“‘The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men, gang aft agley…’” Gideon quoted, directing his cattle to the flagway.
“‘And leave us nought but grief an’ pain for promis’d joy,’” Jessica ended, probably giving away more of her fears about this man than she should have allowed.
“And a pretty piece of jewelry,” Gideon quipped, setting the brake and tying the ribbons around it as Thomas leaped down and ran to the horse’s heads. “But we’ll argue this later, most likely in bed.” Then, as she opened her mouth to protest, he winked and lightly jumped down from the seat, to come around the back of the curricle and offer her his hand.
She ignored it, preferring to look up at the facade of the imposing stone structure in front of her. “Where are we?”
“Cavendish Square. Old, respected, the town residences of some of the most stuffy and high in the instep members of the ton. And my grandmother, whose presence for some casts a blight on the entire neighborhood.”
Jessica looked at the mansion again. “Your grandmother? I thought you meant you would be stopping at some shop for a moment. Why in heaven’s name would you bring me to see your grandmother?” She was nearly squeaking, she was that shocked. And that confused. Even one of the scandalous Redgraves didn’t bring his mistress…lover…whatever the devil he thought she was…to visit his grandmother. But he had!
“You’re forgetting she was there during the heyday of my father’s secret society. She was there the morning my father was shot. I’ve already told her about my suspicions as to the rash of accidental deaths, and about what’s been happening at Redgrave Manor. I neglected to tell her about you, but now that I understand our possible predicament with Adam, I thought we should all three of us put our heads together.”
“To come up with what? Other than possibly the most embarrassing quarter hour of my life?” She clasped her hands together, avoiding his outstretched hand. “I’m not going in there. Only a fool would go in there.”
“Your parents were respected members of the ton. You speak French. You can quote Robert Burns. I haven’t had the pleasure of sharing a meal with you, but I’m tolerably certain you don’t line up your peas on a knife blade and then attempt to slide them down your gullet—although your brother thinks that quite the height of hilarity.”
“I run an illegal gaming establishment,” Jessica whispered hoarsely.
“A minor impediment, not that Trixie would give a damn. I can name at least five titled ladies who discreetly encourage gaming in their Mayfair residences, three of whom who hold faro banks.”
This information came as a shock to Jessica. “Then why did you turn up your nose—not that such a thing is physically possible, not with that beak of yours—when you realized you’d walked into my gaming room?”
“References to my nose to one side, I leaped to a mistaken conclusion. Mildred, you understand.”
“Oh,” Jessica said in a small voice, but then rallied. “But I’m still not going in there.”
“Yes, you are,” Gideon corrected her just before he reached up, put his hands on her waist and bodily lifted her down to the flagway as if she weighed no more than a feather. “I’d say my grandmother is harmless, but that would be a lie, so be on your toes. We need information, Jessica, and Trixie’s the fastest way to it. She is, however, also a firm believer in quid pro quo, so she’ll demand information in exchange.”
“Have you ever stopped to wonder what it is you’d do if you had whatever information it is you think we need?”
“You mean other than returning my father’s remains to Redgrave Manor? I may not revere the man’s memory, but I’ll be damned if I’ll simply shrug my shoulders and ignore what I now know. Other than that, no, not really. Although it might be charitable of me to find a way to put a stop to these accidents, don’t you think?”
“No,” she answered honestly. “I doubt any of them deserve saving. Except Adam. He will grow up someday, won’t he?”
“I’d hoped to send him off to school and forget about him until he reached his majority. But I suppose I could take him in hand, if we are to assume the Society might soon show an interest in him. Would I be rewarded? I can think of several ways you could accomplish that.”
“I’ll have Doreen make you a large bowl of fish chowder,” Jessica said as the front door of the mansion opened and a worried-looking older man in butler’s black stuck his head into the breach.
“Excuse me, my lord, but her ladyship says you and the young miss are to come or go, but don’t just stand out here with your fingers in your mouth or else people will wonder if your brain cracked. Sir.”
“She said all that, did she, Soames? In just that way?” Gideon asked, extending his arm to Jessica, who saw no recourse now but to take it. His grandmother had been looking down at them from one of the windows? How embarrassing!
“She may have said a few more words I chose to either alter or discard rather than repeat them in front of the young miss, my lord, but I believe you can imagine them.”
“Yes,” Gideon said, handing over his hat and gloves to a liveried footman while Soames relieved Jessica of her shawl. “I believe I can. We’ll find our own way upstairs.”
“She’s a tartar?” Jessica whispered the question as they mounted the wide, curving staircase, covertly examining the life-size marble statues set in niches along the wall. They were all male and curiously devoid of fig leaves.
“Hard and strict and abrasive? Hardly. She’s sweetness itself, and her conversation is delightful. It’s only when you go to move that you realize you’ve been sliced into ribbons. Give as good as you get, Jessica. She likes that.”
“It would appear she likes others things, as well. Those statues are all naked,” she mumbled as they gained the landing and another wide foyer. “Everything is so opulent, so beautiful, it took me a moment to believe I was seeing what I saw.”
“Trixie has a curious notion of humor and never ordered them removed after my grandfather died. Imagine the ton, cooling their heels for a good half hour as they stand cheek by jowl on the stairs, waiting to be announced for one of Trixie’s famous balls. The ladies never know where to look. The gentlemen vary in their reaction. Red ears. Quiet sniggers. Open admiration for some, which is rather disconcerting. It has been whispered that there’s also an extensive collection of interesting paintings, etchings, even playing cards and a fascinatingly explicit set of china. If it exists, we grandchildren have not been allowed to inspect the collection, although I imagine we will be forced to do so at some point when Trixie dies, which she is not planning to do.”
He didn’t sound ashamed but only amused. “I’ve heard you Redgraves referred to as scandalous. I thought the reference referred only to the circumstances around your father’s death. And whispers of his Society, of course. I had no idea—”
“No idea the taint goes beyond my father? It’s said we Redgraves descend from a long line of satyrs. Trixie is our grandfather’s third wife, the two others having died, the first in childbed, the second murdered by her lover. Trixie was barely sixteen when she was brought to the marriage bed by a man thirty years her senior. Truthfully, I think she was even younger than that. I once researched the subject and found the legal age for females to marry during that time was twelve.”
“I doubt she’d want anyone to think she’s four years older than assumed,” Jessica said, inwardly cringing at the thought of a twelve-year-old bride. “Although perhaps not.”
“It was another time, and definitely not a better one. In any case, my father merely resurrected what had been created by my grandfather years earlier.