He nodded and blew his nose, then tried to hand the handkerchief back. “Er…no, you keep it,” she said as she smoothed a hand over his hair. “Do you want to tell me about the dream? Sometimes it helps make it seem less frightening if you can talk about it.”
He thought about that for a minute, then gave a minute shrug. “It was about that night.”
“What night?”
“The night my mother died. My other mother.”
Oh, lord. Had Nick been present when Elizabeth was killed? Gillian tried to remember what Noble had told her about the trauma that had sent Nick into self-imposed silence. He had said it had its roots in Elizabeth’s death, and she had assumed he was traumatized because his beloved stepmother had been taken away from him.
“You can tell me if you’d like, Nick,” she said, still stroking his head. He leaned into her and spoke in a soft, monotonous voice so devoid of emotion that it made her skin crawl. What he described made her sick. And furious.
“I was there again, in that room, her room, and she was there with him, and he was making me watch as he whipped her.”
Gillian felt the blood drain from her face. Dear God, had she been wrong all along about Noble? Was the damning truth to come from the mouth of his own child?
“She screamed and screamed and wouldn’t stop, and neither would the bleeding, and I thought I was going to be sick on the carpet when he started cutting her with a knife. I put my hands over my eyes, but I could still hear her screaming and begging him to stop, but he wouldn’t.”
Gillian clutched his head to her bosom and rocked him, squeezing her eyes closed over her tears. What sort of a monster was Noble? How could he commit such obscene acts, and in front of a child?
“She stopped screaming, so I thought it was all right to look, I thought he was done, but he wasn’t, he had just tied something across her mouth, and tied her arms to the bed. Then he looked at me, and he laughed and laughed and told me to take off my clothes, that he wanted to leave Papa something to remember him by.”
Gillian thought she was going to be sick for a moment, but then Nick’s words struck her. “Papa? Nick, who was the man who was doing…who was doing those bad things?”
Nick shook his head. “I don’t know his name, I just know him. He hurt her.”
Gillian laid her head on his, relief swelling over the fact that Noble was innocent of such heinous crimes. She tightened her arms around the boy. “Was that the end of the dream?”
He shook his head again. “The man made me take off my clothes, and then he started laughing again, and I…” He tried to burrow his head into Gillian. She rubbed his back, overwhelmed by the waves of agonizing torment rolling off him. How could a child survive such a hellish scene?
“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t wish to, Nick.”
“I wet myself,” he said in a small voice. “Just like a baby, but I couldn’t help it. The man stood over me with the whip and he laughed harder and said how just it was that Papa’s son should be such a weakling.”
“You’re not weakling, Nick. The man was wrong, and you have nothing to be ashamed of.”
“Papa saw,” he whispered into her neck. “Papa came in and saw me. He saw me crying and he saw that I’d wet myself.”
Gillian’s mind chased around in circles. Noble was there? He saw what happened? How could this be? Why hadn’t he killed this horrible monster who tormented Nick and Elizabeth?
“What did Papa do?”
“He fell down when the man hit him on the head with one of his pistols.” Nick detached himself long enough to stare at Gillian with eyes filled with so much pain she wanted to weep. No child’s eyes should look like that. “I tried to help Papa, but the man picked me up and threw me on top of her, and I was so scared I couldn’t move. I couldn’t move! I tried to help Papa, but I couldn’t move!”
“Shhhh,” she calmed him, holding him close again and stroking his back. “It’s all right, my love, you aren’t to blame for what that man did. No one blames you. Your father knows you tried to help him. He doesn’t blame you.”
Nick went suddenly stiff in her arms. “I couldn’t move, and then the man shot her and there was blood everywhere and…I think I wet myself again.”
“Oh, God,” Gillian moaned, unable to keep the tears hidden now. She rocked the frail body of her son in her arms and wept for him, wept for the hell he had lived through, and wept for Elizabeth, who didn’t deserve to die.
“The man was going to shoot Papa,” Nick whispered so softly Gillian almost didn’t hear it. “He was going to shoot him. Papa wasn’t moving, he couldn’t move, and she was dead and I didn’t know what to do so I threw the candlestick at him, and he didn’t shoot Papa because he shot the wall instead.”
Gillian had a horribly vivid image of what happened that night. “Did the man leave then?”
Nick nodded, and his body sagged against hers. “He left, but she was dead, and I thought Papa might be dead until he started groaning. The man told me not to tell anyone or he’d come back and kill Papa. He told me it would be my fault if Papa died. I don’t want Papa to die.”
Gillian held him, rocking him and murmuring soft, comforting words in his ear until he fell asleep against her. She held him even after he slept, weeping silent tears for all that her brave little son had been through.
“I promise you, Nick,” she whispered to him. “I promise you that your Papa will punish that man. He won’t hurt you again.”
***
Noble signed his name to the document, blotted it, and handed the thick sheet of paper to his secretary. “You’ll be sure to destroy my prior will?”
“Of course, my lord. May I say, my lord, that I and all the staff hope that you will not need this document in the near future?”
“Thank you, Devereaux, I also trust it will not be needed for a long time.” He and his man of affairs watched as Tremayne witnessed the document. Then Noble glanced at the clock and stretched as he stood. “I believe I will retire for a few hours before I am due to leave.”
“Good night, my lord.”
“Good night.” Noble took the stairs two at a time. He was looking forward to spending the time before he had to leave covering as many items remaining on the list he had created for Gillian as was humanly possible. He was even looking forward to apologizing to her for trying to remove Nick from her care. Apologies did not come easy to him, but he had been wrong. The threat of taking Nick away had hurt his wife deeply.
He paused a moment as the thought snaked through him that he could die at dawn, leaving behind Gillian and Nick. Although he had every confidence in his ability with a pistol, only a fool did not feel fear when facing danger.
“If it’s to be, then so be it,” he muttered to himself as he stalked down the hallway toward his dressing room. That and other grim thoughts raced around in his mind while Tremayne removed his evening clothes. Gillian’s words from earlier in the evening haunted him.
“This duel is simply ridiculous! It is not about a slight done to me or to you,” she had said, her face flushed with anger. Noble thought her eyes were about to spit flames. “This is about your male arrogance, and Lord Carlisle’s arrogance. Neither one of you wants to admit it was a simple misunderstanding, that no insult was done to either of you, except the ones you hurled at each other so publicly in the street. Is your stupid male pride worth dying for, Noble? Is it? Do Nick and I matter so little to you that you would throw away your life on something so trivial?”
He had defended his actions with the standard response about honor, but now, as he thought of what her life would be like without him, of how Nick would grow up without a father, he admitted there was some validity to her opinion.
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 his eyes on Gillian’s green, endlessly deep pools of emerald. She cried his name again.
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“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.
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.