What an Earl Wants (11 page)

Don’t make me like you,
Jessica
warned him mentally...and perhaps herself. “The first is kept in Mount Street,
the second is a Covent Garden warbler and the others are society ladies. The
widow Orford and—oh.”

“The widow and the niece of two of our murdered society
members, yes, cultivated—but not in the literal sense—for any information they
might have. But to be fair, the usually infallible Richard couldn’t know that.
As to Curzon Street and warbling, he is, sadly, behind the times. The warbler
sings elsewhere, with my full approval and a fairly impressive strand of pearls
around her slim neck. Do you like pearls?”

“More than I like you,” Jessica grumbled half under her breath,
but not because Mount Street had not been denied. Really. She didn’t care. Not a
whit! “I was merely making a point, Gideon. I don’t care if you
cultivate
half of London. I just have no plans to have
my name added to that lengthy list.”

“‘The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men, gang aft agley...’”
Gideon quoted, directing his cattle to the flagway.

“‘And leave us nought but grief an’ pain for promis’d joy,’”
Jessica ended, probably giving away more of her fears about this man than she
should have allowed.

“And a pretty piece of jewelry,” Gideon quipped, setting the
brake and tying the ribbons around it as Thomas leaped down and ran to the
horse’s heads. “But we’ll argue this later, most likely in bed.” Then, as she
opened her mouth to protest, he winked and lightly jumped down from the seat, to
come around the back of the curricle and offer her his hand.

She ignored it, preferring to look up at the facade of the
imposing stone structure in front of her. “Where are we?”

“Cavendish Square. Old, respected, the town residences of some
of the most stuffy and high in the in-step members of the
ton.
And my grandmother, whose presence for some casts a blight on
the entire neighborhood.”

Jessica looked at the mansion again. “Your
grandmother?
I thought you meant you would be stopping at some shop
for a moment. Why in heaven’s name would you bring
me
to see your
grandmother?
” She was
nearly squeaking, she was that shocked. And that confused. Even one of the
scandalous Redgraves didn’t bring his mistress...lover...whatever the devil he
thought she was...to visit his
grandmother.
But he
had!

“You’re forgetting she was there during the heyday of my
father’s secret society. She was there the morning my father was shot. I’ve
already told her about my suspicions as to the rash of accidental deaths, and
about what’s been happening at Redgrave Manor. I neglected to tell her about
you, but now that I understand our possible predicament with Adam, I thought we
should all three of us put our heads together.”

“To come up with what? Other than possibly the most
embarrassing quarter hour of my life?” She clasped her hands together, avoiding
his outstretched hand. “I’m not going in there. Only a fool would go in
there.”

“Your parents were respected members of the
ton.
You speak French. You can quote Robert Burns. I
haven’t had the pleasure of sharing a meal with you, but I’m tolerably certain
you don’t line up your peas on a knife blade and then attempt to slide them down
your gullet—although your brother thinks that quite the height of hilarity.”

“I run an illegal gaming establishment,” Jessica whispered
hoarsely.

“A minor impediment, not that Trixie would give a damn. I can
name at least five titled ladies who discreetly encourage gaming in their
Mayfair residences, three of whom who hold faro banks.”

This information came as a shock to Jessica. “Then why did you
turn up your nose—not that such a thing is physically possible, not with that
beak of yours—when you realized you’d walked into
my
gaming room?”

“References to my nose to one side, I leaped to a mistaken
conclusion. Mildred, you understand.”

“Oh,” Jessica said in a small voice, but then rallied. “But I’m
still not going in there.”

“Yes, you are,” Gideon corrected her just before he reached up,
put his hands on her waist and bodily lifted her down to the flagway as if she
weighed no more than a feather. “I’d say my grandmother is harmless, but that
would be a lie, so be on your toes. We need information, Jessica, and Trixie’s
the fastest way to it. She is, however, also a firm believer in
quid pro quo,
so she’ll demand information in
exchange.”

“Have you ever stopped to wonder what it is you’d
do
if you had whatever information it is you think we
need?”

“You mean other than returning my father’s remains to Redgrave
Manor? I may not revere the man’s memory, but I’ll be damned if I’ll simply
shrug my shoulders and ignore what I now know. Other than that, no, not really.
Although it might be charitable of me to find a way to put a stop to these
accidents, don’t you think?”

“No,” she answered honestly. “I doubt any of them deserve
saving. Except Adam. He will grow up someday, won’t he?”

“I’d hoped to send him off to school and forget about him until
he reached his majority. But I suppose I could take him in hand, if we are to
assume the Society might soon show an interest in him. Would I be rewarded? I
can think of several ways you could accomplish that.”

“I’ll have Doreen make you a large bowl of fish chowder,”
Jessica said as the front door of the mansion opened and a worried-looking older
man in butler’s black stuck his head into the breach.

“Excuse me, my lord, but her ladyship says you and the young
miss are to come or go, but don’t just stand out here with your fingers in your
mouth or else people will wonder if your brain cracked. Sir.”

“She said all that, did she, Soames? In just that way?” Gideon
asked, extending his arm to Jessica, who saw no recourse now but to take it. His
grandmother had been looking down at them from one of the windows? How
embarrassing!

“She may have said a few more words I chose to either alter or
discard rather than repeat them in front of the young miss, my lord, but I
believe you can imagine them.”

“Yes,” Gideon said, handing over his hat and gloves to a
liveried footman while Soames relieved Jessica of her shawl. “I believe I can.
We’ll find our own way upstairs.”

“She’s a tartar?” Jessica whispered the question as they
mounted the wide, curving staircase, covertly examining the life-size marble
statues set in niches along the wall. They were all male and curiously devoid of
fig leaves.

“Hard and strict and abrasive? Hardly. She’s sweetness itself,
and her conversation is delightful. It’s only when you go to move that you
realize you’ve been sliced into ribbons. Give as good as you get, Jessica. She
likes that.”

“It would appear she likes others things, as well. Those
statues are all naked,” she mumbled as they gained the landing and another wide
foyer. “Everything is so opulent, so beautiful, it took me a moment to believe I
was seeing what I saw.”

“Trixie has a curious notion of humor and never ordered them
removed after my grandfather died. Imagine the
ton,
cooling their heels for a good half hour as they stand cheek by jowl on the
stairs, waiting to be announced for one of Trixie’s famous balls. The ladies
never know where to look. The gentlemen vary in their reaction. Red ears. Quiet
sniggers. Open admiration for some, which is rather disconcerting. It has been
whispered that there’s also an extensive collection of interesting paintings,
etchings, even playing cards and a fascinatingly explicit set of china. If it
exists, we grandchildren have not been allowed to inspect the collection,
although I imagine we will be forced to do so at some point when Trixie dies,
which she is not planning to do.”

He didn’t sound ashamed but only amused. “I’ve heard you
Redgraves referred to as scandalous. I thought the reference referred only to
the circumstances around your father’s death. And whispers of his Society, of
course. I had no idea—”

“No idea the taint goes beyond my father? It’s said we
Redgraves descend from a long line of satyrs. Trixie is our grandfather’s third
wife, the two others having died, the first in childbed, the second murdered by
her lover. Trixie was barely sixteen when she was brought to the marriage bed by
a man thirty years her senior. Truthfully, I think she was even younger than
that. I once researched the subject and found the legal age for females to marry
during that time was twelve.”

“I doubt she’d want anyone to think she’s four years older than
assumed,” Jessica said, inwardly cringing at the thought of a twelve-year-old
bride. “Although perhaps not.”

“It was another time, and definitely not a better one. In any
case, my father merely resurrected what had been created by my grandfather years
earlier. As I already told you, there were many such clubs back then. Most were
tame imitations of Dashwood’s, but not all. Some were worse, both here and in
Ireland, other places. If we want to know the truth about the Society and its
secrets, we need to talk to Trixie, and with the gloves off. Hers, and
yours.”

“We were never going to Richmond, were we?” Jessica asked,
looking toward the closed double doors to what had to be the drawing room. A
pair of small yellow pug dogs stood outside them with their heads turned
hopefully toward Soames, who had followed up the stairs and now scooped up the
dogs and carried them away.

“Not today, no. I know this will be embarrassing for you, and I
apologize, Jessica, truly. But if you’re at all worried the Society is still
active, and they’ll come after your brother at some point, we need to do
this.”

“You forgot to remind me that my father was murdered,” Jessica
said archly. “Or reiterate your own reasons.”

“I’m Adam’s guardian.”

She rolled her eyes. “Oh, let’s not go through that again,
please. Let’s simply get this over with so that I don’t have to look at you
anymore.”

“Not even tonight in Portman Square? Adam is eager to meet his
sister at the dinner table.”

“You just made that up.”

His grin made her want to slap him. “True. But he’ll be there,
if I have to tie him to the chair. I don’t always play fair, but I’m most always
effective when I want something. Now come on,” he said, holding out his arm. “We
stand out here any longer, Trixie will be forced to abandon her pose of
lady-at-leisure and come hunting us.”

And it was a lady-at-leisure Jessica saw when they entered the
blue-and-white drawing room, a large chamber filled with sunlight and enormous
vases and bowls stuffed with fresh flowers.

The Dowager Countess of Saltwood reclined on an intricately
carved white-and-gilt one-armed lounge, her dainty feet encased in silver
slippers tucked up beside her, her slim body draped in a high-waisted lace-edged
burgundy silk gown cut for a much younger woman, colored for a dowdy matron. The
effect was startlingly effective.

Her hair, a wondrous curled mass of white-gold ringlets woven
through with several narrow silver ribbons, teased at her forehead, caressed her
slim neck, touched on her right shoulder. She was painted, definitely, but with
a subtle hand, so that the color in her cheeks and on her smiling mouth seemed
natural.

If this was Beatrix Redgrave at—at Jessica’s quick
calculations—nearly seventy years of age, the Trixie of her youth must have been
the most stunningly beautiful woman ever born.

Jessica immediately felt too tall, incredibly plain and
decidedly gauche, as she imagined every woman ever in the same room with the
dowager countess had felt from the time Trixie had reached her fifth
birthday.

“Gideon, my pet!” the woman exclaimed now, her voice like the
soft tinkling of delicate silver bells. She raised one small, heavily be-ringed
hand for his kiss. “What dastardly thing have I done that merits me two visits
from my eldest grandson in as many days? You must tell me, so that I can repeat
the transgression again and again, as I see you far too seldom.”

She looked past Gideon to smile at Jessica, who immediately
curtsied. “And who is this gorgeous creature? She puts me in mind of dearest
Juliette Rècamier, whom I so enjoyed when we met in Coppet while I was visiting
Madame de Staël. Coppet is in Switzerland, pet,” she said as an aside to Gideon.
“Such a beauty that one is, if poor as a church mouse, dear thing, and married
at fifteen to her own father, if rumor is to be believed. And then there’s that
unfortunate business about her inability to enjoy— Ah, but that’s again, only
rumor. Suffice it to say the woman has been painted time and time again as a
virginal figure.”

If the dowager countess was hoping to put Jessica to the blush,
she had badly misjudged her by appearance: in point of fact, the butter-yellow
gown with its modest neckline and her total lack of jewelry, such as a “fairly
impressive strand of pearls.”

Gideon quickly stepped in and made the introductions, so that
Jessica found herself curtsying yet again before being invited to sit. Soames
entered the room then, trailed by two maids who quickly arranged a magnificent
tea tray on a low table in front of Jessica, who was then asked to pour.

A test, possibly? To see if this Jessica Linden woman who had
shown up here unannounced with her grandson had any notion of how to properly
serve tea? What a wicked woman!

“I would be delighted,” Jessica said, inching forward on her
chair. “Your ladyship will, I’m convinced, forgo sugar. In favor of cream.”

“Teased one naughty puss to the other,” her ladyship said,
nodding her head in acknowledgement of the hit while delivering one of her own.
“All right, Gideon, we’ve no simpering miss here. Who is she?”

“Jessica’s the half sister of my new ward, Adam Collier. You
remember him. You met last week in Bond Street.”