Kitabı oku: «The Regency Redgraves: What an Earl Wants / What a Lady Needs / What a Gentleman Desires / What a Hero Dares», sayfa 2

Jessica nodded. “That’s only fitting. He’s in mourning.”

“He is? Perhaps someone ought to explain that to him. All I hear, secondhand through said keeper, is how fatigued he is with twiddling his thumbs while the entire world goes merrily along just outside the door, without him.”

She smiled at that, and Gideon knew himself to be grateful he was already sitting down, for she had a wide, unaffected smile that could knock a man straight off his feet.

“A handful, is he? Good. As our father’s son, it could have gone either way. I’m gratified to learn his spirit wasn’t crushed.”

Now this was interesting. “I barely knew the man, as he was a contemporary of my father’s. He was a demanding parent?”

“We’ll speak with the gloves off, as I see no sense in dissembling. After all, I’ve heard the rumors about your own father, and the two men were friends. James Linden, fairly ancient, more than a little mean when in his cups, and a lazy waste of talent, was the lesser of two evils, and here I am. Disowned, widowed, but selfsufficient. Perfectly capable of taking on the guardianship of my brother until he reaches his majority. The last place I want him is anywhere our father wanted him, under the control of anyone he thought fitting.” She directed a disconcerting glare toward his cravat. “Do you understand now, Gideon?”

He touched his hand to the golden rose in his cravat before he realized what he’d done and quickly got to his feet. “You had my pity, Jessica, until the end. I’m many things, but I am not my father.”

“No, I suppose you aren’t. You haven’t yet tried to seduce me, and after all my clumsy efforts to the contrary. Geld you, did he? No, I don’t think so. You want me, that’s obvious enough.”

At last, Gideon understood the whole of it. He waved his hand in front of him, indicating her pose, the banyan, even her nakedness beneath the silk, the glass of wine that had been raised to her lips by a trembling hand; a drink for courage. “You’ve got a weapon somewhere about you, don’t you?”

“Not the complete fool, are you? Very well. Only a very small pistol, holding but a single shot, but deadly, if it became necessary. I can use it to much more advantage than James ever could, even though he taught me. And before you ask, yes, I was willing to trade my body for your agreement to relinquish your guardianship of Adam, within limits, of course.” She stood up, chin high, sherry-brown eyes locked with his, her hands going to the silk tie at her waist. “I still am.”

He decided it would be safer to be insulted. “And I repeat, madam, I am not my father.”

She tilted her head to one side. “You aren’t? Your stickpin says differently. That particular rose, by any other name, Gideon, sends out the same stink.”

Gideon’s jaw set tightly. What in bloody hell was going on here? “You know about that?”

“I know about the Society, yes,” she repeated, the light of battle leaving her eyes, to be replaced by a sadness that was nearly palpable. “Among my late husband’s many failings was a tendency to run his mouth when he was in his cups. The mark of membership in a most exclusive group of rascals. A flower, in point of fact a golden rose, to commemorate a deflowering, plucking the bud as it were, bringing it into full bloom. But you wear it, you know what it is, what you did to earn it.”

“The pin was my father’s. The rest was rumor or, more probably, bravado,” Gideon heard himself saying, even as he hoped he was speaking truth. “It was nothing like that. Only drunken fools and their games, thinking themselves some damned hellfire club. It was all cloaks and oaths of secrecy and more drunkenness and willing prostitutes than anything else. Simply grandiose talk, and all a long time ago.”

Her smile was sad, almost as if she pitied him. “So you say. Thanks to James, I never learned for certain. Your father had been long dead by then, your family estate no longer their gathering place. But whatever the Society was, it didn’t end with him. You truly profess to not know that? It went on five years ago, it may still go on. If I recall correctly, my father was not too many years above sixty when he died. James was not much younger when we married, and still…capable.”

One more mention of James Linden, and Gideon believed he might go dig up the man, just so he could bash in his skull with the shovel.

“No. You’re wrong. Everything ended with my father’s death. This is something else.”

“This, Gideon? Are we speaking at cross purposes? What is this?”

Gideon was seldom the loser in any verbal exchange, but the more he said, the more control of their conversation he seemed to be ceding to her. He didn’t much care for the feeling.

“I’ll have my town carriage sent for you tomorrow at eleven, to bring you to Portman Square to see your brother. Kindly outfit yourself accordingly.”

At last he seemed to shock her, put her off her stride. But not for long. “Would that include wearing a dark veil to conceal my face, or will the carriage be driven directly around to the mews, and the servants’ entrance?”

Not before time, he realized, Gideon decided he’d had enough.

He closed the distance between them in two short steps, taking hold of her right wrist before she could successfully reach into the slightly drooping pocket that had given away the location of her pistol.

With his free hand he delved into the pocket and withdrew a small silver pistol, indeed a favorite of cardsharps. He forcefully turned her hand over and pressed the thing in her palm.

“Go on, you idiot woman. I’m about to ravish you. Shoot me.”

She made no move to close her fingers around the weapon. “You don’t mean that.”

“Don’t I? Are you sure? I can have anything I want from you, Jessica Linden, any time I want it. Most men could. Get rid of that toy before somebody turns it on you. I don’t know what all this James Linden of yours taught you over and above honing that sharp tongue of yours, but he should have pointed out that you can’t bluff worth a damn.”

He saw the tears standing in her magnificent eyes but chose to ignore them. God save him from fools, most especially well-intentioned martyrs who always seemed to think right was on their side and justice would prevail. He turned and walked away from her, exposing his back to her, not stopping until his hand was on the latch of the door leading to the stairs.

“At eleven, Jessica. And if you dare insult me by wearing that black monstrosity or anything like it, I’ll tear it off you myself. Understood?”

He’d barely closed the door behind him when the sound of what he presumed to be the derringer hitting the wood brought a smile to his face. He rather doubted James Linden taught her how to do that. No, that was a purely female reaction, and if there was one thing Jessica Linden was, it was female.

CHAPTER TWO

AS SHE WATCHED RICHARD’S meticulous recounting of the previous night’s profits, Jessica was twice forced to cover a yawn with her hand, both times earning a reproving look from her friend and business partner.

“Forgive me, Richard,” she said as he finished at last. “I didn’t sleep well last night, I’m afraid.”

“He was upstairs here for some time, Jess. He upset you.”

“He didn’t make me happy, I’ll agree to that,” she said as she locked the satisfyingly full strongbox. “This isn’t going to be easy.”

“It shouldn’t be at all. Surely the boy is old enough to mind himself? I was out on my own before I was ten, just a kiddie, making my own way.”

“Indeed you were,” Jessica agreed, having heard the story of Richard’s past more than a few times, in more than a few versions, with probably none of them completely true. “But when you have money, the law sees things differently. Adam doesn’t reach his legal majority for another three years, and for all I know won’t receive control over his inheritance even then. It all depends on the terms of our father’s will.”

“And in the meantime, he’s stuck with those queer buggers, the Redgraves. Nasty piece of work, that fellow last night, for all his fine clothes. I’ve seen eyes like that before. Slice your throat for you as soon as look at you. Just uses a clean knife.”

Jessica laughed softly as she returned the strongbox to its hidey-hole beneath the floorboards. She disliked keeping so much money in the house, but they had to be prepared for losses as well as profit.

She stood back as Richard rolled the rug down over the floorboards. “We were right to finally come here to London. So many foolish young men eager to be rid of their quarterly allowance. Our profits astound even me. Only a few more months, Richard, and we can have our inn. Are you still set on Cambridge? Of late I’ve been thinking of someplace more to the south, nearer the Channel. Perhaps even a port city?”

“With that Bonaparte scum running amok and crowing as how he’s coming here any day? No, Jess, no ports for the likes of me. Waking up one morning with a bunch of Froggies parading through the town? I don’t think so. It’s good English joints of beef we’ll be serving up from our kitchen, not slimy snails slipping and sliding off the plate.”

“Bonaparte isn’t going to invade, Richard. He’s much too busy with his new Austrian wife. She’ll bring him low one day, you know. You’d think the man would be a better student of history. Women are always the downfall of powerful men, one way or another.” She sent him a wide smile. “It’s what we do.”

Richard stood up, preparing to go downstairs to his small room at the back of the house they’d rented only a few short months previously. “And is that what you’re planning to do with the Earl of Saltwood? I’d go easy with any such notion, I would. The man’s no fool. I saw it in—”

“In his eyes. Yes, I remember. I’m not saying I’m out to destroy him, for goodness’ sake. All he has to do is give me my brother. He couldn’t want him.”

“Nor his inheritance,” Richard told her. “Man’s rich as that Croesus fellow. But if it’s some gauntlet you threw down to the earl, and knowing you it was, you’ve put his back up, so’s now he wouldn’t give you a crust of bread, just because he knows you want it. Better to ply some wiles or some such thing, not that I’m saying you should.”

Jessica averted her head, sure her cheeks were flaming, damn her fair coloring. “He’s got a mistress set up at the bottom of Mount Street.”

“And another tucked into a bang-up to the echo flat in Curzon Street, some Covent Garden warbler. Then there’s his other lady birds, the widow Orford and Lady Dunmore, or so I heard it told just last night, while the two of you were up here and the gossip was flying about downstairs like shuttlecocks in a high wind. Sets them up like dominos, tips them over when he’s done with them, leaving them their fond memories, since not a one of them ever had a bad word to say about him, not any of the dozens of them. Dozens, Jessica. So, never mind what I said about wiles. You want this one to do your bidding, don’t do his. That’s what I’m thinking.”

“You know I’ve never—”

“After Jamie Linden, who would?” Richard said, sighing. “But I know you, and you dangled, didn’t you? Made promises you’d no intention of keeping, thinking yourself smarter than any man. Dangerous business, that, with one like Saltwood. Better to walk away now. The boy’ll come to no harm. Saltwood’s no fool. He has to know everyone’s watching him.”

“Because he’s a Redgrave.”

“Because he’s his father’s son, yes. You know what they say.”

Jessica walked over to the pier glass and inspected her reflection. “His father was a rake and a libertine, and when he called out his wife’s lover in a duel, she hid herself nearby and shot him in the back before she and her lover fled to the continent, leaving her children behind as if they didn’t matter to her. Not that she was any better than he was in any event, having had more lovers than most of us have fingers and toes. Yes, I’ve heard it all. I would suppose it was either Saltwood buries himself in the cellars on his estate to hide his shame or he becomes what he’s clearly become.”

“An arrogant, to-hell-with-you bastard only an idiot with more hair than wit would ever dare to say any of that to, in case you haven’t considered that.”

“I don’t have to say it, Richard. The man knows his own family history. He should likewise understand I want my brother away from him. Gideon Redgrave may not be his father, as he claims he’s not, but he’s still that arrogant, to-hell-with-you bastard who clearly cares for no one save himself. Heartless, Richard, there’s no question. Adam was always such a quiet boy. Gentle, almost painfully shy. I left him once, having no choice, and it broke my heart. But now that I have a second chance, I can’t simply walk away. The Earl of Saltwood will have him for breakfast, otherwise.”

“And you for lunch?”

Jessica pulled a face at him and then turned to Doreen, who had just entered from the stairway. “You’re looking more than usually harassed. Is something wrong?”

“There was a knock at the door, ma’am. A pounding, more like. So I went down and answered it so as whoever it was wouldn’t break the door down, because it sounded as if the wood was already splintering, it did, and there he was, ma’am, and there he stays until I can talk to you, because that’s what I told him after he was done telling me what he told me.”

Richard bent his head and rubbed at his temples. “We don’t need to know it all, Doreen, as I keep telling you. Just the pertinent bits.”

“Yes, sir, Mr. Borders, sir. I’m just saying I didn’t invite the fellow inside, but it was either stand aside or get myself bowled over, sort of. I told him the house was closed to callers until eight of the clock, but he paid that no nevermind at all, saying as how he’s here to stay and where’s his room. I told him, I said, there’s no room here for the likes of you—rough-looking fellow he is, you know—but he’s still standing there. Right where he was standing when he first stepped inside as I was telling him to stay out.”

“And me out of headache powders,” Richard grumbled, getting to his feet. “Very well, lead me to him.”

Jessica snatched up her bonnet, pelisse and gloves. “I’ll go down with you. The Saltwood coach will be here shortly, if the man meant what he said, and I don’t think he wastes his words on lies unless they’d be of some benefit to him, which my presence in Portman Square is not.”

“That was nearly as convoluted as Doreen, my dear. I’d be careful of that,” Richard warned, holding open the door so that Jessica could precede him down the narrow staircase.

Jessica was still smiling as she reached the first floor and entered the gaming room, wrinkling her nose at the stale smell of tobacco. Other than the tables, covered each day with white cloths to keep off the dust, the room was empty…if she didn’t count the near mountain of a young man standing just inside the main door, turning a large-brimmed hat in his hamlike hands.

“And you are…?” she asked, not certain she wished to approach any closer.

“Seth, ma’am,” he said, lifting his huge bowed head, directing an innocent wide-eyed blue stare at her. “His lordship sent me.”

Jessica relaxed for a moment, until it registered with her that the lad—for he seemed quite young—was dressed like a common laborer. “Oh, for pity’s sake. You’re the Saltwood coachman? He sent a dray wagon, did he? Well, you can just go back to his lordship and tell him thank you very much, but I can find my own way to Portman Square, as his insult may delay my arrival but it did not dissuade me.”

“Ma’am?”

Richard had already gone to one of the front windows and looked down onto the street. “There’s no coach out there, Jessica. Or dray wagon.” Allowing the heavy curtain to drop once more, he tapped Seth on his shoulder, or as near to it as Richard could reach, as Seth was as tall as he was wide. “Why did his lordship send you, my good fellow?”

The boy flushed to the roots of his red hair. “To protect the lady, sir. In case of any rum coves making a fuss over losing their blunt or getting frisky or drunk or such like. His lordship will pay my wages, and that he’s already done, ma’am. All you need do, his lordship says, is feed me and give me somewheres to sleep. His lordship says that you got the bad end of it, ma’am,” he said, hanging his head once more. “I suppose I do eats a bit.”

“Entire small villages just for breakfast, I should think,” Richard said, smiling at Jessica as he walked over to her. “Now here’s a turn-up for the books, isn’t it? The earl has sent you…protection. Puzzling.”

Jessica was livid. “Maddening, not puzzling. He’s insulting me. Telling me I can’t protect myself.”

“And how would he know that, Jess? No, answer me this instead. How do you know that’s why he sent the boy?” Richard asked, looking at her closely. “What did happen up there last night?”

The jingle of harness followed by the sound of the knocker saved Jessica from answering. “That has to be the coach. Richard, if you’ll get Seth settled?”

“We could bed him down in the stables. If we had stables. So we’re keeping him?”

Jessica shot a quick look at Seth, who reminded her of a woodcut she’d once had, that of a gentle-eyed dragon spreading its wings to protect a group of children lost in the woods. “I don’t suppose we really have a choice, do we? And it will add to my arguments to have Adam here, if we’ve got a…protector. It’s a wonder his lordship didn’t think of that.”

“I doubt there’s much his lordship doesn’t think of,” Richard said, escorting her out to the street. “It’s not too late to reconsider, Jess. Don’t do this. I know he’s your brother, but you haven’t lived in his world for a long time. He could break your heart.”

“I’ve told you, my heart broke long ago. It can’t break again. But having Adam with me might help mend it.” She patted Richard’s plump cheek as a liveried footman opened the coach door and put down the steps. “Think good thoughts while I’m gone, and don’t let Seth loose in the kitchens unless it’s to help Doreen pare vegetables.”

“We’re really going to keep him? I thought you were just being nice until you can think up an excuse to send him on his way.”

Jessica had one foot on the coach step when she turned to her business partner. “I’m being amenable. I will continue to be amenable until Adam is residing under my roof. Besides, it might be a good idea to have a bit of enormous muscle to point to if anyone becomes a problem.”

“Pointing would be probably be enough,” Richard agreed as he stepped forward and shut the coach door behind her. “I know it would be enough for me. But until we see if he’s anything more than big, I’ll keep my wooden club beneath the table, if you don’t mind. It has served me well so far.”

Jessica smiled until the coach moved off, but then allowed her true feelings come to the surface.

Gideon Redgrave had sent her protection, had he? From everyone but him, considering Seth was in his employ. Perhaps the youth’s true purpose was to spy, which would make perfect sense to her…and if it made perfect sense to her, his lordship undoubtedly had already thought of it.

But, mostly, Seth was an insult, a reminder that she might have James’s pistol, she might consider herself quite a good shot, but she had not been able to bring herself to do more than threaten with it.

Well, of course she hadn’t shot him!

She would have been hanged in any event, as blowing a hole in an earl was frowned upon by the courts. She wouldn’t have been able to rescue Adam from the man, because she’d be locked up and then executed. Too many people had seen him climb the stairs with her; it wasn’t as if she and Richard could have hidden the body somewhere and then hauled it to some alleyway and left it there.

She’d thought of all those things in the few seconds she’d had to reach into her pocket and close her hand around the pistol before the earl had swooped down and taken the weapon from her. A pity she hadn’t thought of them before she’d so blatantly offered herself to him. It simply had seemed prudent to have it in her pocket, that’s all. The weapon had given her courage, she supposed. Too bad it hasn’t given me brains, she thought, pulling a face.

It was seeing that damned golden rose in his cravat. She’d seen it, and something had seemed to go snap in her brain.

She still didn’t know how she felt about his refusal. Relieved, definitely. Not that she wasn’t willing to make any sacrifice in order to gain custody of Adam; although the gesture had been rather melodramatic, hadn’t it? My body for my brother. She’d been offering the man a bite of candy when he already had bought up half the stores of sweets throughout London.

And yet, ashamed as she was now, in the clear light of day, she felt insulted, as well. He hadn’t even seemed interested. If anything, he’d seemed amused.

She’d been too blatant. Even now, she felt hot color racing into her cheeks as she thought of how she’d behaved. Misbehaved. Her body for her brother? How stupid! The man could have any woman he wanted just by cricking a finger in her direction.

And, according to Richard, he already did.

Two mistresses? And a pair of ton ladies to boot? That seemed excessive. The man was more his father’s son than he might wish people to think. And again—he wore the golden rose.

“I have to get Adam out of there, no matter what I must do to best the man!” she exclaimed aloud, punching her gloved fist into her palm, refusing to consider she might be sounding very much like some overwrought and probably hare-witted heroine in a melodrama.

Still, her determination lasted throughout the quarter-hour journey to Portman Square through the heavy midmorning traffic. But when the coach halted, and she was helped down to the flagway in front of the imposing facade of the Redgrave mansion, a tiny voice in the back of her head whispered less confidently, “How do you propose to do that, exactly?”

Shaking off the question, she reminded herself her brother was behind that large black door with the lion’s head knocker. She put out her chin as a mental battering ram and headed inside as if she was accustomed to being welcomed in the finest London houses.

“Mrs. Linden, to see his lordship,” she said imperiously as she stripped off her gloves and untied her bonnet, even as she belatedly realized Doreen should be standing just behind her to take possession of the things. Stupid! How could she have forgotten she was to be chaperoned at all times? This was what living her catch-as-catch-can life for the past five years had done to her; she kept forgetting she wasn’t supposed to be able to fend for herself. She should have brought Seth, that’s what she should have done. Protection, indeed! She’d never needed more than Richard and his heavy club at the gaming house. Here in Portman Square, an entire regiment of Seths probably wouldn’t come amiss!

She shoved both bonnet and gloves at the footman. “His lordship, young man. See to it.”

“If you was to wait here, ma’am,” the fairly astonished-looking footman said, indicating the open door to what had to be the ground-floor room reserved for tradesmen and those petitioners seeking interviews.

Her fingers still at her throat, as she’d been about to untie the closing of her pelisse, Jessica looked through a dull red haze of anger to the curving staircase that led to the first floor, and then to the small room. “Oh, I think not. I’ve reconsidered my visit. Kindly inform his lordship I have been and gone.”

So saying, she retrieved her bonnet and gloves from the clearly relieved footman, and quit the house. She stood on the top step of the portico as she retied her bonnet and pulled on her gloves, realizing that the coach was now slowly circling the square, so that the horses should not be forced to stand while she was inside.

Well, that presented a problem, didn’t it? Not to mention putting quite the crimp in her grand exit. She wasn’t about to go running after it, crying yoo-hoo, waving it down. Besides, she’d had just about enough of his lordship’s courtesy for one morning. She had two feet, and she knew how to use them.

She looked to her left, and then to her right. Two feet, yes. Now if only she knew what direction in which to point them… .

“Ma’am?”

Jessica turned about slowly, to see that the footman had opened the door behind her, probably to warn her to take herself off, as loitering on his lordship’s doorstep was not allowed.

“I’m going,” she said tightly. “You don’t have to apply the boot.”

“Oh, but, ma’am, you’re to come inside. Please.”

She whirled about in her anger, skewering the footman with a look meant to set him back a step, which it did. “I am, am I? You’d be wrong there. I don’t have to go anywhere. That might be something you could tell his lordship. I’m not his to command.”

“No, ma’am. That is to say, ma’am, it was me what thought to put you in the…that is to say, his lordship is awaiting your pleasure in the drawing room. Ma’am?”

All the anger in Jessica drained away. The footman had made a valid assumption. She wasn’t dressed in the first stare, Lord knew. She’d arrived unaccompanied. What else was the man to think but that she’d been summoned, perhaps to interview for some domestic position? Ha! If the earl were to do the interviewing, a position would definitely be involved!

“Very well.” She reentered the mansion, feeling slightly abashed, which was enough to bring back her anger. She’d no idea she was so prickly; she’d always believed herself to be a pleasant person at the heart of the thing. “What is your name?” she asked the footman kindly as, yet again, she handed over her belongings.

“Waters, ma’am,” the youth said, bowing as he laid her pelisse over his arm. “I’ll be taking you upstairs now and turning you over to, that is to say, where Mr. Thorndyke will announce you to his lordship. And thank you again, ma’am.”

“You did as you were trained, I’m sure,” Jessica told him, handing over a coin. “The error was mine. Was his lordship that rough on you?”

Waters bowed again, not quite fast enough to hide his relieved smile. “His lordship could blister paint with that tongue of his, ma’am. But not on me, ma’am. Not this time. It was Mr. Thorndyke what explained how I was wrong. He’s not half bad.”

Jessica shot a look up the staircase, to where she could see a tall, gray-haired man, most probably Thorndyke, waiting for her. She was being passed along to the Upper Reaches. How fortunate she was.

“Really? In other words, Waters, he’ll be escorting me into the lion’s den. Lucky for me, then, I’m no lamb.”

“Ma’am?” the footman all but squeaked, looking nervous once more.

“I’ll make my own way up the stairs,” she told him. “Just don’t put my things too far away, as I might be needing them again quite shortly.”

So saying, she lifted her hem a fraction and her chin a fraction more before heading up the staircase, her gaze already locked with that of the butler, or majordomo, or whatever the man considered himself, and by the look of him he considered himself at least two social levels above that of his lordship’s visitor.

And all for the lack of a maid, or a maiden aunt, or some paid companion. Really, society was a set of ridiculous rules. She was well out of it. Were she a man, none of this would apply, and she’d already be sitting in the drawing room with one leg draped over the other, sipping wine instead of the tea she’d be offered, if she was offered anything at all.

And from the looks of Thorndyke, she wouldn’t be.

“Mrs. Linden to see his lordship, who already knows I’m here, so that we’d all three of us be wasting our time pretending he doesn’t,” she announced before Waters, who had quickly divested himself of her belongings and was hurrying up the stairs after her, could open his mouth. “Just point me in the right direction and you can go back to polishing the silver, or stealing it, whichever pleases you.”

The butler opened and closed his mouth a time or two before drawing himself up even straighter than before and motioning to the pair of closed doors to the left of the wide hallway.

“Good. At least we’re done with foolishness,” Jessica declared, her head positively spinning, and knowing she was being ridiculous. But as ridiculousness seemed to be the order of the day, why should she attempt to put a stop to it now?

Of course, that left her with either throwing open the double doors in some dramatic gesture of defiance or knocking on one of them and waiting to be admitted. She probably should have thought of that. She probably should give some thought to the embarrassing realization that she hadn’t been thinking at all since first encountering the Earl of Saltwood, devil take his hide.