“I have finished,” she said a few minutes later to the startled footman who had been lurking outside the breakfast room, staring at the door with a worried expression on his face. “You may want to alert the housekeeper to a little problem with the upholstery on his lordship’s chair. And there seems to be a spot or two on the wallpaper. Well, it looks to be a lovely day outside. I feel quite energized. I believe a little stroll around the square is in order. Piddle! Erp! Come along, no dawdling now.”
She marched out with the two dogs, a hastily scrambling footman in attendance, while both Crouch and Tremayne Two stood gazing in horror through the doorway into the breakfast room.
Upon her return Gillian sent word to the nursery that she would like Nick to pay a call with her, and went upstairs to change her gown. As she was making a list of things she wanted to discuss with Charlotte, sounds of an altercation in the front hall drew her attention. Eerily counterpointing the noise of shouting and loud thumping were two mournful notes that twisted around and around as they raised in both volume and pitch.
“Blast! What are they up to now?” Gillian muttered as she raised her skirts and dashed down the stairs toward the hall. That was all she needed, for her two dogs to be causing trouble when she was on tenuous ground with Noble.
Leaping down the last few stairs like a gazelle, she skidded to an astonished stop at the sight before her. The three Tremaynes were locked in battle, pummeling and lashing at each other with an energy that surprised Gillian. Heretofore, the Tremaynes, with the notable exception of the disagreement the past evening in front of the town house, had always maintained a dignified bearing that reminded Gillian of an elderly penguin she had seen at a zoological gardens. And yet here the brothers were, arms flailing, the air rent with hurled accusations while grunts and muffled groans indicated when a blow was landed.
Crouch the pirate butler danced around the edges, yelling advice and generally getting in the way. The two dogs sat in a corner and howled. It was when one of the Tremaynes landed a particularly unsporting blow to one of his brothers’ kidneys that Gillian noticed there was an extra person in the melee.
“Who is that gentleman?” she asked Deveraux, who stood with a phalanx of footmen, watching the battle with an unhealthy gleam in his eye.
“Beg pardon, my lady? Ah, that gentleman? The one just there?”
“Yes, Deveraux, the one who is currently lying flat on the floor. The one who is being sat upon by two of the Tremayne triplets, evidently having been knocked unconscious. The very same one who appears to be bleeding profusely from the nose.”
Deveraux scratched his bald little head. “Ah, that gentleman. Well, madam, I’d be hard put to say just who he is. Perhaps Crouch knows. Crouch! Attend her ladyship for a moment.”
“Aye, mistress? Ye be needin’ me?”
Crouch jumped over the thrashing leg of a Tremayne and raised his voice to be heard over their din.
“Yes.” Gillian likewise raised her voice. Really, the noise the three men were making was prodigious. How Noble put up with them was beyond her reasoning. “Piddle! Erp! Cease that howling immediately! Crouch, do you happen to know who that gentleman is?”
Crouch looked around himself in surprise, his earring bobbing wildly. “Gen’leman, m’lady? What gen’leman would that be?”
“That one. There. On the floor. Bleeding on the parquet.”
“ ’E’s bleedin’ on me bloody parquet?” The roar Crouch gave startled the three Tremaynes into quietude for a moment, but soon one shoved another and a third laughed, and all three were back on the floor, rolling around on each other and the poor unfortunate bleeding man.
“ ’Ere now! That bloody swine is spillin’ ’is claret all over me floor! Charles! Dickon! Remove the ruddy trasseno!”
“Trasseno?” Gillian spoke Italian, but had not run into that word before. “I don’t believe I’m familiar with that occupation. What exactly is a trasseno?”
“ ’E is, m’lady. ’E’s a right speeler for all ’e’s a swell.” Crouch watched with satisfaction as two of the footmen picked the gentleman up.
“Oh, I see.” Gillian didn’t see but wasn’t about to let her staff know that she wasn’t current with the latest cant. “Has he speeled on the floor then?”
Crouch’s eyebrows telegraphed wildly as he considered her. “Ye shouldn’t be usin’ such words, m’lady. It ain’t right ye should know about such things. ’Is lordship wouldn’t like it.”
Gillian turned to Deveraux as two of the Tremaynes, having knocked out the third sibling, stood and glared at one another.
“Is speeling an unfortunate occupation, Mr. Deveraux?” she asked.
“Yes, it is, madam. A speeler is an undesirable.”
Gillian was about to inquire after trasseno when Noble appeared from a back room where he had been attending to matters of a personal nature. “What the devil is going on here?”
“The Tremaynes have caught a speeler, my lord. Isn’t that excellent of them?”
Noble shot Gillian a quick glance of disbelief, then strolled forward to have a look at the bleeding man held by his two footmen. With one hand he grabbed the gentleman’s hair and yanked upwards, peering into the bloodied face. “Bloody…it’s McGregor!” he roared and waved his hand at the footmen. They released their burden. The poor Scottish speeler hit the ground like a sack of marble. He groaned and muttered quietly as he tried to move his arms and legs.
“Charles! Dickon! You dropped the speeler! Pick him up this instant,” Gillian demanded. A right speeler the gentleman might be, but he was a gentleman, anyone could see that by his elegant clothing. The two footmen bent and picked him up again.
“Not in my house you won’t. Drop him,” Noble ordered. They grinned and let go of McGregor again. He groaned even louder and lifted his head. One eye was swollen shut and a cut on his forehead was responsible for the blood covering the left side of his face.
“Oh, you poor man,” Gillian started, kneeling next to him, dabbing at the cut with her handkerchief. “Pick him up, Charles, Dickon. He’s injured.”
Alasdair McGregor, Lord Carlisle, groaned again and pushed himself into a shaky sitting position. “If you don’t mind, madam, I believe I’ll take my chances with my own two legs.”
“Wife, you will cease attending that blackguard and remove yourself from this hall,” Noble demanded, marching over and prodding the Scot with the tip of his boot. “I shall see to it this refuse is removed promptly.”
“That’s right, my lady, you just step back and let Crouch and me take care of the gentleman,” one of the Tremaynes said as he stepped forward, cracking his knuckles in a menacing manner. Tremayne One, Gillian thought.
“Aye, mistress, we’ll take care of the bloke. We’ll tuck him away in lavender, we will.”
Gillian smiled at Crouch, who had assisted the gentleman to his feet by one powerful tug to the back of his waistcoat. “That’s very sweet of you, Crouch, but I doubt lavender is the scent the gentleman prefers. Do you need further assistance, sir? Might I offer you a restorative strong beverage?”
Carlisle squirmed out of Crouch’s hold, stepped over the body of the prone Tremayne, and made an effort to tug down his waistcoat. “Indeed, madam, I do not require either your assistance or a strong beverage. I thank you for your kind concern, however, as it is certainly a welcome oasis in what has otherwise been a vast desert of hospitality.”