Tearing her eyes away from her knight without armor, Charlotte looked thoughtfully at her friend. “I don’t think they can be. Grandmama only invited ten, and they’ve all arrived.”

Penelope regarded the newcomers with somewhat more interest than she had shown before. Her face took on a speculative expression that Charlotte recognized all too well. She had last seen it right before Penelope had “borrowed” Percy Ponsonby’s perch phaeton and driven it straight into the Serpentine. The Serpentine had been an accident. The borrowing had not.

“Perhaps these are ineligibles, then. Let’s introduce ourselves, shall we?”

“Pen!” Charlotte grabbed at the edge of her cloak, but it was too late. Penelope was already descending the stairs, hips and basket swinging.

Since there was no way of stopping Penelope short of flinging herself at her and toppling them both down the stairs, Charlotte did what she always did. She followed along behind.

Pen paused two steps from the bottom, using the added height for good effect. With the torchlight flaming off her hair, she looked more like a Druid priestess than a minor baronet’s daughter. “Good evening, gentlemen,” she called across the divide. “What brings you this far from Bethlehem?”

The darker one, the one whom Charlotte hadn’t noticed, made a flourishing obeisance. “Following your star, fair lady. Is there any room at the inn?”

Men said things like that to Penelope.

They did not, however, generally look right past Penelope, furrow their brow, and stare at Charlotte. They most certainly did not ignore Penelope altogether, take two steps forwards, hold out a hand, and say, “Charlotte?”

And, yet, that was precisely what Charlotte’s knight without armor did.