The Regency Redgraves: What an Earl Wants / What a Lady Needs / What a Gentleman Desires / What a Hero Dares

“Madame? You approve?”

Jessica shook herself back to attention. She held out her arms, to see that they were encased in silken cobwebs of ivory lace, long cuffs dripping halfway to her fingertips. Goodness, she had been dressed without her conscious participation. How had that happened?

“If madame were to turn about, so, to see this grand creation in the mirror?”

What Jessica saw stole her breath.

She was wearing a thin silken shift, the bodice all lace to just below her breasts, the simple skirt falling from there to the six or more inches of lace edging her ankles. The dressing gown was composed completely of this same lace, the most exquisite lace she’d ever seen, tying just below her breasts, covering her so very modestly, yet still the most enticing and, yes, inviting creation.

She supposed she looked virginal. She supposed she looked like a woman looking forward to ridding herself of that virginity. All in one—innocence in the cut of the cloth, subtle decadence in the materials.

“His lordship pressed us most firmly in the design, madame. Each bolt of material, each ribbon and button, each gown, each ensemble, all to his specifications. All très magnifique! We have been closed to everyone save him these past nearly ten days. Every day he has been here, reducing my girls to tears, pressing us to rush, to change, to alter, to make everything perfect. So demanding, yet so generous! He brings them sweet cakes, and combs for their hair, and every day the flowers, so many fragrant bouquets my Giselle, she sneezes all day long, and must do her sewing in the attics. He knows them all by name and they are all half in love with him, silly girls that they are. But he is a genius, no? He must love you very much, madame, to see you so well.”

Jessica didn’t know how to respond to that. Gideon Redgrave always had his reasons for anything he did, she felt certain of that. He planned for her to make her entrée into society on his arm, and he wanted attention called to her, to the both of them. “Yes…a genius. It’s, uh, it’s…do I really look like this, Marie?”

The petite Frenchwoman squeezed Jessica’s hand. “She who sews the seams can only do so much, madame. The rest lies with you. Shall we see more?”

“Oh. Oh, yes. We’ll see more. We’ll see all of it,” Jessica said, smiling even as she blinked back tears. No matter what the reason for Gideon’s close involvement in her wardrobe, she had never felt so wonderfully, gloriously pretty. “Do you suppose we could do something with the lavender?”

“I have just the matron who would adore it, oui. But not for you, no, no, no, not for you. I was to put it on you first, so you could, as his lordship said, see the error of your ways. Ah, such a man! Do you wish the silly fribble to return, madame?”

“The silly—Oh. No, thank you. Perhaps some tea and cakes for Mr. Collier are in order. Are there many gowns? How long do you think we’ll be?”

The modiste began counting on her fingertips. By the time she’d begun her second round on her fingers, Jessica could see Adam would be cooling his heels in Marie’s small sitting room for a considerable length of time.

She bent her arm to stroke the soft lace. If this was the beginning, what else was she about to see? More importantly, was this how Gideon saw her?

Adam could wait for her. If he wanted to be up to the mark in all things pleasing to women, as he said he did, he should learn early on that the virtue women most admired in a man was his ability to display patient forbearance when being forced to cool his heels whilst she was shopping.

GIDEON WAS PACING THE drawing room when the dowager countess floated into the room, still stripping off her long kid gloves, then tossing them over her head one after the other, so that Soames, trailing behind her, could snare them out of the air.

“Goodness, pet, you’re looking harassed. When you vow not to bed a woman until she’s properly wed, in the interim it would behoove you to not have her sleeping under your own roof. At least, were you at Redgrave Manor, I could suggest you cool your ardor by immersing yourself in the pond. I don’t think many would understand you leaping into the Serpentine in the Park, however.”

Soames, neatly snagging the second glove, couldn’t restrain his chuckle.

“I’m just so gratified to amuse you both,” Gideon said, looking at Trixie’s reticule, a silly thing of beads and ribbons, and judging it too small to hold what he’d hoped to see. “You failed?”

Trixie walked up to him and raised a hand to pat his cheek. “Let’s be clear about this, Gideon. I tease you. You do not insult me. Soames? Give the boy what he wants before he expires of anticipation.”

“Yes, my lady,” the butler said, tucking the gloves into his pocket and then reaching inside his waistcoat to withdraw a rolled sheet of thick vellum and handing it to Gideon.

The Special License. She’d done it. It had been his blunt that helped ease the way, granted, but it was Trixie’s way with persuasion that had turned the trick with the speed of the thing. He unrolled the document and quickly scanned it. The archbishop could sign, of course, but so could any number of other high church officials. “Whose signature is this? I can’t make it out.”

“You aren’t supposed to, pet. Suffice it to say the license is completely legitimate and aboveboard.” The dowager countess subsided onto her one-armed couch, drawing her dainty feet up beside her. “Did you ever wonder what below board could be?”

Gideon was still working on deciphering the signature and answered absently. “To be aboveboard, as I know the term, means keeping your hands above the gaming table at all times. So to be below board, you’d have to keep your hands—”

“Precisely where I had them as our mostly eminent church official was signing the license. Interesting.”

Soames turned on his heels and left the room, his ears positively burning red.

“I have to keep reminding myself not to walk into your little traps,” Gideon said. “Did you enjoy that?”

“Soames’s embarrassed reaction, or my ability to bring things to attention? I would have to answer yes to both. Oh, don’t scowl, pet. Next you’ll be telling me you’re putting in an application to warble in some choir. You knew what I was going to do when you applied to me for help. If I learned nothing else from my unlamented husband, it is the power of sex. We females hold most of that power, by the way, and can enjoy its rewards longer. By the time you’re my age, Gideon, you’ll be happy most evenings with a roaring fire, your dogs at your feet and a snifter of brandy at your elbow, while I consider myself, modesty aside, to remain near the top of my form. After all, most times all it takes is a strong hand. Ah, finally I’ve managed to raise a blush from you.”

“You’re right, I shouldn’t have asked for your help. I tried to tell myself you would apply to some bonds of friendship with whomever you visited today. I should have remembered you don’t have friends, do you, Trixie?”

“No, I don’t. I have family. And, if the gods are kind, and you’re truly as hot to bed this woman as it would seem, soon I will have more of it.”

“And here I was earlier, wondering why I don’t visit as often as I should. I don’t wish you dead, Trixie, but I do selfishly wish you older.”

“And cuddlesome, perhaps even quaintly dotty?” she asked as he dangled a slim diamond bracelet in front of her eyes. “Ah, now isn’t that pretty? Your thanks would have been enough.”

“Then I’ll have it back?”

“Give it to your wife once I’m planted,” she said, holding up her arm to him so that he could close the bracelet about her wrist. She turned her hand this way and that once the clasp was secured, admiring the way the diamonds, formed into an endless circle of petite flowers, caught the sunlight streaming in through the windows. “Quite lovely. You’ve exquisite taste, pet. Do you have any news for me?”

“No, nothing. I’ve stopped wearing the rose, you’ll notice. I’m keeping a close eye on the nincompoop, but nobody’s approached him. Frankly, I’ve reached a dead end.”

“A temporary setback only, I’m sure. Now a kiss, please, and then you may go. I’ve an engagement this evening, and to shine at night, it is sometimes necessary to nap during the day.”

Gideon bent to kiss her cheek. “You’re admitting to age, Trixie?”

“One must sometimes make allowances, yes. I’ve invited Guy Bedworth here for a midnight supper, and it wouldn’t do to not be awake on all suits with that one.”

“Bedworth? The Marquis of Mellis? That doddering old fool? What do you want with him?”

“That doddering old fool, pet, was at one time the youngest member of your grandfather’s original coterie of scoundrels. Before you count on your fingers, yes, your grandfather died roughly forty-eight years ago. The marquis won’t see seventy again, or even seventy-five, but was still, shall we say, amorously active when your father decided to resurrect what he may have thought a family tradition. Naturally, Guy, risen to the title by that time, was invited to participate, and to lend his expertise in the finer points of ceremonial rites, I would imagine. As a sort of mentor.”

“And to continue in that role after my father died? Perhaps even as long as five years ago?”

“Who’s to say, one way or the other? Well, in point of fact, Guy is to say, which I sincerely intend to have him do tonight.”

A sudden thought struck Gideon. “How would my father have known the marquis was a member of Grandfather’s…coterie?”

“Through the journals, I suppose,” Trixie said, shrugging. Then her eyes went wide. “I did tell you about those blasted journals, didn’t I? Dear God, maybe I am growing dotty.”

Gideon sat down on a corner of the low table. “Grandfather wrote things down? About…about his group?”

“No name, pet. Simply the Society. He thought it safer that way. Your father wasn’t quite so brilliant and devised those ridiculous golden roses. Although they have made your search for members that much easier, which proves your grandfather’s point, doesn’t it?”

Trixie began turning her new bracelet over and over again around her wrist. “But, yes, he very carefully catalogued their actions, year by year. They all did. In excruciating detail. Dear God, there were drawings, charts, codes. They called them testaments, of all things. Truthfully, I burned the ones I found in your grandfather’s study. What went on during the blessedly few years of our marriage was not, I felt, anything to preserve for the ages. I was young and powerless, and he…But that was a long time ago. Unfortunately, I couldn’t locate all of them. the rest were hidden somewhere.”

“At Redgrave Manor?”

“In the Manor, or somewhere on the grounds. I never found them, but clearly your father did. And they all kept journals, each member, before annually handing them over to your grandfather like the fools they were, as it was up to the Keeper to review them, check them for veracity and then assemble all the information into their bible. I never found that, either, although I had seen it a time or two. Some of the etchings were very nearly true art, if disgusting. The things I read, however, the things I could tell you about people the world admires? Ah, but most of them are dead now, so what does it matter?”

“Was my grandfather a Jacobite? Were he and his devil’s dozen plotting treason?”

Trixie smiled. “No. His motives were even less laudable, I’m afraid. He did what he did, they all did, merely for the pleasure of it. Half-hearted Satanists, reckless libertines, naughty little boys obsessed with their drunken preoccupation with sex. It was left to your father to see the opportunities for something more. When I realized…”

“That couldn’t have been an easy time for you,” Gideon said softly.

“No, it wasn’t,” Trixie agreed, turning her head toward the windows, clearly looking to the past. “I’d lost him by then, that much was clear. My own son, my only child. It was all so long ago. Barry had always been wild, impetuous, even as a young boy. When he found the journals…”

“Do they still exist? The ones my father found?”

She shrugged, turning back to him, her eyes lively once more. “Yes, back to the present, please. I never saw them, so I can’t say they still do or don’t exist. But as I said, Guy well might. He only returned to town a few days ago after taking the waters in Bath, or some such hopeful nonsense.”

“You can’t make him suspicious.”

“I know what I’m about, pet. Lord knows I’ve been doing it long enough. We’ll speak of past times, reminisce about ancient glories and conquests, friends still aboveground and those now looking at the grass from the wrong side, as it were. I’ll tease and pet and pat him as if my memories of those days are fond, as he mostly likely needs to believe. I’ll flatter the toothless old roué, pretend he is still capable of rising to what he most patently is not. If he doesn’t fall asleep in his pudding, I’ll have some information for you tomorrow.”

“And you’ll be careful?” Gideon knew he couldn’t dissuade her from what she planned.

Trixie tipped her head and smiled. “Really, pet, there’s no need for concern. What could possibly go wrong?”

CHAPTER TEN

JESSICA DRESSED FOR DINNER in one of her new gowns, with both Mildred and Doreen fussing over her the entire time, admiring her undergarments, squealing in delight when she at last chose the dusky-rose over the sky-blue, saying one couldn’t possibly be better than the other but wasn’t it a marvel how the rose went so well with Jessica’s red locks. “And who would have thought any such thing?”

Gideon would, Jessica answered silently as she sat in front of the dressing table while Mildred, who was proving a marvel (although not in the sense Adam would have meant), handled the curling stick with flair, and not once did Jessica have to remind her that pins were to be put into hair and not her scalp.

Her mind traveled back in time for a moment, recalling Alice, her maid and friend of a lifetime ago. Jessica knew she had been a petted and pampered child, lacking in nothing, at least in a material way. She’d had a lovely roof over her head, had never known what it was like to worry about where her next meal or bed would come from. She had missed her mother, loathed her stepmother, enjoyed spoiling her half brother, could say she barely knew her father…but she had been content. Indeed, she’d been looking forward to her first Season, sure she’d be at least a moderate success. Fear had no place in her life.

That she’d been through what she’d been forced to endure these past five years and survived it all might be considered something of a miracle, and to once again be sitting in the lap of luxury very nearly erased those sad memories from her mind. Truly, it was amazing how adaptable a person could be. Although it was much easier, she knew, to accustom oneself to luxury than to the catch-as-catch-can existence of those five long years between her girlhood and the woman she had been forced to become.

As Mildred fussed with the trio of curls she was arranging to fall just so on Jessica’s left shoulder, Doreen gathered up mountains of tissue and paper and string now that all of the new clothing had been carefully put away in drawers and cupboards and armoires. Jessica’s own wardrobe, from shifts to shoes to shawls, had been playfully argued over, with the shoes going to Mildred, who said she could stuff tissue in the toes while Doreen couldn’t stuff her toes into the toes. Doreen laid claim to the night rails, Mildred the bonnets, and nobody begged to please be given the black gowns Jessica had worn in the gaming room.

“His lordship asked to be informed as to your choice for the evening, ma’am,” Doreen told her when she’d returned to the bedchamber after disposing of the wrappings. “I was just running down that footman with the Adam’s apple big as a lemon, to get him to help me carry everything down to the kitchen fire, when one of that pair of blasted mongrels started jumping up at me, trying to get a bit of trailing string, And I said to stop, and it wouldn’t, and the lemon boy—”

“His name is Vernon,” Mildred interrupted. “And wouldn’t a person with a hulking great Adam’s apple have one the size of an apple, not a lemon?”

“Don’t interrupt her, Mildred,” Jessica warned, smiling. “She might decide to start again at the beginning.”

Fortunately, the Irishwoman did not. “All right, then, Vernon. My goodness, Mildred, but you’re a stickler. At any rate, as Mr. Borders says I should keep things from getting so long they grow whiskers, I scolded that dog something terrible, but it still would persist, and did so until his lordship himself called it to heel. That’s when he saw me and asked what it was that you were thinking of wearing tonight, and I told him you were going back and forth with the rose and the blue for the longest time, but in the end decided on the rose, and he said to follow him, so I did. I followed him all the way to the back of the house without once taking a turn or a back stair, and then he put out his hand so graciouslike and had me precede him into his study. That’s what he said. He said, ‘Doreen, please precede me into the study whilst I fetch something.’”

“Now that’s a lie. Lordships don’t say fetch,” Mildred protested as she stood behind her mistress, so that Jessica gave her a sharp elbow in the thigh as the last curls were set in place.

Doreen sighed in exasperation. “They shouldn’t say precede, either, to my mind, because I didn’t know what it meant for the life of me, but once he told me I did, so I preceded him into the study and then cooled me heels, not touching a thing, I swear it, and not even so much as looking at anything too hard, all those lovely things, until he came back with this.”

At last, finally, and not a moment too soon for the consideration of Mildred’s and Jessica’s nerves, the maid produced a blue velvet-covered oblong box from her apron pocket, all but tapping Jessica on the nose with it. “I didn’t look. I wanted to, but I didn’t. I just curtsied, twice over, and ran hotfoot back up here. Using the back stairs, as I knows my place, even if his lordship don’t. Lemon boy, that is, Vernon, he’d already taken away the wrappings. And the dog. His name is Brutus, which isn’t a very kindly name for a dog, is it? Call a thing a brute, and it will be, just to make you happy. You mark my words on that one!”

Jessica had stopped listening. She took the box from Doreen and eyed it for some moments before daring to press on the round button clasp. The lid sprang open to reveal a choker made up of four strands of perfectly matched pearls, their ivory luster faintly shaded with pink. In the center of those pearls was a circlet of much smaller pearls surrounding—

“Well, now, would you look at that,” Mildred said, leaning in close. “It’s a lady’s face.”

“It’s a cameo, Mildred. Carved out of some sort of shell, I believe, so that the lady’s profile is much lighter than the background. Many of them are made in Italy. Isn’t it beautiful?”

“Yes, ma’am, it is that. She looks like an angel, even if we can only see half her face. But seeing as it looks like it cost the earth and more, you’d think they’d carve the whole face.”

“She’s in profile, and I’m convinced that was done on purpose,” Jessica said, handing the necklace to Mildred. Thank goodness the two women were here; Jessica couldn’t dare to cry, or else they’d both fuss and wonder.

He’d chosen the perfect piece of jewelry to match a perfect gown, one of nearly two dozen perfect gowns and riding habits and capes and shawls and—Was there anything the man couldn’t do?

Mildred carefully aligned the necklace against the exact center of Jessica’s throat and then squinted over the small clasp. “There! Now let’s go see what all we’ve done.”

Jessica dutifully stood up, needlessly smoothing down the folds of her gown, because it didn’t bunch when creased, as her black had done, but simply flowed, as if a part of her.

Her reflection looked back at her from the pier glass, showing her a wonderfully set-up looking young woman, complete to a shade, or at least she was once Doreen unearthed the long, narrow rose-and-silver paisley shawl and threaded it through Jessica’s elbows so that its fringed ends reached nearly to the floor.

“That was the second gong that just went, ma’am,” Mildred said, opening the door to the hallway as if she hoped to hear an echo confirming her conclusion. “Ah, and here comes Mr. Borders down the hallway to fetch you.”

“You said fetch,” Doreen pointed out, handing Jessica a small reticule fashioned of the same paisley, its slim chain silver, its clasp fashioned of pink pearls. Was there no detail too small for the man? When he made love to a woman, was he equally as interested in detail? “See? Other people do so say it, not just me.”

“Just not earls, you fool,” Mildred muttered, pulling Doreen back and signaling they were to drop into curtsies. They were both eager learners, and with the gaming room now a thing of the past, they were bound and determined to once again make themselves indispensable to their mistress. “We’ll wait up, ma’am, to help you into bed.”

Jessica felt hot color run into her cheeks, probably clashing badly with both her hair and her gown. The note on her pillow this morning, when combined with the gown and the necklace, had her hopes rising that Gideon would not be going out after dinner. Not tonight. “Oh. Oh, I don’t think you need to…That is, I may be quite late. I’ll manage.”

“But—” Doreen began.

“She says she’ll manage,” Mildred cut in quickly. “Honestly, Doreen, you’re thick as a plank sometimes.” The hostess-cum-lady’s maid curtsied yet again. “I’ll just go lay out your night rail and dressing gown and turn down the bed. Good night, ma’am.”

“Good night, Mildred. Doreen. And thank you. I don’t know what I’d do without either one of you.”

Still keeping her head slightly averted, Jessica escaped to the hallway and called out to Richard, who seemed to be pacing near the head of the staircase. Gideon had seen to it Richard be outfitted with new clothes, and she had been thrilled to see the older man’s pleasure in his wardrobe. He looked distinguished now in some unexplainable way, and actually rather comfortable, as if more used to fine things and lavish surroundings than she would have imagined. Someday perhaps he’d tell her who he had been before he’d taken to gaming. To date, he’d told her he was a bastard prince, a defrocked priest, a pirate and a schoolteacher, which was as good as to say she should not ask him again or else be prepared for another tall tale.

He turned about and smiled before he bowed in her direction, his knees creaking audibly. “And who might you be, lovely lady?” he asked. “I don’t believe we’ve been introduced.”

Jessica held out her arms and turned about in a full circle. “I’m magnificent, aren’t I? And all accomplished without sparkles. Adam will be dumbfounded.”

“Your brother hasn’t the brains to be dumbfounded,” Richard said, holding out his arm to her. “He’d rather believe he knows everything worth knowing. You’re looking happy as well as beautiful this evening, Jess. Is that because of the new gown, or the fact that his lordship awaits you downstairs?”

“He awaits me downstairs each evening,” Jessica pointed out as she lifted her hem slightly, to help her navigate the marble steps.

“Not with a pink rosebud pinned to his lapel. I wondered about that earlier, when I went down. I only came back up to fetch my handkerchief.”

“Uncles don’t say fetch, Richard. I have it on good authority.” Her heart then heard what Richard had said and decided to skip a beat. “A pink rosebud?”

“Yes, it shocked me, as well. He dresses fine as nine pence, but no geegaws for the man, not in the usual run of things. So I didn’t comment on it. And, we have a visitor.”