Читать книгу The Regency Redgraves: What an Earl Wants / What a Lady Needs / What a Gentleman Desires / What a Hero Dares - Kasey Michaels, Кейси Майклс, Kasey Michaels - Страница 15

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.”

She lifted her head, her eyes dark with tears. “Richard gossips like an old woman,” she said, sighing. “And you’re lying, just like your grandmother.”

“Probably. It would appear to be one of a myriad of unflattering family traits. In all honesty, there are more. Now show me. Please.”

She lowered her legs and shifted her position toward him, turning over her hands to expose her wrists. He saw the scars, a thin line running just below the base of each palm.

“Sweet Jesus.”

Jessica retracted her hands, folding them neatly in her lap. “And now you want the story, don’t you?”

Gideon shook his head. “Not if you don’t want to tell it, no.”

She shrugged, as if it didn’t matter to her one way or the other. “My stepmother’s jewelry, most of it, wasn’t where I’d supposed, so what with hiring coaches and booking passage for two of us, the pittance James was forced to take wasn’t going to last long at all. It would seem nobody believed he hadn’t stolen the pieces, and the prices he was offered weren’t nearly as wonderful as he’d hoped.”

“He could have simply left you and gone on off on his own.”

“I suppose. But James had another answer. He was always the one for coming up with new schemes. I was in our room at a small hotel in Brussels. It was early days, the evening of our wedding. He’d explained that he’d compromised me by taking me with him, and he was doing the only honorable thing by marrying me. No, I didn’t know him well, but I’d seen him on the estate several times, and he’d always been polite. At the very least, he was clean. And he had saved me, no matter that he was mostly saving himself.”

Jessica smiled. “I was so young, so stupid. Even grateful. What he said seemed logical. I certainly couldn’t go home to what my father planned for me, could I? Marriage seemed the only answer. James ordered a tub for me after the ceremony, and then a lovely meal brought up to our bridal chamber. I dressed in the new gown he’d bought for me. I was nervous, very much so, but I had made my bed, as my old nurse had been prone to tell me when I’d done something to displease her, and now I was resigned to lie in it. And…and then there was a knock at the door. I opened it, thinking it was James… .”

Gideon suddenly knew where this calmly told story was heading. “That son of a bitch.”

“Yes. That son of a bitch. He entered behind the man and told me what he’d done, what I was supposed to do. He’d sold my virginity, our wedding night. When I understood, I snatched up one of the knives from the table and…I didn’t do it very well. The cuts were fairly shallow, but the blood was enough to send the man scurrying away. At least he never tried to sell me again, for fear I’d succeed in killing myself the next time. He found another use for me.”

“Distracting his fellow gamblers,” Gideon said, “all while you watched the cards, plotting your escape.”

She wiped at her damp cheeks and smiled. She actually smiled. “While pilfering small sums of money from James when he was too drunk to remember how much was in his pockets, and then sitting quietly on the hearth as he slept, using the light from the fire to see while I sewed coins into the hem of my cloak. For too long, I did nothing but cry, and feel sorry for myself and my terrible plight. But I didn’t stay stupid forever, Gideon. I couldn’t afford to, could I? Two hundred and twelve days, that’s how long I was with James. Each one of them an eternity, but each one bringing me closer to freedom. I was all but ready to make my escape, biding my time until we visited a port city again, when Richard came along. My real knight in shining armor.”

“I’m going to settle twenty thousand pounds on him tomorrow. It isn’t enough. There could never be enough.”

Jessica’s smile disappeared as if it had never been, as if the light had never come back into her eyes. “Now you want Richard to sell me?”

“Oh, God. Damn! That wasn’t what I intended. Marry me, Jessica, don’t marry me. Richard still gets the settlement, the two of you get your damn inn or whatever you want. But we want answers, or at least I do, and you want to protect your brother. Become my countess, and you can go into society with me, we can do our own investigating. Trixie is…I don’t know how much she knows, how much she didn’t tell us.”

Jessica got to her feet, smoothed down her gown. “You sensed it, too? For all she said, I think she may have been holding something back. I can understand that. He was her son, after all, and he was a monster.”

“A monster, yes. Playing a very dangerous game.” Gideon rose, as well. “So she seemed frightened to you, as well, handing out her warnings about your brother? Trixie isn’t the sort to be frightened.”

“It wouldn’t be natural if she wasn’t frightened. People are dying, Gideon, people who knew the sort of things she knows. She says no one would dare touch her—but can she be sure?”

“Can any of us be sure of anything? We also have to consider Adam. You’d be with him, residing under the same strong, well-guarded roof. He’s young, Jessica, just as you were young. But not nearly so strong as his sister. If they’re keeping to the devil’s thirteen, your father’s vacant seat needs to be filled. Adam could be approached, you said so yourself.”

“I know what I said, you needn’t keep beating me over the head with my own words, you know.” She seemed to search his face with her eyes, as if hunting some escape route. “There’s no other way to go about it?”

He had her on the ropes now, he could see it. He was a Redgrave, so he would push his advantage. And, yes, please God, he would sleep nights.

“I’m the Earl of Saltwood. I have a reputation, God help me, but at times it serves me well. My countess will be accepted everywhere. Nobody would dare to deny you. If our murderer is in society, we need to be there, as well. I haven’t stepped inside Almacks in years, nor do I usually attend every damn ball and rout and picnic that litters the Season. But with a fiancée, a new bride on my arm? I’d be expected to make all the rounds. Invitations from the curious will pile up on my mantelpiece like snow. Perhaps several from members of the Society, anxious to see Linden’s widow. We won’t have to search them out, Jessica, they’ll come to us. I pride myself on being observant, but you’ve the better of me there, I’m convinced of that. And then there are the widows, the wives. It should be easier going for you to gain their confidence than me. It’s all logical.”

“Logical. I suppose so. But I don’t want to marry you. I vowed never to marry again. A woman has no power beyond the will of her husband.”

“No power?” He touched a hand to her cheek and kept it there. When he spoke again, his tone was soft, perhaps even tender. “You sincerely don’t know, do you? How beautiful you are, how desirable, what an extraordinarily strong, brave and special woman you’ve made of yourself against all odds. You have no idea how you can figuratively take me to the floor just by looking at me. I’m not going to go down on one knee to profess some undying love for you. You’re too intelligent to swallow such a bag of moonshine. In part I’m attempting to pay a debt my family owes you, thanks indirectly to the actions of my father and grandfather. I’m attempting to soothe my own conscience for what happened here the other night. I admit that freely also. But know this, as well, Jessica soonnever-again-to-be-Linden, I would never, never intentionally hurt you.”

A single tear ran down her cheek, burning his skin.

“You’re a fool, Gideon Redgrave, and arrogant into the bargain. Nobody can save the world, you know, not even you. Yes, all right, I see the wisdom in marrying you.”

Gideon covered his relief with a chuckle. “My sister has said the Redgraves are the least romantical people in all of England. You’ll fit in very well. Now, to seal the betrothal?”

He leaned in and kissed her. On the cheek. Bloody hell, on the cheek.

But that was now. He could scarcely have heard what she and Richard had told him this past hour and dare to attempt anything more. The ancient Greek was right: timing is in all things the most important factor. He’d had her beneath him, he’d felt her first stirrings of fire; he could awaken her even more, teach her pleasure she could still not possibly imagine. He knew what awaited him, awaited them both, if he was patient, and he was very good at being patient.

He left her where she stood and strode into her bedchamber, returning moments later with James Linden’s wadded-up banyan clutched in one angry fist. “This doesn’t come to Portman Square with you,” he said, holding it aloft as he headed for the stairs.

He didn’t look back, but he hoped she was smiling… .