What an Earl Wants (28 page)

“Wait. How will you know you aren’t taking this information to
one of the Society, or someone the Society controls?”

“Please, brother, give me some credit. I did sail with the
sainted Nelson at Trafalger, if you’ll recall.”

“As a wet-behind-the-ears coxswain, not an admiral,” Gideon
retorted, grinning, as the brothers had never been above teasing one
another.

“True. But as our own Royal Duke of Clarence has been known to
say, especially when deep in his cups, ‘There is no place superior to the
quarterdeck of a British man-of-war for the education of a gentleman.’”

His brother had never lacked audacity. “You’re taking this
directly to the duke?”

Max slipped his blue-lens glasses down onto his nose once more.
“He was a sailor with Nelson, too, in his time, and he’s third in line to the
throne the Little Corporal is after. Can you think of anyone less prone to be a
traitor?”

* * *

J
ESSICA
SAT
AT
THE
VERY
head of the bed,
her knees drawn up tight, her arms wrapped around her shins. Making herself
smaller, wishing she could disappear. She’d taken the pins from her hair, and it
now fell around her face like a living curtain, helping to hide her.

She knew what she was doing. She was eighteen again, locked in
an attic room at some foreign inn, hoping James would forget her existence, at
least for the night.

Or she was shivering, huddled on the floor in some dark corner,
holding the torn fabric of her night rail close against her, still feeling the
sting of his hand even as he snored drunkenly, sprawled naked across the width
of the only bed in the room, thinking of the many ways she could kill him.

Women were smarter. Sex was a woman’s ultimate weapon. Men
feared women because they knew females were the stronger sex.

It all sounded so wonderful, in theory. Gideon had been very
kind and understanding.

But Jessica knew the reality, as did Felicity Urban and Lady
Orford and all those other women.

All the laws were against them. The way their bodies were
formed was against them. Their lesser physical strength was against them. There
was no help, not anywhere.

There was only one way to defeat the monsters, only one way to
be completely free of them.

They had to die.

“Jessica?”

She kept her head down, saying nothing. She couldn’t face him
now, not right now. Perhaps never. Not with what she had to tell him.
Had
to tell him. Keeping the secret was no longer
possible.

“Jessica,” Gideon said again, even as she felt the weight of
his body as he sat on the side of the bed. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

“They killed them,” she said quietly, and she could feel Gideon
moving closer, the better to hear her. “They did it because they had to. There
was no other way.”

“I know,” he said softly.

She lifted her head, looked at him through her hair. “Do you?
Can you, really? Or should they have asked for help, or found a way to
disappear? Did they really have to kill them? Is there any way to justify what
they did?”

“The law wouldn’t help, even if the women could get anyone to
believe what they were told. The same for their families, I’m afraid. The truth
is too bizarre. If they tried to run off, they could be found, dragged back, and
God only knows what would have happened to them then. They watched other women
die, others perhaps take their own lives, others locked up. There comes a point,
Jessica, when the only alternative is no longer unthinkable.”

Tendrils of hair clung to her damp cheeks, and she used the
palms of her hands to push them aside. “Do you know what it’s like to have no
power over your own life, your own body? You become a
thing.
You can cry, and despair, and feel so much anger inside you,
so much hate...until one day you don’t feel anything anymore. Nothing. That’s
the worst, feeling nothing, most especially not hope. You even begin to blame
yourself, believe what he’s telling you, that you’re worthless, that something’s
wrong
with you. Your father gave you away, was
going to turn you over to monsters, nobody was ever going to save you and you
couldn’t save yourself. There was nothing. Just...nothing. Mrs. Urban said my
father may have been trying to save me.
Save
me? But
I couldn’t know that, could I? I’ll never know if that was true. He was a
terrible man, I know that, but if he had tried to save me...? It would mean so
much.”

Gideon sat beside her and pulled her close, his arm around her
shoulders. “No more, Jessica. It’s over now. You’ve come so far, and you
accomplished it all on your own.” He pressed a kiss against her hair. “You’re
remarkable. I knew it from the first moment I saw you, and I believe it more
every day.”

She wasn’t ready to listen. “I’ve tried so hard to forget, to
put it behind me. Like some bad dream. Pretend it never happened. Now it’s all
come back. The worst of it...”

“I shouldn’t have taken you along today,” he said, stroking her
arm as if to comfort her. “I had no idea Felicity Urban was going to say what
she said. I’d assumed from the first the Society was killing its own members.
You didn’t need to hear that.”

“But perhaps I did.” Jessica pushed herself away from him,
needing to see his face when she said what she had to say. “I know Richard
didn’t tell you the entire truth about the night James...died. I’ve tried to
tell myself it didn’t matter, that you didn’t need to know.”

“And I don’t,” Gideon told her. “Jessica, there’s a future out
there for us now, if we want it. I know I want it, just as I know I rushed you
into bed, into marriage. I’m an arrogant bastard, God knows I am, and when I see
something I want, I go after it, often without considering the consequences. You
know that. You pointed it out to me quite well. I don’t own you. I don’t want to
own you. I want you with me, I want to be with you. You, sweetheart. Not your
past, and not mine. What we have, what I hope we have, begins now.”

Jessica was crying in earnest now, her tears running down her
face, blurring her vision. He hadn’t said the words, but he’d said everything
but the words.
I truly do love you.

She couldn’t allow him to say those words until she told him
what she had to tell him. Needed to tell him.

“The...the night James died. It was one of the worst. He’d
lost, badly, and he blamed me. We were stranded at the inn for several days
because of the weather. After three nights, the other players were used to
seeing me, and were ignoring me. That’s why he lost. He didn’t even have enough
money to pay for our lodging. He said...he said there were men who liked their
women...reluctant. He’d already arranged for someone to come to our room that
same night.”

“Jessica, don’t...”

She held up her hand to stop him. “I told him, no, begged him.
No, please, no. I’m your wife, you can’t do this, you promised. He hit me, and
then he threw me down on the bed and straddled me. He...he had lengths of cloth,
and he was going to tie my arms and legs to the bedposts. First...first he
shoved one of the cloths into my mouth, so I couldn’t scream. I wanted to die. I
just wanted to die. Except I couldn’t. You don’t die just because you want to.
So I fought him. One moment I was struggling to keep him from grabbing my wrist,
and the next he was this heavy weight on top of me.”

“Richard.”

Jessica nodded. “He’d hit him with something. I managed to
wriggle out from beneath James, and then suddenly he was turned on his back, and
now it was this man I recognized from the nights at the card table, straddling
my husband. He grabbed a pillow and pressed it down over James’s face.”

“It’s all right. I already know that, Jessica. Richard did tell
me.”

She began shaking her head. “Not all of it. I knew what was
happening. The stranger was going to smother my husband, rid me of my problem.
And all I could think was, good, good,
do it.
I
didn’t know who this stranger was, but he’d seemed kind, and anyone was better
than James, what I’d already endured, what James had planned for me now. I
wanted him
dead.
But then...then James began to
struggle. I was terrified! It wasn’t going to work. My rescuer couldn’t hold him
down on his own, it was all going to be for nothing, and James would punish me.
It would be even worse than before. I couldn’t face that, I couldn’t. When the
man told me to help him, told me to sit on James’s legs...”

“Oh, sweetheart...”

Jessica looked at Gideon through her tears. “I didn’t want to
tell you. I never wanted to tell you. I told myself I could forget, that it was
long ago and...and I had no choice. Like those women. I’m not who you think I
am. I’m a murderess. I helped kill my own husband. There should have been
another way, shouldn’t there? For those women, for me? Was there really no other
choice?”

He gathered her to him, pulling her half across his lap. She
grabbed on to him, holding on fiercely, needing him close. “It’s all right, it’s
all right,” he crooned over and over again, rocking her as he would a child. “It
was his life or yours, sweetheart. That’s all there is to it. No, there was no
other choice. I just thank God for Richard, and that you had the courage to help
save yourself. It’s all right, all right...you did what was right...”

And still she held on, seeking his comfort, needing his
reassurance, some sort of absolution. Until the pictures in her mind began to
fade. Until it was Gideon she felt all around her, strong and sure, and not the
struggles of her dying husband. Until her body began to relax, her mind begin to
drift. Until she was free, until the past at last faded and only the future
remained. Until she sighed and closed her eyes, and finally drifted into
sleep.

It was dark beyond the windows when she awoke and eased herself
into a more comfortable position.

“Jessica?”

She snuggled closer to the warmth of Gideon’s body.
Don’t let go, don’t let go.

“Sweetheart? Open your eyes, please. I saw them open a moment
ago. Come on, do it again. I want to tell you something.”

“You don’t have to, Gideon. I know what I did was wrong. I’ve
always known. But I’d do it again, I really would. I only wish I’d done it
before Richard had to share my sin.”

“I see. And those women? Were they wrong, too? You told me they
had no other choice. But you, alone, barely more than a girl, trapped into
marriage with a man of no conscience, adrift in a strange country—you could have
done it differently? You absolve those women, but you can’t absolve
yourself?”

“Don’t—”

“Don’t what, Jessica? Don’t confuse you with facts? The sin
isn’t yours, nor is it Richard’s. The sin belongs to James Linden. The sin
belongs to all, men and women alike, who take advantage of the weak and helpless
just because they can. And their mistake is in believing their victims are
incapable of defending themselves.”

“Richard said it was war, and James was the enemy.”

“Richard’s a very wise man. And in war, when it’s kill or be
killed, you can’t hesitate, you can’t hold back when you get the chance to
strike the final blow.”

“I know,” she said, sighing. “Inside my head, I know. I didn’t
know if
you
knew. I wanted to tell you. From the
beginning, Gideon, I wanted to tell you.”

“And now you have,” he said, cupping her cheek in his hand.
“And the world hasn’t ended, has it? In fact, nothing has changed, except, I
sincerely hope, your heart is lighter. Your secret was a burden you shouldn’t
have carried this long. You didn’t
cause
any of
this. God, it began with my own grandfather.”

“No,” she said, pressing her fingers against his mouth. “It
began when time began. There’s always been opportunities for evil in the world,
just as there’s always been opportunities for good. I met a priest a few years
ago, when Richard and I were in Belgium. He told me God gives a choice between
the two, but it’s up to us which one we choose. I didn’t understand him then,
but I think I do now. I’m so glad I met you, Gideon. Thank you.”

He put his hand on top of hers, kissed her fingers. “You’re
classing me with the good, sweetheart? I’m flattered. No, I’m humbled. I could
point out all the possible flaws in your assessment of me, but I’d like to
believe I’m not an idiot.”

She gave his chest a playful push. “I didn’t say you’re
perfect,
Giddy,
” she told him, laughing, her heart
feeling light and free and fairly
giddy
itself. The
storm was finally over, her personal storm, her last demon laid to rest, even if
so much else remained unsettled and uncertain. “You’re arrogant, not above
pushing your advantage, rather enjoy intimidating people. You have a tendency, I
believe, to think you’re always right. Oh, and when you stick that quizzing
glass to your eye you look positively—”

She giggled as he put her down on her back, bringing his face
close to hers. “I look positively what?” he asked her.

“Positively wonderful,” she told him as he brought his mouth
down on hers, and her eyes fluttered closed, the better to experience the
sensation his touch sent shimmering along her body.

“I have so much to tell you,” he whispered against her ear. “So
very many things. Important things. But none so important as this. I love you,
Jessica Redgrave. I want to spend my lifetime loving you. Beginning now.”

He took her mouth again, and her surrender was swift and total.
There had always been passion, from the first moment he’d touched her. No, from
the first moment she’d seen him standing just inside the door on Jermyn Street,
looking for all the world as if he owned the room and everyone in it.

She’d believed her months with James Linden had damaged
something within her, had destroyed whatever womanly feelings she could ever
have. Any desire she might otherwise have had.