Oh, it was true he probably didn’t even realize he had spoken the words, but he had spoken them, and that meant that deep inside of him, probably in some small corner of his heart, she held sway over his beloved Elizabeth. If she could just nurture that love, it would grow, and he would come to love her as he did the former Lady Weston.

“They’ve been waiting for half an hour now, my lady, and Mr. Crouch asked me to tell you that he’d prefer you not meet with the women.”

Women? Guests? What on earth was Annie babbling about? “What time is it?” Gillian asked sleepily, burrowing her head deeper into Noble’s pillow. She loved his scent.

“Almost noon, my lady.”

“Mmmm.” He smelled so…so…Noble-ish!

“Gillian!”

Gillian groaned. She knew that voice.

“Gillian, you lazy slugabed, get up! I’ve been waiting for you for almost an hour, and here you are lolling around in bed.”

“Go ’way, Char. Sleepy.”

“I don’t care if you are sleepy, you’ve got to get up. Noble’s mistresses are here!”

The mistresses! Gillian sat up in bed. God’s shinbones, how had she come to sleep so late?

“The mistresses came? All of them? They all came? No one sent back a response; I didn’t think they were coming!”

“Here, you, open a window. Gillian, you must instruct the servants to see to the airing of these rooms. This room is quite”—she sniffed and wrinkled her nose—“stuffy.”

Gillian blushed and pulled up the sheet.

“Yes, they all came, and they’re all downstairs waiting for you.”

“Water, Annie; I need water quickly. Have tea served to my guests, and tell them I will be along shortly. And tell Crouch not to worry, his lordship is out for the day.”

“Good lord!”

Gillian paused in the act of reaching for the dressing gown her maid had laid across her feet as she left. “What?”

“Are you ill? Have you some sort of pox? You’re covered in little red marks.”

Gillian looked down at her arms. “Where?”

“There, on your bosom and neck.”

Her blush deepened as she tried to pull the bedding up to her chin.

“It’s nothing, Char.”

“It’s not nothing, it’s an epidemic!” Charlotte leaned closer, her eyes narrowed in concentration. “Lord, are those bite marks?”

Gillian thought her cheeks would burst into flames. “Charlotte, it’s nothing. Please hand me my dressing gown so I may dress and welcome my husband’s mistresses.”

“They are! They are bite marks. Did Lord Weston do that to you?”

“Charlotte!” Gillian hissed. “Please, you are embarrassing me.”

“Do they hurt?”

“No, they’re just little…love bites.”

“Do you have them everywhere?”

“Charlotte—”

Her cousin tugged at the bed linens. “You do! Look, there’s one there, on your stomach.”

“Charlotte if you do not cease this unseemly examination of my person, I shall ban you from the mistresses conference.”

“I can’t believe you’d let him bite you. I should never let anyone bite me. Do you have them on your legs?”