Kasey Michaels - What a Gentleman Desires

He pointed out that revolution in France could just as easily become revolution in England. Louis and his queen, the lovely Marie Antoinette of “let them eat cake” infamy, would be so grateful, and in return support Barry’s coup d’état...again, a plan ending with a Saltwood on the English throne.

But just as the Bastille fell, Barry was lying dead on the dueling field, shot in the back, purportedly by his unfaithful Spanish wife. Not that much later, the embattled Louis lost his head, literally.

Both earls had employed a rather strange route to their hoped-for success, that of gathering together secret groups of wealthy, politically and socially powerful men, in point of fact forming a corrupt and sexually deviant hellfire club known only as the Society. Whether through ambition, sexual appetite or even discreet blackmail, the Society moved beyond its original devil’s dozen thirteen members, all of whom quickly went to ground when Charles died, and most certainly repeated their ratlike scurry for the exits after the scandal of Barry Redgrave.

After nearly a half century of on-again, off-again existence as a haven for seditionists and easily-led sexually promiscuous devil worshippers, the Society was as dead as Charles and Barry.

The world could heave a collective sigh of relief, even if it never knew it perhaps should have been holding its breath.

The Saltwoods buried the history of the last two ambitious and possibly mad earls under the deepest carpet at Redgrave Manor and moved on, Barry and Maribel’s four children eventually reaching adulthood and going into Society (no, not that Society!). The scandal of Barry’s murder and their mother’s involvement, along with never quite quelled whispers of the possibility of some deliciously naughty hellfire club, moved on with them.

But that was all right with the family, who rather enjoyed being referred to as those scandalous Redgraves. The dowager countess, Lady Beatrix (Trixie) Redgrave, fairly reveled in the notoriety, actually. She certainly did nothing to discourage it at any rate, and had bedded more lovers since Charles’s death than many Englishmen had teeth left to chew their roasted beef.

And then one day about a month in the past, the Eighteenth Earl of Saltwood, Gideon Redgrave, was shocked to learn that the Society, the tawdry creation of his sire, his grandsire, intended to be the instrument of their success, was back in the treason business, this new devil’s thirteen conspiring with none other than Napoleon Bonaparte.

The Redgraves looked to each other, but only for a moment, as none of them were the sort to drag out the Society for another airing, and then began the race to identify and stop whoever in blazes was using the methods of the Society for their own gain.

The protection of England was, of course, the Redgrave family’s immediate and main concern. Of course!

But, yes, there were also all those unknown, sordid bits of Redgrave history that needed to be safely kept beneath that deep carpet....

CHAPTER ONE

1810

LORD SPENCER PERCEVAL, serving as both Prime Minister and Chancellor of Great Britain during these troubling times, sank into his favorite tub chair in his private study behind the imposing ebony door of No. 10 Downing Street. He had just moments earlier successfully concluded his most important mission of the day: seeing the last of his dozen children off to bed.

They’d been lined up like proper little soldiers, to bow or curtsy before him, and to smile as he kissed them each square in the middle of their foreheads. His wife had then adjourned to their bedroom, a twinkle in her eye—the same twinkle that had caused him to convince her to elope with him so many years ago, when her father had considered a younger Perceval unsuitable matrimonial material.

A small silver tray was placed before the prime minister. “Your evening refreshment, my lord? And I must commend you. Quite the brood you have there—or is that clutch? No, that would be hens, or ducks, or some such fowl thing. A thousand pardons. Lovely children, all of them. Stellar, really.”

Perceval relaxed the sudden death grip he’d clamped around the arms of the chair. “I should have known immediately it had to be a Redgrave. Although I would have been less surprised was it Saltwood himself. How the devil did you get in here?”

“I’m quite certain the earl sends his regards, or would, if he’d known his rascally brother planned to, as it were, drop in on you tonight. As to the how of it? A valid question from your vantage point, I’m sure,” Valentine Redgrave said, putting down the tray and taking up the facing club chair, quite precisely crossing one well-shaped leg over the other, his long-fingered hands folded in his lap. After all, he was in evening clothes, and it wouldn’t be polite to slouch, comfortable though he was in his surroundings. “But if I told you, I’d be reduced to begging your starchy under-secretary to allow me a private audience, as has been the case these past two weeks. Have you by any chance been ducking me?”

“Absolutely not,” the prime minster declared, although seemingly unable to look Val directly in the eye as he said it. “I’ve been otherwise involved.”

“As have we Redgraves, not that you seem interested in our progress.”

“Our meaning your? Now, why do I doubt that? As it is, Lord Singleton will soon be reporting to me.”

Remembering the nearly giddy communication sent to him from Redgrave Manor by his sister and tucked in with Simon Ravenbill’s official report, Valentine only smiled. “My soon-to-be new brother is otherwise engaged, I’m afraid, and forward his apologies. Behold me, his trusted messenger.”

Ah, now the prime minister was paying attention.

“Egads, you must be kidding. You Redgraves have managed to corrupt the Marquis of Singleton? I wouldn’t have thought that possible.”

“Most anything is within the realm of possibility, my lord, if one simply applies oneself. But it wasn’t all of us. Just the one, the pretty one. I’ll be honored to pass along the delightful news that you wish them happy. But now, if we’ve finished with this amicable yet hardly germane chitchat, shall we get down to cases? We’ve got serious business to discuss.”

“I know that, you insolent puppy, but this is no way to go about it. You mean to tell me Ravenbill’s so besotted he put nothing in writing for me?”

“Not knowing friend from foe, would you have done anything so potentially dangerous? No, of course you wouldn’t,” Val rejoined smoothly, as there wasn’t a Redgrave born who didn’t know how to speak the truth in order to avoid lying through his teeth. Their sister, Lady Katherine, had rather elevated clever evasion of the truth to an art form, actually. “It’s all those sweet children, isn’t it? They’ve turned your mind domestic tonight, when you should be attending to business. Quite understandable, really. Very well, I’ll recap.”

“You do that. And then I’ll have you clapped in irons for daring to accost me in my home. We’re agreed?”

“That seems only reasonable,” Val said, getting to his feet. He looked quite presentable, sitting. But standing? Ah. Few were more impressive than a tall, dark-haired Redgrave, standing, be it Gideon, Earl of Saltwood, or any of his trio of younger siblings, including Kate! The English in them seemed to recede then, and the Spanish side of them came out to play, to remind all of their mother’s fiery blood singing through their veins. Their mother, who had so disgraced the family as to shoot their father in the back in order to save her French lover on the dueling field. One couldn’t be faulted if one imagined a pistol in Valentine’s hand; after all, it was in the blood.

And then, in the space of ten even, silently counted heartbeats, Valentine bowed, as if to acknowledge the prime minister’s power over a lowly creature such as himself. “I can but humbly submit to your command. Only do be so kind as to make certain the irons are clean. This is a new jacket, you understand.”