like it, I’ll tear it off you myself. Understood?”
He’d barely closed the door behind him when the sound of what he presumed to be the derringer hitting the wood brought a smile to his face. He rather doubted James Linden taught her how to do that. No, that was a purely female reaction, and if there was one thing Jessica Linden was, it was female.
CHAPTER TWO
AS SHE WATCHED RICHARD’S meticulous recounting of the previous night’s profits, Jessica was twice forced to cover a yawn with her hand, both times earning a reproving look from her friend and business partner.
“Forgive me, Richard,” she said as he finished at last. “I didn’t sleep well last night, I’m afraid.”
“He was upstairs here for some time, Jess. He upset you.”
“He didn’t make me happy, I’ll agree to that,” she said as she locked the satisfyingly full strongbox. “This isn’t going to be easy.”
“It shouldn’t be at all. Surely the boy is old enough to mind himself? I was out on my own before I was ten, just a kiddie, making my own way.”
“Indeed you were,” Jessica agreed, having heard the story of Richard’s past more than a few times, in more than a few versions, with probably none of them completely true. “But when you have money, the law sees things differently. Adam doesn’t reach his legal majority for another three years, and for all I know won’t receive control over his inheritance even then. It all depends on the terms of our father’s will.”
“And in the meantime, he’s stuck with those queer buggers, the Redgraves. Nasty piece of work, that fellow last night, for all his fine clothes. I’ve seen eyes like that before. Slice your throat for you as soon as look at you. Just uses a clean knife.”
Jessica laughed softly as she returned the strongbox to its hidey-hole beneath the floorboards. She disliked keeping so much money in the house, but they had to be prepared for losses as well as profit.
She stood back as Richard rolled the rug down over the floorboards. “We were right to finally come here to London. So many foolish young men eager to be rid of their quarterly allowance. Our profits astound even me. Only a few more months, Richard, and we can have our inn. Are you still set on Cambridge? Of late I’ve been thinking of someplace more to the south, nearer the Channel. Perhaps even a port city?”
“With that Bonaparte scum running amok and crowing as how he’s coming here any day? No, Jess, no ports for the likes of me. Waking up one morning with a bunch of Froggies parading through the town? I don’t think so. It’s good English joints of beef we’ll be serving up from our kitchen, not slimy snails slipping and sliding off the plate.”
“Bonaparte isn’t going to invade, Richard. He’s much too busy with his new Austrian wife. She’ll bring him low one day, you know. You’d think the man would be a better student of history. Women are always the downfall of powerful men, one way or another.” She sent him a wide smile. “It’s what we do.”
Richard stood up, preparing to go downstairs to his small room at the back of the house they’d rented only a few short months previously. “And is that what you’re planning to do with the Earl of Saltwood? I’d go easy with any such notion, I would. The man’s no fool. I saw it in—”
“In his eyes. Yes, I remember. I’m not saying I’m out to destroy him, for goodness’ sake. All he has to do is give me my brother. He couldn’t want him.”
“Nor his inheritance,” Richard told her. “Man’s rich as that Croesus fellow. But if it’s some gauntlet you threw down to the earl, and knowing you it was, you’ve put his back up, so’s now he wouldn’t give you a crust of bread, just because he knows you want it. Better to ply some wiles or some such thing, not that I’m saying you should.”
Jessica averted her head, sure her cheeks were flaming, damn her fair coloring. “He’s got a mistress set up at the bottom of Mount Street.”
“And another tucked into a bang-up to the echo flat in Curzon Street, some Covent Garden warbler. Then there’s his other lady birds, the widow Orford and Lady Dunmore, or so I heard it told just last night, while the two of you were up here and the gossip was flying about downstairs like shuttlecocks in a high wind. Sets them up like dominos, tips them over when he’s done with them, leaving them their fond memories, since not a one of them ever had a bad word to say about him, not any of the dozens of them. Dozens, Jessica. So, never mind what I said about wiles. You want this one to do your bidding, don’t do his. That’s what I’m thinking.”
“You know I’ve never—”
“After Jamie Linden, who would?” Richard said, sighing. “But I know you, and you dangled, didn’t you? Made promises you’d no intention of keeping, thinking yourself smarter than any man. Dangerous business, that, with one like Saltwood. Better to walk away now. The boy’ll come to no harm. Saltwood’s no fool. He has to know everyone’s watching him.”
“Because he’s a Redgrave.”
“Because he’s his father’s son, yes. You know what they say.”
Jessica walked over to the pier glass and inspected her reflection. “His father was a rake and a libertine, and when he called out his wife’s lover in a duel, she hid herself nearby and shot him in the back before she and her lover fled to the continent, leaving her children behind as if they didn’t matter to her. Not that she was any better than he was in any event, having had more lovers than most of us have fingers and toes. Yes, I’ve heard it all. I would suppose it was either Saltwood buries himself in the cellars on his estate to hide his shame or he becomes what he’s clearly become.”
“An arrogant, to-hell-with-you bastard only an idiot with more hair than wit would ever dare to say any of that to, in case you haven’t considered that.”
“I don’t have to say it, Richard. The man knows his own family history. He should likewise understand I want my brother away from him. Gideon Redgrave may not be his father, as he claims he’s not, but he’s still that arrogant, to-hell-with-you bastard who clearly cares for no one save himself. Heartless, Richard, there’s no question. Adam was always such a quiet boy. Gentle, almost painfully shy. I left him once, having no choice, and it broke my heart. But now that I have a second chance, I can’t simply walk away. The Earl of Saltwood will have him for breakfast, otherwise.”
“And you for lunch?”
Jessica pulled a face at him and then turned to Doreen, who had just entered from the stairway. “You’re looking more than usually harassed. Is something wrong?”
“There was a knock at the door, ma’am. A pounding, more like. So I went down and answered it so as whoever it was wouldn’t break the door down, because it sounded as if the wood was already splintering, it did, and there he was, ma’am, and there he stays until I can talk to you, because that’s what I told him after he was done telling me what he told me.”
Richard bent his head and rubbed at his temples. “We don’t need to know it all, Doreen, as I keep telling you. Just the pertinent bits.”
“Yes, sir, Mr. Borders, sir. I’m just saying I didn’t invite the fellow inside, but it was either stand aside or get myself bowled over, sort of. I told him the house was closed to callers until eight of the clock, but
