“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 is 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.Brinkley wouldn’t have been surprised if the article had talked of Lady Maitland. The whole household had heard of the state in which she returned to the house the previous night: her pelisse filthy, according to her maid, fairly covered with smudges, as if she’d been lying on the ground. The implications of that statement were too scandalous to be countenanced, and Brinkley had felt it necessary to give a round scolding to all members of the household who even heard the account.

For a moment he paused, hands fluttering in uncharacteristic dismay. The piece didn’t mention Lady Maitland. Which meant there were two scandals lurking about to disrupt the peace of the household.

It should go to the master, even though the master never rose before noon, and would have a terrible head from the brandy he’d downed the night before. Brinkley took the precaution of having the cook fix a restorative draught to take with him.

So, with a silver tray laden with a gently fizzing drink and a crisply folded newspaper, Brinkley walked into the master’s darkened bedchamber.

He was greeted by a moan. “Who the hell is that?”

“Brinkley, Your Grace,” he said, averting his eyes while the master fought himself out of a tangle of linen sheets. Sleeping in the buff, he was. Leave it to the nobility to act like the poorest in the nation. “I am most sorry to disturb you.”

“What are you doing in my room?” the duke finally said groggily. “Is the house burning down?” He must have thought his head was on fire, from the way he was clutching it.

Brinkley felt a flash of sympathy. He held out the salver. “Bell’s Weekly Messenger has arrived,” he said, in a tone of suitable gloom.

“Damn that to hell,” the duke said, lapsing back and pulling a pillow over his head. “You’ve lost a cog. Bring it to Griselda.”

“Your Grace will wish to see the Messenger personally.”

“No, I won’t.” The butler waited. After a few moments the pillow fell to the side and the duke snatched the paper from his salver. “Open those curtains, Brinkley.”

He drew back the drapes. His Grace was staring, redeyed, at the gossip sheet. “What in the bloody hell am I supposed to be looking at?” he demanded. “Not that I can ever understand the way they phrase things.”

It was true that the duke never paid attention to gossip. Unfortunately, the rest of London would decode precisely who was being referred to. “The second item in the right column, Your Grace,” he said.

Holbrook squinted at it. “Damn this head of mine…A certain golden-haired Miss A. E——…I suppose that’s Annabel…was discovered with a certain redhaired earl, in his bedchamber…Nonsense! Pure lies! Annabel was at a ball with Griselda last night.”

Brinkley’s mouth twisted sympathetically. The master had done his best as guardian of four penniless girls, and it wasn’t his fault that they had turned out to be the sort of young women who create scandals with the ease with which other ladies embroider handkerchiefs.

Rafe continued reading in stark disbelief. “…he being, as they say, buck naked, and she prettily begging that their ‘relationship’ not continue. We are happy to report that the gentleman was perfectly acquiescent in her plea and behaved with all the courtesy appropriate to the unfortunate situation. We who only stand on the fringes of society cannot help wishing that titled gentlemen of the north would not stray from their mountains; this particular person was reportedly engaged in scandalous behavior only last week with a close relative of Miss A. E——!”

“Damn it to hell!” Rafe bellowed, throwing the paper to the side. “A pack of villainous lies, fudged up to sell the paper. I’ll have their skins!”

He looked up at Brinkley, who was holding out a tankard. The very sight of it made sweat break out on his forehead, and drinking it made him shake all over. But after a moment or so, the pain receded and he was able to open his eyes without seeing dancing imps. “Got to cut back on the brandy,” he said to himself. Even though the very thought of the scandal brewing in the pages of this damned gossip rag was enough to make him call for spirits, no matter the hour of the morning.

“Have to talk to Griselda,” he said, staggering a little as he got out of bed. “Where the devil was Griselda? Didn’t they all go off together to some debutante ball last night?”