“Well, that explains where Carlisle had disappeared to last night when I delivered your note. But don’t tell me you are angry with the charming Gillian for her attempts to save your worthless hide?”

Noble didn’t react to his gentle teasing. “Nick’s talking.”

Rosse looked at the Black Earl’s tight jaw and the eyes that glittered a hard, cold silver. “He remembers that night?”

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.”