“I mean only that I’d rather be faulted for my dancing than for my inability to make engaging conversation,” Lynetta said sweetly. “You have always made engaging conversation.”

Margot was set to discuss that, but at that very moment, a wave of awareness rippled through the crowd. Both Margot and Lynetta glanced around them. Margot saw nothing obvious. “What is it?”

“I can’t see a thing,” Lynetta said as she and Margot craned their necks in the direction of the door.

“Someone’s come,” said a gentleman nearby. “Someone unexpected, from what I gather.”

Margot and Lynetta gasped at precisely the same moment, their eyes widening as they gaped at one another. There was only one person of import who was not in attendance tonight—the highly desirable Montclare, who had sent his deepest regrets that he could not attend, as he had been called away to London. Lord Montclare had all the requisite attributes that made him a desirable match: he had a fortune of ten thousand pounds a year; he would one day assume the title of Viscount Waverly; he had thick-lashed doe eyes and a winsome smile; and he was utterly without conceit. Rumor had it that Montclare had set his sights on a London heiress...but that did not keep Margot and Lynetta from hoping.

The girls, quite in tune with one another’s thinking, fled the ballroom for the balcony above the foyer to have a look at the unexpected guest, arriving so hastily that their gloves slid on the polished stone railing as they leaned over it.

It was not Montclare. “Oh, bother,” Lynetta muttered.

It was not even one of the many men who often came up to Norwood Park from London to conduct business with Margot’s father and brothers. Frankly, the men who had walked through the front doors and onto the marble tile of the foyer were unlike any men Margot had ever seen.

“Goodness,” Lynetta murmured beside her.

Goodness, indeed. There were five altogether, all of them tall and broad-shouldered and quite muscular, their natural hair tied in long queues. Except for the man in front of them all—his dark hair was a wild tangle of curls around his head, as if he hadn’t bothered at all to dress it. Their coats, splattered with mud, were long and split up the back for riding. Their breeches and waistcoats were not silk or brocade, but rough wool. They wore boots that were scuffed and worn at the heels.

“Who are they?” Lynetta whispered. “Are they Gypsies?”

“Highwaymen,” Margot murmured, and Lynetta giggled a bit too loudly.