Noble nodded. “There was a second man there, Harry. It…” Noble seemed to be having difficulty making his jaw work. “It wasn’t McGregor. Nick saw it all; he saw Elizabeth and this other man, and he saw their little games. So help me God, if I ever find the bastard, I’ll gut him alive. He was going to abuse Nick simply to strike at me.”
Rosse looked ill, but not as ill as Noble felt. That black thing that had once roiled around inside him was back, but this time it had a target, a reason for being, and its name was vengeance. “God damn her soul to eternal hell! How could she do that to him? He was just a little boy.”
“I’m sure she’s rotting there now,” Rosse said, thinking that if anyone deserved eternal damnation, the late Countess of Weston did. “Did he…did Nick understand everything?”
“No, thank God,” Noble said, suddenly exhausted. He felt drained, squeezed dry, as if he were an old limp washrag. “He doesn’t, and Gillian is doing her best to make him forget, but I doubt if he ever will. My God, Harry, the man was going to…” The thought was too foul, he couldn’t even put it into words.
Rosse noticed the tears in his friend’s eyes and felt a lump forming in his throat. “What can I do, Noble?”
“We’ve got to find out who this other man was. The one who played those foul games with Elizabeth.” Noble stared out the window for a moment. “She had so many lovers, Harry, where do I begin looking?”
“Did Nick give you a description of the man?”
“Just a brief one — an average-sized man with no outstanding features, brown hair, dark eyes — a description that could match more than half the men in the ton.”
“Perhaps if I were to question him—”
Noble shook his head adamantly. “No. I’ll not have him relive that night again. We’ll have to find the bastard without upsetting Nick. Gillian’s taken him out to the zoological garden to see the octupantses.”
Rosse looked startled. “To see the what?”
“Octopus.”
“I thought you said…never mind, it doesn’t matter. Is it safe for them to be out?”
“Gillian said it would be better for him to be out of the house for a bit. I didn’t send her out alone; she’s got all five Runners with her.” A smile flickered across Noble’s face as he remembered her outraged objection to taking all five with her. “Do you know that she hired two Runners to protect me? With your two, that makes seven all together. It’s a wonder the thieves and murderers aren’t running rampant in the city.”
Rosse grunted, and continued tugging on his lip as he considered and rejected paths of inquiry. “You’ll be safe enough at White’s. You may not like this, Noble — I know you want justice for your boy — but I think we should finish up with this first problem before starting on one five years old.”
Noble looked obstinate, and it took Harry until the pair had reached White’s to convince him that to divide their attention and forces would be foolish. “After all,” he pointed out as they handed over their hats and sticks, “you lose Carlisle as your main suspect if Nick is correct and there’s a second man involved. I’d be willing to wager it’s this man who is behind the attacks on you and the threats to your lady, rather than Carlisle.”
“He’s tried to convince Gillian I am an ogre,” Noble protested. He hated to give up the idea of McGregor as villain but had to admit it was looking less likely with each passing day.
“All he’s tried to do is warn her against what he believes is your vicious temper. Gillian told me last night that he believes you murdered Elizabeth most foully and are going to do the same to her.”
Noble looked startled. “By God, I’ll thrash the…she didn’t believe him, did she?”
Rosse nodded to an acquaintance, was pleased to see that no one cut his friend, and headed for his favorite quiet corner. “No, of course she didn’t, but she did point out that all he’s ever tried to do is to protect her from you.”
“So she thinks,” Noble said darkly, and glowered at his boots.
“About that night, Noble — I know you don’t want to talk about it, but have you told Gillian what happened? What really happened, not what Carlisle is sure to have told her what he saw?”
“There wasn’t time,” Noble answered. “After I spoke with Nick, Gillian thought it was best to fill his mind with happier thoughts and took him off to the Gardens.”
Rosse adjusted his spectacles. “I can imagine what Carlisle told her he saw — I had the devil of a time pulling him off you. I thought I was too late after I heard the pistol shots and found you in a pool of blood, with Carlisle’s hands digging into your throat.”
Noble grimaced and rubbed at his neck. “I couldn’t speak for weeks. Thank God you were staying with me then.”
“It wasn’t a pleasant time for you,” Rosse said easily. “You needed a friendly face around that dour ancestral pile. I never did find out why Carlisle was there that night — did you?”
“Yes. He showed me a note from Elizabeth, saying she’d overheard me plotting to kill her. He had come to play knight-in-shining-armor to her maiden-in-distress.”
Rosse blinked carefully, noting the anger in his friend’s voice. “Do you mean…she arranged to have him there?” His mind raced on, quickly leaping over false impressions and jumping to the logical conclusion. “Was she arranging for you to take the blame for something? Something to do with Carlisle?”
Noble shook his head and rubbed his hands together. Even thinking about that night made him feel cold. “No. I think now — now that I know about the second man — I think he and Elizabeth were planning to use Carlisle.”
“For what purpose?”
“As a scapegoat for my murder.”
Rosse’s jaw dropped.
“There you are! Lud, Weston, the news is all over the clubs — you called the duel off? You apologized? ’Pon my honor, I never thought the day would come when you backed down from a challenge!”
“I apologized,” Noble said evenly, sending the marquis a look that let him know their conversation was at an end.
“But…but why?” Sir Hugh stammered. “That is…it’s not like you, man, not like you a’tall. You feeling quite the thing? Not ill, perhaps? Sickening over something?”
“I’m quite all right, Tolly, there’s no need to hover over me like a giant mother hen.”
Sir Hugh flushed at the look of distaste Noble gave his plum waistcoat with its scarlet embroidery. “I couldn’t credit it, but if you say it’s true…” Sir Hugh shrugged and made himself comfortable in a nearby chair. “Why the long faces if you’ve settled this affair?”
Noble was about to explain when a shadow fell across them.
“I accept your apology,” Lord Carlisle said, standing before Noble and clutching a pair of soft leather gloves. “Consider that score settled. However, I inquired. It was your house. If you think you can disguise that Crotch of yours by tying a bit of black silk over his ugly face, you’re mistaken.”
Noble didn’t flinch as Carlisle laid the gloves across his cheek with a snap of his wrist. “Consider yourself challenged.”
Noble pursed his lips for a moment, then bent and retrieved the gloves from where Carlisle had thrown them at his feet. He handed them back. “No.”
Sir Hugh gasped. Carlisle stared. “No what?”
“No, I don’t accept your challenge. You are quite right to be outraged over my wife’s actions. I apologize on her behalf.”
Carlisle gawked at him. “You…apologize?”
Noble nodded. “I do. Her plan, motivated by her desire to see no blood shed between us, was carried out solely upon her orders. However, as she is my wife and I am responsible for her actions, I apologize.”