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 18

WITH KATE YAWNING into her hand and Adam thoroughly in his cups and half-asleep in his chair, Gideon exchanged a meaningful glance with Richard, who immediately stood up, stretching and yawning and then quickly apologizing for his lapse.

“Quite a day for an old man like me, quite a day,” he said, smiling at Lady Katherine. “Would you do me the extreme favor of allowing me to escort you upstairs to your chamber, my lady?”

“What was that?” Adam stumbled to his feet, blinking. “I can do that. I’ve always wanted to escort a lady to her bedchamber, damned if I haven’t.”

“Adam!” Jessica exclaimed from her seat beside Gideon. “You really must learn to not say everything you think!”

“He thinks?” Gideon asked quietly, eying the curls at Jessica’s shoulders, the ones he’d been manfully resisting wrapping around his finger this past hour or more. But it hadn’t been easy goings. “It is rather late, Richard, isn’t it?”

“Oh, yes, my lord. After a long day,” he added helpfully, and then winced as the mantel clock struck ten. Many carriages were just now leaving Portman Square, for an evening round of parties. “All things considered, that is.”

“You’re all as subtle as a sharp jab to the ribs,” Lady Katherine said, but then held out her hand to Richard, to allow him to help her to rise. “I held out as long as I could, as I’d like to think part of my mission in life is harassing you and Max and Val, Gideon, but I will admit I’m more than ready for my bed.” She looked to Richard and Adam. “And I would greatly appreciate both you fine gentlemen accompanying me upstairs. To my door,” she added, shooting Adam an amused look.

“We’ll all go up,” Gideon said, holding out his hand to Jessica. He wouldn’t look at her, because she might smile at him, and if she gave him one more ounce of encouragement he might just take her here and now, on the couch.

The way she looked at him from beneath her lush lashes, the way she held her spoon as she sipped her soup, her endearing habit of touching her hand to the middle of her breasts as she leaned forward to listen to the conversation. He’d even envied her serviette as she’d dabbed the fine linen against her lips.

It hadn’t been her fault. He knew that. She’d done nothing out of the ordinary. She hadn’t purposely teased him. She had only to breathe to make him want her.

Ten days. Who knew ten days could be so long a time? He’d given Gwen her congé, even introduced her to Freddie Banks, who much to Gwen’s delight immediately offered her his protection. He’d harassed a modiste and her dozen seamstresses like a man possessed. He’d petitioned the church for a Special License, pretended not to know his grandmother’s favored way to secure, well, favors. He’d paced the floor each night, he’d counted the hours each day. He’d stared at the locked door between his and Jessica’s bedchambers and suffered the torments of the damned.

And all for a woman he barely knew. A woman who was now his wife.

He’d wanted her. In the beginning, it had been that simple. Because what he wanted, he took. Had always taken. He’d never seen any reason to deny himself anything.

But he’d never wanted anything the way he wanted Jessica.

And now he had her.

They entered her bedchamber together, his hand at the back of her waist. He turned and closed the door. Turned the key.

They moved farther into the large chamber, to see it was subtly lit with candles and the light from a small fire, the curtains on the four-poster bed tied back on one side, draping the other three. The coverlet was turned down, a confection of ivory lace rather artfully arranged atop it.

He couldn’t believe he wasn’t seeing a scene welllaid for seduction.

He placed his hands on her shoulders. “Where are your women?”

“I dismissed them for the night.”

He cocked his head to one side. “You did? And why was that?”

“I don’t know. The note I found this morning. The new clothing, the necklace…all of it. I had…hopes,” she said, and then stepped closer, raising her hands to his neck cloth, deftly beginning to undo it. He decided to help, quickly dealing with the buttons on his waistcoat and shirt.

His smile brought a hint of color to her cheeks. “You had two eyes in your head when you saw yourself in this gown, and knew I couldn’t see you tonight and then simply walk away.”

“So now you know how I feel, every time I look at you. It was only the once…but I can’t forget it. How you made me feel. I hadn’t felt anything, Gideon, not in a very long time. But this was new, what you made me feel. I wanted…I want to know if it was real, what I felt. I want to know if there’s even more. Is that wrong? Please tell me it’s not wrong.”

He was already straining almost painfully against the fabric of his pantaloons. “I want to be inside you so badly.” His hands went to her back, seeking out the row of buttons, dispatching them quickly. “I want to make you mine. But I don’t want to rush you… .”

“I may already be ahead of you,” she told him breathlessly, tugging his shirt free of his waistband as she began backing toward the bed. “Let’s don’t talk anymore, Gideon, please?”

He picked her up at the waist, her arms going around his neck, and continued on toward the bed, smiling as he saw the pink rose petals strewn across the sheets. He hadn’t been overly enthusiastic about Jessica’s request Mildred and Doreen act as her ladies’ maids, but now he believed they were both wildly underpaid.

He put Jessica down and quickly finished the job of ridding her of the dusky-rose gown, leaving her clad in an ivory lace corset laced in front with pink satin ribbons. The corset was purely ornamental, not fashioned for any other purpose than the joy he’d find once he’d slid open the laces to touch the treasure beneath.

For now, however, it could stay where it was, softly molding and raising her perfect breasts. The French drawers, however, had to go.

They went.

The silk stockings stayed. The necklace stayed. The golden circlet of diamonds remained on her left hand. The pins, and there were blessedly few of them, submitted to his search, and her glorious red hair was free, tumbling, enticing.

There was no time for his evening coat; it was too well fitted, for one thing. Jessica, bless her, had already managed to undo the buttons of his pantaloons. He was so ready to explode, no more than a few deep hard strokes from bursting. Reciting lines from Paradise Lost in his head wouldn’t help him now. He couldn’t even remember the damn words.

He hadn’t felt this way since…No. He’d never felt this way. Never.

She slipped her hands inside his opened shirt, and his skin felt scalded by her touch. With a low groan of need, he lifted her onto the edge of the bed and spread her thighs, pulling her legs around his back even as he plunged into her, knowing she was ready for him.

“Yes! Gideon—yes!”

Yes, his mind echoed as he drove into her. Yes, yes, yes!

And then it was over. But it wasn’t over. The long days and nights of unbearable need had been addressed, but not the want. Because he would want her for the rest of his life.

He laid her back on the rose petal-strewn sheets, lifting her legs onto the coverlet, and smiled down at her. She looked unfocused, lost in a dream, her limbs loose, her hair spread out on the pillows like a living thing. He’d done that. Him. He would banish her past. He’d chase away every last shadow. He felt allpower-ful. She made him all-powerful.

Gideon stripped off the rest of his clothes and joined her in the bed, placed a kiss on her mouth with a gentleness he didn’t know he could feel. “At least we’re still breathing,” he said as she smiled up at him. “We could have killed each other, you know.”

Jessica caressed his cheek. “But now you’re no use to me for at least an hour,” she said, her tone teasing. Unafraid. Even daring.

Leaning over her, supporting himself on one elbow, Gideon located one end of the bow securing her corset, began slowly pulling on it to release it. “Not entirely.”

He began kissing her just at the top edge of the corset, and then inched his way down even as the laces were undone. He kissed her breasts, licked at them, paid special attention to her taut nipples until she moaned quietly and raised her hips.

He kneaded her breasts, trailed kisses along the soft flesh inside her arms, down the length of her rib cage. His tongue found and teased at her navel, and she made a small, shocked sound of pleasure. He pressed his palm against her lower belly, bringing her heat that seemed to melt her…and then slowly turned his hand so that he was inching his way closer to her center even as she opened herself for him.

But not yet.

He cupped her, but then brought his mouth to her inner thighs, the sweet skin behind her knees. He worshipped, he teased, her every soft whimper of pleasure and frustration enflaming him.

But not yet.

He was in control now, he could wait her out; he needed to see what she’d do when he’d driven her beyond her limits.

She moved her hands down to the vee of her thighs, pressed his hand more firmly against her, shifted on the bed so that she could dig her heels into the mattress. She tugged upward on the skin of her belly, as if she could bring him in better contact with the parts of her that had to be aching to be touched, stroked into bloom.

He obliged.

He slid two fingers inside her, brought his mouth down to her and kept it there until she began to convulse around him, a living pulse of pleasure, taken over the edge in a new way, a different way. Ah, and there were so many ways… .

Jessica attempted to sit up, blindly holding her arms out to him, clearly wanting to be held, needing to be held. He’d never understood that in a woman, why indeed anyone would have that need. Until now.

Gideon gathered her to him, her arms and legs once more locked behind his back as he buried himself, and perhaps his own past, deep inside her, clinging to her as she clung to him, the two of them riding out the storm, together.

When they collapsed against the pillows, Jessica didn’t comment that he would be of “no use to her” for a while. Which was probably a good thing, as Gideon couldn’t do much more than lie there as she picked crushed rose petals from his sweat-slick body before curling into him, resting her head on his shoulder.

He was going to have to learn to pace himself. If Trixie had been right and in another thirty years he would be happy most nights with his dogs, some brandy and a warm fire, at least he’d have that thirty years. He could only hope to tire out Jessica by that time, which he rather doubted would happen. But they’d work something out… .

He pressed a kiss against her hair and then closed his eyes, more than ready for sleep, and drifted away… .

“Your lordship?” There was a knock on the door. “Your lordship?”

Gideon raised his head a fraction. “Go. Away.”

“Yes, sir, your lordship,” Thorndyke answered. “I would do that, surely. But I can’t.”

Jessica stirred slightly but then only sighed and continued to sleep.

“Yes, Thorny, you can. You simply have to apply yourself. You managed to propel yourself here, now manage to get yourself gone.”

Jessica yawned and stretched. Rather like a cat, rubbing her body against him. Part of Gideon took notice and became interested. The other part wished his butler on the far side of the moon.

“What’s going on?” Jessica asked, the grace of a cat deserting her as she tried to prop herself up by pushing on her elbow, which then jabbed into his chest. “Who are you bullying?”

Gideon gave it up. “My butler. But don’t worry, I bully him all the time. Go back to sleep.”

She pushed her tangled hair away from her face, grumbling something about never sleeping without first braiding her hair or it turned into a rats’ nest. “What does he want? Is it morning? It can’t be morning, it’s too dark.”

The knock came again. “Your lordship? It’s the dowager duchess, sir. She’s sent a note.”

Now Gideon was awake. “Trixie?”

“Yes, sir. You’re to read it at once, sir.”

Gideon pushed back the covers and left the bed, using the near-to-guttering light from a few of the remaining lit candles to locate his breeches. “Slide it under the door. What bloody time is it?”

“Gone three, my lord. I’m so sorry, but the footman who brought it was most insistent. I’ll have the coach brought round.”

“The—Damn it!” He watched as a folded note was pushed beneath the door and bent to pick it up. “This couldn’t wait until morning, Thorndyke?” he asked as he broke the seal and opened the single page.

Get here. Now! The word now was underlined three times.

“Well, that’s succinct.” He raked his fingers through his hair. “I’ll be down directly.”

“We both will,” Jessica said from behind him, and he turned to see she was standing beside the bed, unashamedly naked, crushed rose petals in her hair. And several other places. He looked down at himself, momentarily amazed at his powers of recovery in the face of distraction, and then silently cursed his grandmother’s pathetic command of proper timing.

Gideon tore his gaze from the trio of rose petals fortunate enough to be in such intimate contact with Jessica’s left hip, and then manfully squinted into the near darkness, looking for his shirt. “No, you stay here.”

“We’ll both be down directly, Thorndyke,” she called out, and then began foraging for her underclothes, her bare bottom enticing as she bent over to retrieve the French drawers. Ah, more rose petals… .

“I never before realized my own grandmother hates me,” Gideon muttered, once again turning his eyes away from temptation.

It was closer to a quarter hour before he and Jessica were heading down the curved staircase, thanks to Jessica’s “rats’ nest,” but they were nearly to the door before Kate hailed them from the top of the stairs.

“What’s she done this time?” Lady Katherine asked as she bounded down the stairs with an energetic lack of caution that could have brought anyone else to grief. But not Kate. She never made a misstep, never gave a thought to decorum or, God help them all, her own safety. It was what he loved about her and why he worried so much about her. She was too damn much of a man for a woman. Somehow she’d lost any soft feminine side she’d ever had, preferring to act and be treated as if she was fourth and youngest Redgrave son.

He gave a moment’s thought to his sister’s question, and the fact that his grandmother had been entertaining the Marquis of Mellis. What if she wasn’t as deft as she believed herself to be? What if she’d slipped, or become angry with something he’d revealed to her? What if—“You’re not going with us, Kate.”

She ignored him as if he’d said nothing, brushing past him and through the open doorway to the foggy, damp street beyond. She’d climbed into the coach, taking the rear-facing seat, and was buttoning the last few buttons of the jacket to her riding habit as Gideon and Jessica entered and the coach jolted forward.

“Trixie’s her grandmother, too, Gideon,” Jessica said, as if he’d forgotten. “Stop glaring at her.”

“He’s glaring? Just think, all these years I thought that was his usual face.”

Jessica laughed but then slipped her hand into his as the coach turned out of the Square. “Trixie always lands on her feet, Gideon. I don’t know her well, but I’m certain of that much.”

He squeezed her hand in return. “I never should have started this.”

“Never should have started what?” Kate asked him. “And before you open your mouth, remember, I’m not a child.”

“Another time,” he said evasively, grabbing the strap as the coachman made the last turn into Cavendish Square. They’d accomplished the drive in a quarter of the time it would have taken them during the day, with only a few drays and delivery wagons sharing the streets with them. “Let’s just see what we’re facing.”

“All right. But you might want to do something about that rose petal clinging to your left cheek, brother mine.”

Gideon raised his hand to brush away the petal. “There’s nothing there.”

“No. But Jessica’s women spoke with my Sally, so I know there could have been. You’ve just confirmed that for me. Thank you.”

“Pernicious brat,” Gideon commented as Jessica bent her head, hiding her face and, most probably, her flaming cheeks.

The door to the dowager countess’s mansion was opened the moment the coach came to a halt, a wedge of yellowed light cutting through the fog. Gideon bustled the two women out of the coach and quickly hurried them into the foyer.

“Soames?”

The butler inclined his head. “Your lordship, Lady Katherine. Mrs. Linden.”

“No, my countess,” Gideon corrected, looking at the large standing clock in one corner of the foyer, “for the past nearly nine hours. But never mind that now. Where is she?”

“In her boudoir, my lord,” Soames said, his ears going crimson as he shot glances at Jessica and Kate. Really, you’d think the man had passed beyond blushing decades ago. “As is his lordship. You’re to go right up, sir.”

“Remain here,” Gideon ordered the ladies. “Soames, make them some tea or something.”

“Oh, I don’t think so,” Kate announced. “Jessica? Do you think so?”

“I think you and I are going to be very good friends, Kate. And, no, I don’t plan to remain down here.”

When had he lost control of his life, his air of consequence, his ability to command? Gideon looked down at his clothing, as Soames was looking at him rather strangely, to see that he may have buttoned his waistcoat, but one of his shirttails was hanging loose beneath it. “Bloody hell. All right. But if I tell you to leave, you leave. Understood?”

“Oh, definitely understood,” Jessica said…and then she did the oddest thing. She winked at Kate.

“You’re wasting time, brother mine,” Kate reminded him. “I saw the note. She wrote now.”

And so it was that the trio, all of them now Redgraves, mounted the staircase together, turned and climbed another flight, following Soames, who then pointed them toward the closed double doors to what had to be Trixie’s bedchamber.

He then bowed and said, “Whatever it is we’re to do, it will be done, sir. I’ve ordered the staff to remain in their quarters. I’ll be right here, anticipating your orders.”

“Well, that was ominous,” Jessica whispered as the butler backed away from the doors. “Go on, Gideon. Open it.”

The chamber, one he’d never before visited, was quite large and fronted by an antechamber hung with red velvet draperies. Beyond it, the room opened up considerably, which seemed a pity to him, as none of its furnishings or colors appealed to him. Red, everywhere, red with touches of gold. Move the chamber to Piccadilly, and it would, other than in its sheer size and the cost of the fabrics and furnishings, become quite an inviting bordello. To see such a room here, in the most straitlaced area of Mayfair, was something of a shock.

There was a movement near the fireplace, and Trixie’s barefoot legs appeared, searching for the floor as she uncurled herself from one of the large upholstered chairs positioned there. “There you are,” she said, getting to her feet, her midnight-blue velvet dressing gown tightly tied at her waist, a glass of wine in her hand. “My goodness, are we having a party?” she asked, appearing not at all upset that Gideon had not come here on his own. “Kate, Jessica, how good to see you both. More heads to consult, I suppose.”

She employed the hand clutching the wineglass to gesture toward the large, curtained bed. “Now, what do you propose we should do with that?”