Get here. Now! The word now was underlined three times.
“Well, that’s succinct.” He raked his fingers through his hair. “I’ll be down directly.”
“We both will,” Jessica said from behind him, and he turned to see she was standing beside the bed, unashamedly naked, crushed rose petals in her hair. And several other places. He looked down at himself, momentarily amazed at his powers of recovery in the face of distraction, and then silently cursed his grandmother’s pathetic command of proper timing.
Gideon tore his gaze from the trio of rose petals fortunate enough to be in such intimate contact with Jessica’s left hip, and then manfully squinted into the near darkness, looking for his shirt. “No, you stay here.”
“We’ll both be down directly, Thorndyke,” she called out, and then began foraging for her underclothes, her bare bottom enticing as she bent over to retrieve the French drawers. Ah, more rose petals… .
“I never before realized my own grandmother hates me,” Gideon muttered, once again turning his eyes away from temptation.
It was closer to a quarter hour before he and Jessica were heading down the curved staircase, thanks to Jessica’s “rats’ nest,” but they were nearly to the door before Kate hailed them from the top of the stairs.
“What’s she done this time?” Lady Katherine asked as she bounded down the stairs with an energetic lack of caution that could have brought anyone else to grief. But not Kate. She never made a misstep, never gave a thought to decorum or, God help them all, her own safety. It was what he loved about her and why he worried so much about her. She was too damn much of a man for a woman. Somehow she’d lost any soft feminine side she’d ever had, preferring to act and be treated as if she was fourth and youngest Redgrave son.
He gave a moment’s thought to his sister’s question, and the fact that his grandmother had been entertaining the Marquis of Mellis. What if she wasn’t as deft as she believed herself to be? What if she’d slipped, or become angry with something he’d revealed to her? What if—“You’re not going with us, Kate.”
She ignored him as if he’d said nothing, brushing past him and through the open doorway to the foggy, damp street beyond. She’d climbed into the coach, taking the rear-facing seat, and was buttoning the last few buttons of the jacket to her riding habit as Gideon and Jessica entered and the coach jolted forward.
“Trixie’s her grandmother, too, Gideon,” Jessica said, as if he’d forgotten. “Stop glaring at her.”
“He’s glaring? Just think, all these years I thought that was his usual face.”
Jessica laughed but then slipped her hand into his as the coach turned out of the Square. “Trixie always lands on her feet, Gideon. I don’t know her well, but I’m certain of that much.”
He squeezed her hand in return. “I never should have started this.”
“Never should have started what?” Kate asked him. “And before you open your mouth, remember, I’m not a child.”
“Another time,” he said evasively, grabbing the strap as the coachman made the last turn into Cavendish Square. They’d accomplished the drive in a quarter of the time it would have taken them during the day, with only a few drays and delivery wagons sharing the streets with them. “Let’s just see what we’re facing.”
“All right. But you might want to do something about that rose petal clinging to your left cheek, brother mine.”
Gideon raised his hand to brush away the petal. “There’s nothing there.”
“No. But Jessica’s women spoke with my Sally, so I know there could have been. You’ve just confirmed that for me. Thank you.”
“Pernicious brat,” Gideon commented as Jessica bent her head, hiding her face and, most probably, her flaming cheeks.
The door to the dowager countess’s mansion was opened the moment the coach came to a halt, a wedge of yellowed light cutting through the fog. Gideon bustled the two women out of the coach and quickly hurried them into the foyer.
“Soames?”
The butler inclined his head. “Your lordship, Lady Katherine. Mrs. Linden.”
“No, my countess,” Gideon corrected, looking at the large standing clock in one corner of the foyer, “for the past nearly nine hours. But never mind that now. Where is she?”
“In her boudoir, my lord,” Soames said, his ears going crimson as he shot glances at Jessica and Kate. Really, you’d think the man had passed beyond blushing decades ago. “As is his lordship. You’re to go right up, sir.”
“Remain here,” Gideon ordered the ladies. “Soames, make them some tea or something.”
“Oh, I don’t think so,” Kate announced. “Jessica? Do you think so?”
“I think you and I are going to be very good friends, Kate. And, no, I don’t plan to remain down here.”
When had he lost control of his life, his air of consequence, his ability to command? Gideon looked down at his clothing, as Soames was looking at him rather strangely, to see that he may have buttoned his waistcoat, but one of his shirttails was hanging loose beneath it. “Bloody hell. All right. But if I tell you to leave, you leave. Understood?”
“Oh, definitely understood,” Jessica said…and then she did the oddest thing. She winked at Kate.
“You’re wasting time, brother mine,” Kate reminded him. “I saw the note. She wrote now.”
And so it was that the trio, all of them now Redgraves, mounted the staircase together, turned and climbed another flight, following Soames, who then pointed them toward the closed double doors to what had to be Trixie’s bedchamber.
He then bowed and said, “Whatever it is we’re to do, it will be done, sir. I’ve ordered the staff to remain in their quarters. I’ll be right here, anticipating your orders.”
“Well, that was ominous,” Jessica whispered as the butler backed away from the doors. “Go on, Gideon. Open it.”
The chamber, one he’d never before visited, was quite large and fronted by an antechamber hung with red velvet draperies. Beyond it, the room opened up considerably, which seemed a pity to him, as none of its furnishings or colors appealed to him. Red, everywhere, red with touches of gold. Move the chamber to Piccadilly, and it would, other than in its sheer size and the cost of the fabrics and furnishings, become quite an inviting bordello. To see such a room here, in the most straitlaced area of Mayfair, was something of a shock.
There was a movement near the fireplace, and Trixie’s barefoot legs appeared, searching for the floor as she uncurled herself from one of the large upholstered chairs positioned there. “There you are,” she said, getting to her feet, her midnight-blue velvet dressing gown tightly tied at her waist, a glass of wine in her hand. “My goodness, are we having a party?” she asked, appearing not at all upset that Gideon had not come here on his own. “Kate, Jessica, how good to see you both. More heads to consult, I suppose.”
She employed the hand clutching the wineglass to gesture toward the large, curtained bed. “Now, what do you propose we should do with that?”
CHAPTER TWELVE
“SON OF A BITCH. Bloody damn son of a bitch…”
Jessica shot a look to Trixie, who was pointedly inspecting the perfectly buffed nails on her left hand, and approached the bed. She didn’t want to look, but Gideon was looking, so she supposed she should be a supporting prop for her husband to lean on, or some such