Kasey Michaels - The Regency Redgraves - What an Earl Wants / What a Lady Needs / What a Gentleman Desires / What a Hero Dares

“No, nothing. I’ve stopped wearing the rose, you’ll notice. I’m keeping a close eye on the nincompoop, but nobody’s approached him. Frankly, I’ve reached a dead end.”

“A temporary setback only, I’m sure. Now a kiss, please, and then you may go. I’ve an engagement this evening, and to shine at night, it is sometimes necessary to nap during the day.”

Gideon bent to kiss her cheek. “You’re admitting to age, Trixie?”

“One must sometimes make allowances, yes. I’ve invited Guy Bedworth here for a midnight supper, and it wouldn’t do to not be awake on all suits with that one.”

“Bedworth? The Marquis of Mellis? That doddering old fool? What do you want with him?”

“That doddering old fool, pet, was at one time the youngest member of your grandfather’s original coterie of scoundrels. Before you count on your fingers, yes, your grandfather died roughly forty-eight years ago. The marquis won’t see seventy again, or even seventy-five, but was still, shall we say, amorously active when your father decided to resurrect what he may have thought a family tradition. Naturally, Guy, risen to the title by that time, was invited to participate, and to lend his expertise in the finer points of ceremonial rites, I would imagine. As a sort of mentor.”

“And to continue in that role after my father died? Perhaps even as long as five years ago?”

“Who’s to say, one way or the other? Well, in point of fact, Guy is to say, which I sincerely intend to have him do tonight.”

A sudden thought struck Gideon. “How would my father have known the marquis was a member of Grandfather’s…coterie?”

“Through the journals, I suppose,” Trixie said, shrugging. Then her eyes went wide. “I did tell you about those blasted journals, didn’t I? Dear God, maybe I am growing dotty.”

Gideon sat down on a corner of the low table. “Grandfather wrote things down? About…about his group?”

“No name, pet. Simply the Society. He thought it safer that way. Your father wasn’t quite so brilliant and devised those ridiculous golden roses. Although they have made your search for members that much easier, which proves your grandfather’s point, doesn’t it?”

Trixie began turning her new bracelet over and over again around her wrist. “But, yes, he very carefully catalogued their actions, year by year. They all did. In excruciating detail. Dear God, there were drawings, charts, codes. They called them testaments, of all things. Truthfully, I burned the ones I found in your grandfather’s study. What went on during the blessedly few years of our marriage was not, I felt, anything to preserve for the ages. I was young and powerless, and he…But that was a long time ago. Unfortunately, I couldn’t locate all of them. the rest were hidden somewhere.”

“At Redgrave Manor?”

“In the Manor, or somewhere on the grounds. I never found them, but clearly your father did. And they all kept journals, each member, before annually handing them over to your grandfather like the fools they were, as it was up to the Keeper to review them, check them for veracity and then assemble all the information into their bible . I never found that, either, although I had seen it a time or two. Some of the etchings were very nearly true art, if disgusting. The things I read, however, the things I could tell you about people the world admires? Ah, but most of them are dead now, so what does it matter?”

“Was my grandfather a Jacobite? Were he and his devil’s dozen plotting treason?”

Trixie smiled. “No. His motives were even less laudable, I’m afraid. He did what he did, they all did, merely for the pleasure of it. Half-hearted Satanists, reckless libertines, naughty little boys obsessed with their drunken preoccupation with sex. It was left to your father to see the opportunities for something more. When I realized…”

“That couldn’t have been an easy time for you,” Gideon said softly.

“No, it wasn’t,” Trixie agreed, turning her head toward the windows, clearly looking to the past. “I’d lost him by then, that much was clear. My own son, my only child. It was all so long ago. Barry had always been wild, impetuous, even as a young boy. When he found the journals…”

“Do they still exist? The ones my father found?”

She shrugged, turning back to him, her eyes lively once more. “Yes, back to the present, please. I never saw them, so I can’t say they still do or don’t exist. But as I said, Guy well might. He only returned to town a few days ago after taking the waters in Bath, or some such hopeful nonsense.”

“You can’t make him suspicious.”

“I know what I’m about, pet. Lord knows I’ve been doing it long enough. We’ll speak of past times, reminisce about ancient glories and conquests, friends still aboveground and those now looking at the grass from the wrong side, as it were. I’ll tease and pet and pat him as if my memories of those days are fond, as he mostly likely needs to believe. I’ll flatter the toothless old roué, pretend he is still capable of rising to what he most patently is not. If he doesn’t fall asleep in his pudding, I’ll have some information for you tomorrow.”

“And you’ll be careful?” Gideon knew he couldn’t dissuade her from what she planned.

Trixie tipped her head and smiled. “Really, pet, there’s no need for concern. What could possibly go wrong?”

JESSICA DRESSED FOR DINNER in one of her new gowns, with both Mildred and Doreen fussing over her the entire time, admiring her undergarments, squealing in delight when she at last chose the dusky-rose over the sky-blue, saying one couldn’t possibly be better than the other but wasn’t it a marvel how the rose went so well with Jessica’s red locks. “And who would have thought any such thing?”

Gideon would , Jessica answered silently as she sat in front of the dressing table while Mildred, who was proving a marvel (although not in the sense Adam would have meant), handled the curling stick with flair, and not once did Jessica have to remind her that pins were to be put into hair and not her scalp.

Her mind traveled back in time for a moment, recalling Alice, her maid and friend of a lifetime ago. Jessica knew she had been a petted and pampered child, lacking in nothing, at least in a material way. She’d had a lovely roof over her head, had never known what it was like to worry about where her next meal or bed would come from. She had missed her mother, loathed her stepmother, enjoyed spoiling her half brother, could say she barely knew her father…but she had been content. Indeed, she’d been looking forward to her first Season, sure she’d be at least a moderate success. Fear had no place in her life.

That she’d been through what she’d been forced to endure these past five years and survived it all might be considered something of a miracle, and to once again be sitting in the lap of luxury very nearly erased those sad memories from her mind. Truly, it was amazing how adaptable a person could be. Although it was much easier, she knew, to accustom oneself to luxury than to the catch-as-catch-can existence of those five long years between her girlhood and the woman she had been forced to become.

As Mildred fussed with the trio of curls she was arranging to fall just so on Jessica’s left shoulder, Doreen gathered up mountains of tissue and paper and string now that all of the new clothing had been carefully put away in drawers and cupboards and armoires. Jessica’s own wardrobe, from shifts to shoes to shawls, had been playfully argued over, with the shoes going to Mildred, who said she could stuff tissue in the toes while Doreen couldn’t stuff her toes into the toes. Doreen laid claim to the night rails, Mildred the bonnets, and nobody begged to please be given the black gowns Jessica had worn in the gaming room.