If she’d been in a mood to be impressed.

Which made it even stranger that every last iota of her incipient panic had vanished. Raising her gaze, she met his eyes-found him staring, then he looked deep into hers. Then he blinked, shook his head slightly, then eased a hand from the pipe and beckoned. “Come on-time to leave.”

She stared at him, then looked over the sill again-at the ground far below. “You have to be joking.”

“I’ll keep you before me and steady you down the pipe.”

She looked at him. He’d steady her down the pipe by holding her against him, trapping her body between his and the pipe? The notion… made her inwardly shiver. “I haven’t got any clothes-Martha’s lying on them.”

His gaze dropped to her throat, bare, then lower, to the coverlet she’d wrapped about her. “You’re naked under that?”

His voice sounded strained. Or was it disbelieving?

“Just my chemise, which, as you no doubt can imagine, is as good as naked.”

He briefly closed his eyes, then opened them again. His expression had grown a touch grimmer. “All right. In that case, go out of the door and I’ll meet you downstairs-”

“The door’s locked, Martha’s sleeping with the key, and although I could pick the lock, I suspect I’d wake even her-and even if I didn’t, do you really think I should risk bumping into some sleepless bumpkin downstairs en deshabille?”

He actually thought about it.

“Besides, I haven’t told you all of it.”

His eyes narrowed, as if he suspected her of playing some game. “What haven’t you mentioned?”

She ignored his look and related the instructions Fletcher had been given. “So he could have seized any one of the three, or perhaps five, of us.”