THE WINE IN JESSICA’S SITTING room, again tonight, was of good quality, but there was an insufficient quantity of it for his needs. There might not be enough wine in all of London sufficient for his needs, as his need was to drown the disquieting feeling he’d taken some sort of fateful step into an unknown he did not recognize and had little chance of escaping unscathed.
“What in bloody hell just happened in there?” he muttered, directing a fierce glare toward the bedchamber door before downing a full measure of wine and filling his glass once more.
He’d set out to prove a point. He’d set out to taste the wares so blatantly put on offer the previous evening. He’d been out to convince himself that a night spent wakeful, consumed by thoughts of what he would like to do to Jessica Linden, had been an aberration, perhaps caused by some juvenile fit of pique over that ridiculous pistol, possibly brought on by simple curiosity: Could she live up to the intriguing expectations he’d felt as he’d helped her unbutton her gown?
He damn well hadn’t expected what had happened. He felt half defiler of innocence, half possibly king of the world, as she’d been so genuinely passionate, so clearly astounded as he took her over the top with him. She’d seemed eager at first, then resigned, even detached from her surroundings, a whore who would endure, even attempt to feign interest, if only her client would take what he’d paid for, and then let her get back to work.
And then…damn. He’d nearly lost himself in her then, hadn’t he? That never happened. There was always a part of himself he withheld, that part of him he shared with no one, tried to believe didn’t even exist.
She’d seemed so vulnerable. He didn’t want vulnerable, had no use for vulnerable. He wanted expertise, and he paid for it. Paid well for it and then walked away when it suited him to be gone.
She’d made him want to stay in the bed with her, she’d made him want to hold her, feel her heart beat against him, listen to her breathe as she drifted into sleep, her head on his shoulder. By God, he couldn’t get out of that bed quickly enough!
Was that something she practiced? That intoxicating mix of reticence and passion? If so, she’d definitely perfected her technique, because he wanted more. He’d been satisfied, but certainly not satiated; she shouldn’t still be in his mind, but she was.
He should leave. What was she going to do, chase him down Jermyn Street? Confront him again in Portman Square? No, of course she wouldn’t do that. She hadn’t been anywhere near Portman Square last night, yet he’d done nothing but think about her.
He’d simply have to get her out of his system, that’s all. She’d hit him unawares, unprepared, the mistress of whatever game it was she played. She’d been married, she lived her life on the fringes, she’d probably had more lovers than many women had consumed hot dinners. She’d offered her body, clearly not for the first time. Her trick was in somehow making him feel she’d offered more.
A week, two, and he’d wonder what he’d ever seen in her that had attracted him in the first place.
Gideon nodded his head, as if in agreement with himself and his plan, and then settled down on the slightly shabby sofa, glass in hand, to await her exit from the bedchamber. She’d walk in, that chin of hers held high, so like how Trixie faced down the world, and he’d close up her buttons while he recited verses of Paradise Lost inside his head to keep his mind occupied, and then they would discuss his father’s damnable Society.
Not that he’d tell her anything too specific…just enough to keep her interested until he lost interest in her. As for her assertion they weren’t to become lovers? Let her lie to herself if she wished, let her repeat that lie each night as he left her warm and rosy from his lovemaking.
Yes, two weeks. Perhaps a month. No longer. Until he figured her out, until he figured out what had just happened.
Tonight, once he’d shared some small morsel of what he knew, he would escort her downstairs, he’d carefully lose five hundred pounds at the faro table in lieu of actually offering her payment for her services, and he’d return to Portman Square, lock himself in his study and drink until dawn.
It wasn’t much of a strategy, and thank God both Valentine and Max were not in residence, but for the moment, the plan satisfied him.
He could hear her moving about in her bedchamber, and a very long ten minutes later the door opened. She was once again clad in that damn black gown, so at odds with the flowing mane of red hair that put the lie to the prudish ensemble.
Without speaking to him, she turned her back and employed both hands to lift her hair, giving him access to the long row of buttons…and her bare back. What woman shunned at least a chemise, wearing only a pair of those flimsy French drawers tied at her waist? What torment for a man to look at that high-necked gown, those modestly covered arms, knowing what lay beneath! Modesty and vice. No and yes. Prude and wanton. Oh, yes, the mistress of the game she played.
Gideon drew his finger down the length of her spine, and she shifted her shoulders slightly, either in delight or to warn him to stop. He couldn’t know, and he doubted she would tell him unless he could goad her into an answer.
“Perhaps an hour was an insult to myself,” he whispered beside her ear as, instead of putting his hands to the task of closing her buttons, he slid them inside the gaping fabric, to gently cup and squeeze her unbound, uplifted breasts, his thumbs circling her taut nipples. Item three on the list of things he wanted to do to Jessica Linden he’d composed in his head during his nearsleepless night.
For a moment, she seemed ready to melt against him. For a moment.
“Richard was correct in his assessment. You are your father’s son, aren’t you, Gideon? Does nothing save rutting occupy your mind for more than a minute?”
“You—” He withdrew his hands, closing his mouth on the word bitch, and buttoned her gown as impersonally as he’d pull on his own boots. He’d figure her out, there would come a day when he called the shots, when she would be rebuffed, left feeling like a pleading, bleating fool. But clearly, he told himself, not yet.
“Thank you,” she said as she lowered her hands, and her luxurious curls tumbled free past her shoulders. She then immediately sat down and looked up at him, clear-eyed and composed, as if they’d just come upstairs, and nothing had happened between them. “How do you know my father and Clarissa were murdered?”
That she’d traded her body for information was clear now. She’d let him have her so that they could get down to business. A cold woman.
Gideon took up his wineglass once more. He could play the game as coolly as she did, better. He’d had considerable practice. “I don’t know if your stepmother was deliberately killed. She may simply have had the misfortune to be in the coach. But Turner was definitely murdered. Their hired coach supposedly overturned at night, with the full, lit coach lanterns breaking, the oil spilling out and igniting. Trapped inside the coach, your father and his wife were burned to death.”
By now, Jessica had her hand to her mouth, finally shaken out of her reserve. “My God. I always believed he was destined for hellfire. But not while he was still aboveground. Yet, clearly an accident. Why did you question it?”
Gideon set down his wineglass. “I was already aware of other deaths, other members of the Society perishing in accidents. All, like your father, wearing the rose. Orford, last spring, shot by mistake by another hunter in his party—just
