It was ridiculous. It was about arrogance — his arrogance and pride and nothing more. Gillian had not betrayed him with Lord Carlisle, nor, from all accounts, had Carlisle behaved in an improper manner toward her. The fault for the entire situation lay squarely upon his shoulders.
He thought about this as he splashed water on his face and chest. What was to keep him from sending an apology to Carlisle and backing away from the challenge? It could be done; it was done all the time. He would have to take a little ribbing about the situation, but that would soon die down, and the promise of endless nights lying in his wife’s arms would make even the worst ragging bearable.
Ah, those nights, he thought to himself. He wanted those nights, all of those nights with her, all of her forever. That simple realization made him breathe easier. Nodding to himself, he sat at a small writing table and wrote a note to Carlisle apologizing for his comments and accusations, then enclosed it in another to Harry, his second, with instructions to see that Carlisle received it immediately. He sent Tremayne out to rouse a footman to deliver the letter; then, satisfied that he had solved the problem in a manner that would greatly please his wife, he headed for his bedchamber to please her in other, more tangible, ways.
Gillian was waiting for him. After tucking Nick into her bed, she had disrobed, bathed her eyes, and hurried through the connecting door to have Noble’s snifter of brandy ready when he arrived. Tremayne’s voice filtered through from the attached dressing room, alerting her to Noble’s presence. She tucked her feet under her as she sat before the fire, warming the brandy. First she would get him to drink the brandy, then she would tell him about Nick.
Noble threw open the door to his bedchamber and paused dramatically, one hand on the door, the other on his heart.
“Wife!” he said in a deep voice that rumbled around Gillian in a manner that made her knees turn to water. The look in his eyes made her own widen — God’s drawers, how was she to get the brandy in him when he was wearing that look? How was she even to hand him the glass when his very glance made her tremble with anticipation?
“Noble!” she squeaked and, taking the glass in both hands, held it out to him.
“Gillian!” he answered and, raking those parts of her visible with a look that left no doubt in her mind as to his intent, he stalked toward her. Slowly. As he smiled. Gillian’s hands twitched, sloshing the brandy around inside the rounded balloon of the glass.
“Brandy?” she gasped. He didn’t even look at the glass as he plucked it from her hands and set it down on a nearby table, then turned and plucked her off the ground just as easily. Gillian blinked to find herself suddenly seated on her husband’s lap, the soft satin of his dressing gown sliding sinuously beneath her fingers.
Noble cupped her head between his hands and gazed into her eyes. “I am about to make you very happy, wife.”
Gillian squirmed against the protrusion poking her in the thigh. “Yes, I can feel that you are, you always do, Noble, but you know, I really think before you make me very happy, you ought to have a sip of brandy. It’s been a long and strenuous day, and now that you’re talking to me again, you probably need a little something to help you relax and calm your heated…uh…brain.”
She held out the brandy to him again. He took the glass and leaned down to kiss her. Gillian heard the clink of the glass striking the table just before his tongue slipped in between her lips.
“Ah, yes, my darling, moan for me,” he said against her lips. “I love it when you moan, Gillian. Your moans make my toes curl. Moan again.”
Gillian opened her eyes and looked up at her Lord of Curled Toes. “Brandy.”
He handed her the glass. “No, you must drink it,” she said quickly and pushed it at him.
“I don’t care for any; you have it,” he said, taking the glass and putting it to her lips.
“No!” she squealed, and clamped her lips tight until he removed it. God’s garters, he was making it difficult to get a simple little draught inside him.
“A simple little draught of what?” he asked, his eyelids low over his eyes as he bathed her in a look so seductive, she felt her skin tingle with excitement. His hands started those marvelous, familiar little fires all over her person, turning the skin tingles into a raging inferno. She looked down. How had he managed to take off her dressing gown without her knowing it?
“I’ll tell you if you tell me what the draught is,” he said, and began nibbling on her nape. “Is it something good for me? Something to improve my stamina? Something to bring the wellspring of vigor and manliness bubbling forth? Is it”—he traced the outside of her ear while she moaned softly—“something that will allow me to pleasure you all night long without a break?”
“Oh, yes,” Gillian said, her mind refusing to consider anything but that one attractive thought. Noble’s face hovered before her, his breath mingling with her breath, his lips so close she could feel the heat from his mouth.
“Then I shall take it, my lovely wife. And then I shall introduce you to yet another item on my list, and once you’ve shouted my name out to the heavens at least four times, then I shall tell you my secret.”
Secrets. His name, making her shout it. Four times!
Noble tossed back the brandy with one quick movement, then scooped Gillian up and carried her to bed.
“And now, my little kumquat, I shall kiss you silly, then proceed to item number eight on the list.”
“Item number eight?” she gasped as his lips nibbled a path beneath her breasts. “Number eight? Didn’t that involve two lemon wedges and a pot of strawberry jam?”
“What a good memory you have,” he said as his mouth made ever-narrowing circles around her breasts. Gillian felt her nipples harden to pebbles as his breath steamed over them.
“You would think,” he said, his tongue snaking out to quickly lick a pert little nipple, “that if I were to breathe warm air on this little morsel, it would lose its wrinkles.”
He breathed hot, steamy air over her wet nipple. Gillian’s back arched as her hands kneaded the muscles in his shoulders.
“But I find that the opposite is true. How very curious.”
“Yes, how very curious indeed, my lord.” Gillian gave up trying to talk, or breathe for that matter. She just existed, one big, quivering mound of flesh whose sole purpose in life was to give pleasure to Noble. As he was exploring the strange phenomenon of nipple physics with her other breast, Gillian gathered her wits long enough to let her fingers roam over the muscled bulges of his shoulders and back, down over the silky skin on his behind, and lower, to that part of him he enjoyed having squeezed ever so lightly. She squeezed. He moaned against her breast. She squeezed again. He reared up, his eyes flashing silver, and with one hand spread her legs and entered her with a deep thrust.
She shouted his name.
“That’s once,” he groaned, and withdrew himself almost completely. Her hands were tangled in his hair, pulling his face toward hers, licking and nipping at his chin until he gave her what she wanted. Her tongue was wild in his mouth, twisting and twining around his, dancing an erotic tongue waltz, stroking and cajoling his tongue into joining with it in a celebration of tonguely love. He slid a hand down her sleek belly, spreading his fingers wide as they combed through her fiery curls, then seeking lower, parting, probing the hot, wet inner parts of her. Gillian writhed against his fingers and, tearing her mouth from his, shouted his name again.
“That’s twice,” he said hoarsely and, hooking her knees with his arms, pushed forward against her, reveling in the feeling of her silken sheath tightening and spasming against his hard length. He stared into her emerald eyes, made soft and misty with passion as he withdrew slowly, then surged back into her with short, powerful thrusts.
Her nails bit hard into his shoulders and raked long lines down his back. He felt the sting of sweat on the scratches, driving him on harder and faster. A fog started to settle over his eyes, a fog of lust. He shook the fog away and focused hi
s eyes on Gillian’s green, endlessly deep pools of emerald. She cried his name again.
“Three times,” he grunted as the fog thickened. He was panting now, panting in time to the rhythm their bodies had set, groaning with each plunge deep into Gillian’s body, gasping for air with each withdrawal. The world ceased to exist beyond the confines of their bodies. There was just Noble and Gillian and nothing else. He stretched and reached for the moment when even the two of them would no longer exist, replaced instead by the glorious being made up of their souls merged together.
The fog seeped into his mind, slowing and focusing his brain until there was just one thought that filled him.
He looked through blurred eyes at the woman writhing beneath him, twisting and turning, matching her thrusts to his, her green eyes blazing almost as bright as the fiery hair spread out above her.
“I…” He thrust his entire length into her, and then pulled back slightly.
“…love…” Her hips lunged upward to meet his. He blinked, but the fog was too thick. He couldn’t see her fire anymore.
“…you…” His back arched as he lifted her up to him, plunging deeper than he’d ever been before. He heard her sob out his name just before he cried out hers, a light bursting from behind his eyes, blinding him to everything but the beauty and wonder and love that was his Gillian.
“Four,” he sighed, collapsing on her as he slowly sank into a black pool of oblivion.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“M’lady? Pssst. M’lady, are ye awake?”
Gillian gently pushed Noble’s arm aside and peered over his biceps. “Crouch? Is that you, Crouch?”
“Aye, m’lady, yer needed.”
Gillian brushed her hair from her eyes, stole a quick glance at Noble to make sure he was still sleeping, sent another glance downward to verify that she was covered as decently as possible, discovered that the bed linens must have been kicked off sometime during the night, and blushed when she realized the only thing covering her womanly parts was her husband.
“Crouch, this really is the outside of enough! I don’t believe it’s proper for a butler, even a pirate butler, to come marching into one’s bedchamber.”
“I’ave m’eyes covered, m’lady.”
“I can see that, Crouch, but I can also see that you are peeking, and if you think I won’t tell Lord Weston that, you are sadly mistaken.”
Crouch’s fingers slammed into tight formation. “ ’Tis those bits o’ ’is lordship’s muslins. They’re back and they won’t leave.”
“The mistresses? His mistresses, or rather ex-mistresses, since they are no longer in his employ, and even if they were, he wouldn’t employ all of them at the same time, although if last night was anything to go by…” She gazed at her sleeping husband’s face thoughtfully. “…but no, my mind is wandering. Crouch, please tell the ladies I will be down shortly.”
“Aye, m’lady.”
“Oh, Crouch?”
The butler tipped his head in question.
“You didn’t really see anything you shouldn’t have, did you?”
“No, m’lady, just ’is lordship’s arse, and the sight o’ that’s nothin’ that fills me with joy.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Gillian said, reaching a fond hand over and stroking Noble’s lovely behind. “The sight of it fills me with joy. I think it’s quite a nice behind, as behinds go.”
“Mmmm?” Noble murmured, and tightened his arm around Gillian.
“Nothing, my love,” Gillian cooed into his ear. “Crouch and I were just discussing your arse.”
“Aye, m’lord. ’Er ladyship is of the opinion it’s a sight to bring joy to the eye, but I’ve been debatin’ the point with ’er.” He eyed Noble with pursed lips, scratching at his chin with the sharp point of his hook. “Not that it ain’t attractive on its own, I reckon. If you like that sort of thing.”
“Crouch?” Noble breathed sleepily.
“Which I do, Crouch, and I’ll thank you to keep your disparaging comments to yourself and be about your business. I will tend to his lordship’s behind. And stop that peeking.”
Crouch grinned and, feeling the way toward the door with his hook, made his exit.
Gillian slid out from under the arm and leg Noble had tossed over her and stood for a moment, admiring his derriere. It was a very nice one. She put out a hand and pressed gently.
“I don’t know what Crouch is nattering on about. It’s very fit. I bet I could bounce a shilling off it if I were so inclined.”
With that happy thought she went to prepare to greet the mistresses.
Noble rolled onto his back and stretched carefully. His head felt like someone had been pounding on it with an anvil while his mouth tasted worse than something extremely nasty that he didn’t want to go to the trouble to think of lest it make his headache worse and his tongue feel even thicker.
He rolled out of bed and, pulling the bell cord, staggered into his dressing room to attend to his morning ablutions.
It was while he was sitting in the armchair as Tremayne was shaving him that a faint thought wended its way through the fogged labyrinth of his mind and suddenly stood up and caught his attention.
“My arse?” he roared, startling Tremayne into dumping the basin of warm water down the earl’s front. “She had Crouch in admiring my arse?”
“I really couldn’t say, m’lord. I wasn’t present. Would you like me to consult Crouch about this grave question?”
“Don’t be smart, Tremayne,” Noble snapped, and allowed his shirt to be removed, the water mopped up, and a fresh garment reapplied.
“My arse,” he said later as he strode down the hallway and leaped down the stairs. Midway to the breakfast room he passed his son.
“Good morning, Papa,” Nick said.
“Morning, Nick. My arse!” Noble fumed, and stormed into the breakfast room. He would have a thing or two to say to his wife about conducting tours of his person when he was asleep. “Wife, I have a few — oh, hell. Where is she…uh…which one are you?”
“Forsythe, m’lord. I’m one of the Runners her ladyship hired.”
“Oh, yes, well, have you seen Lady Weston this morning?”
The slight little man in livery too large for him shook his head and endeavored to look like a footman. “I haven’t seen her, no, my lord, although I did hear Mr. Crouch say something about a group of lightskirts calling for her.”
The pounding in his head increased. She wouldn’t dare. Not after he had made his feelings clear on the subject and given her a direct order. No, he shook his aching head; it must be some other group of lightskirts she was entertaining. Perhaps she had plans of reforming the entire demimonde. He wouldn’t put it past her to try.
He took the stairs two at a time as he headed toward her sitting room.
Nick was still standing where he had passed him earlier. “Papa, could I talk to you?”
“Later, son. I have to go throttle your mother.” Just see if he wouldn’t. How dare she bring those women back to his house, exposing himself to ridicule and his son to…Noble paused a moment, then shook his head again. He must have imagined it.
He threw open the door of her sitting room, glared at the assembled women therein, and opened his mouth to deliver a scathing lecture that he would make sure Gillian never forgot. She turned to look at him, and the acrimonious words shriveled and died on his lips.
“What is it?” he asked instead, going down on one knee and taking her hand in his. It was cold.
Gillian squeezed his hand and tried to look a little less like the scared rabbit she knew she resembled. “Noble, Mariah is dead.”
“Mariah?”
“Mistress Mariah. Your mistress, that is. Ex-mistress. The ladies here came to tell me that her body was found this morning, bobbing up against a pier. She had been…” Gillian looked as if she would be sick. Noble pulled her into a protective embrace.
“She’d been tortured, my lord, and then garroted,” Anne said with a
solemn face.
Gillian shivered in his arms.
Noble rallied his troops, explaining briefly to the staff that the danger to Gillian and possibly Nick had increased, and until further notice they were to maintain the utmost caution.
“No visitors, unless known to Lady Weston or myself, are to be allowed in,” he ordered as he paced before the line of servants. “No tradespeople will be allowed in the house for any reason. Likewise, servants from other houses, your personal friends and acquaintances, will be banned. Until we have the bastard responsible for the threats against Lady Weston locked away in gaol, your sole responsibility will be to see to her safety, and that of my son. Are there any questions?”
The line of footmen, butlers, and other male staff members shook their heads. Crouch raised his hook.
“Yes?”
“Eh, m’lord, what should we do if’er ladyship is desirin’ to leave the ’ouse?”
“I have informed Lady Weston that she will not leave the house except in my presence, or the presence of Lord Rosse.”
Crouch rubbed his chin with the curved part of his hook. “Beggin’ pardon, m’lord, but that didn’t stop ’er last time.”
Noble’s face was grim. “It will not happen again. Are there any other questions? No? Excellent. Is everyone armed?”
The row of men nodded. One of the footmen coughed and stepped forward.
“Yes, Dickon?”
“My lord, shouldn’t we have a watchword? Like in The Mysteries of Limehouse, where the watch captured an infamous band of pirates when they were spiriting away a group of young ladies for a sultan from a distant land, where they would be made slaves to his desire and forced to—”
“Yes, yes, I see your point, Dickon. Very well. We shall have a watchword. Any suggestions as to what it might be?”
“Testicle!” piped up Charles.
Noble frowned at him.
“ ’E means tentacle, m’lord. ’Ad ’is ’alf day yesterday and saw one of them octopantses at the zoological gardens.”
“No, I mean testicle,” argued Charles.
Noble considered his footman. “Is there any reason why you wish the watchword to be testicle, Charles?”
Noble Intentions n-1 Page 27