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

“I think I have a different delicacy in mind.”

She looked at him, her mouth open slightly, her tongue still lightly touching the pad of her finger. And then she smiled. “Is that so?”

“Yes, that’s so.” He took the plate and placed it on the bedside table, unbuttoned and tossed aside his waistcoat and shirt, slipped off his shoes and then joined her on the bed. “Not only that, I have permission.”

Jessica cocked her head to one side, to look at him quizzically. “I beg your pardon?”

“Mildred believes I might be able to put some color in your cheeks.” His fingers went to the sash holding her dressing gown closed. He found one end of the sash and gave it a slight tug. And then another.

“Oh, she does, does she?”

Gideon was concentrating on other things. “Umhmm,” he said, and then added, “You don’t care for the matching gown? Not that I’m lodging any sort of complaint,” he added as the bow came free and the dressing gown fell completely open.

“I, um, I just slipped this on after my bath, and then Doreen brought up these cakes, so I…I decided to eat them now. I’ll soon be getting dressed.”

“No, you won’t,” he said, easing back the concealing lace, slipping his hand between her crossed legs, unerringly finding her center. He spread her slightly, eased a finger inside her, applying pressure forward, against the wall of her tight sheath, then insinuated the pad of his thumb between her soft folds to stroke the small, exquisitely sensitive bud exposed now to his touch.

“Gideon!”

“I know. I’m depraved,” he said, rubbing his thumb over her. “Should I go away?”

She looked down at her body, closed her eyes for a moment as he slid a second finger inside her. “I…I’ll reserve judgment on that. You…ah…you’re very adept at this, aren’t you?”

“Modesty precludes me from answering that, but I do harbor hopes. Do you have any idea how good you feel?”

“I’m…I’m beginning to,” Jessica said, leaning back slightly, bracing her hands against the mattress. “Oh…that feels wonderful.”

“Yes. The purpose of the exercise. You don’t mind?”

She made a small noise, rather close to a purr. He took it for a no.

He moved his fingers again, slippery now with the liquid silk of her quick arousal. Her breathing had gone swift and shallow, and he increased the rhythm of his movements even as he moved his mouth along her body, licking at her breasts, taking her nipple into his mouth.

She was all response, all heat and glory and freedom, at ease with her body and how he made her feel. But she was far from passive.

Just when he thought he was about to take her over the edge, she pulled away from him, only to push him down on his back and begin unbuttoning his pantaloons. Her glorious hair fell loose around her face as she looked at him. “I already know how I like it best, and that’s with you inside me. Do you mind?”

Did he mind? Such an intelligent woman, such a silly question.

The speed with which he divested himself of his pantaloons, then lifted her up and over him, lowering her until their bodies meshed, became one, was probably as good an answer as any.

“AND YOU’RE CERTAIN you locked the door?” Jessica asked him as they lay there, bodies still delightfully entangled, attempting to recover their breaths. Really, she was turning into quite the wanton after only a single day of marriage. She rather liked it.

“I did. And warned Mildred we weren’t to be disturbed.”

“Good. Because I really don’t want to move. Not for days.”

“That’s convenient, because I don’t think I can move, perhaps not for entire days, but at least not in the near future. You didn’t tell me you ride,” he said, nipping at her earlobe. “You’re quite…accomplished.”

She didn’t pretend not to understand what he meant. What would be the sense in that? “Thank you, naughty as that statement was. It’s been years, but I’ve always loved to ride. Is that how you see the thing? As riding?”

“How do you see it?”

She snuggled closer. “As much more satisfying than the sidesaddle, that’s for certain. Is that why men ride astride and condemn women to the sidesaddle?”

“Fearful you might gain pleasure from it, you mean? I hadn’t considered it, but you may be right. Shame on us.”

She slid off him, her expression once again pinched, her cheeks pale. “Yes, shame on men. Not all of you, but certainly enough of you. Where did men first get the idea women are here for their pleasure but are to be denied any of their own? Really, denied much in the way of any sort of freedom. As if our minds are feeble, and we’re not to be trusted with our own bodies. I’m sure Trixie has opinions on that.”

“Yes, and she’s been taking her own peculiar brand of revenge for most of her life.”

Jessica laid her head on Gideon’s shoulder and absently stroked her hand over his bare chest. “I hadn’t thought of that. But she is, isn’t she? I remember teasing Richard about women always being the downfall of men, in one way or another. Is that it, Gideon? Are you men afraid of us?”

He kissed her hair. “Terrified.”

“Well, you probably should be. We seem to know your weaknesses.”

“You’ve certainly found mine,” he agreed, lifting her hand to his lips. “As for the rest of it, on behalf of all mankind, I most abjectly and humbly apologize.”

“Thank you. But it’s not enough.” She gathered the sheet about her and sat up, looking down at him. “I don’t mean you, not precisely you. I mean men. In general. Apologies are not enough. Especially since most of them wouldn’t mean a word they said in any event.”

“Probably not.”

Jessica ignored him, for she’d gotten the bit between her teeth now, her mind whirling with various bits of information that seemed to be parts of a puzzle she’d carried with her for a long time, its pieces suddenly falling into place.

“Men are stronger, physically. You can’t be afraid of a woman’s inferior strength. So it has to be our minds you fear. After all, you can take our bodies—because we’re not as physically strong—but that doesn’t mean you can control our minds.” She looked at him again as he pushed himself up against the pillows. “You think we’re smarter than you, don’t you?”

“It’s not that simple, Jessica.”

“Oh? Then you admit we’re smarter?”

“And there’s your answer, just in the way you so neatly turned my words to your advantage,” he said, pulling her against his shoulder.

She laughed. “I rather did, didn’t I?”

“Yes, you did. And we men have yet to learn how to defend ourselves from that particular little trick. You’re smarter, softer, definitely prettier, with the ability to think with your hearts as well as your minds—while we men have just to look at you to lose our control over both. You possess the ability to have us make total fools of ourselves, madam, and we resent the hell out of that. We’d much rather think of you as weaker, in body and mind and morals, devious and manipulative by turn, needing our guidance and protection—and we reserve the right to blame you for anything stupid we do, as well as any evil anywhere in the world.”

Jessica considered all of this for a minute. “Oh,” she said at last. “That actually makes sense. You’re afraid of us, but since you’re physically larger and stronger than we are, you’ve been able to create laws and all sorts of rules meant to keep us firmly under your thumbs, and make false declarations of how better fashioned you are to take care of us, not in order to protect us, but in order to protect yourselves from us.”

“And since you’re smaller and softer and so much smarter than we are, you continually find ways around the barriers we’ve so carefully built around our supposed superiority.”

“And then you condemn us as devious, when it’s you who force us to employ those superior weapons, because otherwise we’d be nothing. Chattel.”

“Sex is a woman’s game, Jessica, even if men believe they invented it. It’s the lever, when placed in the right spot, which has always been able to move the world. We men can’t give you any more weapons than you already hold—a place in government, or commerce, or even on the battlefield. We know you’d be too good at all of it. Why else do we insist on calling the great Elizabeth Tudor our virgin queen, made her, in our minds, not really a woman at all, but more of an aberration. We can’t risk seeing you as equal to men, treating you as our equals, not when we know you’re vastly superior.”

She looked at him assessingly. “And you really believe that? I mean, that women pose so much danger, and have to be kept under the thumbs of men?”

“Me? Absolutely not.”