“Gillian?” he asked softly.

“Yes, Noble?” She hurried around to his side. He was gratified to see he was right, she was chewing on her lip.

“Would you care to tell me why you have seen fit to entertain four women of whom, by rights, you should not acknowledge the existence, let alone know well enough to have to tea?” Noble was quite proud of how level and calm his voice was. The voice that spoke out loud, that is. The voice in his head was shrieking like a banshee.

Gillian thought about that for a moment. “Right now?”

“If you please.”

“Perhaps it would be best if we were to leave,” Charlotte said, making a quick dip toward the Black Earl and scurrying past him in a motion reminiscent of a startled crab. He looked, in her estimation, every bit as dangerous as his sobriquet, and she had no desire to be present to witness his reaction to Gillian’s explanation. If she had the chance to make one; Charlotte sent a fervent prayer heavenward that Gillian would survive the explanation, and bolted.

“Perhaps we had better…” Madelyn rose and motioned to the other women. They all bobbed curtsies at the earl, who did not acknowledge them, his eyes at that moment being busy with the task of trying to bore holes into Gillian’s head.

Gillian tried to avoid the Lord of Glares’ eye but knew her goose was plucked, stuffed, and cooked. She opened her mouth to make an excuse.

“My lord?”

It was Dickon.

Noble snarled at him.

Dickon’s eyes opened wide at the snarl. He picked at the trim on his jacket with bloodless fingers. “Eh…my lord, there is a matter that needs your attention belowstairs.”

“What?” If Noble’s lips had snapped shut any faster, Gillian thought, he would have bit the word in two.

Dickon looked as if he was going to be ill all over the carpet. “Mr. Crouch didn’t say, my lord. He just said to tell you there is something that needs your attention belowstairs.”

“Go.”

The word shot out of his mouth with the velocity of a bullet. Dickon didn’t hesitate. He went.

Gillian gave up avoiding his eye and raised her chin. “Before you commence lecturing me, I would like the opportunity to say one thing in my defense.”

Noble almost didn’t hear her, he was so busy trying to decide what to yell at her about first. “The choices are so tempting,” he said softly to himself. “They are laid out before me in a vast panoply of Bad Ideas. No, I take that back; Bad Ideas isn’t a good description of this particular venture. Taking hold of a wet, painted lantern was a Bad Idea. Bringing together four of my mistresses to discuss…my mind balks at the thought of exactly what you were discussing…bringing together my mistresses was not a Bad Idea. It was a Grievous Error of the highest degree.”

Gillian licked her lips nervously.

“Lord Weston? Lord Weston…uh…there’s an important note for you that’s just come.” It was Charles this time, a curiously pale and sweating Charles who repeatedly peered over his shoulder at something behind him. Gillian took a few steps to the side and looked beyond him. She could see a number of the staff out in the hall, huddled in a large group, evidently discussing something.