“I’m doing my best to make order out of the chaos that seems to follow you everywhere, but God knows it isn’t easy.” Had her legs been this long the night before? The breeches seemed to go on forever, stretching over lush, long thighs. Noble thought briefly of the way her legs had wrapped around his hips and decided they were the same length, then dragged his mind back to the task at hand. He wouldn’t think of her legs while his son was present. He wouldn’t think of how long they were, or how the shapely contour of her calf made his mouth go dry, or the silken feeling of her leg as it rubbed down his own… God’s teeth, he’d be shaming himself in a minute. Grimly, Noble envisioned scenes of war, pestilence, and mutilation.

“In order for your life to become the calm, enjoyable existence that I know you long for,” he continued in a gritty voice, his jaw tense and tight, “you must abide by my rules and not question them. Through me, you will gain control over your life and will no longer be subject to such unpleasant experiences as you have encountered since I have known you. You are undisciplined, wife, but not beyond hope of redemption.”

Nick went to stand beside Gillian. She turned and put an arm around his shoulders, pulling the jacket up even higher. The breeches did nothing to hide the sweet outline of her derriere. In fact, Noble thought with a rising sense of panic, they enhanced it. Not even the vision of his son clutched to her side could stop the memory of just how warm that backside had felt nestled against him intimately when he had woken that morning, nor how he had been possessed to waken his bride by means that would guarantee to keep a smile on her face all day. Two pairs of eyes leveled seriously upon him suddenly drove home the point that he was lecturing his wife while stretched out nude, manacled to a bed. “Gillian, the key.”

Gillian took the key from her stepson. “I have one or two questions, if you please, Noble.”

“Release me and I will be happy to answer all of them.” Gillian nodded and reached toward his feet, but instead of unlocking the shackle, she idly stroked the top of his foot instead.

“It’s about this concept of order you have.” Her brow wrinkled as she puzzled it out. “I do not think I understand it fully. When you say chaos, do you refer to those little surprises that make life so very interesting?”

Her fingers ran from the top of his ankle down the slope to his toes. He doubted that she even knew she was touching him. Noble had never before thought of the foot as anything but a useful appendage, but a thousand nerves he did not know he possessed jumped to life and pulsated under Gillian’s magic fingers. He laid his head back and groaned. He heard his wife gasp as she suddenly clutched his foot.