Gillian felt as if he’d struck her. He could rail at her all he liked, but to accuse her of being negligent where Nick was concerned—that was the outside of enough!

“I will not let you do this to me,” she shouted and punched him in the chest in an attempt to drive home the point. “You can lock me away, you can forbid me to see my friends, but you cannot take my son from me.”

“He is not your son,” Noble roared at her.

“He became my son the minute you married me,” she yelled back, furious that despite all their intimacies, despite the fact that they loved one another, he still did not see them as a family. “You cannot take him away from me. I won’t let you.”

“You have no choice in the matter,” he snapped. “The decision is made. I will send Nick back to Nethercote in the morning. As you made a particular point about staying in town to be at my side, you will remain with me.”

“You will not destroy this family!” She pounded on his chest again until he held her hands still; then, with a wordless cry of protest, she ripped them from his grasp and stalked toward the door.

“Gillian, I did not give you permission to leave. I have not yet finished with you.”

“Oh, no, my lord,” she said as she threw open the door, ignoring the startled faces of the staff gathered immediately outside. “You very nearly are finished, but you have not yet destroyed us completely. If you do not want to annihilate what was beginning to be a family, I strongly urge you to take back your words. I shall wait in my sitting room for your apology.”

“Then you will wait for hell to freeze over,” Noble thundered. “Gillian, come back here!”

Gillian turned and pushed her way blindly past the servants and ran up the stairs. At the top of the flight she paused when she saw Nick hiding in the shadows and clutched him to her with a sob.

“I won’t let him take you away from me,” she whispered, hugging him as tightly as she could. “You won’t be alone again, I promise.”

Nick looked up into his stepmother’s eyes, and what he saw there warmed him down to the tips of his toes. He reached up to touch a tear streaking down her cheek and frowned at the wetness on his finger.

“My mother used to tell me a saying,” Gillian said, bending down and kissing him on the forehead. “She said nothing worthwhile is easy. You, my darling son, are very worthwhile. I will do whatever it takes to make us a family, whatever it takes to make your father realize that he can’t separate us. He’s hurt and angry right now, Nick, and when people are hurt and angry they very often lash out at those people near to them. Do you understand?”

An urge bubbled up deep in Nick. He tried to ignore it, but it pressed up and up, higher and more insistent, until he almost gave in to the urge. Instead he nodded his head.