The Regency Redgraves: What an Earl Wants / What a Lady Needs / What a Gentleman Desires / What a Hero Dares

“Oh, yes, Mrs. Linden. First the onions. They always make me cry, so I get them out of the way directly at the start. Then there’s the pork fat, and that needs must be sliced thin, and all of the potatoes and the parsley and such. Mr. Borders brought us back some fine bunches of carrots, and I was thinking about putting in some of them while I was about it, seeing as how fish chowder takes most anything, doesn’t it, and mayhap some—”

Jessica waved to Doreen as Gideon released the brake the moment the tiger was up behind them and then turned her face forward to hide her smile. “Doreen quite delights in detail,” she said as they moved into the light noon traffic at the corner.

“The correct term is excruciating detail. I had a tutor rather like that. Max and I put a frog in his bed. Seven frogs, actually, and all at once. People always expect an even number. Although we think it was the fifth that had him hastily penning his resignation. Still, if you ever wish a comprehensive accounting of the major agricultural products of India, feel free to apply to me. You look exasperatingly pretty today, Mrs. Linden. Were the pins truly necessary?”

Jessica touched a hand to her bare nape, her bent elbow nicely concealing her triumphant smile. “Richard thought so. Exasperating was exactly what he’d hoped for.”

“Your uncle doesn’t care for me?”

“More correctly, he cares for me. He believes you may be out to destroy me.”

Gideon didn’t react by so much as a flicker of an eyelid. “Really? Has he given any indication as to how I’m to go about this destruction?”

“He believes you’ve already begun. But I assured him I know what I’m doing.”

“Good for you. And you’re convinced of that?”

She turned to look at his profile, which could have been chiseled out of the finest marble by a master sculptor. Except that she knew his lips were warm and soft, not cold and hard like stone. A lie seemed in order. “Utterly.”

“So you didn’t dream of me last night?”

Jessica folded her hands in her lap. “No.” As she’d barely slept at all and then it had been the deep sleep of exhaustion, that answer was mostly truthful.

He turned to look at her, his dark eyes alive with mischief. “Now there’s a pity. I dreamed of you. Would you care to hear about my dream?”

“Again, no.”

“Again, a pity. It all but had me flying to Jermyn Street at dawn, to knock down your door.”

“I thought we’d agreed. That doesn’t happen again.”

He turned to face forward once more. “You pronounced, Jessica. I agreed to nothing. If we’re to work together, we may as well continue to enjoy each other.”

She very nearly opened her mouth to say she hadn’t enjoyed him at all, but even she knew she couldn’t tell that particular clunker with any hope of being believed. “I won’t be your mistress. I’ll keep the five hundred pounds you all but tossed away at the faro table because half of it is by rights Richard’s, but don’t insult me like that again. You’re banned from the cards at Jermyn Street. Besides, four women should be more than enough for any man.”

He laughed. “Four? At one and the same time? Madam, I enjoy my pleasures, but that much pleasure would have me a bent and crippled man by now.”

“Richard’s never wrong.”

“Richard should withdraw his nose from my business before he loses it. Who are these women?”

“I’m not going to continue this discussion,” Jessica said, belatedly remembering the young tiger hanging on to the back of the curricle. “Pas devant l’enfant.”

“Not in front of the child? Ah, you refer to Thomas. He’s been in my employ for two years, and rendered impervious to shock long before, and if not then, long since.” Without turning around, he raised his voice to ask, “Haven’t you, Thomas?”

“Sir?”

“See, he isn’t even listening, are you, Thomas?”

“Singing inside my head, my lord, like always. Would you like me to sing outside it for his lordship?”

“Perhaps another time. Go back to your inside singing.”

Jessica shot a quick look behind her, to see the tiger had closed his eyes and was tipping his head from side to side as his lips moved, clearly singing “inside his head.”

“He’s really singing inside his head?”

“Yes, and much preferable to having him sing outside it, which he’s only allowed to do around the horses, that unaccountably seem to enjoy the sound of Thomas’s joyful noise. I think they’re reminded of the goat we keep in the stables at Redgrave Manor to bear them company. Both bray with great enthusiasm.”

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 instep 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?”