said even as she backed up a step, shot her gaze toward the doors. The closed doors.
“I wouldn’t? Very well, I did agree to play. I’ll oblige you, if that’s how you like it. Let’s see, how shall I say this? I suppose I’ll simply say the expected.”
He took another sanity-destroying step toward her. “Ah, Mrs. Linden, as you very well know, there is little I wouldn’t dare. And, out of your own mouth, little you wouldn’t offer. I’ve considered that offer rather pleasantly overnight, deciding a month of your services to be sufficient to my needs, six weeks at the outside, before you bore me. But in the cold light of day I realized I would be remiss if I were to agree to such a bargain without first tasting the wares. For all I know, you might not be very good at pleasuring a man of my peculiar tastes.”
She grabbed at the fragile straw that he was only trying to frighten her, pay her some of her own back for the pistol, if nothing else. The odds weren’t in her favor, but she had no options, none. She’d have to stand her ground. Bluff, knowing she held the inferior hand.
He took another step toward her and reached out, trailing his index finger from the base of her neck to the modest bodice of her gown, hooking that finger inside the fabric and tugging on it. “Is that red hair a promise, or a tease? Is your willing body lying beneath mine a proposition worth my consideration? Tell me, Jessica. Are you any good? Convince me.”
“I’ve only to scream for help.” Her voice shook with the fear she was trying so hard to conceal.
“Be my guest. But remember, my staff is loyal to me. And, being a Redgrave staff, they are doubtless used to all sorts of noises, including feminine shrieks.”
Then she was nudged from the side, nearly losing her balance before looking down to see Cleo had roused herself from her nap and somehow insinuated her body between them. The bitch had the rabbit between her jaws and was nudging at Jessica as if asking her to come away and play with her.
Or was the dog attempting to save her? It was a highly unlikely yet lovely thought.
“Does she attack on command?” Jessica said, putting her hand atop Gideon’s and pointedly removing it from her bodice. “If she were to feel I were under some sort of duress, you understand?”
Gideon looked down at the hopeful dog and smiled, shook his head. All the dark menace was gone, replaced by that insufferable smile. “A good question. You’re a cool one, aren’t you, Jessica? Although Cleo here apparently sniffs something amiss. Fear, perhaps? That would be disturbing and quite puts a crimp in my assumptions, doesn’t it? No matter what, it would appear you’ve been granted a reprieve. You wanted to see your brother. I’ll have Thorndyke fetch him.”
“What?” All that talk, those threats and then…nothing? Damn him.
She watched in astonished relief as he walked over to the bell pull, blindly stepping back until the backs of her legs came in contact with the edge of the sofa, at which point she sat down with a thump. Cleo deposited the fairly damp rabbit in her lap and then lay down, her head on Jessica’s feet.
Jessica bent down to rub behind the dog’s ears. “He may have been all bluster and having some of his own back, you know. Males are like that, always wanting the upper hand, or at least to make sure we females think they’ve got it,” she whispered to the animal. “He only did what I would have expected from him. Yes, that’s it. I don’t believe he actually would have done anything…possibly. Perhaps. But thank you.”
Thorndyke entered the room a few moments later, doing a fine job of pretending he wasn’t looking at Jessica, and then retired with a bow after being ordered to produce young master Collier, who had been last seen by his lordship slopping up eggs in the breakfast room.
Jessica considered this. Did a man, even a Redgrave, seduce a woman while that woman’s brother was in the same house? No, he did not. He’d merely, meanly, meant to frighten her, give her some of her own back (sans pistol, thank goodness, not that the man wasn’t a weapon unto himself). And he’d succeeded, admirably. Again, damn the man!
“Then you did tell him I would be here this morning?” she asked as Gideon picked up his wineglass once more and retook his seat.
“I warned him to get his backside out of bed before two, which is not his custom. I doubt he’ll be pleased to meet anyone less than a scantily clad harem girl wishing to have him recline against her lap whilst she fed him sugared figs.”
“Don’t measure others by your own yardstick, Gideon,” Jessica warned tightly. “He’s not a Redgrave.”
Gideon chuckled softly. “Oh, yes, we Redgraves are mightily high on sugared figs.”
Jessica glared at him. “That wasn’t the part of your description I was alluding to, my lord. It’s a well-known fact the Redgraves are prone to excesses of a…of a…” She was at a loss as to how to finish that statement. “You’re prone to excesses,” she finally ended, lamely. After all, if she had ended with “of a carnal nature,” he would most probably have laughed so hard he would have fallen off the sofa. She believed she was beginning to get a sort of figurative handle on the man now, understand him better. In short, he was a menace!
“Really? We’re that bad? I had no idea. Although, clearly, you seemed to have been lapping up tales of the infamous Redgravian debauchery. You should have seen your eyes, Jessica. You believed every word I said.”
He had her there. It wasn’t as if she’d any certain knowledge of Redgravian debauchery. She’d certainly heard about his lordship’s light’s-o-love. Four mistresses? That seemed excessive and spoke of an unhealthy appetite, in her opinion. She knew he was a neck-or-nothing rider who often wagered on himself in races and had yet to lose. She knew he had knocked down Gentleman Jackson not once, but twice, until the renowned pugilist had declared he wouldn’t step in the ring with him again. She knew he won all the top prizes driving with the Four-in-Hand Club. She knew he gambled deep but never wildly. She knew he had no enemies because even the most foolish of London gentlemen perceived the wisdom of calling him friend.
She had, in short, made a study of the man, indeed his entire family, these past weeks. But, really, when she got right down to it, she didn’t know anything about the current crop of Redgraves but what she’d heard.
He had two younger brothers, Maximillien and Valentine, and a single sister, Katherine. Maximillen had sailed as one of the Royal Navy’s youngest coxswains, and Valentine had been classically educated in Paris and Toulon, managing to remain there even as Bonaparte conducted his on-again, off-again war on England, only returning home a few months ago.
Katherine had come to Mayfair for her Season last spring but hadn’t really taken, seeing as how she was unfashionably tall and dark-haired, and favored her infamous Spanish mother in her looks in a year where petite blondes were considered all the go. Her suitors had hoped for the mother’s morals, as well, and their mamas had cringed at the thought of “foreign-looking” grandchildren. But it had been Katherine herself who had answered an impertinent question about her brother the earl, voiced in the center of the dance floor at Almack’s, with a stunning punch to the questioner’s nose, breaking it quite nicely, word had it. She hadn’t come to town this Season, which to Jessica’s mind made more of a statement about Lady Katherine’s disdain for society than any possible fear of it or shame over her actions.
Jessica felt she most probably could like Lady Katherine. Lords Maximillien and Valentine were of no real concern to her, although she imagined they were no better or worse than
