What an Earl Wants by Kasey Michaels

really wasn’t anything anyone could do to undo those five years. She’d be overweeningly
ambitious to believe otherwise. Which would likewise mean
there could be nothing the Earl of Saltwood could do to corrupt or correct
Adam, she thought, and then mentally added to that thought: something else that might have occurred to you considerably
sooner.
    In short, if she’d been less of a sentimental goose and more
hardheaded earlier, she would not have just passed through the most
excruciatingly embarrassing twenty-four hours of her existence, or be standing
here now in her same black hostess gown, attempting to look unconcerned that the
clock had just begun chiming out the hour of eleven, and the exasperating man
was nowhere to be seen.
    And still she hadn’t told him what he needed to know about
Adam. What he must know, why she had been so willing to sacrifice herself...and
ended making a total fool of herself.
    She would have thought, if nothing else, the earl was a man of
his word. But perhaps not. Dangling a word like murder and coupling that word with your
father should not be done lightly, not if the person doing the
dangling didn’t mean to follow through with some explanation, for pity’s sake.
Had the man no notion of what was correct?
    Jessica rolled her eyes. Of course he did. He was the earl. She was the one operating an illegal gaming
house. Then again, being an earl only proved he knew what was correct. It didn’t
naturally follow that he’d do the correct thing.
    Not that she cared. Except for the murder and the your father portions of the business.
It wasn’t as if she ever wanted to see Gideon Redgrave again. Because he was an
annoying man. Extremely annoying. Unsettling. So cocksure of himself. Why, it
put her teeth on edge, just thinking about him.
    But he had apologized about the rose. Why had he done that? Why
had he worn it in the first place? Who was this man?
    If only she could stop thinking about him....
    “Jess, he’s here.”
    “Hmm?” she said as Richard’s roughly whispered words penetrated
the introspective fog that was now her mind. She mentally shook herself back to
the moment and turned her gaze to the landing in time to see Gideon once more
looking perfectly put together, as if he’d just stepped out of a bandbox. He
really was remarkable—a dazzling mix of precision and nonchalance, his dark
handsomeness vying with his studied reserve.
    She wondered if all women felt as she did when she saw him: how
delightful it would be to see him discommoded, disheveled, vulnerable.
    At her mercy.
    Oh, dear, where had that thought come from?
    Jessica lifted a hand to her high-necked bodice, perhaps to
still her rapidly beating heart, and pasted a welcoming smile on her face as she
crossed the room to where Gideon still stood, clearly playing Master of the
Domain. Her domain.
    “I warned you not to wear armor,” was his greeting, spoken
quietly, yet reverberating inside her as if she’d suddenly grown harp strings
inside her chest and he’d just plucked them.
    The arrogance of the man! “And I did not, not this morning.
Your ridiculous state of near undress to one side, I was nothing but presentable
when I dared cross your threshold. Tonight, however, you are the guest, and what
I wear is of my concern, not yours.”
    His smile, so unexpected, nearly had her rocking back on her
heels. “Perhaps we should give your brother the dressing of both of us. He’s
convinced he’s in the very first stare of sartorial perfection.”
    Jessica couldn’t help herself; she returned his smile. “I fear
even your immense consequence could but crumble beneath the addition of a puce
waistcoat, my lord. As for me, I’d rather go na—”
    Gideon leaned in as if to hear her better. “Pardon me, I didn’t
quite catch that? You’d rather what?”
    “Could we possibly be serious, sir?” she asked, drawing herself
up to her full height, which still made her feel small and insignificant in his
presence.