“I see your point,” Gillian said thoughtfully, eyeing Nick as he made the tassels dance a little tassel dance on his bony knees. “It is not an everyday sort of enemy who would do that; more a special enemy with a particular goal in mind?”

“Exactly. Someone who wanted to embarrass Lord Weston as well as endanger him.”

Gillian thought about that for a moment, watching Nick balance the cushion on his head. She said slowly, “Oddly enough, Char, I do not believe Noble was in any danger. He was confined, but there were no signs of occupation in the house, no signs that someone might have wished to harm him physically.

It seems to me that whoever did this wanted…well, just wanted him found shackled naked to that bed.”

“You mean it was a jest? Someone did that to him as a lark?”

“Nooo,” Gillian said, chewing on her lower lip, being careful to hold her head still since Nick had transferred the cushion to her fiery crown of braids. “No, I don’t believe it was a prank. I believe it was a warning of some sort.”

“How are we to find out what that warning was? And whom it was from?”

“We shall have to do as you say — find out who Noble’s enemies are and interview them.” The tassels bobbed rakishly over one eye as she nodded her head emphatically.

Charlotte looked doubtful. “How are you going to find his enemies?”

“Well…” Gillian balanced the cushion on the toes of one foot as she thought. A slow smile spread over her face as she kicked the cushion high in the air. Nick leaped up and caught it. “I shall ask the people who knew him best.”

She patted her cousin on the shoulder and stood. “Who knows a man better than anyone else, Char?”

“His friends? His family? His valet?”

Gillian shook her head at each. “Put the cushion back, Nick, and make your good-bye bow to your cousin. No, Charlotte, I want someone who will know all of the on-dits, someone who is familiar with all of the ton gossip, and who is willing to share it with me. I shall meet with”—she smiled a triumphant little smile—“his ladybugs.”

“Ladybugs?” Charlotte snorted and clutched the cushion to her chest as she fell over backward laughing. “Ladybugs? I think you mean ladybirds!”

“Oh.” Gillian made a face. “Whatever they’re called, I shall ask them. They will surely be able to tell me what I want to know.”

“Do you know, cousin,” Charlotte said, still laughing, “I believe that if anyone can do it, you can. No one else would have the gumption, let alone the desire, to interview her husband’s former mistresses. Leave it to you unschooled Colonials to simply ignore the precepts of good breeding and gentle manners when it suits you. Oh, I do wish I could be there when you question them. I would give an entire year’s pin money to see the looks on their faces when you ask them about Lord Weston.”

Gillian pushed her son gently toward the door. “Shall I see you tomorrow to help me plan my strategy?”

Charlotte nodded and twirled the cushion. Gillian bid her good-bye and started out the door.

“Oh, Char?” Her cousin looked up, a slight frown of puzzlement wrinkling her brow. Gillian smiled. “Don’t be spending any of your pin money. You will be helping me interview the ladybirds. I couldn’t possibly interview them myself, being as unschooled and ignorant of the precepts of good breeding as I am. I’m sure your gently bred, noble touch is just the one needed to get them to unbend and tell us everything we want to know.”

Gillian escaped out the door just a few seconds before the cushion hit it. She chuckled at the undignified and unladylike language coming from behind the door and hurried down the hall after her son.

“Crouch, I wish to go to Lord Carlisle’s house. Do you have the direction?”

“Ye be wantin’ to do what, m’lady?”

“I wish to go to Lord Carlisle’s house. Tomorrow.”

Crouch stared at Gillian as he handed her into the carriage. “Lord Carlisle, m’lady?”

“Yes, Lord Carlisle, Crouch. Is there a problem?”

Crouch’s eyes glazed over at the thought of all the problems his mistress’s unusual request would generate. The number alone staggered the mind. “Aye, m’lady, ye could be sayin’ there’s a problem. A right big problem it be, too.”

“You don’t know his direction?”

“Eh…well, as to that, m’lady, as ye’ve asked me outright…”

“Excellent. Then I shall assume that you will be able to accompany Lady Charlotte and me tomorrow to pay a call upon Lord Carlisle.”

A stunned Crouch climbed onto the seat next to John Coachman. “I’m all-a-mort, Johnny. What do ye think of that, then?”

“She fair bewattles me.” John Coachman shook his head. “I wouldn’t want to be in your shoes, Crouch, having to tell his lordship that.”

Crouch, known to inspire terror in men with just one sneer of his scarred face, blanched with horror at the thought of what his employer would have to say.

“It’s not so much what ’e’ll say as what ’e’ll do,” he corrected himself.

“Aye, you’re right there. He’ll have your head if you let the mistress go calling on his hated enemy.”

Crouch cupped a protective hand around his most prized possessions and stared ahead through the leader’s ears. “I could live without me ’ead. It’s what else ’e might take off that turns me blood pale!”

At the very time Gillian was on her way home, explaining to her son that she and Noble were going to be out that evening, Noble stepped down from his friend Rosse’s carriage and glanced down Bond Street. Lord Rosse squinted against the afternoon sun and followed his friend’s gaze. “I see Poodle Byng is back in town, stouter than ever. Who’s that with him?”

“Sefton.”

“Oh, yes, should know that nose anywhere. Shall we stay a moment and greet them?” Rosse looked speculatively at his friend. “Or is there a need to?”

“My dear friend, you may pass your time as you like, but I intend on expelling a bit of energy on whoever might be willing to oblige me.” Weston started up the steps to Gentleman Jackson’s rooms.

“I gather this laissez-faire attitude means either, or both, men have given you the cut?”

“You may gather whatever you like, Harry. Remind me to mention a little problem I need your advice on once we’ve taken a bit of exercise.”

Rosse smiled and followed his friend up the stairs. “I don’t recall you having a need to expend energy at Gentleman Jackson’s before, Noble. I used to have to beg you to come with me, despite the fact that you’re a great hulking brute perfectly made for dashing a fellow’s brains about the ring.” He shook his head in mock concern. “How comes a newly wedded man to have so much excess energy? It can’t be good, my friend. I sadly fear you are not doing right by your new countess and will have to take the issue up with you when you are finished expending all this energy you seem to possess.”

The two gentlemen were greeted and conveyed to the dressing room. “If I were another man, Harry, I should take offense at your comments.”

Rosse, secure in the knowledge that he had been practicing faithfully at Jackson’s for the last two years while his friend rusticated in the country, grinned. “Is that a challenge?”

“If you like.”

“My dear sir, I accept your challenge of a round of fisticuffs. Shall we set a boon upon the winner?”

“An excellent idea,” Noble said as he slid his arms out of his waistcoat and allowed one of the attendants to remove his neck cloth.

“Have you something in particular in mind?”

“I do.”

“And it is…?”

“To be named at the winner’s discretion.”

Rosse grinned again, carefully removed his spectacles, and handed them over to the man waiting, then swung his arms back and forth to limber them up.

“I should warn you, Noble, I’ve had several lessons while you’ve cloistered yourself away on your estate. I’m counted as quite handy with my fives. Even Jackson himself says I show considerable promise.”

Noble allowed himself a smile. “I’ll try not to hurt you too badly, old friend.”

“I believe I’ll stick to pistols from now on,” Lord Rosse said meditatively an hour later, rubbing his swollen jaw and fingering his torn lip. “Less dangerous. I think you loosened a tooth.”

“I did nothing of the sort,” Weston replied, wincing at the sunlight as they stepped from the building. “I told you I wouldn’t hurt you too badly. However, I shall have a bit of explaining to do when Gillian sees my eye.”

Rosse smiled a lopsided smile. “That’s quite a mouse. As the satisfaction in landing a blow to you goes a long way in easing the sting of my defeat, I’ll ask you now what it is you want my help with.” He paused a moment to direct his driver. “St. James’s, John.” Then he turned toward his friend. “White’s or Boodle’s, Noble?”

“White’s, don’t you think?”

“White’s it is. Ah.” Lord Rosse sank back into the plushly upholstered seat and gingerly flexed his fingers. “Now tell me what sacrificing my good name and excellent reputation in favor of yours has cost me.”

Weston fingered the swollen tissue around his eye. A momentary distraction in the form of the sudden mental image of Gillian on the floor in his library, gown askew, hair tumbling down upon her golden shoulders and spilling onto those mouthwateringly lovely breasts had been all the opening Rosse had needed to land a powerful left.

“McGregor’s back in town.”

Rosse nodded. “I saw him a few days back at the theater. Didn’t acknowledge him, of course.”

“Of course. He paid me a visit.”

Rosse blinked behind his spectacles. “Why would he do that?”

“To threaten me.”

“Threaten you with what? Oh. Gillian?”

“Exactly. He muttered some deranged comments about wanting to warn her, but I know the truth. He’s never forgiven me for marrying Elizabeth and will do his best to steal Gillian away as he did her.”

Rosse relaxed. “I don’t blame you for being angry that the bastard called on you, but I wouldn’t worry that he can melt the heart of your Amazon. She’s made of sterner stuff.”

“She’s a woman, and thus is capable of whatever deceit is necessary to achieve her goals.”

Rosse watched the pain flit over his friend’s face with a sorrow that had its origins deep in a night five years past. “Any other woman, perhaps. I don’t claim to know everything about the species, but I know this — you’ve captured the heart of your Amazon.”

Weston grinned suddenly, then grimaced against the pain the action caused his swollen eye. “So she has informed me.”

“There you go, then. Nothing to worry about.”

“There’s everything to worry about. Harry, someone has been out to cause me trouble ever since I returned to town.”

Weston told him about the plea for help from his former mistress that had sent him out to the house she was to be vacating and ended with a description of how Gillian and Nick rescued him.

“If you are quite finished,” Noble said some time later, watching his friend wipe his eyes. “I wasn’t aware that it was an episode that would bring so much amusement to you.”

“Ah, Noble, if only I could have been there. In a bedsheet, you say? Yes, well—” Rosse saw he had pushed his friend to the limit of his tolerance and turned his attention to the matter at hand. “Has all the hallmarks of a jest of a grand nature.”

“I considered it but disregarded it as an explanation. No one I know would dare commit such a jest upon me, and—” He looked out of the window as the carriage rolled up St. James’s Street. “I do not believe the perpetrator knew Gillian was in town and prepared to go to outlandish lengths to rescue me from what she perceived as life-threatening danger.”

“You don’t think your life was in any danger?”

Weston studied the silver head of his walking stick. “I’m not sure, but I doubt it. If whoever arranged for the scene had wished me harm, he had ample opportunity to do so after knocking me out.”

Rosse thought this over for a minute. “I believe you are correct, Noble. That being the case, what is it you want me to do?”

Noble smiled as the door to the carriage was opened and the steps lowered. “I want you to use those talents you showed an aptitude for during the war,” he said and nimbly leaping out of the carriage, turned back to face his friend. “I want you to become a spy again, Harry.”

“Lady Weston, how delightful it is to meet you.”

“The pleasure is all mine, Countess Lieven. Please excuse my hand. I was admiring the colored lamps you have concealed in the flowers, and I wasn’t aware the paint was still wet. Are you acquainted with my uncle, Lord Collins, and his wife, Lady Collins?”