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 16

“I SUPPOSE IT WILL DO,” Adam Collier said, sighing disappointedly as he made his way around Jessica, taking a full circuit in his red-heeled shoes, quizzing glass stuck to his eye. “But perhaps too crushingly ordinary? I mean, really—lavender? Must we?” He waved the glass at the hovering modiste. “Bows. That’s what’s needed. At the hem, on those capped sleeves. Yes, that’s the very thing. I’m never wrong. See to it, woman.”

Jessica rolled her eyes as she looked into the mirror at her reflection. “Bows, Adam? We’re in mourning, remember? By rights, I shouldn’t be going into society at all. You may escape with that ridiculous black band, but I can hardly pretend Papa and Clarissa aren’t barely in their graves. Even if he did publicly disown me for eloping with James.”

“I had that wrong, didn’t I? You didn’t eat bad fish, you married it.” Adam shrugged eloquently in his tightly fitted swan tailcoat. “I was young, and not told much of anything. Your name simply wasn’t to be mentioned again. Mama explained that, though.”

“Oh? And how did that explanation go, precisely?”

“It pained Papa to think of you, of course.” Adam snatched up one of the hastily constructed bows made up of the same lavender silk and held it to the center of Jessica’s bodice. “No, not there. Yes, just as I first thought, on the sleeves, and then a dozen more, dancing about the hem. And perhaps dusted with something sparkling? I do adore sparkles. A pity we men can’t embellish ourselves with brilliance. Although Papa used to sprinkle glittering dust in with the powder for his wig on special occasions, as I recall it. Vain man, our father, and he would persist in clinging to his periwig even after the fashion so clearly changed. He should have seen himself after the fire. No amount of glitter could have been any help to him then, hmm?”

“Adam!” Jessica pulled him closer, ignoring his near shriek of alarm as she wrinkled his neck cloth in her fist. “Take a moment to think where we are,” she whispered in warning. “Someone could overhear you. Imagine Gideon’s reaction.”

Adam carefully disengaged himself from her grip, then anxiously fluffed at the lacy cravat. “I’d rather not, thank you. I’d rather not think about him at all. Are you quite sure you want to bracket yourself to my brute of a guardian? He won’t let either one of us take two steps in any direction on our own. His dogs drool, and he dresses with no imagination whatsoever. Black and white. Blue and tan. Black and white again. I imagine he will expire of ennui within the year. No sense of style. None. Did I mention his dogs drool? And leave their hair everywhere, to be caught up on my rig-outs? I don’t know how I put up with it, truly I don’t. As it is, my valet must follow me around with a brush…and a sponge.”

“If you’re quite finished, Adam?” Jessica said as the modiste pinned the last bow to her hem. “Thank you, Marie, that’s much better. My brother may have a future in designing women’s gowns.”

Adam brightened at this suggestion. “One can only hope so. Only those with a keen eye for such things are invited to witness a woman’s toilette, you know. And once in the proximity of the bedchamber, a clever fellow can make further inroads.”

“More clever than attempting to inroad Mildred in a cupboard, I would hope.”

Adam gave a wave of his hand, the lace-edged handkerchief perpetually clutched in his paw giving off a whiff of rather cloying scent. “I should ask the woman just who was the instigator of that aborted tryst, were I you. She offered to further my education. I knew what that meant, let me tell you! Demmed inconvenient of you to discover us just as she was being so clever about unbuttoning my breeches. Strong teeth, the woman has. We did, however, reconvene later, and it would appear Mildred is a creature of her word, for it was an education I received. Oh, my, yes.”

“Adam, for the love of God…”

“Yes, yes, for the love of somebody, I’m sure,” he said offhandedly. “For Mildred, however, it was a half crown and my most sincere thanks. I’ll turn my back again now, so that the lavender disappears, which may not please God but will thrill me beyond measure. What else were you so silly as to order without first consulting me?”

“I only ordered a few things,” she told him. “Gideon insisted upon taking care of the rest after I was measured, while I had tea and cakes in a small guest parlor. It’s his money, so that seemed only proper. Besides, I don’t know the current fashions.”

“Does that explain the lavender, or was it his choice?”

“Mine, if you must know,” she admitted, feeling rather put upon.

“And again we give thanks, and good on Gideon,” Adam said. “If I were to have to witness the unveiling of an entire wardrobe of the incredible dullness you consider proper, sister mine, I would wonder what terrible sin I’ve committed to be punished so. But good old Gideon has had the dressing and undressing of literally dozens of women, I would suppose, so he may have developed an eye for what best flatters the female form.”

“You say the most delightful things, Adam,” Jessica told him as Marie looked at her in some compassion before bustling out of the room.

“I do? Oh, that wasn’t a compliment, was it? How gauche of me. My apologies, I’m sure. But think on it, Jessica, the man’s dead old, so he has to have had his share. I’m just eighteen, and I’ve already bedded eight—no, Mildred wasn’t an actual bedding, now that I think on it, but more of a footnote—so, seven different females already this year. A dozen last year, and the year before, ten, I believe. I keep a journal, you see, so I can check if you should want me to total them up for you. All my conquests are captured there in detail, names, dates, number and level of encounters and the form each took. In the event I decide to one day pen my memoirs, you understand. Papa suggested it and reviewed it every year, making suggestions as to how I could improve. But to continue, the year before that—”

Jessica looked to the curtained doorway, relieved to see Marie wasn’t already heading back into the fitting room with another gown. “The year before that you were fifteen!”

He shot her a look over his shoulder. “Yes, I was. For my birthday, Papa took me to the Duck and Grapes and sent me upstairs with two of the barmaids, to make a man of me, he said. Two, Jessica! Conquest is what a man is all about, and he would be sure to make me a man. Each birthday, a new delight was in store for me. The passions of the flesh feed the passions of the mind, so that it’s imperative for a man with aspirations of greatness to dine, as it were, with regularity, et cetera, ad nauseam. It’s our duty to fornicate with as many women as possible. That’s what Papa told me, all but drummed into my head.”

He laughed. Perhaps giggled. “I just wanted the women, you understand, so I humored him. Mama, bless her, encouraged me, as well. I was surrounded by comely housemaids, handpicked by her. Adventuresome sorts, and eager to please. Isn’t it grand to live in such a free and open society?”

Halfway through these astounding revelations, Jessica’s mouth had dropped open, and she stared at her brother’s back, unable to tell him to stop. This was what she’d wanted to hear, although had dreaded the hearing, had still not found a way to broach the subject with him. But now he was volunteering it all, and without shame, even without pride, thank God. But did he have to pick this place, this moment?

“Although I didn’t much care for the lessons.”

“Lessons?” Jessica squeaked, horrified.

“Yes, I had Papa as a tutor, over and above my schooling. Why did I need to read all these treatises on history and politics and such? That Machiavelli chap? Now there was a queer duck, let me tell you! And others. Lets see. There was Marat, Robespierre, Thomas Becket. Caligula—now he was interesting! More, but I forget them. All assassinated, you know, for the good of others who wanted to take their places or rid themselves of an opponent. I forget most of it, how each one died. But I do know how many times Julius Caesar was stabbed by his small swarm of enemies, if you’d care to learn? Twenty-three! The trick to it was that no one could actually say for certain which thrust of which blade did the actual deed. Clever, don’t you think?”

Jessica’s heart was pounding as she tried desperately not to sound shocked and repulsed to her toes. Wait until she told Gideon about this! “I suppose so. We’ll talk more about this later, Adam, if you don’t mind.”

He shrugged, still with his back to her. “Certainly. Time and place, Jessica, time and place. I have no idea why you wanted to talk about it now.”

“Why I— Adam, you’re a noodle, do you know that? An absolute noodle.” And then she said a silent thank you to God that he was.

“Now you sound like Papa. If I had a penny piece for each time he despaired of me as useless…” he complained without much heat. He extracted a snuffbox from his waistcoat and proceeded to take a dip, and then sneezed several times into his handkerchief with some enthusiasm.

Marie bustled back into the room as the last sneeze faded and Jessica bent at the knees so that the modiste could lift the lavender gown up and over her head, leaving her in her new undergarments.

At Gideon’s express orders, each and every piece had been lined with silk, and the corset she wore at the moment, cut low straight across her breasts, was such a beautiful confection of white lace and pink lacing ribbons that secured in front, so that she had control over how tightly they were tugged, that she felt enhanced rather than trapped inside the thing. Beneath it were her wonderful French drawers, and the petticoat tied at her waist assured her she could move freely in sunlight or candlelight without fear her body would be immodestly outlined.

She lifted her hands to cup the undersides of her breasts, thinking she looked rather wonderful in these glorious new garments. It seemed almost a pity to cover them.

“And another thing—Ah, I shouldn’t have turned around, should I?” Adam said. “I suppose I’ll wait somewhere else until you call me back?” He pointed to the curtained doorway leading out into the shop.

“Yes, that seems a good idea,” Jessica told him as she quickly crossed her arms over her bosom, happy to see that at least her brother had enough sense to finally be put to the blush. Honestly, was there anything he wouldn’t say?

Marie indicated she should remove her corset, and, while still thinking about everything Adam had told her, she complied, before Marie helped her out of the slip. She shivered slightly in her near nakedness, hoping Adam didn’t decide to poke his head back into the fitting room to tell her something else she wished she didn’t need to know.

Getting to know her half brother this past week and more as he was, rather than to continue imagining him as the shy child she remembered, had been an education for her. He really was quite adorable. Rather like a puppy, she’d remarked to Gideon, who’d agreed, saying you were sometimes tempted to scratch him behind the ears, but all while keeping aware that in his excitement he may at any moment piddle on the carpet.

Gideon. Jessica tried very hard not to think about him at all. Since that was impossible, she’d done her best to avoid him as he went about doing whatever it is earls do, the two of them meeting most often at the dinner table, as she breakfasted in her rooms and he was rarely in Portman Square in time for luncheon.

Having Adam and Richard at table with them every night was not conducive to anything more than polite conversation. Gideon would then take himself off again, making the rounds of several parties, paving the way, he said, for their appearance as an affianced couple or, better yet, husband and wife, if he could convince the archbishop to issue a Special License before the necessary three weeks to call the banns.

As he was clearly chafing against waiting out the days, he’d teased just yesterday that he was tempted to soon sic Trixie on the man, who wasn’t immune to her charms. Jessica had asked him how he would know that, but then had tactfully withdrawn the question.

He did accompany her to Bond Street on three separate occasions, but then he was so busy autocratically ordering gloves and footwear and bonnets and gowns that she had found herself retreating into a more comfortable place in her mind, where she could pretend she wasn’t being dressed up for a reason that had less to do with a fiancé gifting his betrothed with wedding clothes than it did with tricking her out for show, just as James had done.

She didn’t believe Gideon saw it that way, but she couldn’t quite help herself sometimes, when the past seemed to intrude on the present.

In any event, what with one thing or the other, they had seemed to communicate for the most part by way of notes.

The announcement will appear in all the morning newspapers tomorrow. Richard is explained as a maternal uncle. Too late now for second thoughts, my dear, for either of us. G.

The dowager countess sends her blessing, pointing out her grandson neglected to petition for it, and alluding to the possibility you may have been raised by wild wolves. I don’t believe she has considered how this reflects on her. Or perhaps she has, and this was a warning. When it comes to your grandmother, I may overthink matters. J.

I’ve attempted to speak to your brother, but gave it up as a bad job before I could be tempted to throttle him. Suffice it to say Seth will be attached to his hip whenever he leaves the house. Thorny tells me you took the air in the Square this morning. With the brisk breeze, I look forward to some flattering color in your cheeks tonight at table. Are you quite certain Adam wouldn’t care for Jamaica? G.

I will assume you are being polite in your distance, but would appreciate some direction as to how to deal with these invitations written to my name. J.

Redgraves don’t respond on command. We either grace curious hostesses with our presence, or we don’t. Burn them. We aren’t ready. Don’t forget your fitting at two, on Thursday. I shan’t be available. Take the puppy, but beware scratching behind his ears. G.

I was told you do not care for green beans. I was then careful to order them for tonight’s dinner. J.

Ha! Prepare for fish chowder at tomorrow’s luncheon table. A pity I will be busy with my tailor. G.

The fish chowder was well received in the servant dining hall. Do you ever plan to spend an evening in Portman Square? J.

You are sometimes even more beautiful in sleep. I look forward to the day I’m blessed to observe you in slumber at my leisure, and then kiss you awake. G.

THAT NOTE HAD APPEARED just this morning, on her pillow, after she had so let down her guard as to show she missed him. What a sly one he was. The less she saw him, the more she wanted to see him. The more politely he treated her, the more she wanted him to be the man she remembered, the man who had fisted his hand in her hair and brought his mouth down hard against hers, the man who had lifted her in his arms and carried her to her bed.

“Madame? You approve?”

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

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

What Jessica saw stole her breath.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Then I’ll have it back?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“At Redgrave Manor?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“You can’t make him suspicious.”

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

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

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