What an Earl Wants (29 page)
But that one look, that one touch...Gideon had changed her life
even if he had gone away that night and she’d never seen him again. That had
been the true reason behind the dare, the challenge she had set him. Over and
above her worry for Adam. She couldn’t let this man out of her life, not until
she knew if there was still hope for her, that she still had a heart, even if
she might be risking breaking it.
Now the last barrier that could have stood between them was
gone. He knew her secrets, all of them, and he hadn’t turned away. She’d been
right to trust him, right to love him. Love him
quite
truly.
His kisses, his touch, were slow, not devoid of passion, but
willing that passion to build slowly, following on the heels of what seemed to
be wonderment, a joint voyage of discovery, new to them both even as they
already had shared so much physical intimacy.
Jessica felt tears on her cheeks, but this time they were tears
of happiness. Her body was a gift freely given, his every touch a blessing, a
benediction. She returned his kisses, smoothed her hands along his firm body,
gloried in his soft words of love.
When he came to her, when at last they were one, he raised his
head to look down into her face. “Do you feel it, Jessica?” he asked, his voice
low and intense. “It’s the first time, for both of us. Clean and fresh and
new... The very first time.”
“I love you, Gideon Redgrave,” she told him. “I love you quite
truly.”
He smiled, perhaps a bit bemused by her words, but then he
kissed her again, sinking more deeply inside her, and took them both flying high
above the world to a place where it was only the two of them.
Which was the way it should be.
He was hers, and she was his, and they were building a lifetime
of love....
“W
ELL
,
WOULD
YOU
LOOK
who’s finally remembered a world still exists
outside the door to their bedchamber,” Max said as Gideon and Jessica entered
the morning room the following day, hand-in-hand.
Gideon personally pulled back a chair and assisted his bride
into it. “Be nice, Max, or we’ll leave again. And weren’t you the one who
advised me it was time to depart the field in favor of an expert like yourself?
An expert, I might point out, who wouldn’t have known a damn thing, save for the
efforts of two amateurs whom only one short day ago you declared heroes.”
“Gideon,” Jessica scolded, and he delighted in the way her
cheeks flushed and she made herself busy spreading her serviette in her lap.
“No, Jessica, he’s right. Not that I suggested he then
immediately lock you up here for twenty-four hours. I believe I mentioned
Yearlings.”
“We leave for Yearlings tomorrow. In the meantime, I would
suppose you have news for us?”
“That I do. Firstly, I’m sad to say one Archibald Urban had the
unfortunate bad luck to somehow be launched out into the street just as a
runaway dray wagon filled with beer barrels seemed to—according to witnesses
quoted in the
Morning Post
—all but aim itself at
him, to disastrous and quite fatal results. I’m sad to say it because he would
have been more useful to us alive. As it is, we’ve decided to content ourselves
keeping a close watch on Lord Charles, in the hopes he’ll lead us to some of his
cronies. To that end, I’ll be leaving tomorrow for Urban’s interment in
Yorkshire, observing from a distance, of course. It will be interesting to see
who else is in attendance. We already know his wife and children will not be
present. They are, again according to the newspapers, visiting relatives in
Edinburgh.”
“Interesting. And, speaking of internments, I’m supposing
Trixie has left town?”
“She has. All but danced out the door like a young girl, if you
can believe that, as if she’s on her way to a party. As to the rest of it, no,
she won’t look at the journal until she returns to London, if then. As to the
question you urged me not to think of again, our dearest grandmother reminded me
she’s always harbored the notion I may be an idiot.”
“I don’t understand,” Jessica said, looking at the two men.
“Another time, sweetheart,” Gideon told her as he lifted her
hand to press a kiss against her fingertips, and then quickly searched his mind
for another question. “So everything went well with the royal duke?”
“Splendidly, yes. Once on the Peninsula, I will salute the pair
of you every time I lift a forkful of stringy mutton to my lips.”
“So nothing has changed there?” Gideon asked as Jessica laid
her hand on his forearm, knowing his concern for his brother. “You’re not to be
reassigned to watching Lord Charles, for instance?”
“No, that’s for someone more subtle than I am, and before you
volunteer, I meant it when I said you and Jessica need to be clear of here for a
while.”
“And we agree.” Gideon sighed. “It’s to be Valentine, isn’t
it?”
Max adjusted his blue-lens eyeglasses, most probably to cover
the concern in his own eyes. “Partially, when he’s not hunting in hopes of
locating the bible. It would be strange to have outsiders making themselves at
home at Redgrave Manor, you understand. Although he won’t be alone in that
mission. Kate, you see, is about to acquire a suitor.”
Gideon and Jessica exchanged startled glances. “Kate? Is she
aware of this?”
“Hardly. Val will be welcoming his friend for a visit on the
estate. Although I’ve already waged our brother a monkey it won’t take her above
three days to figure out the truth, at which point I believe I’ll be a very
happy man. I’ll be aboard ship and heading for Lisbon. I’ve already advised Val
by post he’d be wiser to disregard his orders and tell Kate outright, although I
doubt he’ll listen. But I’m told he’s a good man, and that he expressly
requested the assignment. He knows somebody with the power to make those
decisions, although how he heard of the Society at all still eludes me.”
“Max, you’re certain he’s trustworthy—this person who vouches
for the man?”
“I would think so, Jessica, yes. The
somebody
is Spencer Perceval himself.”
“Gideon?” Jessica asked. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking? A
man who
exudes
power?”
“The Marquis of Singleton, yes.”
Max laid down his fork and stared across the table at them.
“How in bloody blazes did you know that?”
Jessica smiled at her husband. “And he dismisses us as
amateurs,
” she said, and then damn if she didn’t wink
at him. God, how he loved this woman.
“We’ll speak again later, Max. But for now, please excuse us,”
Gideon said, grabbing up the fully-loaded plate Thorndyke had just set in front
of him with one hand and taking Jessica’s hand in his as he urged her to
rise.
“What? Where are you two going?”
Gideon grinned as he looked at his goggle-eyed brother. “Why, I
think that should be obvious, to an
expert
like you.
My wife and I are going to breakfast in bed.”
* * * * *
Author’s Note
History and writings from the time show us that while
England fought valiantly to defeat Napoleon, there was a segment of the general
population who looked to the man as their possible savior, and his form of
governing a welcome change from that of the House of Hanover. Further reading on
the subject is available in Senior Lecturer Stuart Semmel’s Yale University
Press book,
Napoleon and the British.
As to hellfire clubs, although Sir Francis Dashwood’s may be
the best known, their number was quite high, not only in England but in Ireland,
as well. They ranged from the ridiculous to the truly macabre, could be
politically neutral or fiercely partisan, even seditious. Members for the most
part preferred to think of themselves as witty intellectuals and, indeed,
memberships could include high-ranking nobles as well as those in government and
the arts and sciences. No matter what, the emphasis was on devil worship, real
or feigned, and the primary occupations debauchery and the pursuit of sexual
pleasure.
Although the supposed heyday of hellfire clubs ranged from as
early as 1719 and seemed to drop out of popularity in the 1780s, for the purpose
of this series, the tradition is carried on with the Society.
After all, there are those who believe hellfire clubs continue
until this day. Which, knowing their reasons for existing, is enough to give
anyone pause, isn’t it?
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ISBN: 9781459249035
Copyright © 2012 by Kathryn Seidick
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