Shaking away the image, she tapped her finger on the letter. “However, there are times when one has to breach protocol, such as in the case of an emergency. For instance, what if someone near to you — oh, let us just pull a person out of thin air and use your father for this example — if you knew that your father was in peril, and that you could save him if only you knew his whereabouts, and that those whereabouts might be ascertained if you were to read a letter addressed to him in a very definitely feminine hand on paper so scented with lilac that it could drop a horse at thirty paces; why then, you would be fully justified in reading that letter, wouldn’t you? Even though you would not consider such an action under normal circumstances?”
Nick tipped his head to one side as he watched his stepmother, then nodded again. He wondered why she didn’t just read the letter, instead of making a fuss about it. He shrugged again and popped a whole apple tart into his mouth.
“I am so glad you agree with me, Nick. We shall get along just famously, I can tell. Now, since we are in agreement about when it is appropriate to throw the niceties out the window, I believe I can say without hesitation that the situation of your missing father clearly falls under the heading of an emergency.”
Nick looked up from the apple tart crumbs and raised an eyebrow in perfect imitation of Noble at his most quizzical.
“You do not agree that the letter should be read?”
Nick blinked at her.
“Or you do not agree that your father is missing?”
He nodded.
Gillian waved the letter gently back and forth as she thought about this. She considered explaining to him just what a fragile state of emotion his father was in. She contemplated telling him her plan to breach the walls Noble had built around his heart. She thought long about informing him that there were things that she, as an adult, saw that he did not.
She considered whether or not she wanted to make up any more excuses, decided against it, and read the letter.
Two minutes later, Nick, his hunger abated, watched Gillian as she paced the room and muttered expletives under her breath. He had been prepared to dislike the woman his father brought home as his new mother, but something about Gillian had put him immediately at ease. She was unlike anyone he had ever met. He didn’t understand why she had immediately accepted him as her son, for despite his father’s attempt at shielding him from the worst, he understood the harsh words the villagers used toward him. He knew that for some reason he was defective and wasn’t the heir his father needed, but he didn’t dwell on that shortcoming. It brought back too many painful memories of another mother and a terrifying night that had seemed to last for years.
He watched Gillian now as she paced and mumbled to herself. Was she talking about his father? He assumed she was, but her attitude didn’t make sense. One minute she was saying things about a poor, deluded man who had suffered so much he didn’t know how to love, the next minute she was threatening to emasculate him if he thought to play her false, especially after the most satisfying wedding night in the history of the world. Nick wondered just what exactly emasculating consisted of, decided by the expression on Gillian’s face it wasn’t pleasant, and settled back in the chair, content to watch her.
She seemed to struggle with a thought for a moment as she stood before the window gazing out at the darkening sky, tapping a finger on her lips; then she nodded twice and turned to face him.
“I have decided to save your father.”
He looked at her in surprise. Was his father in need of saving? Nick couldn’t imagine anyone as big and powerful as his father in need of help. He frowned. Despite her height, Gillian was thin and didn’t have much bulk. He doubted she would be of much assistance.
“He needs saving, Nicholas, and I am just the woman to save him. He’s too pigheaded to admit that, and ’tis the truth part of that fault could lie with the fact that we are not very well acquainted yet. Still, he is my husband now, and I owe him my help as well as my loyalty. You can stop shaking your head at me, Nick. I have made up my mind. Do you wish to come with me?”
His father’s obsession with order and control had seen to it that life at Nethercote, while pleasant, was dull and unexciting. Gillian’s arrival had brought a swirl of adventure that struck a deep chord in the boy. Nick yearned to ask his stepmother where they were going, but the visions of that black night long ago were too strong. He nodded instead.
She nodded back, and then started out the door, calling over her shoulder, “I will be back shortly. We don’t want any gossip, so I must change my clothing. The boots, I think, will suit. He is about my size.”
Some forty minutes later, Gillian scratched at the rough neckcloth as she sat back against the uncomfortable squabs of the hired hack and peered out the grimy, flyspecked window at the darkened house beyond. It was a modest-sized house of red brick, situated in a conservative, pleasant neighborhood. She frowned at the staid front of the house and nibbled on her lip. This wasn’t the sort of domicile in which she had expected Noble to keep his mistress. She took another look down the gently curved street. God’s knuckles, it was all wrong — this was not the sort of neighborhood she expected would tolerate a member of the demimonde. Did all mistresses live so well?
“Well, there’s nothing for it but to knock,” she muttered and, pulling at the boots’ waistcoat, she straightened her shoulders and allowed Nick to help her out of the hack before turning back to the driver.
“Please remain here, sir. I will have need of you again in a few minutes.”
The driver nodded. Holding tight to what remained of her quickly evaporating confidence, Gillian strode up the stairs with her son in tow and wielded the knocker briskly.
“Perhaps they are all abed,” she commented to Nick two minutes later. As he was wont to do, he raised one eyebrow in a youthful imitation of his father. Gillian bit back a smile and used the knocker again, rapping loudly against the white door.
The sound echoed through the house.
“No one appears to be home,” she said thoughtfully and, with a quick glance at her stepson, put her hand on the latch.
The door swung open. Gillian and Nick peered into the darkened hallway and listened. There was no sound but a muffled thumping from somewhere upstairs.
“Good evening?” Gillian was ashamed of the brief quaver in her voice. It was ridiculous to be afraid. This was her husband’s house, after all, and no matter whom he chose to install in it, she had a right to be here. A movement by her side made her realize she had taken Nick’s hand and was clutching it tightly. She made herself relax the grip, and with a smile she felt far from meaning, stepped over the threshold.
“Is anyone at home?”
Her voice echoed eerily around the small hallway illuminated faintly by the streetlights. To her right was a white staircase that presumably led upstairs, although all she could make out was a ghostly parade of steps dissolving into complete and utter blackness. She fought back a shiver, then froze as Nick suddenly dropped her hand and disappeared into the inky darkness.
“Nick, return to me this instant! You have no idea what sort of…oh, thank you!” The scrape of flint brought relief to Gillian as her brilliant and resourceful son lit a rack of candles found on a small ornate table at the foot of the stairs. The hall didn’t look nearly so menacing once it was lit by the soft glow of candles. Nick lit the tapers in another rack; then, taking it in hand, he tipped his head toward the stairs and looked an obvious question to Gillian.
“I suppose,” she said softly, stepping into the hall, “that you would like us to investigate those mysterious noises coming from somewhere upstairs?”
Nick nodded and held out his hand. Gillian was touched by the gesture. She took a step forward and captured his warm hand in hers.
“You are very brave, do you know that? Much braver than I, for ’tis the truth that although I am just as curious as you, my knees feel as if they are made of water. Well, come my valiant knight, shall we see
what is making those thumping noises?”
Nick graced her with another of his rare smiles and the two mounted the stairs with much stealth.
“Bloody…ow…hell!” A cat’s outraged yowl curled up and around Gillian as she trod an intricate dance trying to avoid stepping on the small black animal as it wound around her ankle. Nick clutched her by the lapels of her coat and tugged her away from the stairs as she detached the cat’s claws from her ankle.
“I’m sorry, puss, I did not see your tail there, although I must say the landing is not the best place to keep it.” The cat shot Gillian a belligerent look, and with a haughty flick of its abused tail, marched down the stairs, voicing its opinion of people who didn’t watch where they were stepping.
Gillian and Nick smiled at one another, but their smiles faded as the thumping seemed to gain a new energy.
“The second floor, I believe,” Gillian said thoughtfully after listening to the rhythmic noise for a moment. It was not, as she had hoped, a loose shutter banging in the wind. There was clearly someone or something upstairs making the noise.
“Perhaps it is only another cat, trapped in a closet,” she said hopefully, trying to calm her jangled nerves as they climbed the next flight of stairs. Nick didn’t look as if he believed her suggestion. ’Twas the truth, she didn’t either. “Stay behind me, Nick.”
The pair looked down a dark hallway. The noise was definitely coming from a room to their right, a bedchamber, she assumed. Gillian patted the pocket of the boots’ jacket nervously, then pushing Nick behind her, took a deep breath and started down the hallway.
“If there’s any trouble, I want you to fetch the hack driver,” she whispered over her shoulder to him. “Tell him to bring the watch.”
Nick nodded abruptly, then pointed to the closed door before them. The muffled thumping sounds were louder, clearly originating in the room beyond the door.
Gillian’s mouth went dry as she reached out to open the door. What was making the horrible thudding noise? A corpse, hanging from the rafters and swaying against the wall? A huge, unchained beast throwing itself around the room as it bit with slavering jaws at anything it sighted? A deformed and mutilated person too hideous to be let out of the room, forced to drag his legless torso around his chamber prison by walking on his twisted and grotesque arms?
Almost swooning at the thought of the horror to be found within the room, Gillian patted her pocket again, sent a quick glance at Nick standing several paces back, and, holding the candle rack high, threw open the door.
“Oh my God!” Gillian screamed and stared at the atrocity before her. It was terrible! It was heinous! It made her skin crawl with the sheer, unadulterated abomination of it all!
It was her husband. Naked. Spread-eagled. Shackled to the bedposts. And if the expression on his face was anything to go by, ready to kill the first person who came within reach.
“Noble! What on earth are you doing? Is this some sort of strange game you are playing? My aunt told me that some men enjoy such rough bed sport, but really husband, I had not thought it of you.”
He was also gagged, a fact for which she was briefly grateful since the look he gave her was enough to peel paint.
Nick peered in the doorway, astonishment clearly writ on his young face. Gillian sidled up to the bed and tried to avoid her husband’s infuriated, icy gaze.
“I take it by your silence that your participation in this…uh…pose is not voluntary?”
Noble banged his head back against the headboard.
“I assume one thump means no, husband?”
His eyes narrowed at her. She let her gaze wander over his bared form, looking for signs of injury. There were none, except…
“Dear God! Noble, you’re…you’re broken! What happened? Oh, those villains! How could they do this to you? You poor, poor man, how you must have suffered!”
She reached out a hand to touch that portion of his anatomy that lay limp along his thigh, intending to cradle the beloved injured part, but Noble’s sudden agitated movements and head bangings stopped her. Of course, how cruel, how unthinking she was. He was obviously embarrassed and didn’t want her sympathy in this, his time of need — not when his son was standing by watching with bright, intelligent eyes. She fought back a tear and gave her husband a reassuring nod, then turned her attention to the shackles around his ankles.
God’s truth, although it looked to be an uncomfortable position, and her husband was clearly spitting mad, it did display his masculine attributes to advantage. If only the dastards hadn’t broken one of his more interesting bits. Gillian gave herself a moment or two to grieve the damage to that item, then turned her attention to admire his heavily muscled thighs and calves before another muffled protestation had her prodding the manacles.
“They are locked,” she said, looking up. Truly, she hadn’t realized the Lord of Masculinity’s chest was quite so broad, although perhaps having his arms stretched out had a broadening affect on it. She considered the manner, eyes narrowing with concentration as she let her gaze wander over his torso, imagining his arms to his side. No, ’twas the truth his chest was really that broad and not just an optical illusion. She wondered briefly how many hand spans wide his chest was, and was just reaching out with the intention of satisfying that curiosity when another gargled and furious noise stopped her in midstretch. Noble banged his head against the headboard twice and rolled his eyes at her.
“Oh, of course, the gag. Why didn’t you say you wanted it off first? Here, lift your head and I will reach behind…”
The knot was tied tightly, and it took Gillian, draped across Noble’s heaving chest as she wrestled with the obstinate cloth, several minutes before she could pull the obnoxious item from his mouth.
The spate of profanities that followed confirmed her earlier thoughts. He was very angry. Casting periodic nervous glances at Nick, who gazed at his father with a placid expression that didn’t fool her for one moment, she finally interrupted what appeared to be a lengthy discussion of the tortures Noble was going to inflict upon whoever had placed him in this position.
“I think your plan with the iron maiden and saltpeter is a good one, my dearest, but first I would have you released from this bondage.”
Several minutes later, when Noble could speak without incorporating further plans for revenge in his comments, he replied hoarsely to Gillian’s earlier statement.
“The key is on the dressing table. I’ve been staring at it all bloody evening.”
Nick headed for the table while Gillian sat down on the bed next to her confined husband and absently laid a hand on his bare chest. He was warm. Very warm. “Who did this horrible thing to you, Noble?”
The Black Earl closed his eyes. “I don’t know, although I have a suspicion.”
“You didn’t see who stripped you naked and chained you to a bed in your mistress’s house?”
“No. I was struck on the head when I entered the house.” Noble groaned slightly as Gillian’s hand gently stroked his chest in a reassuring manner. Rather, Noble corrected grimly, it might have been meant to reassure him, but unfortunately his wife’s presence was having another effect that would be all too evident if she continued her present attentions.
His wife’s presence?
“What the devil are you doing here?” Noble roared, startling Gillian out of her reverie. She jumped, her fingers still entwined in the soft hairs on his chest. Noble gave another roar, this time of outraged pain. “You’re supposed to be at Nethercote! I do not recall giving you permission to leave!”
Gillian glanced over toward the dressing table. Nick held up a key and cocked a brow. Gillian shook her head slightly.
“I was not aware that I was a prisoner, to be held captive until you decided to set me free.”
“You’re not a prisoner, damn it, but I expect you to stay where you’re put. When I give an order, it is to be carried out without question.” Noble took a deep breath. Lord but she was pretty, even dressed
in the ratty clothes of a boy. As a disguise, it was hopeless. Long tendrils of red hair fell out of a blue knit cap, and no man with eyes in his head could mistake the rounded feminine curves displayed by a tightly fitted black waistcoat and breeches. A movement beyond her recalled his son’s presence to mind. The wave of heat centered on his groin was immediately cooled, as if he had been dowsed with a bucket of snow.
“I see,” Gillian replied to his statement stiffly and, disentangling her hand, stood and moved to the foot of the bed. “I was unaware that you had give me an order, my lord.”
“I did. And you have disobeyed that order.”
Gillian said nothing, but her expression told Noble she wasn’t pleased with that comment. Obviously, she needed instruction on how to order her own life so that she wasn’t always finding herself in situations out of her control. There was no time like the present to begin her training.
“Without order, wife, there is chaos, and chaos in our lives is not to be tolerated — it wastes our time, drains us of energies better spent at other endeavors, and creates worry and concern when the mind should be calm and peaceful. Would you agree with that statement?”
Gillian’s eyes widened and her lips trembled at his words. Clearly she was overcome by his masterful use of imagery. Still silent, she nodded her head abruptly, then crossed her arms over her chest, pulling the short jacket up and throwing the gentle curve of her hips into relief against the wall behind her. Noble cleared his throat and continued.
“I’m doing my best to make order out of the chaos that seems to follow you everywhere, but God knows it isn’t easy.” Had her legs been this long the night before? The breeches seemed to go on forever, stretching over lush, long thighs. Noble thought briefly of the way her legs had wrapped around his hips and decided they were the same length, then dragged his mind back to the task at hand. He wouldn’t think of her legs while his son was present. He wouldn’t think of how long they were, or how the shapely contour of her calf made his mouth go dry, or the silken feeling of her leg as it rubbed down his own…God’s teeth, he’d be shaming himself in a minute. Grimly, Noble envisioned scenes of war, pestilence, and mutilation.
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