The Regency Redgraves: What an Earl Wants / What a Lady Needs / What a Gentleman Desires / What a Hero Dares. Kasey Michaels

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СКАЧАТЬ my father—my father!—discovered a way to make them all able to believe they were better than they were, acting in some higher purpose. Still, it’s possible. I don’t know how he’d have accomplished it, how any one person manages to twist minds to do his every bidding, no matter how vile, but he could have managed it.”

      “Until his wife shot him in the back when he was about to duel down her lover,” Jessica said quietly. “I’m sorry. Was…the man one of the Society?”

      “I can’t say anything for certain. I was only nine years old at the time. I thought he was my new tutor, a Frenchman who’d fled France immediately after the fall of the Bastille. He’d only been at the Manor for a few weeks before both he and my mother were gone.”

      “Again, I’m sorry, Gideon. Not that your father was shot, I can’t honestly say that, but that you lost your mother. I’m certain she didn’t want to leave you. She must have felt she had no choice.”

      “I wonder if she would have made that choice if she could have known she and her lover would be swept up in the Terror two years later and sent to the guillotine. As someone reminded me just today, in the end the bill must always be paid.”

      For a moment, he could see his mother in his mind’s eye. Beautiful, loving, but sad. Her eyes had always been so sad. There had been times he could coax a smile from her, but those times had been seldom. He treasured those few good memories. Strangely, he remembered his father only through the painting of him as a young man that hung in the portrait gallery.

      Damn, but this woman was getting to him. He never thought about the boy he’d been twenty years ago. He’d never spoken of any of this. Not with his siblings, not with his grandmother. He’d shut it all down, all he’d felt at the time, all he’d so carefully avoided since he’d been awakened to the news of what had happened just before dawn that long-ago morning. Max and Val had been too young, and Katherine only an infant. He’d been the only one to really understand what dead meant, what gone meant.

      Jessica got to her feet. “So what bill has come due for the members of the Society?”

      Gideon snapped himself back to attention.

      “I can think of one theory. It’s not as if any of them could be proud of what they’ve done, and want it out in the world. The sins of relatively young men, trotted out for an airing twenty years later, could be more than embarrassing. Add even the whisper of devil worship to the mix, and the secret becomes dangerous. Your father sat in Parliament, remember. Someone may be blackmailing the others, or simply killing them off to silence them. I can’t even be sure how many of them there are. There could be some who no longer wear the rose.”

      “Thirteen,” Jessica said quietly. “The devil’s dozen. At any time, there must be thirteen. James told me that much. One dies, two die, they must be replaced, or there can be no ceremonies. I promise you, they were still active five years ago. There could have been several new members since your father’s time. The usual method was to draw from the blood relatives of the members. And, of course, a member’s eldest son inherited his father’s position by right.”

      Gideon looked at her curiously. One day they’d have to speak more of this James Linden. “No one has ever approached me.”

      “You were a child when your father…died. As an adult, I doubt anyone would have dared. You’re a rather formidable man, Gideon.”

      He looked at her in sudden realization. “Adam.”

      “Yes, very good. Adam. Because the Society must still exist, I’m certain of that now more than ever. I’ll grant you, I was appalled at what I saw this morning, but not so much so that I’m not relieved he’s…he’s…well, we both know what he is.”

      “A bacon-brained halfling who couldn’t locate his own backside with both hands?”

      Jessica smiled. “Thank you. Adam is, after all, my brother. I didn’t want to say it myself.”

      “You’re welcome. Still, until and unless you’re proven wrong, I suppose I’m now doomed to keeping him close, explaining that particular part of his inheritance, and then watching over him?”

      “Yes. I was going to tell you tonight, if I thought I could convince you to listen to reason. Because you’re right, I can’t protect him from the Society if they’re desperate enough to go after him. But you can. My initial reaction was they wouldn’t want him. But if they’ve run out of suitable candidates, they might make an exception.”

      “You say I can protect him, and I can. From the ones I know of, yes, but we can’t know them all,” Gideon said, the futility of what he was attempting to do all but smacking him in the face like a cold, wet cloth. He’d been curious, intrigued, and now he was beholden, damn it, the reluctant guardian of one Adam Collier, spotty-faced giggling twit who’d probably think dressing up in a mask and hooded cloak, playing at devil worship, to be the height of good fun.

      But it was left to Jessica to really shock him.

      “We might, soon. You’ve been seen sporting that horrible golden rose, remember? When I first saw it, I thought you were a member, something that should have occurred to me before I ever contacted you, I suppose. Still, I almost immediately realized you’re not. I believe you on that head.”

      “I’d hoped wearing it would—I don’t really know what I’d hoped. I’ll not wear it again. And, again, I apologize.”

      “Yes, I know. As I apologize for the pistol. But who is to say, now that my father’s dead, and considering Adam’s clear unsuitability once anyone with two reasonably good eyes sees him, that rose might gain you an invitation to be the new thirteenth member. The eldest child of the founder, Gideon? You’d be a splendid catch.”

       CHAPTER SEVEN

      THEY’D GONE BACK DOWNSTAIRS separately, Jessica suggesting it would be better that way. He could simply slip into the gaming room, hopefully crowded at this hour, and she would come down a few minutes later, going directly to the ground-floor supper room to mingle with the patrons stuffing their faces at her expense and hopefully guide them back to the tables.

      After all, she still had her business to attend to, and Gideon had kept her from it long enough.

      He’d agreed, and left her once they’d decided on an hour to meet the next day. He suggested she come to Portman Square. She’d politely declined, and they’d settled on his coming for her at noon, in his curricle, for a ride to Richmond Park.

      “You’re amenable to being seen in public with me?” she’d asked, thinking of his consequence.

      “Your half brother is my ward. I see nothing unusual in the two of us becoming acquainted. You’re a widow who earns her living with her uncle, hosting intellectual evenings, correct?”

      “And the bloody blazes with anyone who knows better and who’d dare whisper otherwise?”

      “I’m not known for concerning myself overmuch with whispers. We’ll make one brief call before getting on our way, if you don’t mind.”

      “You have someone you wish me to meet?” She was genuinely surprised at that.

      His smile had curled her toes. “Someone I wish to shock would be more accurate. Although СКАЧАТЬ