were to turn about, so, to see this grand creation in the mirror?”
What Jessica saw stole her breath.
She was wearing a thin silken shift, the bodice all lace to just below her breasts, the simple skirt falling from there to the six or more inches of lace edging her ankles. The dressing gown was composed completely of this same lace, the most exquisite lace she’d ever seen, tying just below her breasts, covering her so very modestly, yet still the most enticing and, yes, inviting creation.
She supposed she looked virginal. She supposed she looked like a woman looking forward to ridding herself of that virginity. All in one—innocence in the cut of the cloth, subtle decadence in the materials.
“His lordship pressed us most firmly in the design, madame. Each bolt of material, each ribbon and button, each gown, each ensemble, all to his specifications. All très magnifique! We have been closed to everyone save him these past nearly ten days. Every day he has been here, reducing my girls to tears, pressing us to rush, to change, to alter, to make everything perfect. So demanding, yet so generous! He brings them sweet cakes, and combs for their hair, and every day the flowers, so many fragrant bouquets my Giselle, she sneezes all day long, and must do her sewing in the attics. He knows them all by name and they are all half in love with him, silly girls that they are. But he is a genius, no? He must love you very much, madame, to see you so well.”
Jessica didn’t know how to respond to that. Gideon Redgrave always had his reasons for anything he did, she felt certain of that. He planned for her to make her entrée into society on his arm, and he wanted attention called to her, to the both of them. “Yes…a genius. It’s, uh, it’s…do I really look like this, Marie?”
The petite Frenchwoman squeezed Jessica’s hand. “She who sews the seams can only do so much, madame. The rest lies with you. Shall we see more?”
“Oh. Oh, yes. We’ll see more. We’ll see all of it,” Jessica said, smiling even as she blinked back tears. No matter what the reason for Gideon’s close involvement in her wardrobe, she had never felt so wonderfully, gloriously pretty. “Do you suppose we could do something with the lavender?”
“I have just the matron who would adore it, oui. But not for you, no, no, no, not for you. I was to put it on you first, so you could, as his lordship said, see the error of your ways. Ah, such a man! Do you wish the silly fribble to return, madame?”
“The silly—Oh. No, thank you. Perhaps some tea and cakes for Mr. Collier are in order. Are there many gowns? How long do you think we’ll be?”
The modiste began counting on her fingertips. By the time she’d begun her second round on her fingers, Jessica could see Adam would be cooling his heels in Marie’s small sitting room for a considerable length of time.
She bent her arm to stroke the soft lace. If this was the beginning, what else was she about to see? More importantly, was this how Gideon saw her?
Adam could wait for her. If he wanted to be up to the mark in all things pleasing to women, as he said he did, he should learn early on that the virtue women most admired in a man was his ability to display patient forbearance when being forced to cool his heels whilst she was shopping.
GIDEON WAS PACING THE drawing room when the dowager countess floated into the room, still stripping off her long kid gloves, then tossing them over her head one after the other, so that Soames, trailing behind her, could snare them out of the air.
“Goodness, pet, you’re looking harassed. When you vow not to bed a woman until she’s properly wed, in the interim it would behoove you to not have her sleeping under your own roof. At least, were you at Redgrave Manor, I could suggest you cool your ardor by immersing yourself in the pond. I don’t think many would understand you leaping into the Serpentine in the Park, however.”
Soames, neatly snagging the second glove, couldn’t restrain his chuckle.
“I’m just so gratified to amuse you both,” Gideon said, looking at Trixie’s reticule, a silly thing of beads and ribbons, and judging it too small to hold what he’d hoped to see. “You failed?”
Trixie walked up to him and raised a hand to pat his cheek. “Let’s be clear about this, Gideon. I tease you. You do not insult me. Soames? Give the boy what he wants before he expires of anticipation.”
“Yes, my lady,” the butler said, tucking the gloves into his pocket and then reaching inside his waistcoat to withdraw a rolled sheet of thick vellum and handing it to Gideon.
The Special License. She’d done it. It had been his blunt that helped ease the way, granted, but it was Trixie’s way with persuasion that had turned the trick with the speed of the thing. He unrolled the document and quickly scanned it. The archbishop could sign, of course, but so could any number of other high church officials. “Whose signature is this? I can’t make it out.”
“You aren’t supposed to, pet. Suffice it to say the license is completely legitimate and aboveboard.” The dowager countess subsided onto her one-armed couch, drawing her dainty feet up beside her. “Did you ever wonder what below board could be?”
Gideon was still working on deciphering the signature and answered absently. “To be aboveboard, as I know the term, means keeping your hands above the gaming table at all times. So to be below board, you’d have to keep your hands—”
“Precisely where I had them as our mostly eminent church official was signing the license. Interesting.”
Soames turned on his heels and left the room, his ears positively burning red.
“I have to keep reminding myself not to walk into your little traps,” Gideon said. “Did you enjoy that?”
“Soames’s embarrassed reaction, or my ability to bring things to attention? I would have to answer yes to both. Oh, don’t scowl, pet. Next you’ll be telling me you’re putting in an application to warble in some choir. You knew what I was going to do when you applied to me for help. If I learned nothing else from my unlamented husband, it is the power of sex. We females hold most of that power, by the way, and can enjoy its rewards longer. By the time you’re my age, Gideon, you’ll be happy most evenings with a roaring fire, your dogs at your feet and a snifter of brandy at your elbow, while I consider myself, modesty aside, to remain near the top of my form. After all, most times all it takes is a strong hand. Ah, finally I’ve managed to raise a blush from you.”
“You’re right, I shouldn’t have asked for your help. I tried to tell myself you would apply to some bonds of friendship with whomever you visited today. I should have remembered you don’t have friends, do you, Trixie?”
“No, I don’t. I have family. And, if the gods are kind, and you’re truly as hot to bed this woman as it would seem, soon I will have more of it.”
“And here I was earlier, wondering why I don’t visit as often as I should. I don’t wish you dead, Trixie, but I do selfishly wish you older.”
“And cuddlesome, perhaps even quaintly dotty?” she asked as he dangled a slim diamond bracelet in front of her eyes. “Ah, now isn’t that pretty? Your thanks would have been enough.”
“Then I’ll have it back?”
“Give it to your wife once I’m planted,” she said, holding up her arm to him so that he could close the bracelet about her wrist. She
