Leave a Widow Wanting More, page 1
Charlie Lane
Leave a Widow Wanting More
A Steamy Historical Romance
Copyright © 2021 by Charlie Lane
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
Charlie Lane asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
Charlie Lane has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party Internet Websites referred to in this publication and does not guarantee that any content on such Websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.
Designations used by companies to distinguish their products are often claimed as trademarks. All brand names and product names used in this book and on its cover are trade names, service marks, trademarks and registered trademarks of their respective owners. The publishers and the book are not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book. None of the companies referenced within the book have endorsed the book.
First edition
Editing by Krista Dapkey
Cover art by Josephine Blake
This book was professionally typeset on Reedsy
Find out more at reedsy.com
To Brian, my partner in every adventure.
Contents
Acknowledgement
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
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Epilogue
PREVIEW: Teach a Rogue New Tricks
About the Author
Also by Charlie Lane
Acknowledgement
Thank you, first, to all my readers who have emailed and written reviews and are coming along with me on another adventure in this new series. Most of the time I want to hide my books under rocks and scream NO ONE READ IT! But when you guys do read it, and you have fun, it makes all the uncertainty worth it.
Thank you, Rachel, as always. And thank you to Krista for making me smile while reading her edits. A huge thanks to Josephine Blake, who designed this gorgeous cover, for helping me come up with a workable concept for the entire series.
My never-ending gratitude to my boys—the reading one, the wiggly one, the eye roll one, and the one who keeps my wine supply always refreshed.
* * *
A brief note. This book was difficult to write. I wanted to write about Henry, but I did not want to glorify England’s colonization of basically the rest of the world. I did a ton of research that did not make it into the book but that informed my creation of Henry and his decisions. Henry’s view of the world may seem more modern to some and so anachronistic, but reading accounts from the time period reveal varied perspectives, including those Henry voices. For more information, you can visit my blog at charlielaneauthor.com.
Chapter 1
The letter from James ran shorter than the last one, and that one had barely been a paragraph. Sarah read it once more, trying to decipher its meaning.
Mother,
I’m fine. Boots a bit scuffed.
–James
No “love,” no “your son.” Just a dash and the name his father left him. And a bit about scuffed boots. That probably meant he wanted new ones.
“Oh, James.” She directed her sigh toward Harrow and her son, not toward whatever unmarked grave in Sicily her husband occupied after collecting a bullet in his heart. “Are you truly well?” But the paper and ink held no answer.
“Mrs. Pennington.”
Sarah folded the letter and slid it into her pocket as Mr. Hopkins waddled across the bookshop. “Yes, Mr. Hopkins?” Her smile slipped at the sight of the furrow between his brows. “Is everything all right?”
“There’s a customer at the front of the store who needs your help. Please see to her.”
“Of course, sir.”
Working in Hopkins Bookshop was not as she thought it would be. She talked more and read less than she preferred, but it kept her fed and a roof over her head. And she had money left over to send James each month. It was better than being a seamstress, certainly. She preferred to keep her eyesight, thank you very much. One month bent over stitching in the growing dark had been enough to send her back to the wanted postings.
Ghost needles pricking her fingers, Sarah pasted a smile on and picked her way between the piles of books. Patrons liked to be smiled at. But the lady at the front of the shop wasn’t smiling. In fact, her entire posture seemed to frown.
“Ah, Lady Grantly. So nice to see you once more. Are you—”
“No niceties, if you please.” Lady Grantly’s nasal voice ricocheted around the room, raising the heads of the few other patrons in the shop. “I have a complaint to lodge.”
Great Gutenberg. Sarah’s stomach dropped. What had she done this time?
“I’m sorry to hear that, my lady. How can I help?”
“You’ve done quite enough already. I demand to see Mr. Hopkins!”
Hadn’t she already seen Mr. Hopkins? Wasn’t that how she’d requested to see Sarah? Better not to voice that thought. She looked about for the bookshop owner and found him hidden behind a bookcase, the old coward.
Lady Grantly spied him, too. “Mr. Hopkins!”
The man in question ducked farther behind the bookcase. Surely, he didn’t think he could escape now. Sarah needed to know what she had done, and Lady Grantly apparently had no intention of telling her. If he didn’t come out directly, she’d pull him out by the ear.
Mr. Hopkins peeked around the corner, his head bobbing about as if disconnected from his body. “Lady Grantly. I thought you wished to speak with Mrs. Pennington.” His entire body appeared, and he approached the front of the store cautiously.
Lady Grantly waited, her chin pushed high, for the shop owner to join them. “This woman sold my daughter a—” She swallowed as if suppressing the bile rising at the thought of whatever horrid thing it was Sarah had sold her daughter.
Mr. Hopkins leaned forward. “Yes, my lady?”
“She sold my daughter …” Another swallow, this one accompanied by closed eyes.
Sarah leaned closer, too, holding her breath. What had she sold Lady Grantly’s daughter? It certainly wasn’t anything questionable. She would never.
“A novel,” Lady Grantly hissed.
Sarah smothered the laugh before it escaped. A novel? That was all? She had begun to think she’d accidentally sold a young girl the rare pornographic book that had come into the shop a few months ago.
Mr. Hopkins seemed stunned as well. He blinked twice before speaking. “A novel.” Another blink before he trained his face into an expression of solemn sincerity. “A novel.” He sighed. “My deepest apologies. We would never knowingly put such a thing into the hands of an impressionable young girl. My deepest apologies.” He bowed. As he rose, he snapped at Sarah. “Mrs. Pennington?”
It was her turn to join the drama, then? Very well. “I’m utterly aghast. I could have sworn I gave your innocent daughter Lady Hemsworth’s Lady’s Guide to Moral Rectitude.”
“That is not the title of this … this literary abomination.”
If Lady Grantly were in a novel, she’d speak in dramatic pauses and italics, that much was clear. Sarah maintained an expression of sober sorrow. “Oh? What is the title? Of the novel, I mean?”
Lady Grantly’s face paled, but she found the fortitude to pronounce in tones of doom and death, “Pamela.”
“Oh.” Sarah knew there could certainly be worse, but for some, Pamela was as bad as it could get. Hm. She truly didn’t remember selling Richardson’s novel in the last week. She sighed. That didn’t mean she hadn’t, of course. She tended to pay as little attention to the customers as possible.
Mr. Hopkins pulled at his hair. “Not Pamela!” he roared. “Anything but that!”
He was laying it on a bit thick, wasn’t he?
Lady Grantly gasped. “Oh! Is it as bad as they say?”
“You haven’t read it?” Sarah couldn’t help but ask.
Lady Grantly drew herself up to her entire five feet and no-more-than-four inches. “I most certainly have not.”
Oh blast, she’d made matters worse. But how could the woman condemn a book without reading it first? It boggled the mind, that.
Mr. Hopkins’s eyes swung between the two ladies. “Yes, yes, of course, my lady. Tell us, how can we make up our grievous mistake to you?”
The lady took the book tentatively, read the spine, and opened it to the title page. She nodded, seeing all marked appropriately. Had she expected the cover was a ruse cleverly designed to smuggle more inappropriate fiction to her daughter? Sarah didn’t huff her exasperation, but only almost.
Lady Grantly sniffed. “Thank you. I suppose you still have my patronage. But another mistake like this one and …” She paused once more, this time impressively raising a single eyebrow as well. She turned on her heel and swished from the shop.
Sarah clapped. “Bravo. Impressive acting, Mr. Hopkins. But you weren’t alone. Lady Grantly should play Lady Macbeth at the Theatre Royal.”
The bookshop owner did not look impressed or amused.
Perhaps she ought to change the subject. “That may be the only way you rid yourself of those Moral books.”
He sighed. “One down, two hundred and ninety-nine to go.”
“And you’ve only had them in stock six months.”
“Five months, twenty-three days. A complete waste of space.” He’d bought the books hoping an investment in popular etiquette guides would expand his clientele. It had not.
She nodded. “I’ll just go tidy up the travel guides, I think.”
“Wait, Mrs. Pennington. That’s your third mistake this week.”
Oh no. Sarah stopped, turned slowly. She saw the ax about to drop.
Mr. Hopkins twisted his hands together and bit his lip. “This isn’t working out.”
She hated the words as much as she loved the man who clearly took no comfort in saying them. “I’m sorry, Mr. Hopkins. I am. I’ve been distracted. My son is having a difficult time at Harrow, and when I’m upset, I read, and when I read, I get distracted.” A deplorable excuse, but it was all she had.
“Exactly the problem. Do you even remember selling Pamela to Lady Grantly’s daughter?”
She couldn’t lie. “No.”
If possible, Mr. Hopkins’s face fell further. “I’ll keep you on another month, give you time to find another position.”
The only position she’d find would be as a seamstress. Her fingers already hurt thinking of it.
She really didn’t want to beg but needs required such. “I promise not to read anymore! Please, Mr. Hopkins—”
He held up a hand. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Pennington. I’m not convinced. Besides, there are other issues as well.” He shifted from foot to foot uncomfortably. “I knew it was a risky experiment to hire a woman, and people have complained.”
“About me being a woman?” She wished she could be surprised, but being hired at a bookshop had, truthfully, been more surprising.
“Your knowledge of books is extensive—it’s why I hired you—but some of the patrons don’t trust you.”
“Trust me?” She rolled the words around, testing them out. They mystified her.
Mr. Hopkins nodded, his head like a buoy bobbing on the Thames. “I don’t understand it myself, but it appears to be true. This experiment has failed, I believe.” He dropped his gaze to his twisting hands. “I wish there was another way, truly.” He shook his head, turned around, and wound his way back to his office.
Sarah’s body numbed. It was well and truly over. Her best hope, this job, lay in broken shards around her feet, and it was all her fault.
She allowed sobs to build in her gut and tears to well behind her eyes. She allowed it for the count of sixty. No more. Ten steadying breaths fixed the mounting despair. She would still be at Hopkins for a month, plenty of time to find a new position. In the meantime, the travel guides needed sorting. Hopkins Bookshop was a chaotic mess. She’d hoped to organize it, but she’d barely put a dent in the mess in the three months she’d worked there. She wouldn’t have a chance to do more now.
A crash from the back corner of the shop jolted her out of her self-pity. Picking up her skirts, she ran. A row of books had fallen on Mr. Hopkins’s head once. Surely not again!
An unknown voice echoed her thoughts and slowed her steps. “Damned chaotic mess!”
She peered through a row of shelves. A man squatted, picking up the books that had, presumably, fallen on top of him. He dumped them on a nearby table and sorted through them. He was big. She hadn’t realized how big while he had been squatting, but now she saw if she stood near him, he would dwarf her. She wasn’t terribly tall to begin with, but next to him, she would be minuscule.
Sarah tiptoed closer, pretending a now-dead interest in the travel guides resting in an untidy pile nearby. Though she was in full view of him, he hadn’t noticed her yet, his attention riveted by the two volumes of something or other he held in his hands. She pretended to sort the travel guides but studied the man instead.
He was too tall, too large, too vital to be in a bookshop. His strong hands engulfed the volumes he cradled like sacred objects. With the creases between his brows and those fine lines at the corners of his eyes, he could be no younger than forty, yet he gave the impression of timelessness. His hair—half the gold of immortal youth, half the white of aging, mortal man—would put a demigod to shame. So would his bronzed skin and his straight white teeth, which flashed as he mouthed the words he read silently. Despite his divine looks, he lacked the elegance of divinity. He was a wild thing.
He made her feel wild, too. Her heart raced in her chest, her pulse pounded against her wrists. How had this lion come to be in a bookshop caressing Gulliver’s Travels? For that was what he held. The paper and wood of the bookshop caged him but, insufficient substances that they were, could never contain him. He should be on an African plain or an Egyptian desert.
As if sensing her perusal of his person, he looked up and straight at her. His dark gaze blank and hard, promptly melted into curiosity, an expression that suited his face.
She recognized him instantly. It wasn’t difficult. Drawings of him appeared in almost every major publication at least once a month. James had adored him growing up, followed his every exploit, cut out images of him and pasted them on the walls. Baron. Adventurer. Scholar. Who wouldn’t admire the man? He’d traveled through Egypt, studying its cultures not only during peacetime, but through war, political upheaval, and turmoil.
He narrowed his eyes, opened his mouth to speak.
She beat him to it. “Lord Eaden,” she said all in one whoosh of breath, “the famous adventurer and scholar. How splendid to meet you!”
The curiosity flashed out of his eyes, and the hard, blank expression returned. Gulliver’s Travels still in hand, he turned on his heel and marched away.
Chapter 2
Returned to London for two days and already besieged by flattering morons. Henry pulled his greatcoat more tightly around him.
Where was Hopkins? The damned man was always hiding.
“Excuse Me! Lord Eaden!” The tiny woman with jet-black hair who’d eyed him so courageously scurried after him.
Henry walked faster. “Hopkins!” he roared, looking for the bookshop owner’s head to bob out from behind a bookshelf. No luck. He swung around, and the woman bumped into him.
She startled. “Oh, I’m so sorry!” Her eyes widened.
Hm. He hadn’t seen a color that shade of blue since Muhammed had shown him that lapis lazuli bird from a young royal’s tomb. Remarkable. “You. Have you seen the shop owner?”
She smiled, her blushing cheeks blooming into roses. “Oh, yes, he’s around here somewhere. But, please, my lord—” She held out her hand. “It is quite the honor to meet you. My son has admired you since he was in a skeleton suit.”
“How old is he now?”
“Sixteen and attending Harrow.”
Bloody hell, he shouldn’t have asked. Her son had been admiring the exploits of Lord Eaden for at least ten years, likely. It was yet another reminder of his age. There were too many of those lately.
The lady in front of him wasn’t a green girl by any means, yet she seemed too young to have a son of that age. “Did you marry when you were thirteen?”
She startled again, her cheeks transforming from blushing roses to sunsets in fiery deserts.
