“Well, there’s nothing for it but to knock,” she muttered and, pulling at the boots’ waistcoat, she straightened her shoulders and allowed Nick to help her out of the hack before turning back to the driver.
“Please remain here, sir. I will have need of you again in a few minutes.”
The driver nodded. Holding tight to what remained of her quickly evaporating confidence, Gillian strode up the stairs with her son in tow and wielded the knocker briskly.
“Perhaps they are all abed,” she commented to Nick two minutes later. As he was wont to do, he raised one eyebrow in a youthful imitation of his father. Gillian bit back a smile and used the knocker again, rapping loudly against the white door.
The sound echoed through the house.
“No one appears to be home,” she said thoughtfully and, with a quick glance at her stepson, put her hand on the latch.
The door swung open. Gillian and Nick peered into the darkened hallway and listened. There was no sound but a muffled thumping from somewhere upstairs.
“Good evening?” Gillian was ashamed of the brief quaver in her voice. It was ridiculous to be afraid. This was her husband’s house, after all, and no matter whom he chose to install in it, she had a right to be here. A movement by her side made her realize she had taken Nick’s hand and was clutching it tightly. She made herself relax the grip, and with a smile she felt far from meaning, stepped over the threshold.
“Is anyone at home?”
Her voice echoed eerily around the small hallway illuminated faintly by the streetlights. To her right was a white staircase that presumably led upstairs, although all she could make out was a ghostly parade of steps dissolving into complete and utter blackness. She fought back a shiver, then froze as Nick suddenly dropped her hand and disappeared into the inky darkness.
“Nick, return to me this instant! You have no idea what sort of…oh, thank you!” The scrape of flint brought relief to Gillian as her brilliant and resourceful son lit a rack of candles found on a small ornate table at the foot of the stairs. The hall didn’t look nearly so menacing once it was lit by the soft glow of candles. Nick lit the tapers in another rack; then, taking it in hand, he tipped his head toward the stairs and looked an obvious question to Gillian.
“I suppose,” she said softly, stepping into the hall, “that you would like us to investigate those mysterious noises coming from somewhere upstairs?”
Nick nodded and held out his hand. Gillian was touched by the gesture. She took a step forward and captured his warm hand in hers.
“You are very brave, do you know that? Much braver than I, for ’tis the truth that although I am just as curious as you, my knees feel as if they are made of water. Well, come my valiant knight, shall we see what is making those thumping noises?”
Nick graced her with another of his rare smiles and the two mounted the stairs with much stealth.
“Bloody…ow…hell!” A cat’s outraged yowl curled up and around Gillian as she trod an intricate dance trying to avoid stepping on the small black animal as it wound around her ankle. Nick clutched her by the lapels of her coat and tugged her away from the stairs as she detached the cat’s claws from her ankle.
“I’m sorry, puss, I did not see your tail there, although I must say the landing is not the best place to keep it.” The cat shot Gillian a belligerent look, and with a haughty flick of its abused tail, marched down the stairs, voicing its opinion of people who didn’t watch where they were stepping.
Gillian and Nick smiled at one another, but their smiles faded as the thumping seemed to gain a new energy.
“The second floor, I believe,” Gillian said thoughtfully after listening to the rhythmic noise for a moment. It was not, as she had hoped, a loose shutter banging in the wind. There was clearly someone or something upstairs making the noise.
“Perhaps it is only another cat, trapped in a closet,” she said hopefully, trying to calm her jangled nerves as they climbed the next flight of stairs. Nick didn’t look as if he believed her suggestion. ’Twas the truth, she didn’t either. “Stay behind me, Nick.”
The pair looked down a dark hallway. The noise was definitely coming from a room to their right, a bedchamber, she assumed. Gillian patted the pocket of the boots’ jacket nervously, then pushing Nick behind her, took a deep breath and started down the hallway.
“If there’s any trouble, I want you to fetch the hack driver,” she whispered over her shoulder to him. “Tell him to bring the watch.”
Nick nodded abruptly, then pointed to the closed door before them. The muffled thumping sounds were louder, clearly originating in the room beyond the door.
Gillian’s mouth went dry as she reached out to open the door. What was making the horrible thudding noise? A corpse, hanging from the rafters and swaying against the wall? A huge, unchained beast throwing itself around the room as it bit with slavering jaws at anything it sighted? A deformed and mutilated person too hideous to be let out of the room, forced to drag his legless torso around his chamber prison by walking on his twisted and grotesque arms?
Almost swooning at the thought of the horror to be found within the room, Gillian patted her pocket again, sent a quick glance at Nick standing several paces back, and, holding the candle rack high, threw open the door.
“Oh my God!” Gillian screamed and stared at the atrocity before her. It was terrible! It was heinous! It made her skin crawl with the sheer, unadulterated abomination of it all!
It was her husband. Naked. Spread-eagled. Shackled to the bedposts. And if the expression on his face was anything to go by, ready to kill the first person who came within reach.
“Noble! What on earth are you doing? Is this some sort of strange game you are playing? My aunt told me that some men enjoy such rough bed sport, but really husband, I had not thought it of you.”
He was also gagged, a fact for which she was briefly grateful since the look he gave her was enough to peel paint.
Nick peered in the doorway, astonishment clearly writ on his young face. Gillian sidled up to the bed and tried to avoid her husband’s infuriated, icy gaze.
“I take it by your silence that your participation in this…uh…pose is not voluntary?”
Noble banged his head back against the headboard.
“I assume one thump means no, husband?”
His eyes narrowed at her. She let her gaze wander over his bared form, looking for signs of injury. There were none, except…
“Dear God! Noble, you’re…you’re broken! What happened? Oh, those villains! How could they do this to you? You poor, poor man, how you must have suffered!”
She reached out a hand to touch that portion of his anatomy that lay limp along his thigh, intending to cradle the beloved injured part, but Noble’s sudden agitated movements and head bangings stopped her. Of course, how cruel, how unthinking she was. He was obviously embarrassed and didn’t want her sympathy in this, his time of need — not when his son was standing by watching with bright, intelligent eyes. She fought back a tear and gave her husband a reassuring nod, then turned her attention to the shackles around his ankles.
God’s truth, although it looked to be an uncomfortable position, and her husband was clearly spitting mad, it did display his masculine attributes to advantage. If only the dastards hadn’t broken one of his more interesting bits. Gillian gave herself a moment or two to grieve the damage to that item, then turned her attention to admire his heavily muscled thighs and calves before another muffled protestation had her prodding the manacles.
“They are locked,” she said, looking up. Truly, she hadn’t realized the Lord of Masculinity’s chest was quite so broad, although perhaps having his arms stretched out had a broadening affect on it. She considered the manner, eyes narrowing with concentration as she let her gaze wander over his torso, imagining his arms to his side. No, ’twas the truth his chest was really that broad and not just an optical illusion. She wondered briefly how many hand spans wide his chest was, and was just reaching out with the intention of satisfying that curiosity when another gargled and furious noise stopped her in midstretch. Noble banged his head against the headboard twice and rolled his eyes at her.