Nobleman and two queens hold off rival bid (12)

'hold off rival bid' is the definition.
Although both the answer and definition are singular nouns, I cannot understand how one could define the other.

'nobleman and two queens' is the wordplay.
'two queens' can mean two substitutions for 'queen'.
'nobleman' becomes 'count' (count is a type of aristocrat).
'and' means one lot of letters go next to another.
'queen' becomes 'ER' (abbreviation for Elizabeth Regina).
'queen' becomes 'offer' (I can't justify this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'count'+'er'+'offer'='COUNTEROFFER'

Can you help me to learn more?