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

He kneaded her breasts, trailed kisses along the soft flesh inside her arms, down the length of her rib cage. His tongue found and teased at her navel, and she made a small, shocked sound of pleasure. He pressed his palm against her lower belly, bringing her heat that seemed to melt her…and then slowly turned his hand so that he was inching his way closer to her center even as she opened herself for him.

But not yet.

He cupped her, but then brought his mouth to her inner thighs, the sweet skin behind her knees. He worshipped, he teased, her every soft whimper of pleasure and frustration enflaming him.

But not yet.

He was in control now, he could wait her out; he needed to see what she’d do when he’d driven her beyond her limits.

She moved her hands down to the vee of her thighs, pressed his hand more firmly against her, shifted on the bed so that she could dig her heels into the mattress. She tugged upward on the skin of her belly, as if she could bring him in better contact with the parts of her that had to be aching to be touched, stroked into bloom.

He obliged.

He slid two fingers inside her, brought his mouth down to her and kept it there until she began to convulse around him, a living pulse of pleasure, taken over the edge in a new way, a different way. Ah, and there were so many ways… .

Jessica attempted to sit up, blindly holding her arms out to him, clearly wanting to be held, needing to be held. He’d never understood that in a woman, why indeed anyone would have that need. Until now.

Gideon gathered her to him, her arms and legs once more locked behind his back as he buried himself, and perhaps his own past, deep inside her, clinging to her as she clung to him, the two of them riding out the storm, together.

When they collapsed against the pillows, Jessica didn’t comment that he would be of “no use to her” for a while. Which was probably a good thing, as Gideon couldn’t do much more than lie there as she picked crushed rose petals from his sweat-slick body before curling into him, resting her head on his shoulder.

He was going to have to learn to pace himself. If Trixie had been right and in another thirty years he would be happy most nights with his dogs, some brandy and a warm fire, at least he’d have that thirty years. He could only hope to tire out Jessica by that time, which he rather doubted would happen. But they’d work something out… .

He pressed a kiss against her hair and then closed his eyes, more than ready for sleep, and drifted away… .

“Your lordship?” There was a knock on the door. “Your lordship?”

Gideon raised his head a fraction. “Go. Away.”

“Yes, sir, your lordship,” Thorndyke answered. “I would do that, surely. But I can’t.”

Jessica stirred slightly but then only sighed and continued to sleep.

“Yes, Thorny, you can. You simply have to apply yourself. You managed to propel yourself here, now manage to get yourself gone.”

Jessica yawned and stretched. Rather like a cat, rubbing her body against him. Part of Gideon took notice and became interested. The other part wished his butler on the far side of the moon.

“What’s going on?” Jessica asked, the grace of a cat deserting her as she tried to prop herself up by pushing on her elbow, which then jabbed into his chest. “Who are you bullying?”

Gideon gave it up. “My butler. But don’t worry, I bully him all the time. Go back to sleep.”

She pushed her tangled hair away from her face, grumbling something about never sleeping without first braiding her hair or it turned into a rats’ nest. “What does he want? Is it morning? It can’t be morning, it’s too dark.”

The knock came again. “Your lordship? It’s the dowager duchess, sir. She’s sent a note.”

Now Gideon was awake. “Trixie?”

“Yes, sir. You’re to read it at once, sir.”

Gideon pushed back the covers and left the bed, using the near-to-guttering light from a few of the remaining lit candles to locate his breeches. “Slide it under the door. What bloody time is it?”

“Gone three, my lord. I’m so sorry, but the footman who brought it was most insistent. I’ll have the coach brought round.”

“The—Damn it!” He watched as a folded note was pushed beneath the door and bent to pick it up. “This couldn’t wait until morning, Thorndyke?” he asked as he broke the seal and opened the single page.

Get here. Now! The word now was underlined three times.

“Well, that’s succinct.” He raked his fingers through his hair. “I’ll be down directly.”

“We both will,” Jessica said from behind him, and he turned to see she was standing beside the bed, unashamedly naked, crushed rose petals in her hair. And several other places. He looked down at himself, momentarily amazed at his powers of recovery in the face of distraction, and then silently cursed his grandmother’s pathetic command of proper timing.

Gideon tore his gaze from the trio of rose petals fortunate enough to be in such intimate contact with Jessica’s left hip, and then manfully squinted into the near darkness, looking for his shirt. “No, you stay here.”

“We’ll both be down directly, Thorndyke,” she called out, and then began foraging for her underclothes, her bare bottom enticing as she bent over to retrieve the French drawers. Ah, more rose petals… .

“I never before realized my own grandmother hates me,” Gideon muttered, once again turning his eyes away from temptation.

It was closer to a quarter hour before he and Jessica were heading down the curved staircase, thanks to Jessica’s “rats’ nest,” but they were nearly to the door before Kate hailed them from the top of the stairs.

“What’s she done this time?” Lady Katherine asked as she bounded down the stairs with an energetic lack of caution that could have brought anyone else to grief. But not Kate. She never made a misstep, never gave a thought to decorum or, God help them all, her own safety. It was what he loved about her and why he worried so much about her. She was too damn much of a man for a woman. Somehow she’d lost any soft feminine side she’d ever had, preferring to act and be treated as if she was fourth and youngest Redgrave son.

He gave a moment’s thought to his sister’s question, and the fact that his grandmother had been entertaining the Marquis of Mellis. What if she wasn’t as deft as she believed herself to be? What if she’d slipped, or become angry with something he’d revealed to her? What if—“You’re not going with us, Kate.”

She ignored him as if he’d said nothing, brushing past him and through the open doorway to the foggy, damp street beyond. She’d climbed into the coach, taking the rear-facing seat, and was buttoning the last few buttons of the jacket to her riding habit as Gideon and Jessica entered and the coach jolted forward.

“Trixie’s her grandmother, too, Gideon,” Jessica said, as if he’d forgotten. “Stop glaring at her.”

“He’s glaring? Just think, all these years I thought that was his usual face.”

Jessica laughed but then slipped her hand into his as the coach turned out of the Square. “Trixie always lands on her feet, Gideon. I don’t know her well, but I’m certain of that much.”

He squeezed her hand in return. “I never should have started this.”

“Never should have started what?” Kate asked him. “And before you open your mouth, remember, I’m not a child.”

“Another time,” he said evasively, grabbing the strap as the coachman made the last turn into Cavendish Square. They’d accomplished the drive in a quarter of the time it would have taken them during the day, with only a few drays and delivery wagons sharing the streets with them. “Let’s just see what we’re facing.”

“All right. But you might want to do something about that rose petal clinging to your left cheek, brother mine.”

Gideon raised his hand to brush away the petal. “There’s nothing there.”

“No. But Jessica’s women spoke with my Sally, so I know there could have been. You’ve just confirmed that for me. Thank you.”

“Pernicious brat,” Gideon commented as Jessica bent her head, hiding her face and, most probably, her flaming cheeks.

The door to the dowager countess’s mansion was opened the moment the coach came to a halt, a wedge of yellowed light cutting through the fog. Gideon bustled the two women out of the coach and quickly hurried them into the foyer.

“Soames?”

The butler inclined his head. “Your lordship, Lady Katherine. Mrs. Linden.”

“No, my countess,” Gideon corrected, looking at the large standing clock in one corner of the foyer, “for the past nearly nine hours. But never mind that now. Where is she?”

“In her boudoir, my lord,” Soames said, his ears going crimson as he shot glances at Jessica and Kate. Really, you’d think the man had passed beyond blushing decades ago. “As is his lordship. You’re to go right up, sir.”

“Remain here,” Gideon ordered the ladies. “Soames, make them some tea or something.”

“Oh, I don’t think so,” Kate announced. “Jessica? Do you think so?”

“I think you and I are going to be very good friends, Kate. And, no, I don’t plan to remain down here.”

When had he lost control of his life, his air of consequence, his ability to command? Gideon looked down at his clothing, as Soames was looking at him rather strangely, to see that he may have buttoned his waistcoat, but one of his shirttails was hanging loose beneath it. “Bloody hell. All right. But if I tell you to leave, you leave. Understood?”

“Oh, definitely understood,” Jessica said…and then she did the oddest thing. She winked at Kate.

“You’re wasting time, brother mine,” Kate reminded him. “I saw the note. She wrote now.”

And so it was that the trio, all of them now Redgraves, mounted the staircase together, turned and climbed another flight, following Soames, who then pointed them toward the closed double doors to what had to be Trixie’s bedchamber.

He then bowed and said, “Whatever it is we’re to do, it will be done, sir. I’ve ordered the staff to remain in their quarters. I’ll be right here, anticipating your orders.”

“Well, that was ominous,” Jessica whispered as the butler backed away from the doors. “Go on, Gideon. Open it.”

The chamber, one he’d never before visited, was quite large and fronted by an antechamber hung with red velvet draperies. Beyond it, the room opened up considerably, which seemed a pity to him, as none of its furnishings or colors appealed to him. Red, everywhere, red with touches of gold. Move the chamber to Piccadilly, and it would, other than in its sheer size and the cost of the fabrics and furnishings, become quite an inviting bordello. To see such a room here, in the most straitlaced area of Mayfair, was something of a shock.

There was a movement near the fireplace, and Trixie’s barefoot legs appeared, searching for the floor as she uncurled herself from one of the large upholstered chairs positioned there. “There you are,” she said, getting to her feet, her midnight-blue velvet dressing gown tightly tied at her waist, a glass of wine in her hand. “My goodness, are we having a party?” she asked, appearing not at all upset that Gideon had not come here on his own. “Kate, Jessica, how good to see you both. More heads to consult, I suppose.”

She employed the hand clutching the wineglass to gesture toward the large, curtained bed. “Now, what do you propose we should do with that?”

CHAPTER TWELVE

“SON OF A BITCH. Bloody damn son of a bitch…”

Jessica shot a look to Trixie, who was pointedly inspecting the perfectly buffed nails on her left hand, and approached the bed. She didn’t want to look, but Gideon was looking, so she supposed she should be a supporting prop for her husband to lean on, or some such thing.

After all, it was bad enough Kate had plunked herself down in the facing chair halfway through her grandmother’s explanation, laughing so hard she’d been forced to clutch her arms about her waist as she rocked back and forth in the chair, fighting a bout of hiccups. Shy and missish were not words one could ever think to use to describe Lady Katherine Redgrave.

They’d been talking, the marquis and Trixie, nattering of this and that over the late supper Soames had set out, the remains of which were still in evidence. Speaking of this and that, she’d said again, adding as she looked pointedly to Gideon, “And perhaps a few other things.”

She’d thought to tease, flattering the man by kicking off one small slipper and running her silk-clad toes up and down his leg and…well, there was travel involved, and that would be all she’d say. That distraction had done wonders at loosening the man’s tongue.

There came a moment, however, only a moment, when she may have asked too pointed a question, or perhaps given too much away by dint of one of her comments. In any event, the marquis made to leave, which of course he could not do, not in his current mood, one that bordered on suspicion, of all silly things. It was only practical that she…distract him.

The distraction had ended happily, albeit, for the marquis, also permanently.

“He’s really dead?” Jessica asked, looking down at the sheet-covered mound that had until recently been the Marquis of Mellis.

“Oh, yes, he’s dead,” Gideon grumbled. “There’s probably a lot to be said for dogs and fires and snifters of brandy. At least after seventy. Although, as exits go, I suppose it wouldn’t be all that terrible.”

“Excuse me?”

He looked at her and then blinked. “I’m sorry. I’m afraid my mind was wandering. It’s not every day I see a naked nobleman in my grandmother’s bed, alive or dead. In fact, I try not to think about Trixie’s bed in any way or form.”

“I should certainly hope so.” Jessica leaned her head against his upper arm. “He’s rather large, isn’t he? What are we going to do with him?”

Kate, apparently at last recovered from her fit of giggles, was beside them now, also looking down at the mounded sheet. “He can’t stay here. At least not precisely here.” She reached for the edge of the sheet. “Come on, you two, we’ll have to get him dressed.”

Gideon’s hand shot out, his fingers clamping around his sister’s wrist. “There are times, Katherine, when I could cheerfully throttle you. Downstairs. Now. All three of you. And send Soames in here.”

Jessica led the grinning Kate away, and, along with the dowager duchess, they descended to the drawing room where, as they’d been informed by Soames, tea and cakes awaited them.

Jessica was too concerned for Gideon to sit down, but once Trixie had taken up her usual half-reclining position on the one-armed couch, Kate dropped to the floor beside her, to ask, “What happened, Trixie? I mean, what really happened? What first did you do when you realized he’d cocked up his toes?”

Jessica was a matron now, a wife. She should be scolding her sister-in-law for her questions, and searching out some spirits of hartshorn for the dowager countess, as Trixie should by rights be having a fit of the vapors. Since neither action appeared to be required, or indeed looked for, she decided to take up one of the facing chairs and simply listen.

“Naughty puss,” Trixie said, patting Kate’s cheek. “I should be terrified that you’re so like me, were I not so flattered. Now, as to your last question? I didn’t notice. Not at first. I was much too occupied with wondering if drinking those horrid Bath waters truly has some sort of medicinal or restorative effect. I mean, the man was—well, not the man he used to be, surely, but certainly no sluggard.”

Jessica looked down at her toes. There was nowhere else to look, not really.

“He always roared like some great bear when he was—I really shouldn’t be saying this, not to you two innocent girls. I must be more overset than I imagined.”

“Gideon and Jessica married tonight, Trixie,” Kate supplied helpfully. “From the way they were looking at each other when they went up to bed at ten o’clock, I don’t think Jessica’s innocence should be a worry to you.”

The dowager countess smiled in Jessica’s direction. “No grass growing under my grandson’s feet, is there? I should have realized he wouldn’t wait so much as another day. I’ll expect a grandchild within the year.” Then she turned her attention back to Kate. “However, if you tell me you’re no innocent, I’ll have the man’s name tonight and his ears on my mantel tomorrow.”

“I didn’t mean I’m not innocent, Trixie,” Kate protested. “I’m simply not, well, innocent. Or do you forget who raised me? Remember when I was ten, and I asked you about those statues lining the staircase out there, and what those funny things were?”

Trixie shook her head. “Oh, I have so many sins to account for…” But then she rallied, as if eager to be on with it. “Very well, where was I?”

“There you go, Trixie. You’ll feel better for the telling, I’m sure, you poor dear. Now, he was roaring…” Kate prompted, grinning at Jessica.

“No, that wasn’t what I was saying. He was in the habit of roaring once brought to the, shall we say, summit. Tonight it was rather more of a surprised oh and then nothing. He simply collapsed on top of me. So I noticed only when I pointed out that, proud of himself as he might be, he was now crushing me and would he please move—which, sadly, he did not do. I nearly exhausted my strength until I could manage to extract myself from beneath him. I scribbled a note to Gideon and have been imbibing this lovely wine ever since, which is the only reason I’m running my tongue, which I shouldn’t be doing, although, after the first time, you’d think I’d be less prone to hysterics.”

Jessica sat up very straight. “This has happened to you before tonight?”

“Oh, yes, this makes it twice now. But other than to shamelessly trot after younger men, I see no escape from the possibility of a third time. Save celibacy, of course, which is out of the question.”

“Of course,” Jessica agreed weakly. It occurred to her it was a very good thing she wasn’t some sheltered debutante suddenly thrust into this scandalous nest of Redgraves.

Kate rested her chin in her hand and looked adoringly up at her grandmother. “I want to be like you. I never want to grow old.”

“We all grow old, pet,” Trixie told Kate, patting her cheek. “Why else do you think I try so desperately to tell myself I’m still young? Being old terrifies me, because each day brings me closer to the moment I have to face my sins before my God. You don’t want that sort of terrible moment for yourself, and I most certainly don’t wish it on you.” She took a steadying breath. “And now I believe I’d very much like another glass of wine, to aid me in maintaining my accustomed sangfroid.”

“I’ll see to it,” Jessica said when Kate looked at her, her full bottom lip caught between her teeth, tears standing in her dark eyes.

A minute later there was some slight commotion on the other side of the closed doors, and all three women looked in that direction. There were a series of muffled bumps capped by a string of barely contained curses, followed by the sound of footsteps, perhaps even the sounds of something being dragged across the floor and, finally, the closing of a door.

“‘Good night, sweet prince; and flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.’ As long as you’re no longer resting under my roof.” Trixie raised her refilled glass in a salute, and then downed its contents in one long, smooth glide. “I wonder what Gideon decided to do with him? Oh, well, whatever it is, it won’t kill him. The marquis, I mean.”

An hour later, with Trixie now slumbering while almost politely snoring beneath a cashmere shawl on the couch, Jessica and Kate had that answer from Gideon.

“He’ll be discovered in his usual chair at his favorite club. His coachman was most willing to accommodate my request for both his help and the club’s direction, as he could see the inherent problems in explaining what his master was doing in Cavendish Square.”

“So you told the coachie what the man was doing?” Kate asked, yawning, as if the subject interested her still, but not enough to keep her awake for much longer.

“Yes,” Gideon said, rubbing at the back of his neck. “He was rather proud to hear it. They’ll keep the marquis in a small storeroom until the club closes, and then trot him out to his chair, where he’ll be found in the morning. Kept saying good on him, the randy old bugger, good on him—the coachman kept saying that, I mean. I haven’t been able to muster the same enthusiasm about Trixie. Are we going to leave her here?”

Jessica got to her feet, pushing her hands against the small of her back. One way or another, it had been a long night. Something to tell her grandchildren, she supposed, although she doubted she ever would. “She says she’s not going to sleep in that bed again, not until the entire thing has been stripped away, mattress, hangings, everything. She’s also quite drunk, Gideon. I imagine I would be, too.”

“Then we’ll learn nothing more here tonight, or should I say this morning. It will soon be dawn. Ladies?”

“Oh, yes,” Kate said, jumping up. “I’m more than ready to get back to Portman Square. Tomorrow is soon enough for you all to tell me more about whatever the devil is going on here.”

“There’s nothing going on here.”

“So you say, Gideon. Silly me simply doesn’t believe that,” Kate announced as she headed for the foyer.

Gideon and Jessica exchanged looks as they followed her.

“Just before she nodded off, your grandmother asked me to lean down close so she could whisper in my ear. She said to tell you she’s learned a few things, and that you’ll soon have your murderer.”

Gideon waited for Kate to be handed into the coach. “And Kate overheard. The girl’s got ears like a bat. Wonderful. Now we’ll never be rid of her.”

“I heard that,” Kate warned from inside the coach. “But you’re probably right.”

“Damn it, Kate—”

“Not now, Gideon,” Jessica begged. “We’re all exhausted.”

He nodded his agreement, and helped her into the coach. They were halfway back to Portman Square when Kate asked about the commotion they’d heard outside the drawing room. “What happened?”

“Nothing,” Gideon answered shortly. And then, a few moments later, his shoulders began to shake. “We dropped him.”

Jessica looked at him in the dim light of the false dawn. He was smiling. “You dropped him?”

“It wasn’t all that terrible. We’d tied him up in a sheet, and partway down the stairs Soames lost his grip on his end.”

“Oh, Gideon,” Jessica said, her own lips twitching in amusement. “How…um, how horrible.”

Gideon shrugged as if unconcerned, but the devil had crept into his eyes. “I suppose we could have apologized, but the marquis didn’t seem to mind.”

They were all three of them still laughing as the footman set down the coach steps in Portman Square, Jessica going off into new peals of exhausted mirth when she saw the clearly apprehensive look on the young man’s face. “My goodness, Waters,” she managed to choke out, “you look as if you’ve just seen a dead man.”

At that, she felt herself being swept up into Gideon’s arms as he climbed the steps to the mansion and headed for the stairs. “Bed now, for all of us,” he said, including Kate in this order.

“When do we go back to Cavendish Square?” Kate asked as she actually pulled on the railing to help propel herself up the stairs.

“We don’t. You’re returning to Redgrave Manor.”

“Giddy,” she said, very nearly whined, “don’t make me badger you. You know you’ll give in.”

“Not this time. Good night, Kate.”

Jessica gave the girl a quick wave as Gideon kicked open the door to their bedchamber. Once the door was closed again—and locked again—they both made short work of ridding themselves of their clothes and tumbling into the unmade bed. He kissed her, thanked her and then turned onto his stomach, clearly intending to sleep away what little remained of their wedding night.