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 17

JESSICA DRESSED FOR DINNER in one of her new gowns, with both Mildred and Doreen fussing over her the entire time, admiring her undergarments, squealing in delight when she at last chose the dusky-rose over the sky-blue, saying one couldn’t possibly be better than the other but wasn’t it a marvel how the rose went so well with Jessica’s red locks. “And who would have thought any such thing?”

Gideon would, Jessica answered silently as she sat in front of the dressing table while Mildred, who was proving a marvel (although not in the sense Adam would have meant), handled the curling stick with flair, and not once did Jessica have to remind her that pins were to be put into hair and not her scalp.

Her mind traveled back in time for a moment, recalling Alice, her maid and friend of a lifetime ago. Jessica knew she had been a petted and pampered child, lacking in nothing, at least in a material way. She’d had a lovely roof over her head, had never known what it was like to worry about where her next meal or bed would come from. She had missed her mother, loathed her stepmother, enjoyed spoiling her half brother, could say she barely knew her father…but she had been content. Indeed, she’d been looking forward to her first Season, sure she’d be at least a moderate success. Fear had no place in her life.

That she’d been through what she’d been forced to endure these past five years and survived it all might be considered something of a miracle, and to once again be sitting in the lap of luxury very nearly erased those sad memories from her mind. Truly, it was amazing how adaptable a person could be. Although it was much easier, she knew, to accustom oneself to luxury than to the catch-as-catch-can existence of those five long years between her girlhood and the woman she had been forced to become.

As Mildred fussed with the trio of curls she was arranging to fall just so on Jessica’s left shoulder, Doreen gathered up mountains of tissue and paper and string now that all of the new clothing had been carefully put away in drawers and cupboards and armoires. Jessica’s own wardrobe, from shifts to shoes to shawls, had been playfully argued over, with the shoes going to Mildred, who said she could stuff tissue in the toes while Doreen couldn’t stuff her toes into the toes. Doreen laid claim to the night rails, Mildred the bonnets, and nobody begged to please be given the black gowns Jessica had worn in the gaming room.

“His lordship asked to be informed as to your choice for the evening, ma’am,” Doreen told her when she’d returned to the bedchamber after disposing of the wrappings. “I was just running down that footman with the Adam’s apple big as a lemon, to get him to help me carry everything down to the kitchen fire, when one of that pair of blasted mongrels started jumping up at me, trying to get a bit of trailing string, And I said to stop, and it wouldn’t, and the lemon boy—”

“His name is Vernon,” Mildred interrupted. “And wouldn’t a person with a hulking great Adam’s apple have one the size of an apple, not a lemon?”

“Don’t interrupt her, Mildred,” Jessica warned, smiling. “She might decide to start again at the beginning.”

Fortunately, the Irishwoman did not. “All right, then, Vernon. My goodness, Mildred, but you’re a stickler. At any rate, as Mr. Borders says I should keep things from getting so long they grow whiskers, I scolded that dog something terrible, but it still would persist, and did so until his lordship himself called it to heel. That’s when he saw me and asked what it was that you were thinking of wearing tonight, and I told him you were going back and forth with the rose and the blue for the longest time, but in the end decided on the rose, and he said to follow him, so I did. I followed him all the way to the back of the house without once taking a turn or a back stair, and then he put out his hand so graciouslike and had me precede him into his study. That’s what he said. He said, ‘Doreen, please precede me into the study whilst I fetch something.’”

“Now that’s a lie. Lordships don’t say fetch,” Mildred protested as she stood behind her mistress, so that Jessica gave her a sharp elbow in the thigh as the last curls were set in place.

Doreen sighed in exasperation. “They shouldn’t say precede, either, to my mind, because I didn’t know what it meant for the life of me, but once he told me I did, so I preceded him into the study and then cooled me heels, not touching a thing, I swear it, and not even so much as looking at anything too hard, all those lovely things, until he came back with this.”

At last, finally, and not a moment too soon for the consideration of Mildred’s and Jessica’s nerves, the maid produced a blue velvet-covered oblong box from her apron pocket, all but tapping Jessica on the nose with it. “I didn’t look. I wanted to, but I didn’t. I just curtsied, twice over, and ran hotfoot back up here. Using the back stairs, as I knows my place, even if his lordship don’t. Lemon boy, that is, Vernon, he’d already taken away the wrappings. And the dog. His name is Brutus, which isn’t a very kindly name for a dog, is it? Call a thing a brute, and it will be, just to make you happy. You mark my words on that one!”

Jessica had stopped listening. She took the box from Doreen and eyed it for some moments before daring to press on the round button clasp. The lid sprang open to reveal a choker made up of four strands of perfectly matched pearls, their ivory luster faintly shaded with pink. In the center of those pearls was a circlet of much smaller pearls surrounding—

“Well, now, would you look at that,” Mildred said, leaning in close. “It’s a lady’s face.”

“It’s a cameo, Mildred. Carved out of some sort of shell, I believe, so that the lady’s profile is much lighter than the background. Many of them are made in Italy. Isn’t it beautiful?”

“Yes, ma’am, it is that. She looks like an angel, even if we can only see half her face. But seeing as it looks like it cost the earth and more, you’d think they’d carve the whole face.”

“She’s in profile, and I’m convinced that was done on purpose,” Jessica said, handing the necklace to Mildred. Thank goodness the two women were here; Jessica couldn’t dare to cry, or else they’d both fuss and wonder.

He’d chosen the perfect piece of jewelry to match a perfect gown, one of nearly two dozen perfect gowns and riding habits and capes and shawls and—Was there anything the man couldn’t do?

Mildred carefully aligned the necklace against the exact center of Jessica’s throat and then squinted over the small clasp. “There! Now let’s go see what all we’ve done.”

Jessica dutifully stood up, needlessly smoothing down the folds of her gown, because it didn’t bunch when creased, as her black had done, but simply flowed, as if a part of her.

Her reflection looked back at her from the pier glass, showing her a wonderfully set-up looking young woman, complete to a shade, or at least she was once Doreen unearthed the long, narrow rose-and-silver paisley shawl and threaded it through Jessica’s elbows so that its fringed ends reached nearly to the floor.

“That was the second gong that just went, ma’am,” Mildred said, opening the door to the hallway as if she hoped to hear an echo confirming her conclusion. “Ah, and here comes Mr. Borders down the hallway to fetch you.”

“You said fetch,” Doreen pointed out, handing Jessica a small reticule fashioned of the same paisley, its slim chain silver, its clasp fashioned of pink pearls. Was there no detail too small for the man? When he made love to a woman, was he equally as interested in detail? “See? Other people do so say it, not just me.”

“Just not earls, you fool,” Mildred muttered, pulling Doreen back and signaling they were to drop into curtsies. They were both eager learners, and with the gaming room now a thing of the past, they were bound and determined to once again make themselves indispensable to their mistress. “We’ll wait up, ma’am, to help you into bed.”

Jessica felt hot color run into her cheeks, probably clashing badly with both her hair and her gown. The note on her pillow this morning, when combined with the gown and the necklace, had her hopes rising that Gideon would not be going out after dinner. Not tonight. “Oh. Oh, I don’t think you need to…That is, I may be quite late. I’ll manage.”

“But—” Doreen began.

“She says she’ll manage,” Mildred cut in quickly. “Honestly, Doreen, you’re thick as a plank sometimes.” The hostess-cum-lady’s maid curtsied yet again. “I’ll just go lay out your night rail and dressing gown and turn down the bed. Good night, ma’am.”

“Good night, Mildred. Doreen. And thank you. I don’t know what I’d do without either one of you.”

Still keeping her head slightly averted, Jessica escaped to the hallway and called out to Richard, who seemed to be pacing near the head of the staircase. Gideon had seen to it Richard be outfitted with new clothes, and she had been thrilled to see the older man’s pleasure in his wardrobe. He looked distinguished now in some unexplainable way, and actually rather comfortable, as if more used to fine things and lavish surroundings than she would have imagined. Someday perhaps he’d tell her who he had been before he’d taken to gaming. To date, he’d told her he was a bastard prince, a defrocked priest, a pirate and a schoolteacher, which was as good as to say she should not ask him again or else be prepared for another tall tale.

He turned about and smiled before he bowed in her direction, his knees creaking audibly. “And who might you be, lovely lady?” he asked. “I don’t believe we’ve been introduced.”

Jessica held out her arms and turned about in a full circle. “I’m magnificent, aren’t I? And all accomplished without sparkles. Adam will be dumbfounded.”

“Your brother hasn’t the brains to be dumbfounded,” Richard said, holding out his arm to her. “He’d rather believe he knows everything worth knowing. You’re looking happy as well as beautiful this evening, Jess. Is that because of the new gown, or the fact that his lordship awaits you downstairs?”

“He awaits me downstairs each evening,” Jessica pointed out as she lifted her hem slightly, to help her navigate the marble steps.

“Not with a pink rosebud pinned to his lapel. I wondered about that earlier, when I went down. I only came back up to fetch my handkerchief.”

“Uncles don’t say fetch, Richard. I have it on good authority.” Her heart then heard what Richard had said and decided to skip a beat. “A pink rosebud?”

“Yes, it shocked me, as well. He dresses fine as nine pence, but no geegaws for the man, not in the usual run of things. So I didn’t comment on it. And, we have a visitor.”

Jessica didn’t take that bit of information in immediately, either. She was too busy wondering how Gideon would have managed to produce a blue rose, if she had chosen the blue. Knowing the man, he’d probably have just dipped its stem in an inkpot until he’d achieved the proper shade. “Oh?” she said belatedly. “Who is he?”

“Not he, but she. And it’s Lady Katherine, his lordship’s sister, come into town for new boots or some such thing, and if I were thirty years younger, I’d be wearing rosebuds myself. Oops, nearly tripped there, didn’t you? You have to be careful where you step, Jess.”

He was trying to tell her something but without really telling her. “Yes, I suppose I do. In every way.”

They reached the first-floor foyer. Richard turned toward the closed doors to the drawing room, but Jessica held him back. “What is she doing here?” she whispered fiercely.

“I told you, something about new boots. Now come along.”

Jessica looked closely into her friend’s face. Saw the slight twitch of his left eyelid. “What’s going on, Richard? What’s really going on?”

“Now why would you be asking that?”

“I’m asking that because you never forget your handkerchief. I’m asking because Gideon doesn’t wear posies. I’m asking because nobody told me Lady Katherine was expected. I’m asking because the doors to the drawing room are closed. And I’m asking most of all because your eyelid is twitching.”

“It is not,” he said, and it twitched again, just as a small bead of perspiration made its way down his temple.

“It does when you’re lying. You may bluff with impunity at cards, but never with me. Something is awaiting me on the other side of those doors, and that something is more than Gideon’s sister.”

“I told him to send somebody else upstairs to get you,” Richard said, sighing, making use of his handkerchief to wipe at his brow. “Adam, for one. I still don’t think he realizes what’s going on, he’s so busy making a total ass of himself, running around tables and chairs in those bloody stupid red heels of his, trying to avoid the dogs. I have to ask the cook for a marrowbone for Brutus. He won’t let the fool alone. Just come along, Jess, won’t you? You knew this was inevitable, in any case.”

“I knew what was—”

The double doors were flung open, and Brutus, closely followed by Cleo, was escorted into the foyer by Thorndyke, who was holding some sort of raw meat chop aloft with two fingers, his expression one of extreme distaste. Jessica quickly bit her bottom lip until the butler and his tongue-lolling admirers had disappeared behind the baize door at the end of the hallway, and then released her delight in peals of laughter.

“Oh, good, she’s not a stickler. We can’t have one of those.”

The voice was female, and it had come from inside the drawing room.

“Lady Katherine?” Jessica whispered the question, as they were still near the stairs and could not see into the drawing room.

Richard nodded. “Beautiful. One might say exotic. But without a single air or touch of starch about her. Had me shake her hand rather than bow over it. And she’s wearing riding clothes, says there’s time enough later to change if she has a mind to, which she doesn’t.”

Jessica considered this for a moment. “But you think I’ll like her.”

It was Richard’s turn to consider. “It’s like with the earl, Jess. I don’t think you have a choice.”

“And since they heard me laugh, no choice about going in there,” Jessica agreed. “Richard, do you sometimes think it was easier when it was just the two of us?”

“No,” he said, grinning. “I like the gravy boat I’ve somehow been dropped into too much to say that. And so do you.”

Jessica was still smiling as she entered the drawing room, still hanging onto Richard’s arm, that smile only fading when she began taking inventory of its other occupants.

There was Adam, dressed this evening in shamrockgreen jacket and fawn pantaloons, bent over one of the many couches, snapping at the seat with his handkerchief, probably to dislodge any dog hair.

There was Lady Katherine Redgrave, exotic as Richard had said, in her deep burgundy riding habit as she all but sprawled on another couch, both arms stretched out along its carved wooden back, one long booted leg crossed over the other in a highly unladylike way that flattered her all hollow.

One thing Jessica could say about the Redgraves, at least the three she’d met; they certainly knew how to relax and didn’t appear to much care where they were when they did it. And, oddly, the more they relaxed, the more on guard you felt you needed to be.

Her ladyship’s darkest brown hair, glinted with golden highlights, was piled haphazardly atop her head, several softly curling tendrils escaping the pins in a way many would suffer hours of curling sticks and poked pins to achieve. Her eyes were huge and dark and slightly tip-tilted, her mouth wide and pink and lush, her nose rivaled the perfection of the profile on Jessica’s new cameo, as did her creamy complexion.

She tilted her head in Jessica’s direction. And winked.

Jessica smiled in return, hoping she looked pleased rather than terrified.

And there was Gideon, standing at the mantel at the far side of the room, dressed in his usual impeccable black and white, the rose visible on his lapel, seemingly deep in conversation with…who was that man, and why was he wearing—

“Oh, my God. Now? Tonight? Is he out of his—Richard, why didn’t you tell me about—Now?”

She must have spoken that last word above her strangled whisper, because Gideon and the man wearing the starched white collar of the church turned to look at her.

And that’s when the world stopped.

He left the clergyman where he stood and crossed the wide expanse of the drawing room in his coolly determined way, making a dead-set at her, his dark eyes never leaving her face. Smoldering. Yes, that was the word. He was smoldering. All sophistication, all his devilishly handsome dark good looks, all his fine clothes and finer physique enough to cause her to forget to breathe.

“Damme,” Richard breathed quietly, in some awe. “If there was ever a man who wanted a woman…”

Jessica quickly lowered her eyes, praying they hadn’t revealed what Richard had seen in Gideon’s. Because if there was ever a woman who wanted a man…

She dropped into a curtsy and held out her gloved hand, some bit of her brain remembering what she’d been taught a lifetime ago, as a young girl preparing for her Come Out. Gideon bowed over it, turning her hand at the last moment in order to press his kiss just below the pearl button fastening the soft kid against her wrist. The tip of his tongue touched her heated flesh and was gone, leaving her branded.

Richard melted away, physically removing himself. The rest of the world simply disappeared, as they, the room they gathered in, the entire city of London, were no longer important.

“Tonight?” she asked when she could finally locate her tongue.

“God, yes. Tonight,” he answered quietly, his tone all fierce seduction as he drew her arm through his and walked her back into the foyer, just out of sight of the others. “You flatter the gown just as I knew you would. I know what lies beneath it, and what lies beneath that. The silk of your stockings, the laces that lift and mold your breasts. The fiery center of you, the memories that have driven me mad these past endless days. I’ll be undressing you with my eyes for the eternity of time we have to yet get through until I can turn thought into deed. You must be gentle with me, Jessica, for I’m a man who has touched the silks that now touch you, imagining how I will rid you of them with reverent hands and delicate kisses, a man who is now rapidly approaching the end of his tether.”

She opened her mouth, and the silliest words in all the world popped out. Perhaps because she had wondered and then hated herself for wondering. Men had needs. She knew that, certainly. She hadn’t realized women could share those needs, but she did, now, thanks to him. That he would wait for her, however, astounded her. “You’ve been celibate these ten days?”

“Gives you pause, doesn’t it, knowing my reputation?” he asked, at last gifting her with a half smile, one that made him look younger, even vulnerable. “But I made myself a promise, and I keep my promises, although if I hadn’t been able to secure the Special License this afternoon, God only knows how I would have made it through another night without breaking down your door.”

“I’ve thought much the same,” she admitted, feeling heat flow into her cheeks…and other parts of her body. “I have this new…curiosity.”

“You’ll have to tell me about this curiosity. In some detail, please, and I will attempt to satisfy it all…also in some detail.”

The small bud of pleasure between her thighs, which he’d awakened from its lifetime of innocent slumber, contracted and released, sending a ripple of sensation throughout her body. Her skin tingled. Her nipples strained against the silk lining of her corset. Her knees could barely support her. If this was what his mere words could do to her…?

He touched the back of his hand to her cheek. “You’re thinking about it, aren’t you? I can see it in your eyes, your pupils gone all dark and wide. There’s heaven and there’s hell in what we humans desire, Jessica. But the past is the past, and now we start fresh. From now on, for us, and only between us, we reach for the stars.”

“You’re…you’re a remarkable man. Arrogant, always bound and determined to get your own way…but remarkable.” She watched his own eyes go dark and felt herself leaning toward him, angling up her chin for his kiss.

“Haven’t you finished yet, Gideon? Should I help? Jessica, please marry the man, which he’s assured me you want to do, although I can’t see the attraction, frankly, and let’s go in to dinner. I’ve been on horseback nearly all day, and I’m famished.”

Jessica lowered her head, the spell between Gideon and her broken.

He took her arm once more and turned Her about to see his sister standing a few feet away, one hand on her hip, her left boot tapping against the marble floor. Her grin was very nearly unholy. “Oops,” she said cheekily, clearly a young woman devoid of fear. “Are you going to growl now, Gideon?”

“Not tonight. Jessica, allow me, please, to introduce you to my sister, the incorrigible but kind Lady Katherine Redgrave. Kate, my bride, Jessica.”

Jessica dropped into a curtsy, realizing Gideon had not added Linden to that introduction. But as he’d said, the past was the past. “My lady.”

“Kate. My name is Kate, and since you’re about to become my sister, I think we can also dispense with curtsies, considering it would be I curtsying to you if Gideon ever gets this ceremony behind us. Gideon, the man is quoting sermons in there, and the fool is attempting to make limericks of them. Oh, that wasn’t nice of me, was it, Jessica? Your brother is a very…That is, he’s a well set-up young—” She hesitated, flashed a smile that could bring down kings, and ended, “He’s a bit of an adorable twit, isn’t he?”

“Of the first water, although only a woman would include adorable in that description,” Gideon agreed, laughing. “I could have had Brutus and Cleo fully trained by now, if I put my mind to it. But I’m enjoying Adam’s discomfort too much. Jessica, I asked Kate to come to town to bear witness at the ceremony, along with Richard. As I left the invitation rather late, Kate chose to travel the final leg via horseback, her groom in tow and her carriage containing her luggage lagging behind. But she is obedient,” he ended, grinning at his sister.

“Dying of curiosity, more like,” Lady Katherine admitted. “And, not that I don’t appreciate having you include me, brother mine, why didn’t you just have Trixie fly on over here on her gilded broom to bear witness? Oh, wait, I believe I’ve just answered my own question.”

“Not really. She has other plans this evening in any case.” He looked toward the doorway. “I suppose we should get this over with.”

“How could any woman refuse such a romantic proposal?” Jessica smiled at Kate, who winked at her yet again, and the three of them at last entered the drawing room, Gideon guiding them directly toward the fireplace and a clearly uncomfortable clergyman.

“Jessica, there you are! Quickly, what rhymes with leper? All I can come up with is pepper, and that won’t fadge.”

“Adorable,” Kate said again, in some amusement. “And much preferable to the way he’s been attempting to impress me with his clearly irresistible charms. Whoever let him off his leading strings this soon was overconfident in his hopes.”

“Yes, about that,” Jessica said to Gideon as the clergyman hastily arranged everyone in the proper order in front of him. “Adam told me a few things this afternoon. Shocking things. We should talk about them.”

“Tomorrow,” Gideon promised as the clergyman pointedly cleared his throat and opened his prayer book.

In the next few minutes, much more quickly and even prosaically than she could have imagined, Jessica became the Countess of Saltwood. She hadn’t really given much thought to that particular result of marrying Gideon, even after Lady Katherine had earlier joked about curtsying to her. Many people would now curtsy to her, address her as my lady, or your ladyship. Just the sort of thing she had once daydreamed about a lifetime ago, back in the days of her innocence.

Now Gideon, by wedding her, had given her back what he so clearly thought was the life she deserved. He’d married her because he felt the Redgraves owed her something, that was clear. But he also desired her. She hadn’t thought about desire as a young girl awaiting her first Season. She certainly hadn’t thought about it during her months with James, except to think men were no better than animals in the forest.

Yet when Gideon looked at her with desire in his eyes, she knew the trappings of society meant nothing. The titles, the curtsies, the balls, the nights at the theater, all of it.

How strange that her father and stepmother had clearly been preparing Adam for what was to come, but had not attempted any such education with her. Considering her father’s plans for her, that did seem odd. Unless that was to be her appeal…her ignorance. Her innocence.

Unless…unless her father had never planned any such thing for his daughter and had only been obeying someone else, who’d demanded her from him, demanded his obedience. James had been afraid of someone. Had her father been equally terrified? Cowed enough or frightened enough to allow his own daughter to be sacrificed? Yes, that seemed the more logical explanation, not that she could ever forgive her father, no matter how deep his fears.

Jessica looked down the length of the dining table to see Gideon watching her, and realized her wandering mind had been taking her to a place that had no place tonight.

He raised his wineglass to her in a sort of salute, and immediately Lady Katherine took up her own, rising to her feet. “Since my brothers are not here to do the thing properly, I suppose it is up to me to propose a toast to the Earl and Countess of Saltwood. Which I hereby do.” She raised her glass higher. “To a long and happy life, Jessica, even if that means having Gideon in it. Cheers!”

“Oh, hear, hear!” Adam agreed, also on his feet, glass raised high. “To a long and happy life, Gideon, even if that means having me in it!”

Everyone laughed, as they were hopefully meant to do, and Jessica gazed at her brother in real affection. He’d be all right, he truly would. They’d all be all right, in time. Because Gideon would see to it. She truly believed that.