What was the use, why was he pretending to himself? His life had been well-ordered and structured before Gillian came to it, that was true, but it had also been a bleak and hollow life, a life without joy or warmth or…love. Chaos might dodge her footsteps, but it was a small price to pay to be loved by her. And what had he done in the face of that love? He’d blown up at her, yelled at her until she sobbed at his cruelty, tears streaming down her face when she realized that he would not, could not, give her the words she needed to hear.
Another woman’s tears came to mind, another woman’s tears as a result of his cruelty. Noble clutched the arms of the chair until his nails gouged crescents in the wood, but he paid no heed to the pain in his fingers. He was too busy fighting the crippling pain that gripped his soul.
Dear God, please don’t let me drive her away as I did Elizabeth, he prayed, his thoughts jumbled and confused, chasing each other in circles. Images of that night, that terrible night came unbidden to his mind, the image of finding his son curled up in a little ball in a pool of blood, almost out of his mind with terror. The night his wife died, the night he knew for a fact that hell existed, because he was in it. The feelings of guilt, once thought long gone, swept over him and merged with this new flood of guilt over his treatment of Gillian.
Noble Britton, the twelfth Earl of Weston, sat alone in his library and at last faced the emotions he had refused to acknowledge for five years: sorrow for the horrors he had forced upon his son, remorse for failing his first wife, self-pity for the hell he had lived in for so long. And finally, and most recently, shame for hurting the one person who meant more to him than life itself.
Gillian stood in the doorway of the library and hesitated. She had knocked, but Noble had not answered. Was he ill? So angry still that he refused to acknowledge her? She took a step forward, afraid to draw his attention to her and yet unwilling to face his wrath if he thought she was concealing the letter she had just received.
“Noble?” The word was so soft, even she could hardly hear it. She stepped silently toward the head that rested against the back of the armchair. Was he reading? Asleep? She came around the side and stopped, stunned by the sight.
He was asleep, his head resting at an angle that looked most uncomfortable, his hands curled into fists. His face in repose looked so unguarded, so young, so peaceful, but it wasn’t that unusual sight that made her heart constrict with pain. She bent forward and touched a finger to his cheek. Faint silvery tracks led down the angled planes of his face, down into the darkening shadows of his jaw.
He had been weeping. Her Lord of Rage had been weeping.
CHAPTER EIGHT
“Good evening, Lady Weston.”
“Oh, Lord Rosse, good evening.” Gillian peered around the marquis, looking for Noble. “How nice to see you again. That’s a lovely waistcoat. Are those dragons?”
“Yes. It is a gift from my betrothed.”
Gillian looked at him, startled. “You are betrothed? I didn’t know. Noble never mentioned it.”
Rosse smiled. “I’ve been betrothed since I was sixteen. Our fathers arranged it.”
Gillian’s brow furrowed. “Is that legal?”
Rosse shrugged. “It matters not, I’ve pledged myself to the girl, and I’ll marry her. Some day,” he added with an irresistible grin. Gillian couldn’t help but grin in response. She liked Rosse the best of all Noble’s friends. He reminded her of a friendly puppy, all eagerness and enthusiasm.
“Noble had an important appointment, I’m afraid, but I managed to convince him to allow me to have the honor of escorting you to the Countess of Gayfield’s rout, where your estimable husband will join us later.”
Gillian was disappointed that Noble had not remained home to escort her. She not only wanted to discuss the note she had received from Lord Carlisle, she wanted to find out why he had been weeping. Nick was in good health — that had been her first concern. Try as she might, she just could not understand why her Lord of Tempers ran hot one moment, then cold another. Perhaps it would be better if she stopped trying to understand him and just accepted his volatile emotions.
“Er…quite so, my lady,” Lord Rosse said, and held the door open for her.
Gillian blushed, thought about explaining about her Unfortunate Habit, then decided it wasn’t important.
“My lord,” she said once she was seated in Lord Rosse’s elegant carriage, “perhaps you would tell me—”
“Where your husband is this evening? I’m afraid I cannot, my lady.”
Gillian looked annoyed. “I shouldn’t dream of asking you such a thing,” she said. “I have every faith in my Noble, and if he said he had an important matter of business to attend to, then I’m sure that is what he is doing.”
Rosse thought back to the earlier conversation he had had with Noble.
“Just look at this, Harry,” the Black Earl had demanded, waving a letter in front of the marquis’s face. “How dare the blackguard impugn Gillian’s virtue in such a manner? You’ll act as my second, of course.”
“Your second? You’ve called him out, then?”
“Yes, earlier, when I caught the murdering bastard with his hands all over my wife.”
Rosse stared at him in surprise.
“Oh, not in that manner; it was all perfectly innocent on her part,” Noble stormed, continuing to wear a path in the carpet before his friend. “She was suitably escorted by Crouch and three footmen, not to mention Nick, her cousin, and those blasted beasts. No, that was an innocent bit of folly on her part; her cousin wanted an introduction, and you know how Gillian thinks — in a manner so convoluted it’s almost straightforward, she took Lady Charlotte to call on the man with some feeble excuse of seeking a referral from him. But the bastard’s gone too far now. Just look at this!”
“I will if you stand still long enough for me to snatch it from your hand.”
Noble tossed him the letter as he passed his friend.
“Hmmm. So she’s to meet him tonight at the Gayfields’ rout, eh?”
“So he says. Gillian won’t meet him, of course. We had a discussion about that earlier.”
Rosse could just imagine what form the discussion had taken. “It appears to be an anonymous letter. Are you sure it’s from Carlisle?”
Noble snorted as he completed his circuit of the room and turned to begin it again. “Of course I’m sure; who else would send me a note gloating over the fact that Gillian had made an assignation to meet with him right under my nose? He’s baiting me, Harry, and I refuse to be baited.”
Rosse wasn’t sure, but something didn’t smell right about the entire situation. So far the added men he’d put on the investigation had found nothing to justify his intuition that there was more to the matter than just McGregor. He told Noble his suspicions, anyway.
“You’ve been out of the spy game too long. Your nose has lost its sharpness,” Noble opined.
Rosse shrugged and took a sip of his friend’s excellent brandy. “Possibly. But I don’t believe so.”
Noble thought about that for a moment; then his eye caught sight of the blasted note again and his attention was fixed wholly and completely on gaining satisfaction.
“Take Gillian to the Gayfields’ tonight. I’ll meet her there later.”
Rosse looked into the hooded gray eyes of his friend, his mind quickly assimilating facts and trying to figure out Noble’s scheme. “Where will you be until then?”
“In your shadow,” Noble said grimly.
Rosse’s pale eyes blinked behind the glass in his spectacles; then enlightenment darkened them. “Ah. I believe I see. You will pretend to be away this evening, leaving the avenue open for McGregor—”