“Well, now, that’s a right good question, m’lord.”

Noble started toward the staircase. “Is she in the drawing room? Her bedchamber? Her sitting room?”

Charles made a choking sound and fell over backward in a dead faint.

“Fellow’s ill; see to him, Crouch.”

“Aye, m’lord, I’ll do that. Eh—wouldn’t yer lordship prefer sittin’ in yer library while I find yer lady for ye?”

“I have a feeling it’s better if I find her myself, Crouch,” he replied as he marched up the stairs. He wondered what Gillian had done now to bring out the protective instincts in his staff, then chuckled over the thought. She had endeared herself to them just as quickly as she had to him. Although he couldn’t let them think he supported such a notion, it warmed him to know they would protect her against what they perceived to be his unholy temper. He chuckled again as he turned down the hall toward her sitting room. Surely it would soon become apparent that no matter what outrageous act she committed, no matter what sort of a mess she embroiled herself in, he would bear it all with nary a word to the contrary. What could she possibly do, he asked himself as he opened the door, that could raise his ire now that he knew he loved her?

“…once pretended that I was a wheelbarrow and he a gardener…oh!”

Blast it, she had friends paying her a visit. He smiled pleasantly and was about to make a bow when the woman who had been speaking, a chestnut-haired beauty with vivid blue eyes, caught his attention. She looked familiar. She looked very familiar, quite like…dear God, it couldn’t be!

Noble stared at his former mistress, his mind doing cartwheels as it tried to manufacture a reasonable explanation for what Beverly would be doing in his wife’s sitting room, talking about…wheelbarrows? A groan slipped past his lips as he recalled another time he had been feeling inventive, a most successful invention as far as he was concerned, but not one he wished discussed in front of his wife. Not with his co-inventor, anyway.

His eyes, feeling like a particularly sticky boiled sweet, swept the room to find her but stopped on the figure next to that of his ex-mistress. Surely that couldn’t be…he closed his eyes and shook his head. No, he was seeing things. Perhaps the wound to his arm had given him a fever and he hadn’t realized it. He must be delirious.

He opened his eyes again. No, there they were, standing together, Beverly and Laura. By dint of grinding his teeth together and squeezing his hands into fists he managed to keep from screaming, but it was a near thing. He took a deep breath and prepared to ask his wife just what the hell she thought she was doing, inviting his old mistresses to tea.

“Good afternoon, Lord Weston.” A smiling blond woman bobbed a curtsy. Anne, that had to be Anne; no one else had that saucy tilt to her head. Noble’s mind started to go numb around the edges. Three mistresses? No, there was Madelyn; that made four. All together, here, in this room. How lovely. He peered suspiciously at a fifth occupant. No, it wasn’t Mariah; it was Gillian’s cousin. Which meant the other person, the sixth person, the person who was standing just behind his shoulder, no doubt chewing on that delectable little lip, was his wife.