Noble shook his head and rubbed his hands together. Even thinking about that night made him feel cold. “No. I think now—now that I know about the second man—I think he and Elizabeth were planning to use Carlisle.”

“For what purpose?”

“As a scapegoat for my murder.”

Rosse’s jaw dropped.

“There you are! Lud, Weston, the news is all over the clubs—you called the duel off? You apologized? ’Pon my honor, I never thought the day would come when you backed down from a challenge!”

“I apologized,” Noble said evenly, sending the marquis a look that let him know their conversation was at an end.

“But…but why?” Sir Hugh stammered. “That is…it’s not like you, man, not like you a’tall. You feeling quite the thing? Not ill, perhaps? Sickening over something?”

“I’m quite all right, Tolly, there’s no need to hover over me like a giant mother hen.”

Sir Hugh flushed at the look of distaste Noble gave his plum waistcoat with its scarlet embroidery. “I couldn’t credit it, but if you say it’s true…” Sir Hugh shrugged and made himself comfortable in a nearby chair. “Why the long faces if you’ve settled this affair?”

Noble was about to explain when a shadow fell across them.

“I accept your apology,” Lord Carlisle said, standing before Noble and clutching a pair of soft leather gloves. “Consider that score settled. However, I inquired. It was your house. If you think you can disguise that Crotch of yours by tying a bit of black silk over his ugly face, you’re mistaken.”

Noble didn’t flinch as Carlisle laid the gloves across his cheek with a snap of his wrist. “Consider yourself challenged.”

Noble pursed his lips for a moment, then bent and retrieved the gloves from where Carlisle had thrown them at his feet. He handed them back. “No.”

Sir Hugh gasped. Carlisle stared. “No what?”

“No, I don’t accept your challenge. You are quite right to be outraged over my wife’s actions. I apologize on her behalf.”

Carlisle gawked at him. “You…apologize?”

Noble nodded. “I do. Her plan, motivated by her desire to see no blood shed between us, was carried out solely upon her orders. However, as she is my wife and I am responsible for her actions, I apologize.”

“You won’t face me over pistols?”

“No.”

Carlisle looked as if he wanted to pout. “Well, dammit, man, you have to give me satisfaction for this slight!”

“There’s always Jackson’s,” Rosse pointed out. “You could beat your frustrations out on each other.”

Noble looked at Carlisle, noting that although the Scot was shorter than he was, he had more bulk to his chest. Even dressed in a kilt, as he was now, Carlisle was the picture of masculine power. Carlisle, likewise engaged in an assessment of his would-be opponent, wasn’t fooled in the least by the elegant picture Noble displayed—after all didn’t his nose look to have been recently broken? Carlisle knew that beneath that tastefully cut, skintight coat, Noble had the strength to match him.