She laughed. “I rather did, didn’t I?”
“Yes, you did. And we men have yet to learn how to defend ourselves from that particular little trick. You’re smarter, softer, definitely prettier, with the ability to think with your hearts as well as your minds—while we men have just to look at you to lose our control over both. You possess the ability to have us make total fools of ourselves, madam, and we resent the hell out of that. We’d much rather think of you as weaker, in body and mind and morals, devious and manipulative by turn, needing our guidance and protection—and we reserve the right to blame you for anything stupid we do, as well as any evil anywhere in the world.”
Jessica considered all of this for a minute. “Oh,” she said at last. “That actually makes sense. You’re afraid of us, but since you’re physically larger and stronger than we are, you’ve been able to create laws and all sorts of rules meant to keep us firmly under your thumbs, and make false declarations of how better fashioned you are to take care of us, not in order to protect us, but in order to protect yourselves from us.”
“And since you’re smaller and softer and so much smarter than we are, you continually find ways around the barriers we’ve so carefully built around our supposed superiority.”
“And then you condemn us as devious, when it’s you who force us to employ those superior weapons, because otherwise we’d be nothing. Chattel.”
“Sex is a woman’s game, Jessica, even if men believe they invented it. It’s the lever, when placed in the right spot, which has always been able to move the world. We men can’t give you any more weapons than you already hold—a place in government, or commerce, or even on the battlefield. We know you’d be too good at all of it. Why else do we insist on calling the great Elizabeth Tudor our virgin queen, made her, in our minds, not really a woman at all, but more of an aberration. We can’t risk seeing you as equal to men, treating you as our equals, not when we know you’re vastly superior.”
She looked at him assessingly. “And you really believe that? I mean, that women pose so much danger, and have to be kept under the thumbs of men?”
“Me? Absolutely not.”
“Yes, but if you did subscribe to this supposed theory, would you admit it?”
His grin was wicked. “Absolutely not.”
“Why, you—” She launched herself at him halfplayfully, and he snagged her wrists, all but flipping her onto her back, his body lying across hers. “Oh, so now you’re out to prove your superior strength?”
“On the contrary. I’m about to prove yours. Do you remember the first day you came to Portman Square?”
She wriggled her body beneath his, rather enjoying the feelings he was arousing in her. “I do. But what does that have to do with—”
Her wrists still trapped, he brought his head down to within inches of hers, his eyes clearly contemplating the sight of her slightly parted lips. “Do you remember our wager that day?”
“The dogs,” she said. And then, beginning to understand, she wet her lips with the tip of her tongue.
“You’re not playing fair, Jessica. Some would say just like a woman. But yes, the dogs. You wagered me Brutus wouldn’t be able to withstand temptation for ten seconds, but that Cleo could and would.”
Sex is a woman’s game. He’d said it, and she was beginning to believe him.
“I believe he didn’t make it past four.” She moved again, lifting her leg and curling it around his. “Cleo could have managed twice that and possibly more. Just as I could outlast you with ease.”
Gideon raised one expressive eyebrow. “Really? Would you care to wager the five pounds I lost on that assumption?”
She noticed his breathing had become rather shallow. “Oh, yes, I’d wager twice that. Who is really the stronger, that’s the wager, who can better resist temptation. I’ll put my blunt on myself, naturally.”
“Naturally. With one caveat, if you don’t mind.”
“And what would that be?”
“That you stop moving your hips against me.”
She looked at him in feigned surprise. “Was I doing that? And that…upsets you? I’m so sorry. We’ll neither of us move, all right? I’ll call the count, shall I? One…”
She lowered her eyelids so that she could watch him through her lashes.
“Two…”
She drew in a breath that raised her breasts slightly, released her breath on a sigh.
“Three…Is it warm in here, Gideon? Your skin feels slightly slick against my breasts. But it’s nice.”
She watched his throat move as he swallowed.
“Four…I could do this all afternoon, you know, as I’m quite comfortable. Are you comfortable, Gideon? Five…And it was your idea. It’s difficult to believe you could possibly lose, being so much larger and stronger than—”
Thank goodness, Jessica thought as Gideon ground his mouth against hers. I never would have made it past six… .
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“AND YOU’RE POSITIVE you and Trixie are correct? All because of my father’s journal?”
Gideon finished fastening the diamond circlet around Jessica’s throat before turning her about so that she could look into his eyes when he answered her, see that he was sincere.
She looked beautiful tonight, a certain glow about her, the sort that signaled to the knowing that she had spent the afternoon in bed. And not alone.
“As certain as we can be, yes. With the last of the original members from my father’s time now dead, and with Trixie admitting she doesn’t recognize the other code names, I believe it’s safe to assume that…well, that you’re safe. You, Trixie, Adam.”
“Because the Society is no longer seeking out the eldest son to take his deceased father’s place, and that’s why Trixie doesn’t recognize all those other code names.”
“Yes, and because those who knew James Linden are those same now-deceased members. No one will look at you and wonder what you might know, what he may have told you. And, lastly, there’s no one remaining aboveground who would realize Trixie knows anything at all. Thank God.”
Jessica stepped away from him, to check her reflection in the pier glass. She looked beautiful in ivory lace, just as he’d known she would, and he was well satisfied with the demi-train he’d added to its design. “Whoever ordered my father to…to hand me over? Are you certain that person wouldn’t look at me now and, well, and wonder? Because we did decide the Society has a new leader, didn’t we? A strong leader? He could have been the one who ordered—”
“Here again I defer to Trixie. There are two things the members of the Society lend no credence to—women and hirelings. As far as the Society is concerned, you managed to convince Linden to run off with you. Or do you really think you would have made it even halfway to Dover if there was any concern either of you could prove a danger to them?”
“I never really thought about that.” Jessica walked over to her dressing table to pick up her reticule. “There were storms in the Channel. We had to wait in Dover for three days before we could set sail. James was terrified. He wouldn’t leave the rooms he’d hired at the inn once he’d finally managed to sell the jewelry. But I suppose we would have been easy enough to find.”
“And that answers the question, doesn’t it?