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

“I don’t know if you need to be that honest, Gideon. Not that I’m not…flattered.”

He smiled. “Not that I’m not grateful. But to get back to our now slightly altered plan? I’m counting on your discerning eye and your powers of observation as we learn more about our friends Lord Charles and Mr. Urban, yes. I want you to read them, assess them, as you would players at the card table. And more than that, I believe I want you to cultivate their wives. If there’s a weakness in the Society, I think it would have to be the wives.”

“Because they’re weaker?”

“No, I think we settled that earlier.”

“Yes, and you still owe me five pounds. But I know what you mean. There can’t be many women who would be happy with the sort of arrangement Trixie spoke of, being passed about to the other men in the Society. It’s sickening, to think such a thing is happening in this day and age. I don’t know how I’d broach the subject, but I think I will be able to tell if these two women are unhappy.”

“All right, play the game any way you like. Just promise me you won’t try to bluff anyone.”

She rolled her eyes. “Really, you and Richard—”

They both turned toward the stairs and the sound of the knocker being banged on with considerable enthusiasm, followed closely by a cheery voice exclaiming, “Thorny, you old dog, if you’re going to scowl every time I bring a little rainwater inside with me, I may go into a sad decline. M’brothers here? One or both? I like being prepared before I face Gideon’s scowl or Max’s—Well, what does Max do, anyway, other than find new ways to grow his hair? Damme, it’s wet out there tonight! What did you say? Speak up, man. No! Say that again. Where is he? Is he upstairs? That dog!”

“Valentine,” Gideon said, breaking into a grin. “Prepare yourself, Jessica, you’re about to be bowled down by my youngest brother.”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

THE SOUND OF RIDING boots hitting the marble stairs was closely followed by the appearance of Lord Valentine Redgrave’s smiling face and tall, lithe body.

“Gideon!” he exclaimed, throwing his arms wide as he approached, but then lowering them again as he espied Jessica. He tipped his head to one side and grinned. “This is the bride? Thorny told me just now, but I didn’t believe him. My lady,” he said, sweeping Jessica an elegant bow. “Whatever lies did my brother tell you to get you to agree to join your life to such a sorry specimen?”

Jessica laughed, as she really had no choice in the thing, and held out her hand to be bowed over. Except Lord Valentine Redgrave clearly was having none of that, because he grabbed her up in his arms and soundly kissed both her cheeks. “My God, you’re gorgeous. Are you sure you want Gideon? I’m clearly the better choice.”

“Put her down, you fool,” Gideon said, laughing. “Jessica, may I present my youngest brother, Lord Valentine Redgrave, connoisseur of all things frivolous, carefree bon vivant, generous by nature, soft of heart and yet somehow still managing to be an all-round menace to society. Val, my lady wife, Jessica—and no, you can’t kiss her again.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Lord Valentine,” Jessica said, dropping into a curtsy.

“Please, call me Val,” Valentine said, “and I’ll call you Jess? Jessica? Sister? Gideon, you’ve given me a new sister. Do you have any suggestions as to what we should do with the old one? She will persist in hanging about, won’t she? Or have the both of you found romance in my short absence? I won’t ask about Max, as there’s nobody who’d want him.”

Gideon motioned for Jessica and Valentine to precede him into the drawing room, at which point Cleo and Brutus made a dead set at Valentine, tongues lolling, tails wagging. He went to his knees and allowed them to lick his face.

His incredibly handsome face. Jessica could see hints of both Lady Katherine and Gideon in Lord Valentine, but there was something else there besides the attractively mussed dark hair, faintly bronzed skin and magnificent bone sculpture. She decided it was Valentine’s eyes. They were light amber in color, quite startling in fact, ringed with long dark lashes beneath sweeping black brows…and they were full of life and mischief. And kindness.

How strange to look at such a well set-up gentleman and think first and foremost: this is a kind man.

“Kate’s at Redgrave Manor after a brief visit here in town, and Max is still off North somewhere, aiding Trixie in one of her stunts, so the two—no, the three of them, remain heartfree. Unless you’ve somehow been struck by one of Cupid’s arrows, only two things have changed since you left. I’ve married, and these two miscreants have finally learned to perform their only party trick outdoors, rather than on the carpet in my study.”

“Wonderful! Thank you for keeping them, Gideon.”

Jessica looked to Gideon. She hadn’t known Cleo and Brutus weren’t his dogs.

“I didn’t have much choice, did I? You simply left them here and rode off.”

“Yes, but Freddie said he couldn’t afford them, not now his father’s taken that bad turn. What else was I to do?”

“Nothing, I suppose. But now that you’re back, I think it’s time they adjourned to the country. Clearly these are animals who belong out-of-doors, or at least at Redgrave Manor, where we’ve got the dog gates to keep them from running through the entire house as if there may be a rabbit behind every door.”

“Only if Kate remembers to latch the gates,” Valentine said, getting to his feet again. “My leg still aches when the weather turns damp.”

Gideon sat down next to Jessica and explained that last statement. A few months earlier, Kate had left open the gate at the bottom of the staircase, allowing three of the family dogs free to race upstairs to see Valentine, only to knock him head over teacup down the stairs to the first landing, his brother suffering a broken leg in the fall.

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” Jessica said, looking at Valentine.

Gideon laid his arm behind her on the back of the couch. “Don’t be. My brother was simply being rewarded by the fates for stepping in and doing a good deed, or what he thought was a good deed. It wasn’t, and the leg was probably a suitable punishment. Not that you learn, do you, Val? You missed my nuptials thanks to your latest act of charity, escorting Freddie home to his recently impoverished father. Kate was here.”

“Kate was here. Yes, you said that,” Valentine repeated, pulling a face. “But not Max? Are you planning to ring a peal over his head, as well, when he returns?”

“I’m not ringing a peal over yours, brother. I’m merely pointing out, as does our sister when she’s anywhere close, that one day you’re going to do one favor too many and end up missing more than a wedding. Kate worries about you.”

“But you don’t,” Valentine said, sipping from the glass of wine he’d poured for himself. He was resting nearly on the bottom of his spine as he slouched in the facing couch, his booted legs crossed at the ankle and propped on the low table between them. Jessica had seen the same pose from Gideon and from Kate, and now had no doubt when she met Max she would know him first by his extraordinary ability to relax.

“I don’t stay up nights, pacing the floor, no,” Gideon admitted. “Now that you’ve returned the coach, when do you head to Redgrave Manor?”

“When do I deliver Cleo and Brutus to Redgrave Manor, you mean. Why? And don’t say it’s because you want me to stay in town for the remainder of the Season because you know I won’t do that, much as I love you. One Redgrave gone to the Marriage Mart a season is enough, no insult intended, Jessica.”

“None taken,” Jessica said, still fascinated by this youngest Redgrave. “You’d rather be in the country?”

“I’d rather be in Paris, but since Bonaparte grows more frisky by the moment, I’m stuck in London, a sorry substitute I’m sad to say. I’ve already visited two of my clubs this afternoon and found them thin of company and fairly flat, thanks to a boxing mill taking place this week in some faraway village in the back of beyond, so there’s really nothing keeping me here. I’d like to leave in the morning, actually,” he said, looking to Gideon. “And yes, I’ll take the reformed piddlers with me.”

“More than the dogs, Val. I was hoping you or Max would be back in town soon. As it’s you, consider my request to be in the nature of performing a good deed.”

“And if it had been Max?” Valentine asked.

Gideon shrugged. “I suppose I would have attempted to convince him he was about to go on some adventure. In any event, since you’re the one who arrived first, I’d like you to take Jessica’s brother with you as, well. You remember my ward, don’t you?”

Valentine pushed his boots against the edge of the table as he sat up straight. “The twit? He’s Jessica’s brother? Really? Well, now, that explains how you two met. And you want me to haul him off to—No, that won’t work, Kate will lock him in the cellars. After she murders him.”

“No, she won’t. She’s met him and thinks he’s highly entertaining.”

Valentine grinned at his brother. “Oh, she does not. Not unless she’s fallen on her head. Or he has, perhaps knocking his brain into something less resembling a block of cheese.”

Jessica bit her lip to keep from laughing.

Gideon helped her to her feet as Thorndyke announced he’d ordered another setting at table, and dinner was now served. “Adam’s not here this evening, as I’ve given him permission to attend the theater with his keeper. It’s my fondest hope he can restrain himself from throwing oranges into the pit from our family box, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he does, as he informed me that’s what all the fashionable young idiots do. I need you to take him under your wing, Val. Make a man of him. You can do that, surely.”

“I’ve seen him, remember, and if he manages to clunk anyone on the head with an orange I’ll be mightily surprised, and that’s with the pit directly below our box, for God’s sake. Make a man of him? I’d first have to strip him to the buff and start over—Again, Jessica, no insult intended.”

“Again, none taken. Adam is very young and silly,” she answered as they entered the dining room. “Would that mean Cleo and Brutus would be riding inside the coach with them? All the way to Redgrave Manor?” she asked Gideon, carefully keeping her expression neutral.

Her husband smiled, and Jessica learned something new: husbands and wives could speak volumes without actually saying a word. Wasn’t that nice. For instance, right now Gideon’s smile was saying, “Yes, I’m as amused by that prospect as you are.”

“Jessica and I are promised to something this evening, Val,” he said as he helped Jessica into her chair, “so we’ll be leaving you directly after dinner. There’s things you need to know before you head off tomorrow, however, so I’m afraid we’ll be having a fairly unusual mealtime conversation.” He seated himself at the head of the table. “I’ll begin with Trixie.”

“Trixie?” Valentine placed his serviette on his lap. “And you announce her name in nearly the same breath as you say unusual? That raises a question. Am I going to be amused or terrified?”

THEY DIDN’T LEAVE Portman Square until nearly eleven. Gideon purposely left their departure late, so that he and Jessica wouldn’t become part of the masses herded onto a curving flight of stairs and forced to stand there for an hour or more, slowly inching their way, step by step, up to the receiving line outside the ballroom.