Weston looked away and shrugged. “I had a debt of honor to his father.”
“Which you paid in full when you bailed Tolly out of that gambling mess two years ago.”
Noble shrugged again.
“About this other situation…” Rosse gave in to the grin he had been battling for the last half hour. “You might be right in your choice of brides, Noble. A word of warning, however — in addition to being very good for Nick, you might just find your Amazon will turn out to be very good for you as well.” With a tip of his hat, he strolled off toward his own carriage whistling a jaunty tune.
Sir Hugh watched the two depart before gaining his own carriage and giving his coachman an address in Kensington.
Gillian sat on the scullery maid’s chair the following afternoon and thought.
“Table scraps are not helping matters.”
A tiny, shriveled woman no bigger than a seven-year-old child perched on a chair across the table. “No, miss, it just seems to make them worse.”
“Have we tried Mr. Mystico’s advice? He is lauded in the Times as being a genius with digestive complaints. What works for people must certainly work for dogs, don’t you think?” Gillian waved toward the booklet she had recently purchased from a street seller.
The tiny woman snorted. “You don’t pay no heed to those things you read in newspapers, miss. Those writers are a bunch of scoundrels and scallywags they are. No, the answer is in here. We’ll find it, miss, don’t you worry none.” She tapped the side of her wizened head and screwed up her face in thought.
“But we’ve tried everything, Cook. I’m at my wit’s end — Piddle is bad enough, but Erp is becoming a positive leper among dogs!”
The Collins’s cook pursed her lips and counted off her fingers. “We’ve tried meal, game, and stewed vegetables. Potatoes, turnips, and beans.”
Gillian shuddered. “The beans were a disaster. What haven’t we tried?”
“Corn?”
“Two months ago. It didn’t work.”
Cook’s eyes roamed the kitchen as she mentally reviewed the pantry. “Rice?”
Gillian sat up straight in her chair. “Rice? No, I don’t believe we’ve tried rice. Do you think it would help? Perhaps if we—”
Owen the footman interrupted the discussion of the bloodhounds’ diet with a request for Gillian’s presence in Lord Collins’s study.
Knowing that nothing raised her uncle’s ire more than tardiness, Gillian promised to return to the discussion and raced up the backstairs to the first floor. There was no time to pin up the strands of hair that had come down from her haphazard chignon, or to change into a less wrinkled gown. Gillian took a deep breath and stepped forward as Owen announced, “Miss Leigh, m’lord.”
Miracle of miracles, Uncle Theo was smiling. Gillian blinked in surprise. Her uncle was not given to noticing her much, let alone finding something about her that would please him, but she dutifully beamed back an answering smile. She held on to her smile until a dark shadow removed itself from the wall and strode forward. Her smile wavered and crumpled into a soft gasp that only Weston heard. For some reason her reaction pleased him immensely.
“My dear, I believe you know why Lord Weston is here?” Lord Collins asked archly.
Gillian’s stomach dropped into her boots. Oh, yes, she knew why he was here. The Lord of Traitors must have decided her behavior yesterday was so horrifying that he was compelled to report it to her uncle. She frowned at him, annoyed. Did he not promise to never mention the embarrassing incident with the street urchin? Did he not accept her apology when she startled one of his matched bays into stepping on his foot? Did he not admit that it was a minor wound only, that the boot could be easily replaced, and that William, his tiger, had wished for a rest in the country, and thus the slight injury to his back was really a blessing in disguise as it would allow him to rest for three to four weeks, depending on the doctor’s recommendation? He had indeed! She remembered quite clearly him insisting the episode was nothing but an accident, and not her fault at all. And now here he was tattling on her! Gillian narrowed her eyes at him and decided quickly on a course of complete indifference. It wouldn’t matter one whit what tales he carried to her uncle; she would deny knowledge of everything.
“Yes, I believe I do know why his lordship is present,” she replied with a dignity that would do a queen proud. She would cut him cold, that’s what she would do. Imitating his annoying habit, she raised one eyebrow and gazed at him coolly.
“Ah, excellent, excellent. And what do you have to say about the situation?” Lord Collins asked.
“What do I have to say?” Gillian turned to her uncle with a gay little laugh. “Why, nothing! The matter is so trivial it is beneath my notice.”
Theodore Hartshorne, Lord Collins, stared at his niece and wondered if she had gone completely mad. “A matter so trivial it is beneath your notice, madam?”
Gillian stepped back when his voice hit a note an octave higher than normal, but she was determined to stick to her plan. Without glancing at the dark figure looming immediately to her right, she straightened her shoulders and lifted her chin.
“That is what I said. A trivial matter. One I cannot even recall, it is so very trivial. Infinitely trivial, if you comprehend my meaning.”
She wondered idly how it was possible for a person to turn crimson in the face as her uncle had, then quickly became concerned when he seemed about to succumb to a fit of apoplexy. His mouth opened and shut but no sound came out. His eyes bulged. The hair on his ears stood on end. “Uncle? Are you quite all right?”
“Trivial?” was the only word to escape the earl’s lips.
“I will fetch Aunt Honoria,” Gillian said as she turned to leave. A hand gripping her arm painfully stopped her.
“I believe, madam, that you owe me an explanation.”
“I owe you an explanation?” Gillian fumed at the scowling earl. “How dare you! You promised you would not mention this and yet here you are, tattling to my uncle. If there are explanations to be handed about, my lord, you are the one who should be offering them, not me.”
Weston loosened his grip on her arm and narrowed his fascinating eyes. “What are you talking about?”
Gillian shot a glance at her uncle, who looked as if he would swoon at any moment, then leaned forward and hissed into the earl’s ear, “Yesterday. Your horses. When I startled them — you said it did not matter in the least!”
The sound of laughter rolling around the small study snapped Lord Collins out of his brush with apoplexy. Both he and Gillian gaped at Weston in surprise. The Black Earl was laughing. No, not just laughing; he was holding on to his side and wiping tears.
“I hardly think it is that funny,” Gillian muttered with a disgruntled look as she watched the earl wipe his eyes. “ ’Tis not you who has to live with these things.”
“On the contrary, my dear, I fear it is me who will have to live with these things. Lord Collins, if I might have a moment alone with your niece?”
Gillian waited until after her uncle left, then looked cautiously at the earl. “Am I?”
He stepped forward and took her hand. “Are you what?”
“Your dear?”
Weston stilled and held her green-eyed gaze with his own. “Your uncle has given me permission to pay you my addresses. I would not offer for a woman unless she was very dear to me indeed.”
“Oh.” Gillian tipped her head to one side and wondered that she didn’t float away with this feeling of happiness. “Very well. I accept.”
She smiled to herself over the fleeting look of surprise on his face. She had a feeling it wasn’t easy to disconcert the earl, and she relished this experience. A little giddy, she watched as he made a bow, kissed her hand, and matter-of-factly informed her that unless she had objections, they would be married immediately. He had secured a special license and suggested two days hence as their wedding day.