from being a distant cousin, Angu—Angela—er—Lady Rotherby spent a lot of time at The Dene with your Aunt Holly when they were still in the school room. They were forever under a fellow’s feet.’
‘And such big feet they were,’ Lady Rotherby murmured to Selena.
Thereby demolishing his carefully honed shields of polite urbanity all over again. Thankfully the Pountney’s housekeeper wheeled in the tea trolley to distract everyone.
‘I heard as Lord Baxendene had arrived so I’ve brought an extra cup, my Lady.’
‘Thank you, Mrs. Blake. His Lordship will be staying the night if you’d see to his usual room and tell Cook there’ll be one extra for dinner.’
‘Certainly, my Lady.’
The woman hurried from the room and Bax fought to keep his focus on the deft movements of his sister’s hands while she poured the tea. Taking his cup over to the mantelpiece, he leant his tall frame against one end, Pountney at the other. Dick would talk horses wherever he was, as good a topic as any to keep his mind from wandering to the coil of rich auburn hair resting against a creamy, lightly freckled neck—and that the freckles he’d teased her about with the merciless unconcern of youth were less noticeable than they had been back then.
‘Is the grey mare Harmon was grooming the one you bought at Newmarket last month? Is she everything Galloway claimed her to be?’