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

“They were planning their own revolution?”

“You’ll badger me until you get it all, won’t you? You’re a lot like me in that regard. Very well. But then we will never speak of this again. I mean that, Gideon, never again. Even two decades in the past, what your father planned could come back to destroy the Redgraves. Sedition? Regicide? No, we don’t speak of it.”

She held out her wineglass to be refilled, waiting until Gideon had replenished it and handed it to her before speaking again. “Your father and his cohorts were not the only ones to dream such dreams. Again, remember the times. Liberté, égalité, fraternité! Pretty words for the masses, opportunities for the ambitious. There were many hot-blooded young men who looked to France and saw what they believed were great opportunities if repeated here in England. your father planned a lot of things. He was young, yes, but as with Caesar’s Cassius, he was ambitious. He took what your grandfather began in the pursuit of pleasure, and saw the possibilities for so much more.”

“But there were only the thirteen,” Jessica pointed out, immediately wishing she hadn’t spoken. The dowager duchess was clearly unhappy with this conversation.

“Yes, thirteen. But providing carefully selected invited guests—there were so many guests, safe they believed, in their masks and cloaks—with free and unbridled access to their every vice, their every twisted appetite? Gathering those of weak moral fiber and yet with entry into every corner of society, every door in government from the House of Commons to the King’s Privy Council, corrupting them, thereby owning them? Think about that. Stupidly, unwittingly, they gave Barry power over them all. It was a brilliant if distasteful strategy, I suppose, as far it went. If I told you some of the names, which I will not, you would be appalled. Sadly, these two decades later, some of them still occupy positions of power.”

She took another sip of wine. “Barry saw in the French unrest what Napoleon Bonaparte must have recognized several years later, knowing someone eventually had to rise from the ashes and take the reins. Although the victories that would bring your father and his handpicked minions into power would not be on the battlefield, but covert—and more than faintly disgusting. I never wanted you to know any of this, Gideon. But he was quite mad, your father. Brilliant, but quite mad. Could he have succeeded? I sincerely doubt that, his appetite for opium would have brought him down, eventually. But it became increasingly clear even to me, his own mother, that he must soon be stopped, one way or another. We would have been ruined if he failed, ruined if he succeeded. I both mourned and rejoiced the day he died, almost welcoming the scandal that followed, as we had been saved from the most damning scandal of them all.”

Jessica turned away as the dowager blinked back tears before taking refuge in her wineglass once more.

The room was silent for a time, a long, uncomfortable time, before Gideon spoke. “How many other members from my father’s time are still alive?”

“One,” she said quietly. “With Turner gone now, too, just the one.”

“Yes, but you’re forgetting those who took their places,” Jessica said, her mind racing. “The eldest offspring. Why couldn’t one of them be our killer, to protect his father’s memory, or to protect his own reputation if word were ever to get out? And what about those guests Trixie spoke of—one or more of them might also feel vulnerable. Your father’s Society was plotting the overthrow of the monarchy, Gideon, for pity’s sake. The Society was still active five years ago in some ways, I promise you that, although I can’t say it functioned as it once had. It may still go on today, in one form or another. But to be a member today would make it logical for anyone to believe there are still plots against the government, and all while Bonaparte threatens to invade us. That’s reason enough for a dozen murders.”

“Now you’re simply speculating, my dears, and rather wildly at that. Without Barry, their leader was gone,” Trixie reminded them. “The ceremonies, the masks, the orgies, the opium eating, I’m sure they went on. It was that side of things that most attracted many of the members, as Barry well knew. So, yes, I know they went on. But I was assured by Ranald Orford himself, the rest of it quickly shriveled to nothingness. Barry made them believe they were capable of anything. Without him, they had to convince themselves, and that wasn’t possible. If they still meet, it’s only to be naughty little boys, nothing more.”

“Naughty?” Jessica was instantly incensed. “My father was going to turn me over to be used in some horrible ceremony.”

Trixie shrugged yet again. “He may have been attempting to impress someone with his loyalty. It has been done before.”

She turned her attention back to Gideon. “That would be unsettling, however. It would mean there’s a clear new leader, perhaps even as strong as Barry. You force me to do some investigating. Go away now, Gideon. Thank God you’ve left off wearing that damnable golden rose. You can’t allow anyone to speculate that you’ve stumbled onto them. Your best strategy is to do nothing else until you hear from me.”

“I don’t know that I want you involved, Trixie,” Gideon said, getting to his feet and holding out his hand to Jessica. “If we’re anywhere close to correct with our speculations, you might be putting yourself in danger.”

“Danger? You forget, I have weapons of my own, so don’t worry your head about me. As to the boy? If you truly believe the ceremonies continue, in any way or form, I’d suggest locking him up somewhere. When the world goes mad, you can’t take too many precautions.”

CHAPTER EIGHT

THE DRIVE BACK TO JERMYN Street was accomplished in tense silence, but when Gideon tossed the reins to Thomas and followed Jessica inside, she didn’t object.

“We’ll be upstairs, Richard,” he called over his shoulder at her business partner. “See to it we’re not disturbed.”

“Yes, but—” the man protested before Jessica motioned him to silence.

“Take the knocker from the door, please, Richard. I’m sorry, but we won’t be entertaining for a while. I’ll explain later.”

“We won’t—Jess? What’s going on? You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.”

“Go on up,” Gideon told her, touching his hand to her back. “I’ll join you shortly.”

She looked as if she might wish to argue the point. She looked at him for a long time, actually, as if memorizing him or some such thing, but then nodded and headed for the stairs.

“Richard? If you’d kindly put down that thing you’re waving about, I believe we need to have a conversation.”

The older man looked at the feather duster he’d been wielding and then laid it on one of the sheet-covered tables. “I wasn’t planning to employ it as a weapon,” he said. He reached beneath the sheet and came up with a nasty-looking wooden club. “This has served me well enough over the years. Do I need it now, my lord?”

“I most sincerely hope not,” Gideon said wryly as he pulled two chairs out from one of the card tables and pushed one toward Richard, choosing to turn his own around and straddle it. “Tell me about Jamie Linden.”

Richard eyed the chair as if considering other uses for it but then sat down. “A fellow of much my own age, but much better set up, I should think people would say. A winning smile, a clever tongue. You could almost like him, I suppose, although not quite so much when he was in his cups. But I barely knew the man.”

“Really? And are you quite sure you want to go on with that? I’ve already had to wade through evasions and outright lies once today. I don’t have the patience for a second round. I know what he was before he and Jessica ran off to escape her father’s plans for her. Now I want to know about the time between then and the day he died.”

“No, my lord, you don’t.” Richard extracted a large handkerchief from his pocket and wiped at his suddenly damp brow. “It was another time, another lifetime. The past is long behind her now, dead and gone.”

Gideon felt his muscles tensing. “He hurt her?”

“He hurt her,” Richard answered simply.

There was no easy way to ask his next question. “Only him?”

“Did he pass her around? Sell her body? Is that what you’re asking? Not after the first time, no. He couldn’t afford to lose his only asset.”

“Explain that.” Gideon felt physically ill and nearly on the sharp edge of madness. Everything Jessica had suffered, endured, could be led straight back to his father, the man who had begun it all.

“Look at her wrists.” Richard stood up. “I’ve got to get back to work, customers tonight or not. Damn, and what are we supposed to do with all that fish chowder?”

“Sit down. I’m not finished. How did you meet her? How did you end up here, together?”

“Most all of that’s not my story to tell, my lord.”

“Richard, you can tell me the whole, or I can choke it out of you. In my current mood, I’m amenable either way.”

“Yes, I can see that. You care, don’t you? Thank you. Very well.” Richard took up the chair once more and then fell silent, as if attempting to line up his facts in good order. “He took her up as he was ordered—I suppose when you say you know what happened, you know what I mean, and who gave him the order.”

“Her father, yes?”

Richard nodded his head. “But who ordered him, my lord? That’s a question I can’t answer, nor can Jess. Jamie Linden took that knowledge to his grave with him. The only thing she knew was he was terrified of someone and itching to get himself free of the country.”

Damn. One speculation put to rest, unfortunately. As of at least five years ago, there was a new leader. A strong leader, a dangerous leader. Another Barry Redgrave. One, if Trixie was to be believed, Turner Collier was prepared to hand over his own daughter to as a way of showing his loyalty to the man.

“So Linden had himself a problem,” Gideon said, just to keep Richard talking.

“He did that, sir, certainly. He’d seen someone that day he shouldn’t have seen. He was in a wild state. It would be his death he could be facing if anyone knew, but he had no money to flee with until they paid him for bringing her to the ceremony, so he had to risk it.”

“Money more important than his life? That’s quite the gamble. None too intelligent, was he?”

“No, my lord. He wanted to help her, he swore he did, but the way he saw it, there was no choice but to do as her father had told him. That part of the story never fit so well for me, to tell you the truth, but, again, Jess said Linden wanted to help her, he simply couldn’t. She believed him, my lord, not having much choice, I’d say. And damn if she didn’t up and tell him she knew where her stepmother kept her jewels, offered them to him if he’d take her with him. Eighteen, just a girl, tied up hand and foot and half out of her mind with fear, I’m sure, but she found a way to survive. I think Linden put a value on Jess, just like he did on the jewels, and saw himself a safer man, a richer man. Yes, that’s how I see the thing.”

Gideon wrapped his hand across his forehead, rubbing hard at his temples with fingers and thumb. His head felt ready to explode. Bound hand and foot. Turner Collier was so very lucky he was dead. “Go on.”

“Jess never told me too much, except about that time he’d—Well, we already spoke of that. They married in Brussels, with Linden knowing a wife is chattel, my lord, and anything he did with her was above the law, as it were. If she ran, he’d be within his rights to haul her back, punish her without fear of consequences. Again, at least that’s how I see the thing, why he insisted they marry. She was young, sir, in a strange land, alone. There was no going home, not to a man like her father. There was nothing else she could do.”

Gideon wanted a drink. Needed a drink. “I agree. She had no choice.”

“There’s nothing stronger than the will to stay alive, no matter how terrible the living may be, poor mite. They traveled the continent, Jess and Linden. He always kept them moving, always looking over his shoulder as if fearful some would find him. He avoided cities, where he might be recognized, plying his talents in villages and small towns.”

“And what talent was that?”

“The cards. He gambled every night, sometimes winning, sometimes losing—more often losing. And always with Jess forced to stand just behind his chair the whole night long, dressed in one of those thin, dampened gauze gowns Empress Josephine and her sisters so favored back then, tricked up beyond all modesty and common decency, her face painted, her hair piled high like Josephine’s, her body meant to distract the bumpkins at the table. She stood quite still, hour after hour, her hand always on Linden’s shoulder. A living statue.”

Richard closed his eyes, shook his head. “She never reacted, not by so much as a blink, keeping her attention on the cards. That’s how I first saw her. I’d stopped at the same inn just outside Lyons, for I made my own blunt at the gaming tables. We were fairly stranded at the inn, as spring storms had made the roads a mass of mud. In any event, I looked at her, disbelieving what I was seeing. That sweet, beautiful girl, amid all the ugliness. Then, when I asked to join the players, she looked at me for a moment. There was something in her eyes… .”

Gideon nodded. Yes, he agreed. There was something in Jessica’s eyes. Some vulnerability she couldn’t hide. Some nebulous, unexplainable something that made a man want to slay dragons for her. “I wondered why she dresses herself the way she does. I referred to her black gown as armor.”

“And well it is, your lordship. It was either one nasty outfit or the other, each night. She’d had enough of dampened gowns, or cruel corsets laced so tight she could barely breathe. Enough of rough louts and gapemouthed farmers in taprooms leering at her, thinking she was there for their amusement. Each evening, when she’d appear with Linden, I wanted to strip off my jacket and cover her, take her out of there.”

Richard sat back in his chair and sighed. “Three nights later, when the roads were all but dry again and fit for travel, I did.”

“She did say we, yes. You emptied his pockets and left him on the bed he died in.”

Richard shifted his eyes to the floor. “The bed he died in, yes. We’ve been together ever since, Jess and me. She didn’t waste the months she spent with Jamie Linden, not once she’d got her spirit back, but had been biding her time, learning what she had to learn in order to be free of him. She plays a splendid hand of cards, your lordship, and can all but tell you what cards you’re holding before you’ve taken a good look at them yourself. She’d been planning on how to escape him, thinking to gamble her way back to England with the money she’d been lifting bit by bit from Linden’s purse when he was lost in his drunkenness. Brave, brave girl. It was a daring scheme, but she wouldn’t have fared well, bless her. She can read the cards better than most, but all but a blind man can read her. I have her wear an eye shade when she fills in at the tables, elsewise we’d be living in a gutter.”

At last Gideon smiled, albeit ruefully. “She couldn’t bluff her way out of a wet sack, I agree, at least not to a discerning eye. So you’re saying you’re a father to her, Richard? Is that it?”

“Yes, that’s just what I’m saying. Father and friend. Is that what you wanted to hear, your lordship? Or is all this concern about who might be bedding her? You’re no better than that? Knowing what I know, I wouldn’t dream to touch her. She was a child, she’s still a child, and innocent, for all her three and twenty years. And she’s older than time itself. She’s who she is, what her father and Jamie Linden and the world made her, and what she’s made of herself since. Leave her be.”

“I can’t do that, Richard, no more than you could. I have my reasons. How did James Linden die?”

“How do you think he died, your lordship?”

Gideon stood up and returned the chair to its place at the table. “Why, Richard, I think you looked, you saw, you understood and then you did the only thing an honorable man could do in your situation. I think you bided your time until you believed you could safely get her away, and then you bloody well killed him.”

Richard’s bushy white eyebrows rose, but he said nothing.

Gideon waited him out for some moments and then asked, “Did he suffer?”

“Not enough, no,” Richard said as he also stood up, his knees faintly creaking at the exertion. “By that third night, I was nearly made mad with the waiting, listening to him rage at her. He’d lost that night and clearly blamed her. I could only imagine what was going on in that attic chamber next to mine, and my thoughts made me ill. When I finally heard his drunken snores, I knew it was time. I’m not a strong man, your lordship, or a young one, but a well-placed pillow and a man too drunk to put up a proper fight was well within my ability.”

“Dead in his sleep. Plausible. You couldn’t have employed the club, as the wounds would have been too obvious.”

“That’s how I saw the thing, yes,” Richard said quietly. “It pained me deeper than you can know, to wait until I was certain he was finally asleep. I had to keep telling myself it was the last time he’d hit her, I’d see to that. I’m not sorry for killing the man. I’d do it again.”

Gideon held out his right hand and shook the other man’s hand warmly. “Thank you, Richard. I believe I can manage from here, although you could wish me luck.”

“Sir?”

Gideon had made his decision. He’d come to it in a flash of understanding halfway through Richard’s recitation. How brave she’d been to offer herself up to gain her brother, when all she knew of men was pain and humiliation. Why she had reacted as she had when he’d taken her to bed…the hesitation, the moments when he’d felt she’d gone away from him to someplace in her mind…and then the surprised passion, the reluctant and then, finally, eager giving. It could all have ended in disaster, but it hadn’t. It had been the most memorable, soul-shaking night of his life. More so now than ever.

“Go pack your belongings, Uncle Richard. You and your widowed niece and whomever else you choose to bring with you are to be situated in Portman Square yet today. I’ll have my town coach sent round at five. The tongues will wag mightily once the betrothal is posted in the newspapers, sure I’ve some dastardly plan to wrest the nincompoop’s inheritance from him by wedding his half sister, but I think we can withstand that. After all, it’s nothing more than most of them would expect from a Redgrave.”

“You’re going to…to marry her, your lordship?” Then Richard’s eyes narrowed. “Why?”

“If I had the answer to that question, my dear fellow, I would sleep much better tonight. Or never sleep again. I only know you’re a fine man, but from this day forward, Jessica is in my care, and God help the man who would try to hurt her. Now, if you’ll excuse me?”

“Yes. Yes, of course!” Richard grabbed Gideon’s hand this time, in both of his, pumping it up and down in some agitation. “Not many men would do the honorable thing, sir, knowing what happened to her.”

“I’m not many men, Richard. In point of fact, I may just now be discovering exactly who I am.”

He extracted his hand from Richard’s hearty grip, not without effort, and headed for the stairs. Now to tell Jessica what he’d decided. He doubted her reaction would mirror that of her uncle.

When he entered the small sitting room, it was to see her tucked into a corner of the couch, her head bent low, her knees tucked up almost to her chin. She’d taken the pins from her glorious red hair, so that it hung down, nearly obscuring her face. Her hands were clasped together around her shins, her bare feet poking out from beneath the hem of the simple yellow gown. It was as if she was trying to make herself small, trying to disappear inside herself. A…defensive position. Habit, he supposed, adopted during her time with James Linden. One he could only hope to break.

At the sound of the door closing behind him, she pushed back her hair and tilted her head to watch him as he crossed the room and sat down beside her. “I assumed you would have thought better of it and gone on your way,” she said before turning her face forward once more, to continue staring at whatever it was she saw in front of her…either the fireplace, or her past. He felt fairly certain it was the latter.

Gideon extracted a white linen square from his pocket and held it up in front of her. “Blow your nose.”

“I don’t need to—” She snatched the handkerchief and did what he asked. And not very daintily.

Stupidly, he felt himself smiling. Young and innocent…older than time itself. Yes, Richard had that one correctly, didn’t he?

“Thank you,” she said after wiping at her tearwet face and just before nearly handing him back the handkerchief before pocketing it. “I’ll see that Doreen washes and presses it for you.”

“I think my grandmother likes you,” he said after they’d both stared at the fireplace for some time.

“I don’t care.”

“Not many people would dare to speak to her the way you did.”

“Perhaps more should. She’s the worst sort of tyrant. She’s likable.”

“She’s also quite intelligent,” Gideon said, lifting his legs and crossing them one ankle over the other on the low table in front of the couch. He was, after all, a man who enjoyed his comforts. “Or don’t you think so?”

“Intelligent? Yes, definitely. And devious. She wasn’t going to tell us anything until I’d told her things I’ve never said to anyone save Richard.”

“Quid pro quo. I did warn you.”

Jessica sighed and made use of the handkerchief once again. “And Richard? You were downstairs for a long time. What did he tell you, and what did you tell him in return? Or did you simply bully an old man?”

Gideon picked a bit of lint off the knee of his fawn breeches. “I know now how James Linden died, and Richard now knows you and I are to be married. He didn’t say it outright, but from the way he pumped my hand until I thought it might fall off, I believe we have his blessing.”

And then he waited for the explosion, outwardly calm and relaxed, inwardly tense and taut as the string on a cocked crossbow.

The explosion never came.

“Yes, I thought that might be the case. Either you left, which most men would have done, or you’d concoct some ridiculous notion that your father was indirectly responsible for what happened to me and you see yourself as doing penance for his sin.”

“Is that what I’m doing? Really? I’ve never seen myself as the penitent sort.”

“I doubt many would disagree with you,” she said quietly. “But I saw your face as the dowager countess was speaking, telling us things I already knew but you couldn’t know. My father is responsible for what happened to me. My father, and…and my husband. They’re both dead. It’s over, Gideon, and I simply want to get on with my life. I’ve seen more of the world than most people will and enjoyed many of my travels. Richard and I have managed to save a considerable sum toward the inn we’re going to own one day. I’m content as I am, and you are not responsible for me. To think otherwise would be ludicrous.”

“Penitent and ludicrous. Not the usual words to follow a marriage proposal, not that you haven’t already turned down what you’ve not allowed me to yet offer.”

“Don’t be agreeable,” she said, lowering her head to her knees. “It doesn’t come naturally to you.”

No, it didn’t; Gideon rather liked the idea of being the oldest son, the earl. He enjoyed getting his own way. Clearly Jessica hadn’t just learned to read the cards during her time standing behind Linden’s shoulder. She’d also learned to read people. That she’d even allowed him to sit down next to her was a wonder. “All right. Then let’s at least be honest. Give me your hand. I mean that in the literal sense. Let me see your hand. Both of them, actually. Then I’ll go.”