“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,” growled 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.”