Gillian ignored her and turned back to the earl. “Now, Lord Carlisle, if you wouldn’t mind telling me what it is you wanted to tell me…oh, blast, now who’s that?”

“I don’t know, but I’ll be damned if I go back into that wardrobe again.”

“Yes, you will. I won’t have Noble’s reputation suffer because of you,” Gillian said firmly and shoved him back into the tall enclosure, closing the door on his protests.

“Oooh, we get to hide?” Charlotte squealed, biting her lip for a moment as she glanced around the room. She gave a happy little cry and leaped onto the bed, pulling a bed-curtain partially closed. Jones disappeared back behind the screen.

“Lord Rosse, good heavens, whatever are you doing here?”

“I…ah…heard you were here and wanted to arrive before Noble found you. Carlisle is here, isn’t he?”

“Yes, in the wardrobe,” Gillian said. Rosse nodded and opened the wardrobe. He was about to speak when Jones and Charlotte delurked.

“This is quite exciting,” Charlotte said with a wicked giggle, then slapped an innocent and demure look on her face for the marquis’s benefit. Rosse stared for a moment at the two additional occupants, then shook his head and turned back to the earl.

“Lady Weston? Lady Weston? You must let me in!”

“This is becoming ridiculous,” Gillian muttered, marching over to the door. Rosse shoved Carlisle back into the wardrobe, while the footman and Charlotte reassumed their hiding places. Rosse looked around wildly for a moment and then threw himself under the tall bed.

“Yes? Who is it?” Gillian asked at the door.

“Sir Hugh. Please let me in, Lady Weston. I have something of import to tell you.”

Gillian opened the door to the baronet. “Something concerning Noble, no doubt?”

Tolliver pushed her back and closed the door loudly behind him. “The rumor is all over that you’re up here with Carlisle. Where is he?” He looked around the room and settled on the tall mahogany wardrobe. “He’s in there, isn’t he?”

“Yes, he is,” Gillian said, resigning herself to the fact that she was not going to be allowed to hear what it was Lord Carlisle wanted to tell her.

Sir Hugh gave her a sharp look. “In the future, madam, I would suggest you conduct your affairs with a bit more discretion. Noble is, after all, my dearest friend, and I hate to see him cuckolded in this manner. He knows what you’re about and is on his way here now.”

“It’s a little difficult for her to cuckold him with all of us here, Tolly,” Rosse said as he pulled himself out from under the bed. Sir Hugh exclaimed in surprise at the sight of him.

“A bit too crowded,” Charlotte agreed, pushing aside the bed-curtains and smiling fetchingly. “Oh footman, you can come out as well.”

Sir Hugh stared with an open mouth as Jones emerged from behind the screen.

Rosse opened the wardrobe and faced the furious earl within.

“I’ll be thanking you all to stop shutting me in that bloody thing! There’s no air in there!”