He had deployed the three Runners in strategic spots around his house, each with a particular assignment, but upon reading the words now etched indelibly on his mind, he began to think three men were not enough.
Hell, a small army wouldn’t be enough to protect his beloved Gillian. He thought of how she’d looked that morning when he managed to drag himself from his bed — on her back, her hair cascading a fiery path over the white linens, a rosy glow to her cheeks and a smile on her face as she slept the sleep of the well-loved.
He made a mental note to have his man purchase more of the Oils of Araby before considering again the problem of that murdering bastard McGregor. Could Harry be right in his suggestion that the real culprit might be someone other than the Scot? And if so, who? Who hated him enough to try to destroy first his marriage and now Gillian?
Gillian. Just as soon as he made sure she was in good health, he would take her upstairs and introduce her to more of the items on his list. For her security, of course, not for his own base pleasure — if he kept her so exhausted that she was unable to leave his bed, he’d have little worry that McGregor or any other murdering bastard could make good his threat and kill her. It was, after all, his duty to keep her safe, and if this was the only way he could do so…he grinned to himself as he acknowledged that the merits of such a plan were almost unlimited.
“Lord Weston!”
Noble frowned at the footman blocking the door. His door, by God. “Yes, it’s Lord Weston, and he’d like to enter his house. Stand aside, Charles.”
“But, my lord — we thought you were out for the day.”
“Well, now I’m home. Is Lady Weston in?”
Charles blanched and stepped back when Noble pushed past him. Tremayne wandered into the hall, saw the earl, gawked for a moment, and, with a stammered excuse, spun around and dashed for the green baize door.
Noble frowned. What the devil had bit his servants?
“Lady Weston?” Noble reminded the pale Charles as he stripped off his hat and gloves.
“Er…Lady Weston?”
“Yes. Where is she?”
Charles swallowed twice and continued to stare at Noble with a chalky face.
“Are you ill, man?”
“No, my lord.”
“Excellent. Then you can tell me whether my wife is at home.”
“Ah…”
“Yer Lordship! Yer ’ome early!” Crouch shot through the door leading to the servant’s domain so quickly he was forced to grab Noble as he skidded to a halt on the well-polished parquet floor. “Eh, sorry about that, m’lord. I’ll ’ave one of the maids sew that up.”
Noble glared at the small hole in his sleeve where Crouch’s hook had snagged itself. “Where is my wife?”
“Yer wife?” Crouch looked confused. “What wife would that be, m’lord?”
“The same wife who you have, for the past week, been dancing attendance upon. Where is she? Has she gone out?’
“Well, now, that’s a right good question, m’lord.”
Noble started toward the staircase. “Is she in the drawing room? Her bedchamber? Her sitting room?”
Charles made a choking sound and fell over backward in a dead faint.
“Fellow’s ill; see to him, Crouch.”
“Aye, m’lord, I’ll do that. Eh — wouldn’t yer lordship prefer sittin’ in yer library while I find yer lady for ye?”
“I have a feeling it’s better if I find her myself, Crouch,” he replied as he marched up the stairs. He wondered what Gillian had done now to bring out the protective instincts in his staff, then chuckled over the thought. She had endeared herself to them just as quickly as she had to him. Although he couldn’t let them think he supported such a notion, it warmed him to know they would protect her against what they perceived to be his unholy temper. He chuckled again as he turned down the hall toward her sitting room. Surely it would soon become apparent that no matter what outrageous act she committed, no matter what sort of a mess she embroiled herself in, he would bear it all with nary a word to the contrary. What could she possibly do, he asked himself as he opened the door, that could raise his ire now that he knew he loved her?
“…once pretended that I was a wheelbarrow and he a gardener…oh!”
Blast it, she had friends paying her a visit. He smiled pleasantly and was about to make a bow when the woman who had been speaking, a chestnut-haired beauty with vivid blue eyes, caught his attention. She looked familiar. She looked very familiar, quite like…dear God, it couldn’t be!
Noble stared at his former mistress, his mind doing cartwheels as it tried to manufacture a reasonable explanation for what Beverly would be doing in his wife’s sitting room, talking about…wheelbarrows? A groan slipped past his lips as he recalled another time he had been feeling inventive, a most successful invention as far as he was concerned, but not one he wished discussed in front of his wife. Not with his co-inventor, anyway.
His eyes, feeling like a particularly sticky boiled sweet, swept the room to find her but stopped on the figure next to that of his ex-mistress. Surely that couldn’t be…he closed his eyes and shook his head. No, he was seeing things. Perhaps the wound to his arm had given him a fever and he hadn’t realized it. He must be delirious.
He opened his eyes again. No, there they were, standing together, Beverly and Laura. By dint of grinding his teeth together and squeezing his hands into fists he managed to keep from screaming, but it was a near thing. He took a deep breath and prepared to ask his wife just what the hell she thought she was doing, inviting his old mistresses to tea.
“Good afternoon, Lord Weston,” a smiling blond woman bobbed a curtsy. Anne, that had to be Anne; no one else had that saucy tilt to her head. Noble’s mind started to go numb around the edges. Three mistresses? No, there was Madelyn; that made four. All together, here, in this room. How lovely. He peered suspiciously at a fifth occupant. No, it wasn’t Mariah; it was Gillian’s cousin. Which meant the other person, the sixth person, the person who was standing just behind his shoulder, no doubt chewing on that delectable little lip, was his wife.
“Gillian?” he asked softly.
“Yes, Noble?” She hurried around to his side. He was gratified to see he was right, she was chewing on her lip.
“Would you care to tell me why you have seen fit to entertain four women of whom, by rights, you should not acknowledge the existence, let alone know well enough to have to tea?” Noble was quite proud of how level and calm his voice was. The voice that spoke out loud, that is. The voice in his head was shrieking like a banshee.
Gillian thought about that for a moment. “Right now?”
“If you please.”
“Perhaps it would be best if we were to leave,” Charlotte said, making a quick dip toward the Black Earl and scurrying past him in a motion reminiscent of a startled crab. He looked, in her estimation, every bit as dangerous as his sobriquet, and she had no desire to be present to witness his reaction to Gillian’s explanation. If she had the chance to make one; Charlotte sent a fervent prayer heavenward that Gillian would survive the explanation, and bolted.
“Perhaps we had better…” Madelyn rose and motioned to the other women. They all bobbed curtsies at the earl, who did not acknowledge them, his eyes at that moment being busy with the task of trying to bore holes into Gillian’s head.
Gillian tried to avoid the Lord of Glares’ eye but knew her goose was plucked, stuffed, and cooked. She opened her mouth to make an excuse.
“My lord?”
It was Dickon.
Noble snarled at him.
Dickon’s eyes opened wide at the snarl. He picked at the trim on his jacket with bloodless fingers. “Eh…my lord, there is a matter that needs your attention belowstairs.”
“What?” If Noble’s lips had snapped shut any faster, Gillian thought, he would have bit the word in two.
Dickon looked as if he was going to be ill all over the carpet. “Mr. Crouch didn’t say, my lord. He just s
aid to tell you there is something that needs your attention belowstairs.”
“Go.”
The word shot out of his mouth with the velocity of a bullet. Dickon didn’t hesitate. He went.
Gillian gave up avoiding his eye and raised her chin. “Before you commence lecturing me, I would like the opportunity to say one thing in my defense.”
Noble almost didn’t hear her, he was so busy trying to decide what to yell at her about first. “The choices are so tempting,” he said softly to himself. “They are laid out before me in a vast panoply of Bad Ideas. No, I take that back; Bad Ideas isn’t a good description of this particular venture. Taking hold of a wet, painted lantern was a Bad Idea. Bringing together four of my mistresses to discuss…my mind balks at the thought of exactly what you were discussing…bringing together my mistresses was not a Bad Idea. It was a Grievous Error of the highest degree.”
Gillian licked her lips nervously.
“Lord Weston? Lord Weston…uh…there’s an important note for you that’s just come.” It was Charles this time, a curiously pale and sweating Charles who repeatedly peered over his shoulder at something behind him. Gillian took a few steps to the side and looked beyond him. She could see a number of the staff out in the hall, huddled in a large group, evidently discussing something.
“Later.”
“But my lord—”
“Later, I said!”
Charles almost stumbled over his feet, but he managed to make it out of the room without mishap. Gillian felt the odds were fairly good that she would not be so lucky.
“Lecture, madam? You believe I am about to lecture you?”
“Aren’t you?”
Noble’s eyes narrowed as he watched her lick her lips again.
“Oh, no you don’t, my good lady wife! You will cease distracting me in such a manner.”
“Yer lordship? I hate to interrupt ye there when yer about to rip a strip off Lady Weston, but there’s a matter of a small fire in the library, and we thought ye might—”
“You thought wrong, Crouch,” Noble said, his eyes never leaving Gillian’s face.
“But yer books and such—” Crouch waved his hook about in an expressive manner. Gillian gave him a tremulous smile of gratitude. It was a sweet thought, really it was, but surely Crouch must know that nothing could save her now.
“Let them burn. The whole bloody house can come down around our ears for all I care at this moment.”
Crouch opened his mouth to say more but thought better of it. He closed the door softly behind him.
Gillian repressed the urge to flinch at the look in her husband’s eyes and instead bit her lip nervously.
“None of that delectable lip biting, either,” he said, shaking a finger at her. “It won’t work this time. I am beyond such temptations. You, madam, have finally gone too far.”
Gillian threw back her shoulders and raised her chin again. She wouldn’t try to defend herself; she was, after all, technically in the wrong, despite the fact that she had done it to help him.
Noble stared at her out-thrust bosom, sending a wave of heat out from the deepest part of her. “You can bare those delicious strawberry-tipped breasts at me for all I care,” he said, trying to snap his fingers but failing miserably. Gillian’s color rose even more as his eyes wandered over her form as if he could see right through her gown. “It will have no effect on me whatsoever. I am impervious to your charms.”
“Oh, my lord, my lady, you must come quick!” One of the parlormaids burst into the room, her eyes wild and filled with horror. She wrung her hands and tossed terrified looks back over her shoulder. “There’s a terrible fight in the hall, my lord. The Tremaynes are at it again, and one of them has a hatchet!”
Noble didn’t even flick a glance her way.
“Be gone!” he said, fluttering a hand at her.
“They’re sure to kill each other, my lord! You must come now and stop them from murderin’ each other!”
“One less person to interrupt me,” he muttered, and narrowed his eyes at Gillian as she took a precautionary step backward. She wiped her damp hands down her sides. His eyes followed her movements greedily.
“Oh,” she said breathlessly, little fires starting wherever Noble looked.
“You must come now!” the maid wailed.
“Out!” Noble said, turning to point at the open door. The maid glared at him for a minute, tossed her head, and spun around to face the hallway, her hands on her hips. “I hope you’re happy! He didn’t even look at me!”
An arm suddenly emerged through the opening, grabbed her by the elbow, and jerked her out of the room. The door closed quietly behind her.
Noble considered the closed portal for a moment. “…nine, ten,” he said. The door flung open, and a rumpled Tremayne Two rushed in. “Highwaymen, my lord! Masked highwaymen at the door! Quick, you must come and…”
Tremayne Two quite accurately read in his employer’s eyes his fate if he continued with that sentence. He turned on his heel and walked with stately dignity back through the door.
Noble tipped his head as he considered Gillian. “Do you have the feeling they are concerned for your well-being, my lady?”
“Should they not be, my lord?” she asked, hating the worry evident in her voice.
Noble pretended to think about her question. “Yes,” he said at last with a decisive nod. “Yes, they should be very, very concerned.”
He took two steps toward her and grasped her firmly by the shoulders. “Now, madam, now you will tell me exactly—” He froze as the door slowly opened behind him.
Over his shoulder Gillian could see a thin trickle of smoke gust into the room. The smoke seemed to possess a power all its own as it waved and eddied in an intricate smoke dance. It was almost as if someone were fanning it in through the door.
“My lord!”
Gillian was surprised to see Cook at the door. He cast a glance to his left, in the direction of the smoke’s origin, and cleared his throat loudly. Someone beyond him began to cough. He raised his voice to speak over the noise. “My lord, the fire has reached the first floor. Mr. Crouch has been overcome by smoke and the rest of the staff is dropping like flies. You must come now!”
Gillian fought hard to keep the smile from her face. Noble’s shoulders slumped briefly as he closed his eyes and leaned his forehead against Gillian’s. She took the opportunity to wrap her arms around his waist. He sighed noisily at the fresh spate of coughing from beyond the door.
“Cook, tell Crouch if I ever catch him at my cigars again, I’ll have his other hand.”
Crouch suddenly appeared behind the cook. He opened his mouth to speak, was taken by a paroxysm of coughing, and ended up clinging to the door frame for support. Gillian couldn’t help but notice there was a cigar stuck on the end of his hook. A long arm emerged from beyond Crouch, grabbed the cook, and slammed the door closed on both the cigar and Crouch’s hook. Gillian watched with fascinated eyes as the hook wiggled back and forth to the accompaniment of muttered oaths and odd thumpings on the door.
“Are they gone?” Noble asked without opening his eyes.
“All but Crouch’s hook and half of a cigar.”
Noble’s shoulders shook.
“There goes the hook now,” Gillian said happily over a loud, wood-splintering noise. “Would you like me to lock the door?”
“No, they’d just break it down. I will put their minds at ease with respect to your safety, my dear, but if you are not in my library in five minutes with a suitable explanation, I will feel fully justified in reneging on my word to them.”
“Five minutes? Would you consider, perhaps, an hour or two?” Gillian’s mind spun madly around, formulating and instantly discarding a number of explanations. It would take her just five minutes to work off the expletives she wanted to say in private. Any half-believable explanation would surely take at least an hour to form.
“Five minutes.”
“Half an hour?”
>
“Five…minutes.”
He tipped up her chin and kissed her very gently on her lips. Gillian felt it was a warning — he could be gentle, or he could be a raging volcano of anger. The choice of how he would hear her explanation was hers.
“Five minutes.” She sighed and began to think furiously.
In the end, she decided that the truth would have to suffice. She explained to Noble her plan to help him uncover the person behind the evil plots to harm him, and how the mistresses were to help. She pointed out that her sole motivation was to ensure his health and happiness. She mentioned that all the women were quite nice, really, and all had offered to help, although she did not mention the mistresses guild. Gillian was aware of her many faults but did not count stupidity among them. She expounded on Charlotte’s idea of locating Mariah in an attempt to ascertain what she knew about the appalling incident. She brought his attention to the fact that women were often more successful in endeavors of a covert nature, since they kept their heads better in stressful situations, though one look at Noble’s expression quickly ended that particular line of reasoning. She finished her arguments with a quick summation of the key points, made sure she stressed one last time that she was trying to help him because she loved him, and sat with her hands folded demurely and awaited judgment.
Noble had sat listening to her from behind his big mahogany desk, his fingers steepled and supporting his chin. Once or twice he had nodded as she made a point, but most of the time he watched her with an intensity that she found unnerving. His eyes glowed with a light from within their silvery depths, giving Gillian the almost overwhelming desire to shiver.
At first she listened carefully to what he was saying, as he was offering appreciation for her concern and her desire to help, but when it became clear that the rest of the lecture — and it was a lecture, despite the fact that he had assured he would refrain from lecturing — was headed for a detailed analysis of her conduct of the past few days, with particular emphasis on the outrageous nature of her plan with the mistresses, she let her mind wander. By the time he was through, however, she was unable to plan the dinners for the rest of the week, settle on what color wallpaper to use in the drawing room, or what shade of green to paint her bedchamber, as such useful lecture-passing musings were impossible to dwell upon when the Black Earl was storming around in front of her in one of his tempers.
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