What an Earl Wants

He did his best not to blink as she toed off the silver-heeled shoes and kicked them beneath a table as if happy to be rid of them. “I cannot presume to control the world, my lord, only the small portion of it beneath this roof. Mildred and the others make their own arrangements as to what they do outside this establishment.”

“That’s…civilized. So, a gaming hell, but no brothel. A fine line between disreputable and despicable. Am I to perhaps applaud?”

She looked at him, long and hard, and then reached up both hands and deftly twisted the heavy mass of curls into a knot atop her head before walking over to a small drinks table holding a single decanter of wine. “I don’t particularly care what you do, my lord,” she said as she poured some of the light amber liquid into a single glass before turning to face him. “As long as you relinquish guardianship of my brother to me.”

“Oh, yes, Miss Collier, the demand presented to me via your solicitor. I can readily see the eminent sense in that. Clearly a fit place for the boy.”

“The name is Linden, my lord. Mrs. Linden. I’m a widow.”

Gideon could not suppress his smile this time. “Of course you are. How very proper. My apologies.”

“You can take your apologies, my lord, and stuff them in your…ear,” she said, and then turned her back to him as she lifted the glass to her lips. She didn’t sip; she drank. He could see that her hand trembled slightly as she lowered the empty glass to the tabletop. The wine was for courage, clearly. He almost felt sorry for her.

Almost.

But then she turned back to him, her eyes shining in the light of the candles. “We’ve begun badly, haven’t we? Are you certain you don’t care for a glass of wine?”

“A lady shouldn’t drink alone, I suppose. Very well.” Gideon got to his feet and availed himself of the decanter. The wine, when he tasted it, was unexpectedly good, when he’d assumed it would be cheap and bitter. “Do you have a first name, madam?”

The question seemed to surprise her. “Why would you—Yes. Yes, I do. Jessica.”

“Preferable to either Linden or Collier. Very well. My condolences on your recent loss, Jessica. I was remiss in not stating that at the outset.”

“My father’s death means nothing to me, my lord, as we’d been estranged for several years. But, thank you. I only wish to become reacquainted with my brother.”

“Half brother,” Gideon corrected. “The son of your father and your stepmother, also sadly deceased. You have no questions about that sad event?”

Jessica shrugged her shoulders. “No. Should I? When I read about their deaths in the Times, an accident with their coach was mentioned. I’m only glad Adam was away at school, and not in the coach with them.”

“All right,” Gideon said, looking at her carefully. “There’s still the matter of a rather large fortune, not to mention the Sussex estate. All of it in trust for your half brother, who was not estranged from his parents.”

“That’s also of no concern to me. I support myself.”

“Clearly,” Gideon said, casting his gaze around the sparsely furnished room. “Bilking raw youths in town on a spree profitable, is it?”

“We don’t bilk anyone, my lord. We don’t allow it. If we see some fool gaming too deep, he’s sent on his way.”

“Vowing to sin no more, I’ll assume, his ears still ringing from the stern lecture you’ve administered.”

Jessica looked at him unblinkingly, her brown eyes raking him from head to toe before seemingly settling on his chest; perhaps she wouldn’t be so brave if she looked into his eyes. “I don’t like you. Gideon.”

“I can’t imagine why not. Another man wouldn’t have answered your summons. I’ll admit to curiosity being my motive for obliging you, but please don’t hold that against me.”

“And it only took you a month, and then you arrived on my doorstep at this ungodly hour of the night, clearly as an afterthought. Or perhaps your planned evening turned out to be a bore, leaving you at loose ends? I’m sorry, I suppose I should be flattered.”

She turned her back to him once more, bending her neck forward. “You may as well be of some use. If you could help with these buttons? Doreen is still busy at the front door, and I’m near to choking.”

Gideon raised one well-defined eyebrow as he weighed the invitation, considering its benefits, its pitfalls…her motives. “Very well,” he said, placing his wineglass next to hers. “I’ve played at lady’s maid a time or two.”

“I’m certain you have played at many things. Tonight, however, you’ll have to content yourself with a very limited role.”

“You’re a very trusting woman, Jessica,” he said as he deftly—he did everything deftly—slipped the first half-dozen buttons from their moorings. With the release of every button, he made sure his knuckles came in contact with each new inch of ivory skin revealed to him. Even in the candlelight he could see where the gown had chafed that soft skin; no wonder she longed to be shed of it.

Still, he took his time with the buttons until, the gown now falling open almost entirely to her waist, she stepped away from him just as he considered the merits of running his fingertips down the graceful line of her spine.

“Thank you. If you’ll excuse me for a moment while I rid myself of this scratchy monstrosity?”

“I’ll excuse you for any number of things, my dear, as long as you’re not gone above a minute. You wear no chemise?”

“As you’re already aware,” she answered, throwing the words at him over her shoulder, bare now as her gown began to slip slightly. “I loathe encumbrances.”

She disappeared into another room, leaving Gideon to wonder why a woman who so disliked encumbrances had buttoned herself up into a black taffeta prison. Did she think the gown made her look dowdy? Untouchable? Perhaps even matronly? If so, she had missed the mark on every point.

A widow. He hadn’t expected less from her than that obvious clunker; there wasn’t a madam in all of London who wasn’t the impecunious widow of some soldier hero, making her way in the world as best she could.

And, if he was lucky yet tonight—he would be inevitably, in any case—she was about to make her way with him, in hopes of her charms rendering him imbecilic to the point of granting her request to take over the guardianship of her half brother.

Or, more to the point, guardianship of her half brother’s considerable fortune.

A month ago he had roundly cursed Turner Collier for having lacked the good common sense to have altered his decades-old will, leaving guardianship of his progeny to his old chum, the Earl of Saltwood. Perhaps Collier had thought himself immortal, which should hardly have been the case, considering what had happened to his old chum.

But there’d been nothing else for it, not according to Gideon’s solicitor, who had notified him that he had gratefully ended his guardianship of Alana Wallingford upon her recent marriage, just to be saddled with yet another ward a few months later.

At least this time there would be no worries over fortune hunters or midnight elopements or any such nonsense. No, this time his worries would be for reckless starts, idiotic wagers, juvenile hijinks and hauling the boy out of bear-baitings, cockfights and gaming hells such as the one owned by the youth’s own half sister.

All while the whispers went on behind his back. There’d been anonymous wagers penned in the betting book at White’s on the odds of Gideon forcing Alana into marriage with him in order to gain her fortune. Whispered hints Alana’s father, Gideon’s very good friend, had been murdered within months of naming Gideon as his only child’s guardian. There definitely had been suggestions as to whom that murderer might be.

Now there had been a second “unfortunate coaching accident” directly impacting the Earl of Saltwood. And another wealthy orphan placed into his care immediately after that “accident.” Coincidence? Many didn’t think so.

After all, Gideon was a Redgrave. And everybody knew about those Redgraves. Wild, arrogant, dangerous, if always somewhat delicious. Why, look at the father, the mother; there was a scandal no amount of time could fade from the consciousness of God-fearing people. Even the dowager countess remained both a force to be reckoned with and a constant source of whispered mischief and shocking behavior. Nothing was beneath them, even as they believed nothing and no one above them… .

“Shall we return to the wars, Gideon?”

He blinked away his thoughts and turned to look at Jessica Linden, who had somehow reappeared without his notice. She was clad now in a dark maroon silk banyan with a black shawl collar and quilted cuffs that fell below her fingertips. The hem of the thing puddled around her bare feet. Once again her curls tumbled past her shoulders, a perfect frame for her fine, enchanting features. For a tall woman, she suddenly seemed small, delicate, even fragile.

Clearly an illusion.

“My late husband’s. I keep it as a reminder,” she said, raising her arms enough that the cuffs fell back to expose her slim wrists. “Shall we sit? My feet persist in feeling the pinch of those dreadful shoes.”

He gestured to the overstuffed couch to his left, and she all but collapsed into it, immediately drawing her legs up beside her to begin rubbing at one narrow bare foot. The collar of the banyan gaped for an enticing moment, gifting him with a tantalizing glimpse of small, perfect breasts. Clearly she was naked beneath the silk.

The woman was as innocent as a viper.

“How is Adam?” she asked before he could think of a damn thing to say that didn’t include an invitation to return to her bedchamber, this time in his company. “I haven’t seen him in more than five years. He was just about to be sent off to school, as I recall the moment. What was he? Twelve? Yes, that was it, as I was all of eighteen. He cried so, to leave me.”

Gideon began doing quick mental arithmetic. “Making you a woman of three and twenty? A young widow.”

“Ah, but positively ancient in experience, and closer to four and twenty in reality. And you? Edging in on a hundred, I would think, if we’re to speak of experience. You’ve quite the reputation, Gideon.”