Noble Intentions

by Katie MacAlister

  She frowned. “No, of course not, he told me. That is, he spoke—”

  Noble was up and out of his chair before he knew what he was doing. “He told you? He spoke?” He had both hands on Gillian’s shoulders and glowered into her face. “He actually spoke to you and you didn’t bother to mention the fact to me?”

  “I had to drug you,” she started to explain, then threw up her hands, muttered something about him not understanding, and, turning, bolted out of the library. Noble stared at the spot where she had been standing, trying to grasp this miracle she had worked; then her words sank in. Nick had spoken about that night?

  He passed her on the first flight of stairs, racing up to the second floor, where Nick’s rooms were. If Nick was remembering the facts of that night, he needed more than just simple reassurance—he needed every ounce of love his father could give him. As Noble leaped up the last few stairs he sent a prayer of heartfelt gratitude that God had sent him Gillian. Without her, he wouldn’t have learned how to love again.

  He paused in the doorway to Nick’s room, sick with the thought of what he would find. His son, his innocent little boy, exposed to horrors Noble fervently hoped he’d never understand, events so traumatic that it had stripped him of speech. He stood with his hand on the doorknob, willing himself to enter the room and face the boy who fought his devils just as fiercely as Noble fought his own.

  “He needs you, Noble,” Gillian said softly behind him.

  Noble nodded, still unable to open the door. Gillian leaned into him for a moment, then put her hand on his and waited. Noble took a deep breath and pushed the door open.

  Nick leaped up from the window seat and stared at his father. Noble’s silver-eyed gaze held that of his son for a brief minute, then the boy was flying across the room crying, “Papa!”

  Gillian smiled even as she wiped discreetly at the tears that overflowed at the sight of Noble sitting with his son on his lap, the boy sobbing into his chest, reliving once again that horrible night. She met her husband’s eyes briefly, then slipped out of the room with Rogerson.

  “He’ll be better now, ma’am,” the tutor reassured her.

  “They both will,” Gillian responded, dabbing at the last few tears. “They’ve learned how to climb walls, I think.”

  “Walls, my lady? I don’t understand.”

  Gillian beamed at him as she started down the hall. “It doesn’t matter, Rogerson. They understand.”

  ***

  “Good lord, man, you look like death warmed over. No man looks like that who’s spent the night worshipping at the feet of his lovely bride; therefore you must have drunk yourself silly instead. Noble, my boy, we really must have a talk one of these days.”

  “My lovely bride,” Noble said as he settled himself across from Lord Rosse, “drugged me last night so I couldn’t attend my dawn appointment.”

  Rosse stared at him. “You didn’t tell her you’d apologized and called it off?”

  Noble explained about Gillian’s plan to save both his and Carlisle’s honor. Rosse laughed over the tale until he realized that his friend was looking even more grim than before, if that was possible, which he would have doubted had he not been looking at proof.

  “Well, that explains where Carlisle had disappeared to last night when I delivered your note. But don’t tell me you are angry with the charming Gillian for her attempts to save your worthless hide?”

  Noble didn’t react to his gentle teasing. “Nick’s talking.”

  Rosse looked at the Black Earl’s tight jaw and the eyes that glittered a hard, cold silver. “He remembers that night?”

  Noble nodded. “There was a second man there, Harry. It…” Noble seemed to be having difficulty making his jaw work. “It wasn’t McGregor. Nick saw it all; he saw Elizabeth and this other man, and he saw their little games. So help me God, if I ever find the bastard, I’ll gut him alive. He was going to abuse Nick simply to strike at me.”

  Rosse looked ill, but not as ill as Noble felt. That black thing that had once roiled around inside him was back, but this time it had a target, a reason for being, and its name was vengeance. “God damn her soul to eternal hell! How could she do that to him? He was just a little boy.”

  “I’m sure she’s rotting there now,” Rosse said, thinking that if anyone deserved eternal damnation, the late Countess of Weston did. “Did he…did Nick understand everything?”

  “No, thank God,” Noble said, suddenly exhausted. He felt drained, squeezed dry, as if he were an old limp washrag. “He doesn’t, and Gillian is doing her best to make him forget, but I doubt if he ever will. My God, Harry, the man was going to…” The thought was too foul, he couldn’t even put it into words.

  Rosse noticed the tears in his friend’s eyes and felt a lump forming in his throat. “What can I do, Noble?”

  “We’ve got to find out who this other man was. The one who played those foul games with Elizabeth.” Noble stared out the window for a moment. “She had so many lovers, Harry, where do I begin looking?”

  “Did Nick give you a description of the man?”

  “Just a brief one—an average-sized man with no outstanding features, brown hair, dark eyes—a description that could match more than half the men in the ton.”

  “Perhaps if I were to question him—”

  Noble shook his head adamantly. “No. I’ll not have him relive that night again. We’ll have to find the bastard without upsetting Nick. Gillian’s taken him out to the zoological garden to see the octupantses.”

  Rosse looked startled. “To see the what?”

  “Octopus.”

  “I thought you said…never mind, it doesn’t matter. Is it safe for them to be out?”

  “Gillian said it would be better for him to be out of the house for a bit. I didn’t send her out alone; she’s got all five Runners with her.” A smile flickered across Noble’s face as he remembered her outraged objection to taking all five with her. “Do you know that she hired two Runners to protect me? With your two, that makes seven all together. It’s a wonder the thieves and murderers aren’t running rampant in the city.”

  Rosse grunted, and continued tugging on his lip as he considered and rejected paths of inquiry. “You’ll be safe enough at White’s. You may not like this, Noble—I know you want justice for your boy—but I think we should finish up with this first problem before starting on one five years old.”

  Noble looked obstinate, and it took Harry until the pair had reached White’s to convince him that to divide their attention and forces would be foolish. “After all,” he pointed out as they handed over their hats and sticks, “you lose Carlisle as your main suspect if Nick is correct and there’s a second man involved. I’d be willing to wager it’s this man who is behind the attacks on you and the threats to your lady, rather than Carlisle.”

  “He’s tried to convince Gillian I am an ogre,” Noble protested. He hated to give up the idea of McGregor as villain but had to admit it was looking less likely with each passing day.

  “All he’s tried to do is warn her against what he believes is your vicious temper. Gillian told me last night that he believes you murdered Elizabeth most foully and are going to do the same to her.”

  Noble looked startled. “By God, I’ll thrash the…she didn’t believe him, did she?”

  Rosse nodded to an acquaintance, was pleased to see that no one cut his friend, and headed for his favorite quiet corner. “No, of course she didn’t, but she did point out that all he’s ever tried to do is to protect her from you.”

  “So she thinks,” Noble said darkly and glowered at his boots.

  “About that night, Noble—I know you don’t want to talk about it, but have you told Gillian what happened? What really happened, not what Carlisle is sure to have told her what he saw?”

  “There wasn’t time,” Noble answered. “After I spoke
with Nick, Gillian thought it was best to fill his mind with happier thoughts and took him off to the Gardens.”

  Rosse adjusted his spectacles. “I can imagine what Carlisle told her he saw—I had the devil of a time pulling him off you. I thought I was too late after I heard the pistol shots and found you in a pool of blood, with Carlisle’s hands digging into your throat.”

  Noble grimaced and rubbed at his neck. “I couldn’t speak for weeks. Thank God you were staying with me then.”

  “It wasn’t a pleasant time for you,” Rosse said easily. “You needed a friendly face around that dour ancestral pile. I never did find out why Carlisle was there that night—did you?”

  “Yes. He showed me a note from Elizabeth, saying she’d overheard me plotting to kill her. He had come to play knight-in-shining-armor to her maiden-in-distress.”

  Rosse blinked carefully, noting the anger in his friend’s voice. “Do you mean…she arranged to have him there?” His mind raced on, quickly leaping over false impressions and jumping to the logical conclusion. “Was she arranging for you to take the blame for something? Something to do with Carlisle?”

  Noble shook his head and rubbed his hands together. Even thinking about that night made him feel cold. “No. I think now—now that I know about the second man—I think he and Elizabeth were planning to use Carlisle.”

  “For what purpose?”

  “As a scapegoat for my murder.”

  Rosse’s jaw dropped.

  “There you are! Lud, Weston, the news is all over the clubs—you called the duel off? You apologized? ’Pon my honor, I never thought the day would come when you backed down from a challenge!”

  “I apologized,” Noble said evenly, sending the marquis a look that let him know their conversation was at an end.

  “But…but why?” Sir Hugh stammered. “That is…it’s not like you, man, not like you a’tall. You feeling quite the thing? Not ill, perhaps? Sickening over something?”

  “I’m quite all right, Tolly, there’s no need to hover over me like a giant mother hen.”

  Sir Hugh flushed at the look of distaste Noble gave his plum waistcoat with its scarlet embroidery. “I couldn’t credit it, but if you say it’s true…” Sir Hugh shrugged and made himself comfortable in a nearby chair. “Why the long faces if you’ve settled this affair?”

  Noble was about to explain when a shadow fell across them.

  “I accept your apology,” Lord Carlisle said, standing before Noble and clutching a pair of soft leather gloves. “Consider that score settled. However, I inquired. It was your house. If you think you can disguise that Crotch of yours by tying a bit of black silk over his ugly face, you’re mistaken.”

  Noble didn’t flinch as Carlisle laid the gloves across his cheek with a snap of his wrist. “Consider yourself challenged.”

  Noble pursed his lips for a moment, then bent and retrieved the gloves from where Carlisle had thrown them at his feet. He handed them back. “No.”

  Sir Hugh gasped. Carlisle stared. “No what?”

  “No, I don’t accept your challenge. You are quite right to be outraged over my wife’s actions. I apologize on her behalf.”

  Carlisle gawked at him. “You…apologize?”

  Noble nodded. “I do. Her plan, motivated by her desire to see no blood shed between us, was carried out solely upon her orders. However, as she is my wife and I am responsible for her actions, I apologize.”

  “You won’t face me over pistols?”

  “No.”

  Carlisle looked as if he wanted to pout. “Well, dammit, man, you have to give me satisfaction for this slight!”

  “There’s always Jackson’s,” Rosse pointed out. “You could beat your frustrations out on each other.”

  Noble looked at Carlisle, noting that although the Scot was shorter than he was, he had more bulk to his chest. Even dressed in a kilt, as he was now, Carlisle was the picture of masculine power. Carlisle, likewise engaged in an assessment of his would-be opponent, wasn’t fooled in the least by the elegant picture Noble displayed—after all didn’t his nose look to have been recently broken? Carlisle knew that beneath that tastefully cut, skintight coat, Noble had the strength to match him.

  “Done,” both men said at the same time, then agreed to meet in the early afternoon to settle the matter once and for all.

  ***

  “I liked the elephant the best, didn’t you, Gillian? Didn’t you think the elephant was the best? I thought he looked very sad, though. Perhaps he misses his home. Do you think he misses his home? If I were an elephant, I’d miss my home.”

  “Yes, I’m sure that’s it. He did look homesick.”

  Nick thought for a moment. “But I also liked the lions, didn’t you like the lions? And the camels. And the zebras. But I didn’t like the jackals. Did you like the jackals, Crouch?”

  “Eh, well now, Master Nick, that’s a right good question—”

  “I liked the giraffe, too. Did you see how long his neck was, Gillian? How does he drink with such a long neck? I wonder if Rogerson knows how a giraffe drinks. I bet if my neck was that long that I could figure out a way to drink.”

  “You weren’t fast enough,” Gillian told Crouch as she handed him her hat and parasol.

  “Aye, m’lady, that I weren’t,” he answered her with a cheeky grin. “But it’s nice to see the lad talkin’ again.”

  “That it is, Crouch. Nick, why don’t you go upstairs and ask Rogerson about the drinking habits of the giraffe? Is that for me?” she asked as Charles the footman brought a note on a silver tray.

  “It’s from Lady Charlotte,” Charles said helpfully.

  “Yes, I can see that,” Gillian said, examining the note. She slid her finger under the wax as she started toward the library.

  “Her ladyship’s maid brought it just a bit ago. Her ladyship’s maid said it was quite urgent, and that you were to send for her ladyship if you wanted her.”

  “Thank you, Charles.” Gillian smiled at him as he held open the library door for her.

  “If there’s anything you want, my lady, just let me know,” he added helpfully. “Anything at all. Say, for example, you wanted a message sent to Lady Charlotte. Well, then”—he puffed up his chest and thumped it importantly—“Bob’s your uncle!”

  “No, my uncle’s name is Theodore,” she said absently as she read the note. Charles hovered hopefully around the door. His curiosity was rewarded when Gillian suddenly crumpled the note and said, “Bloody hell! Will someone please explain to me how that man’s mind works?”

  Charles quickly stepped back into the room. “I would be happy to be of assistance, my lady, if you were to just tell me which man it is you seek information about.”

  Gillian stifled the desire to roll her eyes and instead commanded that the carriage be brought around immediately. “I have a few letters to write, Crouch,” she said to the butler as she hurried out into the hall and toward the stairs. “I’ll want a footman…no, four footmen, ready to take them immediately. I’ll want the notes delivered as quickly as possible, so have them ride.”

  “Four footmen, m’lady?”

  “Yes, four,” Gillian replied as she leaped up the stairs. “I shall go to Lady Charlotte myself, and the four footmen can deliver the notes to his lordship’s ladybats.”

  “Ladybirds,” Crouch corrected her softly as he watched her fly up the stairs; then he turned his attention to the louts standing about watching with nothing better to do but scratch their arses. “’Ere, you, Dickon, you ’eard the mistress. Go tell Tremayne to ’ave the carriage and four ’orses brought ’round. Coo lummey, what ’is lordship’ll ’ave to say about this, I don’t want to think.”

  ***

  “I thought that bit of news would bring you at a gallop,” Charlotte said as she entered the small sitting room. “Good afternoon, Nick. You look
well.”

  Nick bowed. “Thank you, Lady Charlotte.”

  Charlotte stared openmouthed at him for a moment, then raised a brow as she looked at Gillian.

  “Nick has decided he likes talking,” she answered the unasked question. “Now, tell me where you heard this news.”

  “Papa told Mama when he came home from his morning at the club. He said the books are filled with wagers on whether Lord Weston will trump Lord Carlisle, or vice versa. Papa didn’t know who to bet on—he felt as if he should back Lord Weston, since he’s his nephew-in-law, but he thinks Lord Carlisle has the advantage and so…well…he’s wagered on both.”

  Gillian couldn’t keep the smile back. “That sounds like Uncle Theo. He doesn’t like to be on the losing side of any venture, least of all those concerning a few groats.”

  Charlotte snorted. “A few groats—after what Lord Weston settled on you, I should think he would cast his lot with your husband.”

  “Char, you make it sound as if Noble purchased me!”

  Charlotte shrugged and daintily picked at a cuticle. “He did, more or less. Oh, don’t get your feathers in a hackle, cousin; I assume you are not here to debate the hows and whys of your marriage. What are you going to do about this terrible fisticuffs duel the men have planned?”

  “I shall stop it, of course! I have no intention of allowing Lord Carlisle to beat the tar out of my husband.”

  “What makes you think Lord Carlisle’s tar won’t take a pounding?”

  Gillian made a face. “Normally, I’d back Noble’s tar against Lord Carlisle’s, but in the last few days Noble has been kidnapped, shot, received a black eye, broken his nose, and been drugged. The last, I’m annoyed to say, was completely without need, since Noble informed me this morning that he had actually apologized to Lord Carlisle and canceled the duel the night before.”

  Charlotte nodded. “Papa told Mama about that, as well. But how do you intend to stop them?”

  Gillian smiled. “I have a wonderful plan.”

  Charlotte dimpled at her in return. Nick looked worried.