“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.
At one point she thought he was finished and stood up to excuse herself. Noble, pacing by the window, spun around and pinned her with one silver-eyed glare. She felt her knees buckle beneath her and sank back down in her chair.
“Do not think I am through with you yet, madam,” he said, breathing heavily and perspiring slightly about the forehead.
“Oh, aren’t you? I thought perhaps you might be. It’s getting late, Noble, and Cook is waiting to speak with me about the dinners.”