What a Gentleman Desires (26 page)

“Angus. Father to Hugh, who is father to Liam. Dozens of Coopers, as a matter of fact. Three generations of Coopers on Redgrave land. And dozens of Redgrave byblows, as you just said. Is it possible, Trixie? I’ve begun to believe most anything possible.”

“Both Charles and Barry would hump anything that sat still long enough or was slow and defenseless enough to catch— Ah, forgive me, my dear. I will say the most outré things at times. I came of age in a much more open, plain-speaking time. You’ll grow used to it.”

Daisy’s mind was whirling. “Yes, ma’am. But would they know of the Society?”

“Angus was a fine stone mason in his prime, Daisy, he and his brothers, his sons,” Trixie continued, shaking her head. “All that marble, all the work that went into Charles’s ungodly creation—everything. My husband certainly didn’t build all he built on his own, nor did he lug the furnishings there by himself. True secrecy is never possible. We’ve never spoken of it, Angus and I, not in all these years, as if none of it ever happened. But, yes, the Coopers in particular must have known something about the Society, perhaps even about my late husband’s ridiculous notions.”

At least Valentine had found time to tell her about the “ridiculous notions.” Charles, Earl of Saltwood, had believed himself to have royal blood, and wished to be the Stuart put back on the throne of England by aiding France. Clearly the man was mad. Just as clearly, he and his son had been madly dangerous.

Valentine broke his silence. “The knowledge of the caves, the underground meeting room, the smuggling, repairing the stone maze on the beach. It’s more than probable they did their share of snooping when the master wasn’t at home, finding the journals and bible, touring the
ceremonial
chamber. Everything makes sense now, how this new incarnation of the Society seemed to know so much.”

“He’ll do that,” Daisy explained. “Talk to himself as he works something out in his head. I suppose someday I’ll get used to that, too. Valentine? We’re still here, you know.”

“Sorry,” he said, squeezing her hand. “Trixie, do you remember what you and Angus spoke of during your visit?”

“Nothing that seems important, I’m afraid. Angus and I were sharing some of his best homemade mead and reminiscing about long-ago days,” Trixie told them. She was massaging her right temple now, as if the area pained her. “I wish Richard were here. He accompanied me, carrying my basket of gifts, and might remember more of the discussion. Ah, wait a moment. I may have, no, I know I did. I said something to Angus about us probably being the last two people still aboveground to remember those bygone days. Why did I say that? Did I put my head in the lion’s mouth, saying that? I can’t believe this, Valentine. I don’t want to believe Angus Cooper would want me dead.”

“Neither do I, but we can’t dismiss the possibility out of hand, even if the chance is equally high it was Axbridge or one of the others last night.”

Trixie sighed. “You don’t believe that, do you?”

“No. Sadly, I don’t. They had too many opportunities to kill us at Fernwood, or on the way here. I— We’ve all always seen Redgrave Manor as our refuge. When Barry died, when we were nearly drummed out of society. With enough land around us, with loyal servants who had been with us for generations. It would be a hell of a thing if we’d built our refuge with the enemy already inside the walls. But it makes sense now, doesn’t it? That this new Society operates on Redgrave land. We’ve attempted to tie them to us in some way, telling ourselves they learned about our land and history from Jessica’s father, but the connection seemed tenuous at best. But this?”

“A dog always comes back to his vomit, I’ve heard it told. Only, if we’re right, pet, this dog never left, but has been right there all along. What if they’ve been watching our every move? What if Kate and Simon had gotten too close? Would they be dead now? And this Charfield you spoke of—they would have seen him arrive, know he’s our prisoner. We’re getting closer, we’ve become a danger to them. Valentine, my heart’s sick at even the thought we could be right. We’re not the pursuers any longer. We’re the pursued.”

Valentine slapped down hard on his thighs and got to his feet. Clearly he’d made a decision. “Ladies, I suggest you limit your shopping to materials and whatever trimmings go with them, and trust a local seamstress to the gowns themselves. We need to leave for the estate no later than tomorrow at dawn. As you said, Trixie, Kate and Simon are there, feeling themselves safe. Them, and our Mr. Charfield, who may not be as uncomfortable in his confinement as we’d hoped.”

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

“M
Y
COACHMAN
, a groom up on the box and two hanging on behind, plus a pair of outriders, and none of them Coopers. All for the short trip to Bond Street, although we’ll make slow progress at this time of day. My grandson does nothing by half measures, does he?”

Daisy, her mind instantly going to the pleasurable hour she and Valentine had spent together that morning, felt herself coloring slightly. “I believe you could be safe in saying he’s quite thorough, yes.”
After all, she’d been thoroughly kissed, thoroughly caressed, thoroughly aroused...and most definitely thoroughly satisfied.

Trixie smiled rather knowingly. “You do know you don’t have to ride facing backward, my dear.”

“Forgive me, I just naturally took the rear-facing seat. Don’t tell Valentine, please, or I’ll only have to suffer another homily about the differences between a governess and a fiancée. Truth to tell, I rather like seeing where I’ve been.”

Trixie displayed a small, ladylike shudder. “Spoken like a young lady with a clear conscience. You’re quite the level-headed creature, aren’t you? Do you love my grandson?”

Daisy didn’t know how to answer that unexpected question. She hadn’t even asked it of herself, and Valentine certainly had not volunteered any such declaration of his own feelings. “We’re to be married.”

“Not germane. In today’s society, marriage more than not has little to do with love. Debt, wealth, social position, the cachet of a title, the need for an heir. Marriage is more than often a trade, or a bargain struck.”

Daisy shifted uncomfortably in her seat. “You’ve heard about Rose,” she said quietly. “I would have and will do anything to keep her safe and protected, but Valentine neither demanded nor offered marriage in exchange for helping her. Especially when it would be only Rose and I who profited from such an arrangement. He has nothing to gain. Although—” she paused to take in a breath, and gather her courage “—he did say that I’ve thoroughly compromised him.”

“Ha! Leave it to Valentine to take the shoe and neatly put it on the other person’s foot. A talent inborn in the Redgraves, I believe. Good for him. And let me tell you, my dear, I know that boy better than he knows himself. He does nothing unless he wants to do it. He may not always at first understand
why
he wants to do it, but he’ll figure it out. I will tell you that, upon his arrival yesterday, he informed me I was about to meet the most wonderful, kind, brave, intelligent, fearless, challenging, beautiful woman in the world. I may have missed a few of the attributes he assigned to you, as he went on for a good five minutes, barely taking a breath. I half expected to come downstairs last evening to see a marble statue of Venus, wearing a halo while neatly juggling a sword, a book and possibly a rescued chimney sweep.”

“Venus couldn’t juggle, she has no arms.” Daisy began to relax. “He’s a good man, although it has been recently brought home to me that I’m not to tell him so, even though it’s true. I believe, at the heart of it, Valentine’s rather modest.”

“Valentine? Modest? Well, I do believe you’ve answered my question, just as he answered it last night merely with the look on his face. You’re besotted, the pair of you. This is merely a suggestion, but one of these days you probably ought to tell each other. You’d be amazed at all you gain when you give your heart away. I know I was.”

Daisy lowered her head to hide her blush. “Yes, ma’am. I...I’ll be sure to do that.” Then she looked out the side window, to see the same haberdashery shop she’d been seeing for the past ten minutes. “We’re not moving at all, are we?”

“I think we’ve made major strides,” Trixie told her, her smile adding a sparkle to her eyes. “But now I need to hear about your adventure, and your rescue of your dear sister. It is she, you realize, who may be the one to finally bring down the Society. How fitting that her name is Rose. Almost prophetic.”

Daisy remembered the rose pin employed to hold her ridiculous transparent robes together, and told Trixie as much.

In turn, the dowager countess explained the meaning of the golden rose employed by the Society to signify a member’s success at deflowering a virgin during one of their ceremonies. “Both my husband and son had rather extensive collections.”

“I didn’t know. At least Rose was spared that. She was already a widow when Mailer tricked her into traveling with him to his country estate. In fact, Rose said he never shared her with the other members, but kept her all to himself, kept her prisoner in that terrible place.”

“How odd. Perhaps, in some twisted way, he cared for her. Mailer’s wife must have been terrified she was about to be replaced.”

Daisy felt the need to share her thoughts with Trixie. Perhaps this woman who’d been in the position both Lady Caroline and Rose had occupied, would make her understand.

“Yet in the end, Lady Caroline decided to stay, rather than to trade her social position for freedom, and ended by losing her life, and Rose is ashamed she didn’t take her own life, but instead
allowed—
only Rose could use that word and think it sensible—Lord Mailer to keep her as his imprisoned mistress. Frankly, I don’t understand either of them. Lady Caroline happily sacrificed both Valentine and me, along with the futures of her stepchildren, and Rose insists on blaming herself for what Lord Mailer did to her.”

“Fear makes people do things they would never otherwise believe themselves capable of—the will to survive trumping any other consideration. As for your sister, I understand Piffkin has taken her under his wing?”

The coach finally began moving forward once more. “He’s marvelous with her, yes.”

Daisy nodded. “He would be. He was there when my husband...passed. One might even say instrumental to me in those turbulent days. I offered him anything he wanted, but he turned me down in favor of a gold coating on his tooth. Years later, he asked to assume the care and feeding of young Master Valentine. You can trust Piffkin with your sister, with your life if need be. I know I long ago trusted him with mine, and that of my grandson.”

“He armed himself with a crimping iron the night we rescued Rose. And then stripped off his coat and shirt to preserve what was left of our modesty. Mostly, I do believe Mr. Piffkin would kill for Valentine, if necessary, or throw himself in front of a sword or pistol to save him. I’m quite impressed with him.”

The dowager countess smiled even as she reached up to grab the strap as the coachman turned a corner a bit sharply. “And he with you, obviously, or I would have heard by now. Oh, don’t look shocked. When it comes to my grandchildren, I hold the reins loosely, but I do hold them. Until Richard, they’ve been all I had, all I loved in this world. In other words, Daisy, you have my blessing, you and Valentine. Who knows, with three of my grandchildren settled—I despair of Max—and with Richard by my side, I may just give up this hurly-burly life of mine here in London and retire to Redgrave Manor to become a doddering, devoted great-grandmother. In fact, I’m fairly looking forward to corrupting another generation of—”

Daisy reacted instinctively as the door of the slowly moving coach was thrown open. She reached out for Trixie’s hand, fearful the older woman might topple out of the coach, and pulled her toward herself.

As a result, the knife-wielding intruder missed his target, the blade plunging to the hilt in the quilted velvet squabs rather than Trixie’s chest.

There was a frustrated curse, the booming report of a carriage gun, and the intruder fell facedown between the two women, a prodigiously large portion of his back blown away.

Instantly all was chaos. Women on the street shrieked and fainted, gentlemen struggled holding up their female charges or shouted impossible nonsense in that way crowds have of providing much in the way of noise but little in the way of assistance. Carriage and saddle horses reared, attempted to bolt.

Aeons later, or so it felt to Daisy, although it could not have been more than five seconds, one of the outriders appeared in the opening now partially clogged by the assailant’s body.

“He came out of the alleyway, my lady, runnin’ full-tilt. We none of us could believe what we were seein’, and then we couldn’t stop him in time. I had no choice but to shoot. No choice at all, ma’am. Are you ladies all right?”

“That might have been your first question, Jackson,” Trixie told him, using her handkerchief to wipe at bright red blood spattered all over her gown, “
before
offering your excuses. Yes, we’re perfectly fine, thanks to Miss Marchant’s quick thinking. Now kindly do me the favor of removing this clearly deceased creature lying on our feet. Wait! First turn him over, let me see his face.”

“But, ma’am, you don’t want to—”

Trixie was clearly shaken, although she struggled to retain her composure. “Another word of advice, young man. Never tell me what I want. Just do it.”

“Do as she says,” Daisy told the appalled servant in her quiet, brook-no-nonsense way. “Immediately after you retrieve the man’s knife, please. It’s dreadfully in the way.”

“I shouldn’t be doing this, miss. This is a bad thing to do.”

The body was turned face-up, revealing a youth of no more than eighteen or twenty, barely a man at all.

“Sweet Christ in His heaven,” Trixie breathed. “No.” She began shaking her head in useless denial. “No, no, no.”

“I told you, ma’am. You didn’t want to see this. None of us wants to see this.”

“How could they do this?” the dowager countess asked as she bent over to close the boy’s eyes, employ her handkerchief to ineffectually wipe at the blood that had run from his mouth. “If they felt it was necessary, why did they send you? Damned cowards.” She grabbed at the strap and leaned halfway out of the coach. “Are you out there? Are you watching?
Bastards! Look what you’ve done!
”

Daisy motioned for the outrider, now openly weeping, to remove the body, and then scooted over to sit beside Trixie. Her outburst over, she now sat staring, dry-eyed, at nothing. “Who was he?” she asked gently, sliding her arm around the slighter woman.

“The last person anyone would ever suspect of attempting to harm me, or anybody. Liam Cooper. Dear, not-too-clever Liam. Angus is...was his grandfather.”

There was the sound of something heavy being put in the boot, where it could be concealed beneath a leather tarp. Liam’s body, most certainly. Trixie bent her head and began to cry.

For the first time, Daisy noticed the swarm of curious onlookers all but surrounding the coach. Her eyes narrowed, her expression stern, one by one she pulled up the leather panels on the windows, blocking their view, locking in the smell of freshly spilled blood and the sound of Trixie’s sobs. She banged the side of her fist twice against the front side of the coach and called to the driver to move off before putting her arm around the dowager countess and drawing her against her shoulder.

The coach was on its way once more, not to the shops, but back to Cavendish Square, leaving behind a new Redgrave scandal, this one about to bloom in blood spilled on Bond Street.

* * *

V
ALENTINE
HALTED
IN
his pacing as Daisy entered her bedchamber. “How is she now?”

“Much better than she was when you first spoke with her. Oh, Valentine, it’s as if her entire world has just been knocked out from beneath her. That boy. He was so young...”

Valentine took her into his arms, pressed her head against his chest. “That
boy
nearly murdered my grandmother, and would have if you hadn’t thought quickly enough to pull her to safety. After you convinced Trixie to go upstairs, I went out to the mews. Jackson and the others told me what happened. They told me you’re a heroine, and extremely brave. Oh, and pluck to the backbone according to Jackson, taking charge the way you did. I’ll thank you for that all the days of our lives.”

She pulled away from him slightly, to look up in his face. “But it’s not true. I had no idea what was happening. I only grabbed Trixie because I reacted as a governess when the door suddenly sprung open, as if she were one of my charges about to topple from the coach. I only shake when I remember that, if I hadn’t taken the backward-facing seat, as I always did as a governess, I would have been sitting beside her and only put out my arm to keep her in her seat. If I’d done that, she couldn’t have moved before the knife struck home. If I saved your grandmother, it was only by accident. I’m no heroine.”

He kissed the tip of her nose. “You are if I say you are. You took charge when most would panic, and got the coach the hell out of there before the Watch could show up and demand answers. I dealt with them when they showed up on the doorstep earlier. There’s nothing we can do to fix what happened today, which I’m sure is already the talk of every dinner table in Mayfair.”

“Your grandmother leaned out the opening and shouted something, as if she knew someone was watching. Mostly I remember her calling them bastards, and telling them to look at what they’d done. Just as if there weren’t a throng of people already gawking at the coach after the boom of the carriage gun drew their attention.”

Valentine shook his head, not at what Trixie had shouted, but at the pain she must have been feeling to have so lost control over her reaction as to needlessly expose herself to another potential attacker. He tried to imagine her, her gown red with Liam’s blood, demanding those who’d sent him to confront what they’d done. As his mind conjured up the scene, and Trixie’s grief and outrage, he reconsidered. Whoever saw and heard her probably didn’t stop running until they were halfway back to Redgrave Manor. Or they’d never return there again, which would just make it more difficult to find and destroy them.

Because they’d be found, and they’d damn well be destroyed.

“We’re Redgraves,” he said at last. “We do nothing by half measure, I suppose. But Gideon will handle the gossip in his own haughty way, as he’s done with the other scandals, as we’ve had our share. Tongues will wag until Gideon comes to town and visits a few of his clubs, and then the talk will vanish—
Poof!
”