The Black Earl was beginning to believe the very same thing. He emerged from his consultation with John Stafford, the chief clerk for the Bow Street Runners, and was assured of help gathering proof that the bastard McGregor was behind the threats to himself and Gillian, and the attack of a few evenings past.

“Are you sure it’s Lord Carlisle who is behind these letters?” Stafford asked.

“As sure as I can be without having his admission of the fact,” Noble replied. “The man is a heartless devil who preys on women. He is responsible for the death of my late wife, and holds great animosity for me.”

“I’m sure that is the case, my lord, but I must investigate the situation fully. Are you certain there are no other individuals who would wish to see you come to harm?”

“Any number, I’m certain,” Noble replied with a wry twist to his mouth. “Half the ton believes I murdered my wife, the other half believes I’m a notorious rake. None of them, however, are privy to the information that is contained within the threatening letters.”

“You will, of course, refuse to pay the blackmail sum demanded?”

“That goes without saying.”

Stafford nodded his head and glanced down at the most recent letter Noble had received. “I can give you three men, my lord.”

Noble stretched out his arm and retrieved his letter. “I had hoped for more.”

“I’m afraid three is the best I can do at the moment. They will be round your house in the morning.”

Noble wrote a few lines on the back of a calling card. “Have them present this to my butler, Crouch. Or Tremayne. Either of them; they’re both my butlers.”

Stafford raised his brows. “You have two butlers in one house, my lord?”

“Yes,” he replied, pocketing the letter and standing. “It was my wife’s idea.”

His words echoed in his head a short time later as his carriage rolled toward a certain address near Russell Square. Was it really Gillian’s idea to have the second Tremayne brother follow her up to his town house? She had said something about him helping Crouch learn to be less a pirate, which made no sense at all. Despite his hook, Crouch was not a pirate. Lord knew, the man got seasick just walking on a bridge over a river.

“Gillian,” he said softly, gazing out the window, blind to all but the image of the tall, redheaded Amazon who had moved into his heart. How had she done it? He’d never expected to feel anything beyond mild affection for a woman again, and yet she was consuming his every thought.

Gillian. Just the sound of her name sent tendrils of heat through him; many of them, it was true, pooling in his groin, but he was also conscious of a gentle, soothing glow radiating out from the bright light she cast, warming him and making him believe he was human again.

Gillian. His wife, the woman who bore his name and would bear his children. He thought of her plump and round with his babe, and a spurt of base masculine pleasure added to the warmth already heating him.

Gillian. The woman who was walking down the front steps of his most hated enemy’s house, her arm linked through his, laughing up at that bastard murderer McGregor with a smile that should be reserved solely for him.

Gillian!

“What the bloody hell is this?” he roared, jumping out of the carriage before his coachman could bring the horses to a stop. “By God’s ten toes, woman, what the hell do you think you are doing with that man?”

Gillian stopped on the last step, astonishment writ clearly on her face at the sight of her husband charging down the pavement toward her. “Noble?”

“Yes, Noble,” he snarled, and lunged toward the Scot.

“Noble! How wonderful you could join us! Nick, my dear, your papa has come to join us, isn’t that wonderful?”

Noble stopped, his hands a mere fraction of an inch from Carlisle’s throat. “Nick?” His voice was thick as he flexed his fingers. She had brought Nick with her? She had brought Nick with her while she kept an assignation with the man who was responsible for the death of his wife? She had brought his son with her while she tore out his heart and killed any last vestiges of human kindness left within him?

“Good afternoon, Lord Weston.”

Noble blinked at the sight of a lovely blond woman, a familiar blond woman, a woman who, if the maidenly blush and shy eyes were anything to go by, had just been released from a convent.

“You remember my cousin Charlotte, don’t you, Noble?”

“Ah…”

“ ’Ere ye are then, yer lordship. I was tellin’ the mistress that it weren’t right ’er payin’ this call without yer, but ye know ’ow the ladies is.”

“Er…”

“Charles, Dickon, ’elp Tremayne up there with those ’orses. They don’t like the looks of Piddle and Herp.”

“Uh…” Piddle? Erp? Noble peered between his wife and his enemy. Was there anyone from his home not present? As the heat from the suspicions of a moment before faded, a new fire roared to life when his eyes narrowed at the sight of that murdering bastard McGregor’s hand resting possessively on Gillian’s.

“Mine!” he roared, and scooped Gillian up and deposited her on the pavement behind him.

“I beg your pardon?” Gillian asked, poking him in the back. “Did you just shout mine in a voice loud enough to be heard in Canterbury?”

“Be still, woman, while I deal with this bastard,” Noble bellowed.

“Bastard, eh? That’s a case of the pot calling the kettle black,” Carlisle roared back.

“Mine? As in I belong to you, husband?”

“What the devil were you doing with my wife and son?” Noble yelled.

“As if I were your possession?”

“That’s none of your business,” Carlisle answered, his voice echoing off the houses across the street.

“I cannot believe you actually stood there and bellowed the word mine as if I were a toy and you a four-year-old child, Noble!”

“Like hell it’s not! I demand to know what they were doing here!” Noble thundered.

“Then why don’t you ask the lady?” Carlisle barked.

“I am not a possession!” Gillian raised her voice to match those of the two men.

“You keep my wife out of this! You’ll answer my question, or by God I’ll have my satisfaction over pistols!” Noble stormed.

“Name your seconds,” Carlisle retorted, his black eyes dancing with enjoyment.

“They’ll call on you this evening,” Noble fired back, his hair standing on end. “Wife! Come with me!”

Gillian recognized that Noble was in a bit of a temper, and with a wisdom that had hitherto been unknown to her, bit back her angry protests at his arrogant display of possessiveness and took the hand he held out. He stalked back to his carriage and would have made a grand exit it if had not been for the others.

“Charles, Dickon, get those ’ounds loaded into the carriage.”

Noble paused in the act of stuffing Gillian into his carriage and looked back. His gaze fell on that of his son, standing next to Charlotte, gray eyes shining brightly in the afternoon sun. “Nicholas, you will come with us.”

Charlotte, who had been hard-pressed to maintain an expression radiating demure, maidenly horror at the thrilling manly display, fanned herself briskly and suddenly realized she would be left to ride home in an ancient carriage with Piddle and Erp as her sole companions.

“Lord Weston!”

Noble handed Gillian into the carriage and turned to look at Charlotte.

She stood looking between Lord Carlisle and Noble.

“I…the dogs…you cannot possibly expect me…my lord, I…”

Gillian leaned out of the carriage. “I do believe this is a first, my lord. I’ve never seen my cousin at a loss for words.”

Noble grunted and would have left Charlotte to the dog’s carriage but for Gillian. There was a motive to her madness — she no more wanted to be alone with Noble where he would feel free to vent his anger on her regarding her visit to Lord Carlisle than she wanted to dance with a crocodile.

“I believe, my dear lady wife, your chances with the crocodile are substantially better,” Noble said through gritted teeth, and proceeded to ignore her and everyone else in the carriage by staring out at the passing scenery.

“We were just off to the zoological gardens,” Gillian started to say, but one look from Noble’s icy gray eyes made it quite clear that the visit was canceled. Gillian sent her son an apologetic glance and was heartened to see the boy give her a warm smile and a little shrug.

She mouthed to him that they would go another time, and settled back next to Noble. Charlotte exchanged sympathetic glances with her cousin and was not in the least bit sorry when the carriage pulled up before her house. Gillian wished to have a word or two with her, but Noble grimly assisted Charlotte down, then leaped back into the carriage and gave the signal to be on the way.

In an attempt to forestall the inevitable tongue-lashing she was sure was due her, Gillian clasped Noble’s hand in hers. His hand was unresponsive and stiff. Gillian mentally created, and discarded, any number of excuses and explanations for her visit to the earl. The carriage rocked as it bounced over bumps in the street, the familiar clop of the horses’ hooves setting up a rhythm in her brain. Although within there was naught but injured silence, outside the carriage horses neighed, dogs barked, people shouted, coachmen and grooms talked to their charges, vendors shouted their wares, and a thousand other noises wove together into the intricate tapestry that was life in London. Gillian closed her eyes and leaned slightly toward Noble, her thumb tracing circles on the top of his hand, feeling suddenly safe and secure even if her husband was shortly to lecture her as she’d never been lectured before. She slid her thumb down to the underside of his hand and made little massaging circles on the pads of his fingers, sliding up and down the length, feeling the strength that lay in those long, elegant hands. Noble did not respond to her caress, but neither did he withdraw his hand.

She continued to stroke and pet his hand while she considered the results of her daring act in visiting the Scottish earl — she was now in possession of a list of four names, women who had been Noble’s mistresses during the last fifteen years, as long as Carlisle had known him.

She hoped they could help her to figure out just what Noble’s relationship with Elizabeth had been like before his dear wife died — or not his dear wife, if what Lord Carlisle had said was true.

Gillian chewed on her lower lip. The earl must be mistaken. She knew Noble, and no matter how strong the provocation, he could never have murdered his wife, not even if he found her with another man, as Lord Carlisle implied. And the hints he made about Noble’s treatment of Elizabeth — well, those simply couldn’t be true.

Gillian rubbed Noble’s wrist and let her delicate, bluetinted fingers massage the top of his hand. No, the earl had to be wrong about Noble. Clearly he had gotten hold of the same misinformation that had flooded the rest of the ton, and just as clearly it was up to her to uncover the truth and clear Noble’s name.

A little sigh escaped her lips as she considered all she had to do, a sigh that went straight to Noble’s heart. He stopped fighting the desire to respond to Gillian’s gentle strokes and gave her hand a reassuring squeeze. She didn’t look at him, but sighed again as she snuggled up against him, content in the knowledge that everything would be all right. Noble wasn’t angry after all.

Noble was furious. He controlled himself in the carriage with an iron will that amazed even him, but once he arrived home, he demanded Gillian’s presence in his library. By the time she left the room, her face pale and tear-streaked, he had made himself absolutely and undeniably clear as to his feelings about his wife visiting the man who was responsible for so much misery and unhappiness.

“But Noble, why can’t I call on him if I’m suitably escorted?” Gillian cried after the bulk of his rage had been exorcised, tears trembling on the edge of her lashes.

Noble hardened his heart against the sight. “Because the man’s a murdering bastard, madam, that’s why you cannot call on him! From this moment forward you will have nothing further to do with him.”

Gillian had blanched at the word murderer. Noble’s accusations were so similar to Lord Carlisle’s, it confused her. “He’s a murderer? Whom did he murder?”

Noble’s jaw set in a manner that Gillian was becoming all too familiar with. He placed his hands on the arms of her chair and leaned down until he was a breath away from her.