“I have decided to save your father.”

He looked at her in surprise. Was his father in need of saving? Nick couldn’t imagine anyone as big and powerful as his father in need of help. He frowned. Despite her height, Gillian was thin and didn’t have much bulk. He doubted she would be of much assistance.

“He needs saving, Nicholas, and I am just the woman to save him. He’s too pigheaded to admit that, and ’tis the truth part of that fault could lie with the fact that we are not very well acquainted yet. Still, he is my husband now, and I owe him my help as well as my loyalty. You can stop shaking your head at me, Nick. I have made up my mind. Do you wish to come with me?”

His father’s obsession with order and control had seen to it that life at Nethercote, while pleasant, was dull and unexciting. Gillian’s arrival had brought a swirl of adventure that struck a deep chord in the boy. Nick yearned to ask his stepmother where they were going, but the visions of that black night long ago were too strong. He nodded instead.

She nodded back, and then started out the door, calling over her shoulder, “I will be back shortly. We don’t want any gossip, so I must change my clothing. The boots, I think, will suit. He is about my size.”

***

Some forty minutes later, Gillian scratched at the rough neckcloth as she sat back against the uncomfortable squabs of the hired hack and peered out the grimy, flyspecked window at the darkened house beyond. It was a modest-sized house of red brick, situated in a conservative, pleasant neighborhood. She frowned at the staid front of the house and nibbled on her lip. This wasn’t the sort of domicile in which she had expected Noble to keep his mistress. She took another look down the gently curved street. God’s knuckles, it was all wrong—this was not the sort of neighborhood she expected would tolerate a member of the demimonde. Did all mistresses live so well?

“Well, there’s nothing for it but to knock,” she muttered and, pulling at the boots’ waistcoat, she straightened her shoulders and allowed Nick to help her out of the hack before turning back to the driver.

“Please remain here, sir. I will have need of you again in a few minutes.”

The driver nodded. Holding tight to what remained of her quickly evaporating confidence, Gillian strode up the stairs with her son in tow and wielded the knocker briskly.

“Perhaps they are all abed,” she commented to Nick two minutes later. As he was wont to do, he raised one eyebrow in a youthful imitation of his father. Gillian bit back a smile and used the knocker again, rapping loudly against the white door.

The sound echoed through the house.

“No one appears to be home,” she said thoughtfully and, with a quick glance at her stepson, put her hand on the latch.