What an Earl Wants

“Really? We’re that bad? I had no idea. Although, clearly, you seemed to have been lapping up tales of the infamous Redgravian debauchery. You should have seen your eyes, Jessica. You believed every word I said.”

He had her there. It wasn’t as if she’d any certain knowledge of Redgravian debauchery. She’d certainly heard about his lordship’s light’s-o-love. Four mistresses? That seemed excessive and spoke of an unhealthy appetite, in her opinion. She knew he was a neck-or-nothing rider who often wagered on himself in races and had yet to lose. She knew he had knocked down Gentleman Jackson not once, but twice, until the renowned pugilist had declared he wouldn’t step in the ring with him again. She knew he won all the top prizes driving with the Four-in-Hand Club. She knew he gambled deep but never wildly. She knew he had no enemies because even the most foolish of London gentlemen perceived the wisdom of calling him friend.

She had, in short, made a study of the man, indeed his entire family, these past weeks. But, really, when she got right down to it, she didn’t know anything about the current crop of Redgraves but what she’d heard.

He had two younger brothers, Maximillien and Valentine, and a single sister, Katherine. Maximillen had sailed as one of the Royal Navy’s youngest coxswains, and Valentine had been classically educated in Paris and Toulon, managing to remain there even as Bonaparte conducted his on-again, off-again war on England, only returning home a few months ago.

Katherine had come to Mayfair for her Season last spring but hadn’t really taken, seeing as how she was unfashionably tall and dark-haired, and favored her infamous Spanish mother in her looks in a year where petite blondes were considered all the go. Her suitors had hoped for the mother’s morals, as well, and their mamas had cringed at the thought of “foreign-looking” grandchildren. But it had been Katherine herself who had answered an impertinent question about her brother the earl, voiced in the center of the dance floor at Almack’s, with a stunning punch to the questioner’s nose, breaking it quite nicely, word had it. She hadn’t come to town this Season, which to Jessica’s mind made more of a statement about Lady Katherine’s disdain for society than any possible fear of it or shame over her actions.

Jessica felt she most probably could like Lady Katherine. Lords Maximillien and Valentine were of no real concern to her, although she imagined they were no better or worse than their brother. As to their grandmother, the dowager countess? All Jessica had heard about the woman was that she knew every secret of every man and woman and even royal, and there wasn’t a single person in all the ton who wasn’t scared spitless by her.

Jessica felt she most probably could like Lady Saltwood, as well.

She did not like Gideon Redgrave, however. Not his reputation, not the man who had just very clearly made a complete fool out of her. Damn him.

“Before your brother deigns to join us,” he said now, presumably having had his fill of looking at her as if she might be a bug under a microscope. “We’re quits of this ridiculous offer of yours? You insulted me with your patently insincere offer, not to mention that idiocy with the pistol. In short, as a seductress, Jessica, you are an abysmal failure. I, on the other hand, succeeded admirably in pointing out I am not to be insulted, not without consequences. And, much as you may believe yourself irresistible, I am more than confident I can stumble along through the remainder of my days without learning, firsthand, and, needless to say, most intimately, whether or not you are a true redhead. In short, I am willing to accept your apology and move on.”

She was certain she now looked as if her eyes would simply pop out of her head. “You…you…how dare you!”

He sighed and shook his head, as if saddened by her outburst. “Make up your mind, Jessica. Harlot or genteel widow fallen on hard times. Which is it to be? So far, I would have to say you’ve mastered neither role. But before you answer, let me make one thing clear to you. I choose my own women, and they come to me willingly or not at all. I’ve no desire to bed a martyr, no matter how lovely.”

There was one part of Jessica, one very small, even infinitesimally tiny part of her that took in the words “no matter how lovely,” and considered them a compliment. She shoved that infinitesimal part into a dark corner of her mind and locked the door on it, intending to take it out later and give it a good scold.

“You’ve made your point, Gideon. Several times, in a variety of unconscionably crude and insulting ways. In my defense, I can only point out that I was, am, desperate. I offered you the only thing I had—”

“Please don’t tell me you’re referring to your virtue. I don’t believe that’s been yours to bestow for quite some time. Unless the fabled Mr. Linden was a eunuch?”

“No,” Jessica said quietly, “far from it.” She took a steadying breath. “A month. You ignored my solicitor’s communications for a month, and then you came to see me in person, looking just as I’d imagined you. Arrogant, overweening, for all the world as if you owned it. You weren’t going to listen to reason. And you wear the golden rose. That told me all I needed to know. I…I offered you what interests you most. And damn you, Gideon Redgrave, I did it knowing who you are. What you are. If you had half a heart, which you don’t, you would have realized what that cost me.”

Gideon sat back on the sofa, rubbing a hand across his mouth as he looked at her. He looked at her for a long time.

“I’m sorry,” he said at last.

“Excuse me?” She hadn’t any idea what he was going to say, but what he said made no sense at all.

“I repeat, Jessica. I’m sorry. Tell me—sans the golden rose, would you have made your offer?”

Slowly, silently, she shook her head. “No.”

Once again, he rubbed his hand across his mouth, still looking at her closely. “And you believe it still goes on? The Society.”

Jessica shifted uncomfortably on the cushions. “As of five years ago, yes. I can’t say for certain about now. But you know this.”

“No, Jessica, I don’t,” he said, getting to his feet, suddenly seeming decades older than his years. “I only know that in the past twelve months, four of my late father’s cohorts in that damn Society of his have been murdered. Your father included. I wear the golden rose to signal that I know the hunting accident, the accidental drowning, the fall down the stairs, your father’s coaching accident—they all were in fact murders.”

He had to be spouting nonsense. “I don’t understand. My father was murdered? He and his wife both? How can you know that?”

“Later,” Gideon said, turning toward a small commotion in the hallway. “I believe I’m about to be gifted with the sight of a touching family reunion. Or not,” he added, smiling, as a tall, rail-thin, ridiculously overdressed and harassed-looking youth stomped into the room.

“Now what the bloody blue blazes do you want?” the youth demanded, clutching a large white linen serviette in one hand even as he took a healthy and quite rude bite out of the apple he carried with him. Speaking around the mouthful of fruit, he continued, “First you order me out of bed without a whisper of a reason, then you say I leave the house on penalty of death—as if that signifies, as I might already be dead for all the life you allow me. Then you send me off to stuff my face when Brummell himself swears no sane man breaks his fast before noon, and now you want me in here to—Well, hullo, ain’t you the pretty one.”

“Ad—Adam?” Jessica was on her feet, but none too steadily. This ridiculous popinjay couldn’t be her brother. Adam was sweet and shy, and sat by her side as she read to him, and cried when their father insisted he learn to shoot, and sang with the voice of an angel.

The youth turned to her and gifted her with an elegant leg, marred only when he nearly toppled over as he swept his arm with a mite too much enthusiasm.

“Bacon-brained puppy,” Gideon muttered quietly. “Your brother, Jessica. Behold.”

She beheld. Adam Collier was clad very much in the style of many of the youths who, from time to time, were hastily escorted out of the gaming room as being too raw and young to be out on their own with more than a groat in their pocket, so eager were they to be separated from their purses. Unpowdered hair too long, curled over the iron so that it fell just so onto his forehead, darkened and stiff with pomade. Buckram padding in the shoulders of his wasp-waisted blue coat, a patterned waistcoat that was a jangle of lurid redand-yellow stripes, no less than a half-dozen fobs hanging from gold chains, clocked stockings hugging his toothin shanks. And was that a, dear Lord, it was—he had a star-shaped patch at the corner of his mouth.

“Adam?” she repeated, as if, having said the name often enough, she’d believe what her horrified eyes were telling her. She didn’t want to believe it. Her brother hadn’t grown up, he’d simply gotten taller, slathered his face with paint to hide his spots and turned into an idiot. His only submission to the formalities was the black satin mourning band pinned to his upper arm. And that was edged with black lace. He wasn’t oppressed, he certainly wasn’t heartbroken. He was his brainless twit of a mother, in breeches.

“I fear you have the advantage of me, madam,” Adam drawled with a truly irritating and affected lisp as he approached, clearly intent on kissing her hand. His red heels made his progress somewhat risky, but he managed it, nearly coming to grief only when Brutus ran up to him, intent on sniffing his crotch. “Stupid cur. Do I look like a bitch in heat to you?”

“Don’t blame the dog, you sapskull. You might instead want to rethink the brand of scent you bathe in. As it is, we’re chewing on it,” Gideon said, retiring to the mantel, but not before shooting Jessica an amused look. “Say hello to your half sister.”

Adam stopped, searched among his many chains for a gilt quizzing glass on a stick, and lifted it to his eye. “M’sister? Jessica, was it? No, that’s impossible,” he said, shaking his head. “She’s dead these past half-dozen years or more. Bad fish, something like that. Mama told me most distinctly.” Then his mouth opened in shock, and he pointed the quizzing glass accusingly in her direction. “Imposter! Charlatan! The old reprobate cocks up his toes, and they come out of the woodwork, looking for his blunt. Fie and for shame, woman!”

Gideon rejoined Jessica in front of the sofas. “I’ve been thinking, Mrs. Linden. I may have been unduly hasty in denying your request for guardianship, and even thin-skinned. It must have been the pistol. Perhaps we can reopen negotiations,” he suggested quietly.

At last Jessica regained use of her tongue, which she’d been in some danger of swallowing. “I don’t think so,” she told him, still goggling at the creature in front of her. “You can have him. As to the other, I’ll expect you in Jermyn Street tonight, at eleven.” Then she clapped her hands to her mouth, realizing what she’d said. “The…the other being discussing this business of murders. Not…not you know.”

“What? She’s leaving? I’ve routed her, by God!” Adam clapped his hands in delight. “Yoicks! And away!”

“Oh, stubble it, you nincompoop,” Jessica bit out as she brushed past him.

Gideon’s delighted, infuriating laughter followed after her, all the way down the stairs.

CHAPTER FOUR

“YOU’RE LOOKING HARASSED,” Lord Maximillien commented as he entered the study in Portman Square and perched himself on the corner of his brother’s desk. “At least you’d look harassed if you were anyone else. The Earl of Saltwood is never harassed. He is a—Is there such a word as harasser?”

“What do you want, Max?” Gideon asked, putting down the letter opener he’d been balancing between his fingertips.

“Me? To bid you farewell, I suppose. I leave for Brighton in an hour, on orders from Trixie. There’s some clever barque of frailty she’s befriended, a bit o’muslin with a problem our grandmother thinks might rouse me from my boredom. In any case, she’s been matchmaking. In a weak moment, I agreed to sign on as cohort. It’s my adventurous spirit, you understand.”

Gideon looked at his brother and shook his head in mock dismay. “You even look like an adventurer. Your shirt cuffs are unbuttoned and too long, that cravat’s an insult, those smoked glasses a ridiculous affectation—and I may soon enlist Thorndyke to help hold you down while I scrape all that hair off your face.”

Max bent his head and looked at his brother overtop the blue-smoked rimless glasses he’d discovered a few months earlier in a small shop on Bond Street. “All that hair? A simple mustache, a cunning patch beneath my bottom lip—hardly all that hair.”

Gideon pointed up at him, twirling his finger. “And the rest of it? Looks to be the beginnings of a beard to me. I imagine even a whore with a problem won’t tolerate a fellow who only allows himself to be shaved three times a week.”

Max stabbed his fingers through the heavy thatch of dark brown hair he wore halfheartedly parted in the center of his head, its length covering his ears, the whole waving around his almost aesthetically beautiful face. Only his dark eyes, so like Gideon’s, threw out the warning that this was no pretty fool; perhaps why Max had delighted in finding the smoked glasses. “Allow? I’m not so lazy. I shave myself, brother. Shave myself, dress myself, wash my own rump.”

“And two of those tasks performed in the dark, apparently. Never mind,” Gideon said, not about to admit his brother was one devilishly handsome creature, the sort who could cause small riots among the ladies if he put his mind to it. “What’s the Cyprian’s problem?”

“Other than being ambitious, penniless and of questionable morals? Transport. I’m simply to find a way to get clever girl and ardent swain to Gretna, wed over the anvil and all but publicly bedded so there can be no annulment, all accomplished ahead of any pursuit. You know Trixie. She’s a romantic.”

“She’s a pernicious troublemaker, and that’s in the best of times. Who’s to be the gullible groom—and you’ll notice hearing Trixie has cultivated a whore as bosom chum holds no shock. No, it’s the groom who interests me.”

Max grinned wickedly. “So you see it, too? I did a bit of checking. It’s Wickham’s only grandson. Geoffrey something-or-other. Second in line to the dukedom until his papa, cursed with a spotty liver and still sucking up gin morning till night, sticks his spoon in the wall. Which will probably happen any day now according to Trixie, as they’ve already laid straw outside the man’s door in Grosvenor Square so the invalid isn’t pestered on his sickbed by the noise of traffic, and called in the Autum bawlers for some final-ditch prayer vigil. He should be toes cocked up just in time for the new heir—that would be this Geoffrey fellow—to present his fait accompli bride to his grandfather, shocking the old fellow to the point of apoplexy.”

“Two deaths? That’s ambitious, even for our grandmother. She’s counting on an even pair?”

“Apparently. She’s already had me scribble a wager in the betting book at White’s. A certain interested party offers odds of eight-to-five a certain duke Wdot-dot-dot—as if nobody would know it’s old Wickham—will depart this earthly coil on or before fifteen June of the current year. Lord Alvanley’s holding the stakes.”

“Of course it’s Alvanley. The man’s always in need of funds, and I’m sure Trixie is paying him well. Plus, I think she once had him as a lover. So. Wickham. It took her long enough,” Gideon said, nodding approvingly. “Damn near twenty years. I wouldn’t wager against her, or attempt to stop her. Go with God, Max.”

“I’ll go with most anyone, as well you know. But first—what’s this about twenty years? This isn’t just her usual mischief? What did old Wickham do to set her off?”

Gideon leaned back in his chair, mulling the idea that his brother should be made aware of their grandmother’s motive. After all, Max had already decided Trixie was up to something. “I suppose it’s time you knew. Trixie has always felt she had some…scores to settle. One of them is that, hard on the heels of our family shame, Wickham suggested the Saltwood title and holdings be dissolved and returned to the Crown, due to the scandal. More than suggested. The petition grew legs and damn near got as far as to have an airing in Parliament before it could be squashed. We stood to lose everything.”

“Bastard.”

“He gives bastards a bad name. Self-righteous prig, that’s what he was, casting stones while setting himself up as some holier-than-thou man of impeccable morals. And it wasn’t only him. There were three others heading up the action, until they were shown to be not as moral as they purported themselves to be, and the petition was withdrawn.”

“And Trixie was the one to point this out?”

“I never said that, but you can draw your own conclusions. One was discovered at a house party, in bed with the host’s wife—he died in the inevitable duel. Only weeks later, the second was bankrupted over gaming debts suddenly being called in by the person who’d bought up his vouchers—he shot himself rather than face ruin. And the third was actually imprisoned and barely escaped hanging after it was learned he’d been diddling a family footman, the pot boy and, rumor has it, his own nephew, with or without their agreement. But as I said, all that was years ago.”

“God, I adore that woman, much as she terrifies me,” Max said in some admiration. “Why did she wait so long with Wickham?”

“Probably because she was diddling him. You’ve seen her diamond choker, that ruby bib she sets such store by? They’re only a sampling. She’s been bleeding the fool dry on and off for years. Oh, close your mouth. You know Trixie. She’s a cat with a mouse, playing with it as long as it amuses her, and then, once bored, she pounces. I remember her telling me a few months ago that the man has developed what she termed a disky heart, making him of no further use to her. She’s probably already ordered the gown she’ll don as one of the chief mourners when they wall him up in the family mausoleum.”

“And had the bill sent to Wickham?” Max added, pushing himself up from the desk. “‘Frailty, thy name is woman.’”

“True enough. A true possessor of all the better vices, both moral and spiritual. We lesser mortals can only admire and aspire. But as she has ever pointed out, she isn’t evil. She’d never strike just for the thrill of the thing. All her targets are deserving of her attention in one way or another, at least to her mind.”

And then Gideon frowned.

“What? You’re suddenly back to that same puss that greeted me when I came in here. Is it something to do with Trixie?”

Four men, dead in separate accidents in the past year. All four former members of the secret society founded by Trixie’s son. Twenty years. Some would think that too long to wait for revenge, for some perverted sense of justice. But then how did he explain Wickham?

“No,” Gideon said firmly, not liking his thoughts and definitely unwilling to share them. “Nothing to do with Trixie. I was simply searching my mind for a way to rid myself of that primping, posturing fool I’ve inherited.”

“Adam?” Max said unnecessarily. “Aren’t you going to toss him back to school next term?”

Gideon fingered the letter that had arrived in the morning post. “According to the headmaster, that’s not possible. He was full of apologies, but it would seem he and a few of the instructors convened a meeting concerning young master Collier, and decided they would forego the pleasure of his company in future. I can’t say I blame them. The headmaster went on at some length about my ward’s sad lack of talent save a decided propensity for calamity. He actually set fire to his rooms when he employed a candle to burn loose threads from his waistcoat and the damn thing flamed, so that he screeched and tossed it in a cupboard, then went off to dinner. If not for a quick-thinking proctor, they could have lost the entire dormitory.”

“I’d never say the boy doesn’t rattle when he walks, so many loose screws in his brainbox. But there’s other schools.”

“Yes, there are. He’s been asked to vacate several of them. If I buy him a commission the tongues will wag that I’m trying to have him killed in order to gain his inheritance, and if I send him to the estate Kate will have murdered him within the week. In other words, I’ve been sitting here this past hour or more cudgeling my brain to discover what sin it was I’ve committed I’m being punished for in the form of that paper-skulled twit.”

“Some sin? Only one? If I weren’t in such a hurry to be off, I could pen you a list. Not only that, but I don’t think I can stand watching you this way, brother. Glum. Defeated. It’s so unlike you. So much so, I find myself wondering if there’s something you’re not telling me, something much more disturbing than locating a deep well in which to deposit your latest ward.”

Maximillien could play the fool with the best of them, but he was rarely fooled.

Gideon looked at his brother. “Go away, Max.”

“Ah, then I’m right. I’ll have to write Val and tell him. Where is our baby brother, by the way?”

“I was unaware Valentine still required a keeper.”

“Another subject open to debate. But we should at least be aware of where he is, don’t you think?”

“Not if we don’t want to know,” Gideon suggested, smiling in real amusement. “But, to ease your mind, the last I heard he was heading for some place in Lincolnshire, to lend support to a friend whose father had, to quote our brother, taken a turn for the worse.”

“That’s kind of him. So he’s off to be a supporting prop at some deathbed?”

“Hardly. the bad turn was financial. his friend merely needed someone to put up the blunt for his trip home. Naturally, Valentine offered one of our coaches, and his company on the journey. And probably half his allowance for this quarter, knowing Val.”

“He’s a good friend. Or, as Kate often says, a numbskull. She swears some day that soft heart of his will land him in the briars. Has he ever said no to an appeal? Then again, considering that ludicrous fribble we’ve got residing with us now, have you? It’s your soft heart, both you and Val are stuck with soft hearts. Thankfully, Kate and I escaped the taint.”

Gideon directed yet another cool, dispassionate stare at his brother. “Are we done here now?”

“Oh-ho, speaking of briars,” Max said, putting up his hands in mocking defense. “How about I leave you to your troubles and be on my way?” He turned to quit the room, but at the last moment turned back to add, “Thorndyke told me of your rather unusual visitor this morning. Showed up all unaccompanied and left in some sort of huff. Spirited, that’s the world Thorny used. Curious. But she’s not the reason for that long puss, correct?”

“Goodbye, Max. Safe travels.”

“I thought as much. Thorndyke said she’s quite the looker. Red hair. I’ve always been partial to red hair on a woman. I don’t even mind the freckles. She have freckles, Gideon? Even where the sun doesn’t reach?”

When Gideon was really angry, he went quiet, the sort of quiet that could sound, to the object of his anger, much like a loud clashing of cymbals.

“Right,” Max said, nodding. “Forgive me. Clearly the lady is not a subject open to discussion. I’m off to ease the path of true love, Val is off to be a supporting prop, Kate is steadfastly refusing to leave the estate, and you’re—well, whatever it is you’re doing, I suppose you’ll let the rest of us know in your own good time.”

Once his brother was gone, Gideon rested his chin in his hand for a full quarter hour, thinking, and then pushed back his chair, giving in to the inevitable. There was nothing else for it, he had to confront Trixie.

AN HOUR LATER HE WAS cooling his heels in his grandmother’s drawing room in Cavendish Square, staring down the pair of yellow pug dogs who were eying his highly polished Hessians as if they would take great pleasure in lifting their legs against them.