What an Earl Wants (4 page)

CHAPTER TWO

A
S
SHE
WATCHED
R
ICHARD
’
S
meticulous recounting of the previous night’s profits, Jessica was twice forced
to cover a yawn with her hand, both times earning a reproving look from her
friend and business partner.

“Forgive me, Richard,” she said as he finished at last. “I
didn’t sleep well last night, I’m afraid.”

“He was upstairs here for some time, Jess. He upset you.”

“He didn’t make me happy, I’ll agree to that,” she said as she
locked the satisfyingly full strongbox. “This isn’t going to be easy.”

“It shouldn’t
be
at all. Surely the
boy is old enough to mind himself? I was out on my own before I was ten, just a
kiddie, making my own way.”

“Indeed you were,” Jessica agreed, having heard the story of
Richard’s past more than a few times, in more than a few versions, with probably
none of them completely true. “But when you have money, the law sees things
differently. Adam doesn’t reach his legal majority for another three years, and
for all I know won’t receive control over his inheritance even then. It all
depends on the terms of our father’s will.”

“And in the meantime, he’s stuck with those queer buggers, the
Redgraves. Nasty piece of work, that fellow last night, for all his fine
clothes. I’ve seen eyes like that before. Slice your throat for you as soon as
look at you. Just uses a clean knife.”

Jessica laughed softly as she returned the strongbox to its
hidey-hole beneath the floorboards. She disliked keeping so much money in the
house, but they had to be prepared for losses as well as profit.

She stood back as Richard rolled the rug down over the
floorboards. “We were right to finally come here to London. So many foolish
young men eager to be rid of their quarterly allowance. Our profits astound even
me. Only a few more months, Richard, and we can have our inn. Are you still set
on Cambridge? Of late I’ve been thinking of someplace more to the south, nearer
the Channel. Perhaps even a port city?”

“With that Bonaparte scum running amok and crowing as how he’s
coming here any day? No, Jess, no ports for the likes of me. Waking up one
morning with a bunch of Froggies parading through the town? I don’t think so.
It’s good English joints of beef we’ll be serving up from our kitchen, not slimy
snails slipping and sliding off the plate.”

“Bonaparte isn’t going to invade, Richard. He’s much too busy
with his new Austrian wife. She’ll bring him low one day, you know. You’d think
the man would be a better student of history. Women are always the downfall of
powerful men, one way or another.” She sent him a wide smile. “It’s what we
do.”

Richard stood up, preparing to go downstairs to his small room
at the back of the house they’d rented only a few short months previously. “And
is that what you’re planning to do with the Earl of Saltwood? I’d go easy with
any such notion, I would. The man’s no fool. I saw it in—”

“In his eyes. Yes, I remember. I’m not saying I’m out to
destroy him, for goodness’ sake. All he has to do is give me my brother. He
couldn’t want him.”

“Nor his inheritance,” Richard told her. “Man’s rich as that
Croesus fellow. But if it’s some gauntlet you threw down to the earl, and
knowing you it was, you’ve put his back up, so’s now he wouldn’t give you a
crust of bread, just because he knows you want it. Better to ply some wiles or
some such thing, not that I’m saying you should.”

Jessica averted her head, sure her cheeks were flaming, damn
her fair coloring. “He’s got a mistress set up at the bottom of Mount
Street.”

“And another tucked into a bang-up to the echo flat in Curzon
Street, some Covent Garden warbler. Then there’s his other lady birds, the widow
Orford and Lady Dunmore, or so I heard it told just last night, while the two of
you were up here and the gossip was flying about downstairs like shuttlecocks in
a high wind. Sets them up like dominos, tips them over when he’s done with them,
leaving them their fond memories, since not a one of them ever had a bad word to
say about him, not any of the dozens of them. Dozens, Jessica. So, never mind
what I said about wiles. You want this one to do your bidding, don’t do his.
That’s what I’m thinking.”

“You know I’ve never—”

“After Jamie Linden, who would?” Richard said, sighing. “But I
know you, and you
dangled,
didn’t you? Made promises
you’d no intention of keeping, thinking yourself smarter than any man. Dangerous
business, that, with one like Saltwood. Better to walk away now. The boy’ll come
to no harm. Saltwood’s no fool. He has to know everyone’s watching him.”

“Because he’s a Redgrave.”

“Because he’s his father’s son, yes. You know what they
say.”

Jessica walked over to the pier glass and inspected her
reflection. “His father was a rake and a libertine, and when he called out his
wife’s lover in a duel, she hid herself nearby and shot him in the back before
she and her lover fled to the continent, leaving her children behind as if they
didn’t matter to her. Not that she was any better than he was in any event,
having had more lovers than most of us have fingers and toes. Yes, I’ve heard it
all. I would suppose it was either Saltwood buries himself in the cellars on his
estate to hide his shame or he becomes what he’s clearly become.”

“An arrogant, to-hell-with-you bastard only an idiot with more
hair than wit would ever dare to say any of that to, in case you haven’t
considered that.”

“I don’t have to say it, Richard. The man knows his own family
history. He should likewise understand I want my brother away from him. Gideon
Redgrave may not be his father, as he claims he’s not, but he’s still that
arrogant, to-hell-with-you bastard who clearly cares for no one save himself.
Heartless, Richard, there’s no question. Adam was always such a quiet boy.
Gentle, almost painfully shy. I left him once, having no choice, and it broke my
heart. But now that I have a second chance, I can’t simply walk away. The Earl
of Saltwood will have him for breakfast, otherwise.”

“And you for lunch?”

Jessica pulled a face at him and then turned to Doreen, who had
just entered from the stairway. “You’re looking more than usually harassed. Is
something wrong?”

“There was a knock at the door, ma’am. A pounding, more like.
So I went down and answered it so as whoever it was wouldn’t break the door
down, because it sounded as if the wood was already splintering, it did, and
there he was, ma’am, and there he stays until I can talk to you, because that’s
what I told him after he was done telling me what he told me.”

Richard bent his head and rubbed at his temples. “We don’t need
to know it all, Doreen, as I keep telling you. Just the pertinent bits.”

“Yes, sir, Mr. Borders, sir. I’m just saying I didn’t invite
the fellow inside, but it was either stand aside or get myself bowled over, sort
of. I told him the house was closed to callers until eight of the clock, but he
paid that no nevermind at all, saying as how he’s here to stay and where’s his
room. I told him, I said, there’s no room here for the likes of
you—rough-looking fellow he is, you know—but he’s still standing there. Right
where he was standing when he first stepped inside as I was telling him to stay
out.”

“And me out of headache powders,” Richard grumbled, getting to
his feet. “Very well, lead me to him.”

Jessica snatched up her bonnet, pelisse and gloves. “I’ll go
down with you. The Saltwood coach will be here shortly, if the man meant what he
said, and I don’t think he wastes his words on lies unless they’d be of some
benefit to him, which my presence in Portman Square is not.”

“That was nearly as convoluted as Doreen, my dear. I’d be
careful of that,” Richard warned, holding open the door so that Jessica could
precede him down the narrow staircase.

Jessica was still smiling as she reached the first floor and
entered the gaming room, wrinkling her nose at the stale smell of tobacco. Other
than the tables, covered each day with white cloths to keep off the dust, the
room was empty...if she didn’t count the near mountain of a young man standing
just inside the main door, turning a large-brimmed hat in his hamlike hands.

“And you are...?” she asked, not certain she wished to approach
any closer.

“Seth, ma’am,” he said, lifting his huge bowed head, directing
an innocent wide-eyed blue stare at her. “His lordship sent me.”

Jessica relaxed for a moment, until it registered with her that
the lad—for he seemed quite young—was dressed like a common laborer. “Oh, for
pity’s sake.
You’re
the Saltwood coachman? He sent a
dray wagon, did he? Well, you can just go back to his lordship and tell him
thank you very much, but I can find my own way to Portman Square, as his insult
may delay my arrival but it did not dissuade me.”

“Ma’am?”

Richard had already gone to one of the front windows and looked
down onto the street. “There’s no coach out there, Jessica. Or dray wagon.”
Allowing the heavy curtain to drop once more, he tapped Seth on his shoulder, or
as near to it as Richard could reach, as Seth was as tall as he was wide. “Why
did his lordship send you, my good fellow?”

The boy flushed to the roots of his red hair. “To protect the
lady, sir. In case of any rum coves making a fuss over losing their blunt or
getting frisky or drunk or such like. His lordship will pay my wages, and that
he’s already done, ma’am. All you need do, his lordship says, is feed me and
give me somewheres to sleep. His lordship says that you got the bad end of it,
ma’am,” he said, hanging his head once more. “I suppose I do eats a bit.”

“Entire small villages just for breakfast, I should think,”
Richard said, smiling at Jessica as he walked over to her. “Now here’s a turn-up
for the books, isn’t it? The earl has sent you...protection. Puzzling.”

Jessica was livid. “Maddening, not puzzling. He’s insulting me.
Telling me I can’t protect myself.”

“And how would he know that, Jess? No, answer me this instead.
How do
you
know that’s why he sent the boy?” Richard
asked, looking at her closely. “What did happen up there last night?”

The jingle of harness followed by the sound of the knocker
saved Jessica from answering. “That has to be the coach. Richard, if you’ll get
Seth settled?”

“We could bed him down in the stables. If we had stables. So
we’re keeping him?”

Jessica shot a quick look at Seth, who reminded her of a
woodcut she’d once had, that of a gentle-eyed dragon spreading its wings to
protect a group of children lost in the woods. “I don’t suppose we really have a
choice, do we? And it will add to my arguments to have Adam here, if we’ve got
a...protector. It’s a wonder his lordship didn’t think of that.”

“I doubt there’s much his lordship doesn’t think of,” Richard
said, escorting her out to the street. “It’s not too late to reconsider, Jess.
Don’t do this. I know he’s your brother, but you haven’t lived in his world for
a long time. He could break your heart.”

“I’ve told you, my heart broke long ago. It can’t break again.
But having Adam with me might help mend it.” She patted Richard’s plump cheek as
a liveried footman opened the coach door and put down the steps. “Think good
thoughts while I’m gone, and don’t let Seth loose in the kitchens unless it’s to
help Doreen pare vegetables.”

“We’re really going to keep him? I thought you were just being
nice until you can think up an excuse to send him on his way.”

Jessica had one foot on the coach step when she turned to her
business partner. “I’m being amenable. I will continue to be amenable until Adam
is residing under my roof. Besides, it might be a good idea to have a bit of
enormous muscle to point to if anyone becomes a problem.”

“Pointing would be probably be enough,” Richard agreed as he
stepped forward and shut the coach door behind her. “I know it would be enough
for me. But until we see if he’s anything more than big, I’ll keep my wooden
club beneath the table, if you don’t mind. It has served me well so far.”

Jessica smiled until the coach moved off, but then allowed her
true feelings come to the surface.

Gideon Redgrave had sent her
protection,
had he? From everyone but him, considering Seth was in
his employ. Perhaps the youth’s true purpose was to spy, which would make
perfect sense to her...and if it made perfect sense to her, his lordship
undoubtedly had already thought of it.

But, mostly, Seth was an insult, a reminder that she might have
James’s pistol, she might consider herself quite a good shot, but she had not
been able to bring herself to do more than threaten with it.

Well, of course she hadn’t shot him!

She would have been hanged in any event, as blowing a hole in
an earl was frowned upon by the courts. She wouldn’t have been able to rescue
Adam from the man, because she’d be locked up and then executed. Too many people
had seen him climb the stairs with her; it wasn’t as if she and Richard could
have hidden the body somewhere and then hauled it to some alleyway and left it
there.

She’d thought of all those things in the few seconds she’d had
to reach into her pocket and close her hand around the pistol before the earl
had swooped down and taken the weapon from her. A pity she hadn’t thought of
them
before
she’d so blatantly offered herself to
him. It simply had seemed prudent to have it in her pocket, that’s all. The
weapon had given her courage, she supposed.
Too bad it
hasn’t given me brains,
she thought, pulling a face.

It was seeing that damned golden rose in his cravat. She’d seen
it, and something had seemed to go
snap
in her
brain.