“You’re playing tricks on me, aren’t you, Tremayne? You must have ridden very hard indeed to arrive here before us.” She waggled a finger in front of his face.

Noble took a deep breath. There were times when he felt his life resembled a French farce. “This is my valet, my dear. He isn’t Tremayne, the coachman.”

Gillian looked from the valet to the butler. “Triplets? Identical triplets?”

The two men nodded. Gillian bit her lip to keep from laughing. Weston sighed again and, taking his wife’s arm, escorted her over to where two people stood aside from the staff.

“This is Rogerson, the tutor. And Nicholas, my son,” he said as she was in mid-curtsy. Her knee seemed to buckle for a moment, but she caught herself and whirled around to face him.

“Your son? You have a son? You have a son and you didn’t bother telling me? A son, Noble?”

Noble narrowed his eyes as he watched surprise, astonishment, then anger flit over her face. Her eyes glittered back dangerously at him. He was about to suggest that they step inside to continue the conversation when she threw herself into his arms, kissed him directly on the spot she had accidentally nipped during their wedding ceremony, then was out of his arms and hugging his son.

“Imagine that; I have a son and I didn’t even know it,” she chirped at the nine-year-old boy, who looked just as flabbergasted at the turn of events as his father. “You look just like your father, you know. The same lovely gray eyes and black eyelashes. And the same chin. Oh, I’m so happy! I have acquired a husband and a son on the same day!”

She took Nick by the arm and started toward the house, chattering as she went. A bit dazed, Noble followed, wondering when she would notice that the boy didn’t speak.

“A cold supper, Mrs. Hogue,” he told the housekeeper. “My dear, Mrs. Hogue will show you to your rooms. I will meet you in the library in an hour. Nick, Rogerson, my study if you please.”

Noble waited until Gillian went upstairs, the two hounds trailing morosely after her, before following his son and the tutor into his study. He had fully expected his troubled son to reject his stepmother, but so far the earl noted only stunned astonishment on the boy’s face. He hoped his instincts were right and that Gillian would be just the antidote Nick needed to bring him back to the world of the living.

Noble knew only too well what had driven the boy into the hell that had robbed him of speech, and although he had been patient and followed the advice of the doctors, the lad still refused to speak. Since Noble himself had built formidable walls against the pain and heartbreak of loving unwisely, he knew just how hard it would be for Gillian to breach the boy’s defenses, but he had hope that if anyone could do it, she could. Ignoring his son and the tutor, he stared out the window and thought about his wife. She had a way of getting under his defenses that made him extremely uncomfortable. His plan to leave her in the country for a month while he finished up business in town became more appealing with every minute he spent in her presence. She would settle in at Nethercote and begin to work her magic on his son, while he would be away from the danger her innocence and lively mind posed.