He bowed, most graciously it seemed to Annabel, who was pretending to read yet another invitation. “I am most happy to hear that,” he said, and the ring in his deep voice seemed sincere enough.
“Excellent,” Griselda said, bustling out of the corner of the room and taking Imogen’s arm.
“I have one more comment,” Imogen said, stopping Griselda from pulling her from the room. “I’m not quite a ninny, Lord Ardmore. I realized this afternoon that—”
There was a knock at the door and a nearly simultaneous moan from Griselda.
His manservant bustled out of one of the side doors and said, without opening the door, “His lordship is not receiving.”
“It’s Mr. Barnet, sir,” came the voice of the hotel manager, sounding quite harassed. “I’m afraid his lordship has an urgent visitor.”
“The visitor can wait,” the valet said, after a glance from his master. “Keep him downstairs, if you please, Mr. Barnet.”
“I’m sorry, but this cannot wait,” Mr. Barnet replied, and to Annabel’s horror, the knob began to turn.
“It must be Rafe!” Griselda hissed, her eyes wide. “Quick!” She pulled Imogen through one of the doors to the side of the room.
Ardmore looked at Annabel and he had that funny little half-smile again, so she felt quite safe and rather as if she were acting in a poorly written melodrama. She slipped behind the huge velvet curtain next to the fireplace—because that, after all, is just what a heroine in a melodrama would do.
That very second the door slammed open.
It wasn’t Rafe.
Ten
There were two of them, and they both held large, murderous-looking calvary carbines. Annabel stood as quietly as she could behind the curtains, watching through a gap. One of them had his gun poking into poor Mr. Barnet’s back, and the second pointed a gun at the Earl of Ardmore. Ardmore looked as unconcerned as he had the moment before.
“Was there something that you wished, gentlemen?” he asked.
It seemed that the very nonchalance of his voice irritated them, because they scowled. Even though she had a growing feeling of fear, Annabel found it interesting. She would have thought that ruffians of this nature came with unshaved faces and rough-and-tumble clothing. They would swear and spit on the ground. At least those were the men that her father had always indicated were dangerous.
Mr. Barnet was babbling an apology, something about being caught in the hallway…
These must be London criminals. They looked like gentlemen, really. One was slender and dark-haired. He was wearing a velvet coat, and had a watch chain slung across his waistcoat. He smiled, and she could see clearly that he had every one of his teeth.
“We came across this upstanding man doing a bit of eavesdropping outside your door, my lord,” he said. Annabel hoped that Griselda hadn’t heard that comment. “I’d be most grateful if you would sit comfortably on the settee,” the robber continued. His voice was as educated and respectable as she’d ever heard. Still, since her father had trained his daughters to speak without a Scottish burr, one had to suppose that anyone could learn to speak like an English gentleman.
Ardmore strolled over to the settee in question, his manservant and Mr. Barnet following when the second robber motioned with a wave of his gun.
“You see, my lord,” the suave robber said, “I’m going to ask Mr. Coley here to enact a brief search of your bedchambers.”
Annabel gasped. Mr. Coley was heading directly for the door leading to the room into which Griselda and Imogen had vanished. She hoped they had had the sense to hide. She started to breathe again when there wasn’t a sound except for the slam of a wardrobe, and what was likely a desk drawer.
Annabel could feel anger growing in her. Poor Lord Ardmore didn’t have any money and already had to stay in a hotel. And now these men were going to take what little funds he had, and probably any jewelry he had as well? Yes, they definitely were.
“I’ll trouble you for your signet ring,” the suave robber said. “And any other finery you have about you. I’d hate to have to lay hands on a peer of the realm.” There was something mocking in his voice that made Annabel even more enraged.
If she could just strike one of the robbers from behind, then…She stepped back from the velvet curtains and looked about her. She was standing in a deep window leading to a balcony, and there wasn’t even a lamp she could throw. But perhaps…the window was ajar. She pushed it open with the tip of one finger and peered over the balcony.
Below her was a carriage, horses stamping, steam coming from their nostrils. A burly carriage man was standing at their heads. Unfortunately, it wasn’t Griselda’s carriage. And how was she to get the coachman’s attention without warning the robbers?
She could try to drop her reticule directly onto the head of the coachman. But then he was sure to simply shout something up to her, which would cause the robbers to realize her presence—and that would merely lead to the loss of her ear-bobs.
The only thing to do was scream. Loudly. Then the coachman would dash into the hotel, and—
The door to the coach swung open and out stepped an unmistakable figure, from the tip of her lorgnette to the pointed toes of her slippers: Lady Blechschmidt. Annabel gasped and drew back from the railing. Lady Blechschmidt was one of the most moral ladies in London, her reputation for upstanding behavior only matched by her pious indignation at the behavior of less prudent mortals. Moreover, she was one of Griselda’s friends, although even Griselda thought she was occasionally harsh in her assessments.
At the moment, Lady Blechschmidt seemed to be talking to her coachman. She was probably going to send him away, and that would be the end of Annabel’s chance to attract attention before the robbers took every penny belonging to the earl. But if she screamed, what would Lady Blechschmidt think of her presence in Lord Ardmore’s chambers? It didn’t take a genius to answer that.
She tiptoed back through the door and put her eye to the crack between curtains. The robbers were back together now and—
It was awful. Even as they watched, the first robber laughed and said something, and Lord Ardmore, his face so grim that it made her quail to look at it, started pulling off his cravat. His cravat? They were going to steal his cravat?
Then she heard what the robber was saying. “You see, my lord, in my extensive experience, I’ve found that gentlemen don’t willingly give me every gewgaw they may have around them. There might be something in your pockets that we’d like to take with us. Your coat will fetch a pretty penny, and the time it takes you to pull your smalls back on will be just long enough for us to stroll out of the hotel without fuss. Because I do dislike unpleasantness, and I’d hate to have to shoot anyone.”
Annabel took one look at Ardmore’s furious, set face, and the way he tossed his cravat onto the settee, and she dashed back to the railing. Her mind was made up. Ardmore couldn’t lose everything he had, down to his very clothing, to these villains. What would he do? How could he possibly find a rich bride to marry without a coat to his name? Imogen had already dented his reputation.
Besides, Griselda was in the next room…surely her presence would quell Lady Blechschmidt’s sharp tongue.
Lady Blechschmidt was just turning from her coachman. Leaning over the balcony, Annabel threw back her hood and screamed, “Robbers! Up here! Help!”
Lady Blechschmidt looked about confusedly, but her burly coachman jerked back his head, took one look and ran into the hotel, followed by two groomsmen. Annabel opened her mouth to shout an explanation to Lady Blechschmidt, when a rough hand fell on her shoulder and pulled her backward so quickly that she dropped her reticule over the side. Which meant that at least the robbers couldn’t steal her handkerchief.
The man practically threw her into the sitting room. She spun across the room and was about to slam to the ground when a pair of large hands caught her and the earl pulled her back against his chest.
“He had a ladybird on the balcony,” gro
wled the second robber.
“We should have searched the bloody apartment,” the first robber said, not sounding so gentlemanly anymore. “There had to be a reason that damned fool was listening at the door.” He pointed his carbine at Ardmore. “Don’t try any heroics, my lord.”
Then they were gone, before Annabel could even blink.
“Are you all right?” Lord Ardmore asked her, spinning her around and smiling, even though all his money and his ring were gone. His voice didn’t have a trace of disquiet in it…it was the same husky, compelling Scottish burr that—
She snapped her eyes shut. “Your clothes!” she moaned.
His hands dropped from her shoulders and she heard his deep voice say, “Throw me my pantaloons, Glover.” At the same time, the door slammed open on its hinges and she heard men running heavily in the corridor. But her hands didn’t fall from her eyes until she heard the acid tones of Lady Blechschmidt in the corridor, demanding to be told the explanation for all this.
Annabel dropped her hands. Thankfully, the earl had his pantaloons on. He was just pulling on a shirt, though, and she couldn’t help noticing that his chest looked like that of the statues of Roman gods she’d seen in the British museum at Montagu House, all rippled with thick muscle, narrowing to a taut waist. But white, still marble looked very different from golden skin, dusted with the faintest shadow of hair—
He looked over at her, and she felt a blush rising in her cheeks. Then his shirt came down over his head, and Lady Blechschmidt’s coachman walked into the room, saying, “They’ve caught two men downstairs with some rings and such.”
Annabel swallowed. It was over. Almost. Lady Blechschmidt was staring at her, and there was a pucker between her brows. “Just what are you doing in these chambers, young woman?” she said. There was an icy tone in her voice that made Annabel shiver.
But she raised her chin. “We paid a visit—”
Lady Blechschmidt broke in. “We?”
Annabel gasped. “Imogen! Imogen, are you all right?” She ran back to the door that led to Lord Ardmore’s bedchamber and flung it open. The room was empty. The door of the wardrobe slung open, the arm of a shirt hanging from the shelf. The drawer of the little writing desk had been thrown to the floor.
There was only one possible place for them to be. She fell to her knees and lifted the heavy counterpane that hung to the floor on three sides of the bed. “Griselda? Imogen?”
Sure enough, something was moving in the darkness. “Annabel, is that you?” Imogen squeaked.
“Come out, darling, it’s all over.”
A second later Griselda and Imogen scrambled out.
“What happened?” Imogen cried, at the same time that Griselda looked down at herself and realized that she was covered with dust and bed fluff and stray cotton from the mattress. Her shriek was far louder than Imogen’s question.
Lady Blechschmidt appeared in the doorway in a moment. “Lady Griselda!” she said, coming to a stop so quickly that the earl bumped into her from behind.
“Is everyone all right?” he asked, looking over Lady Blechschmidt’s head into the room. “You weren’t hurt, were you?”
“All right!” Griselda said on a rising shriek. “Of course I’m not all right, you—you nincompoop! Look at me! I was due at Lady Penfield’s ball hours ago and—and just look at me!” A dust curl hung from her pelisse button; she was covered with a thin layer of whitish-brownish dirt, and there was a huge smudge on one cheek where she had clearly rested it against the floor.
Mr. Barnet entered the room behind the earl. “You!” Griselda said, pointing at him with a rising shriek. “This is all your fault! How dare you allow robbers into the room when we were there. How dare you!”
“They had a gun at my back,” Mr. Barnet said, nervously rubbing his hands together.
“I’ll have your position,” Griselda said, advancing on him. “I’ll have your position due to the extreme uncleanliness of this hotel, if not for putting myself and my wards into extreme danger.”
“But precisely what were you and your wards doing in a gentleman’s chambers at this hour of the night?” Lady Blechschmidt inquired. “I should not have expected such behavior of you, Lady Griselda.”
“Nothing untoward!” Griselda said, turning away from the hapless Mr. Barnet. “I find it hard to believe that you would even imply such a thing after our long years of acquaintance.”
“Since I was responsible for halting the robbery in midprogress,” Lady Blechschmidt observed, “I believe that I am owed a reasonable explanation.”
“You are owed nothing,” Griselda said magnificently. “If you cannot respect me enough to accept without a second’s thought that I would never involve myself in an injudicious action, then we are friends no longer!”
“My carriage broke down on the way to the ball,” the earl said, stepping forward. “Lady Griselda and her charges merely escorted me to the hotel, when we were caught by armed men.”
Lady Blechschmidt looked at him. “I know who you are,” she said slowly. “You’re that Scotsman who made such an exhibition of yourself on the dance floor. You are—or were—considered something of a catch.”
He bowed. “At your service.”
She turned back to Griselda. “While I have the utmost sympathy for your plight, Lady Griselda, and particularly for the deplorable state of your clothing at the moment, I just wish to note that the presence of these young ladies, one of whom”—she nodded toward Imogen, who was trying to brush dirt from her pelisse and only making it look worse—“created a scandal but two nights previous with this particular man, is suspicious. That’s all I shall say about it. I shall make no suppositions, I shall simply—”
She faltered and stepped back as Griselda advanced toward her. Normally Griselda resembled a lush female angel rather than an avenging Archangel Michael. But at the moment her face was so chilly that it would have taken a stronger person than Lady Blechschmidt to withstand her. “Emily Blechschmidt,” she said through clenched teeth, “if you ever say a word about this evening, or if one of your servants ever murmurs something to a friend, there will be hell to pay!”
Lady Blechschmidt tittered nervously. “Well, I hardly think that I would say anything, but as for the servants, you know what—”
“Don’t even finish that sentence,” Griselda snapped. “Your servants are as well trained as mine. You will ensure that they say nothing, if you please!”
“I certainly don’t know why you’re taking this so much in affront! Naturally, I shall caution the servants to share nothing of this unusual evening. I shall particularly direct them to ignore the fact that Miss Essex was in the company of the earl, who was disrobed, while you were ensconced under the bed in quite a separate room!”
But Griselda’s eyes were narrowed. “What were you doing here?” she demanded.
“I?” Lady Blechschmidt said indignantly. “Why, my coachman dashed up here to rescue your friends from these ruffians, and—”
“What are you doing at Grillon’s Hotel?” Griselda’s voice was much calmer now, but still remorseless, and Annabel, tightly holding Imogen’s hand, thought she saw the shadow of a smile. “You are due to Lady Penfield’s ball, just as I was.”
“I have been to Lady Penfield’s ball, and a pitifully thin affair it was. I left with a headache.”
“You left with a headache,” Lady Griselda said, “and then somehow you ended up at Grillon’s? Really, Lady Blechschmidt, you surprise me.”
The room was so quiet that Annabel heard herself breathing.
“I shall ensure my servants’ silence,” Lady Blechschmidt said. “Peters!” Her coachman appeared from the adjoining room. “It is time to go home.”
And she stalked from the room a moment later, without further farewell, apology or comment.
Griselda turned to the hapless Mr. Barnet. “I shall return tomorrow,” she announced. “I shall return tomorrow and I shall speak to the owner of this hotel, who I believe i
s a distant acquaintance of my husband’s uncle. A Mr. Reardon, is it not?”
Mr. Barnet was blinking rapidly. “I assure you, madam, that—”
“I have nothing more to say to you,” she snapped. “Imogen, Annabel. Follow me to the carriage, if you please. And put your hoods up!”
Obediently Annabel and Imogen pulled up their hoods and followed their chaperone from the room. For someone who usually strolled in such a way as to accentuate her entirely feminine curves, Griselda could stalk like the best sort of avenging angel when she wished.
In the carriage, she twitched a dust curl from her pelisse and said, “This evening never happened. Do you understand?”
Annabel nodded.
Imogen said, “I’m so sorry, Griselda—”
But Griselda cut her off. “Never. Speak. To. Me. Of. This. Again.”
Annabel exchanged glances with her sister. Imogen squeezed her hand, and leaned over. “I was so frightened for you,” she whispered. “I don’t care in the least about my reputation, and I’m a widow anyway. But you—”
The very thought made Annabel’s throat tighten. “We were lucky,” she whispered back.
“I can scarcely believe it. I thought there was no escape from Lady Blechschmidt.”
Annabel glanced with affection at their chaperone, who was sitting with her eyes closed as if the very effort to stay upright were leading her to faint. “I have the feeling that Griselda generally gets what she wants, don’t you?”
Imogen smiled and squeezed her hand.
Who but Griselda could save Annabel from a situation in which one of the most prudish members of the ton walked into a bedchamber to find Annabel in company with a half-clothed earl? She had worked a miracle.
Until the miracle stopped working, that is.
Eleven
The blow descended, as bad news so often does, in the form of Bell’s Weekly Messenger, a gossip sheet delivered promptly at eight o’clock every Thursday morning.
The Duke of Holbrook’s butler, Brinkley, accepted the sheet from the hands of a delivery boy and walked in his measured way back to his parlor, where he intended to iron the gossip sheet and deliver it crisp and fresh to the bedside of Lady Griselda, accompanied by a cup of rich hot chocolate and an unbuttered rusk, since her ladyship pursued a rather erratic policy designed to reduce her hips. But after one glance at the sheet, he almost burned the newsprint with his iron.