‘Yes. Just like that. Now, find some other ways.’
There was a glint of mischief in her eyes now and she caught her lower lip in her teeth for a moment. The heat flooded Gareth again, this time sharply focused in his groin. If his reaction to an inexpert touch from Miss Gifford, dressed like a governess, was this, what effect was she going to have in her new guise?
‘I need to find excuses to touch, and they should be so brief that the man concerned will not know if they are an accident, an impulse—or a message. An invitation, even.’ She nodded to herself, then, smiling, raised her hand and brought it up to pat her fichu into order, managing as she did so to brush the back of her fingers against his. The tingle reached right up his arm. ‘Like that?’
‘Perfect, Jessica.’
‘But I need to hold your eyes as I do it, I think, to make you even more unsure of my intentions. You must not know whether I meant to touch you or not.’ The limpid green gaze held nothing but the faintest question and then she was smiling again, a polite social smile.
‘Excellent,’ Gareth managed, wondering what the hell was wrong with him. True, he had spent a decidedly fraught twenty-four hours, but that was no excuse for feeling like a randy eighteen-year-old simply because he was toe to toe with a buttoned-up governess.
‘Oh!’ She was peering up at him now. ‘My lord, I do believe there is a money spider in your hair.’ Jessica stood on tiptoe, reached and flicked lightly at the side of his head, her fingers just skimming his temple before they ruffled into his hair. This time the tingle went straight down to the base of his spine with predictable results. ‘There.’ She held up slender fingers for him to see the tiny red dot that was swinging from them. ‘What luck for me.’
There was a faint ink mark on her forefinger. It would need work with a pumice stone—seductresses did not have ink blots. Jessica blew softly and the red dot landed on his lapel and vanished into his neck cloth. This one does… ‘You gave it back.’
‘We can share it—I expect we are going to need all the luck we can get to pull this off.’
‘You have not changed your mind?’
The half-hidden seductress vanished to be replaced with the governess, her expression severe. ‘I said I would do it—I do not go back on my word.’
‘No.’ Gareth studied her straight back, raised chin, determined expression. ‘I can see that.’
‘My lord. Her Ser…’ There was a muffled exchange from the hall. ‘I beg your pardon, Lady Sebastian Ravenhurst and Lady Dereham are here. I explained that you were at breakfast, my lord, but—’
‘Show them in, Jordan, bring more cups.’ Resigned to yet another turbulent breakfast Gareth pushed back his chair and got to his feet as his cousin Bel and her sister-in-law Eva, Grand Duchess of Maubourg, swept into the room in a flurry of flounces. At the other end of the table Jessica stood too, schooling her knees not to knock together. These two elegant, assured, sophisticated matrons would take one look at her and laugh Gareth’s plan to scorn.
‘Gareth, we came at once, Maude said things have reached a crisis.’
‘Thank you, Bel.’
So that would be his cousin, Lady Dereham. A tall brunette, she kissed him on the cheek, and stood aside to make room for an equally tall, rather more statuesque brunette whose deportment could have been used as a model of perfection. The Grand Duchess.
‘Gareth, you poor man. Lord Pangbourne appears to have become quite irrational, even allowing for Maude’s tendency for the dramatic.’ Her English accent was perfect, her gaze direct. ‘Your message was cryptic, but we will do our very best to help.’
‘Then allow me to introduce Miss Gifford, who has agreed to play the critical role in this scheme.’ Both ladies turned and Jessica sank down into her best court curtsy. She knew how to do it in theory, but she had never had to do it in practice. It was murder on the thigh muscles, she discovered, rising with relief as the Grand Duchess stepped forward and caught her hand in her own kid-encased one.
‘Your Serene Highness…’
‘Lady Sebastian, please. Except for court appearances, I do not use my title outside the Duchy. Miss Gifford…’ she looked at her, a smile lighting up her face, ‘…you poor thing—what theatricals have Maude and Gareth prevailed upon you to join?’
‘Good morning Miss Gifford.’ Lady Dereham came to shake hands, then sank down on a dining chair and peeled off her gloves. ‘Yes, we insist upon knowing all the details at once.’ She lifted the silver pot before her. ‘I fear we will need sustaining with considerably more coffee.’
‘Templeton has become fixed in his intention to carry out the exceedingly mawkish scheme he cooked up with my esteemed parent and marry off Maude and myself.’
‘Not so mawkish if you consider the land holdings,’ Lady Dereham observed, stirring sugar into her cup. ‘Templeton’s no fool—he is dangling an estate almost the size of your own before you.’
‘Quite. How can I refuse? That is the problem. He has decided I am perfect for Maude—but it is obvious that even he would draw the line at marrying her off to a libertine. Or, at least, to one who created a public scandal. He has a strange way of showing it, but he is fond of Maude and would not want her to be hurt by her husband’s public infidelities.’
‘His private ones would, no doubt, be of no account,’ Lady Sebastian remarked wryly. A flicker of memory came back to Jessica—Lady Sebastian’s first husband, the Grand Duke, had been a notorious rake, leaving a trail of highly visible liaisons across Europe.
‘Exactly. I, therefore, must become not just a rake, but a very public philanderer.’ Gareth reapplied himself to his sirloin, then looked up to find three pairs of eyes fixed upon him, sighed and put down his knife and fork. ‘Our intention is that Jessica, who is the widow of a gentleman who performed some service for the Duchy…’ he raised an eyebrow at Lady Sebastian, who nodded ‘…has returned to London to re-establish her life. Bel has leased her the Half Moon Street house as a favour to Eva and will introduce her to society at Maude’s charity ball. Jessica, it will soon become apparent, is an adventuress at whose feet any number of gentlemen are about to prostrate themselves.’
Jessica could almost feel the effort it took the two ladies not to turn and look at her in disbelief. ‘I,’ Gareth concluded, ‘will make a complete cake of myself over her, conduct a flaming affaire in the full glare of the Season and Templeton will cast me off.’
‘I see,’ Lady Dereham said with what Jessica regarded as almost supernatural calm. Suddenly she could see the family relationship between them—Lady Belinda was exhibiting the same calm as she had seen in Gareth in the brothel. A sort of watchful stillness. ‘And our role—other than providing an entrée for Miss Gifford—is to be what exactly?’
‘I am very much afraid that Lord Standon expects you to transform me into a dashing adventuress,’ Jessica said, bracing herself for the polite laughter that must surely follow. ‘A glamorous siren,’ she added, heaping on the improbabilities.
Both ladies did turn at that, fine dark eyes under arched brows and amused grey ones regarded her. Neither woman laughed. They must feel it was past a joke to achieve such a task.
‘Oh, yes,’ Lady Dereham said. ‘Hair first, don’t you agree, Eva? And then see what suggests itself once we know what colour we are working with?’
‘MonsieurAntoine.’ Lady Sebastian nodded. ‘Gareth, would you be so good as to ring for Jordan, I must send a note immediately.’
‘You think it is not impossible?’ Jessica shook her head. Not only did she have to appear stylish enough to be seen with leaders of the ton such as these, but in addition she must seem alluring and dangerous.
‘I