“I think I would like some lemonade, if the offer remains,” she said.
He jolted to attention at the words, “I shall fetch it for you!”
She smiled. “That would be lovely.”
He pointed to the floor. “I shall return!”
“Excellent.”
And then he was gone, pushing through the crowd with an eagerness that one might associate with something more exciting than lemonade.
Pippa planned to wait, but it was something of a bore, and with the pressing heat of the room and the hundreds of people, it might take Castleton a quarter of an hour to return, and waiting alone, rather publicly, felt strange. So instead, she slipped away to a darker, quieter edge of the room where she could stand back and observe the crowd.
People appeared to be having a lovely time. Olivia was holding court on the far end of the room, she and Tottenham surrounded by a throng of people who wanted the ear of the next prime minister. Pippa’s mother and Lady Castleton had collected Tottenham’s mother and a clutch of doyennes who were no doubt engaged in a round of scathing gossip.
As she scanned the crowd, her attention was drawn to an alcove directly across from her, where a tall, dark-haired gentleman leaned too close to his companion, lips nearly touching her ear in a manner that spoke clearly of a clandestine assignation. The couple appeared to care not a bit for their public locale, and were no doubt causing tongues to wag throughout the ballroom.
Not that such a thing was out of the ordinary for those two.
Pippa smiled. Bourne had arrived and, as ever, had eyes only for her sister.
Few understood how Penny had landed the cold, aloof, immovable Bourne—Pippa rarely saw the marquess smile or show any emotion whatsoever outside of his interactions with his doting wife—but there was no doubt that he had been landed, and was utterly smitten.
Penny swore it was love, and that was the bit that Pippa did not understand. She never liked the idea of love matches—there was too much about them that could not be explained. Too much that was ethereal. Pippa did not believe in ethereal. She believed in factual.
She watched as her proper sister placed her hands on her husband’s chest and pushed him away, laughing and blushing like a newly out debutante. He caught her close once more, pressing a kiss to her temple before she pulled away and dove back into the crowd. Bourne followed, as if on a string.
Pippa shook her head at the strange, unlikely sight.
Love, if it were a thing, was an odd thing, indeed.
A draft of cold air rustled her skirts, and she turned to find that a set of great double doors behind her had been opened—no doubt to combat the stifling heat in the room—and one had blown wide. She moved to close it, leaning out onto the great stone balcony to reach the door’s handle.
That’s when she heard it.
“You need me.”
“I need no such thing. I have taken care of myself without you for some time.”
Pippa paused. Someone was out there. Two someones.
“I can fix this. I can help. Just give me time. Six days.”
“Since when are you interested in helping?”
Pippa’s hand closed on the edge of the glass-paneled door, and she willed herself to close it. To pretend she had heard nothing. To return to the ball.
She did not move.
“I’ve always wanted to help.” The man’s voice was soft and urgent. Pippa stepped out onto the balcony.
“You certainly haven’t showed it.” The lady’s voice was steel. Angry and unwavering. “In fact, you have never helped. You have only hindered.”
“You’re in trouble.”
“It is not the first time.”
A hesitation. When the man spoke, his whispered words were clipped and filled with concern. “What else?”
She laughed quietly, but there was no humor in the sound—only bitterness. “Nothing you can repair now.”
“You shouldn’t have married him.”
“I didn’t have a choice. You didn’t leave me with one.”
Pippa’s eyes went wide. She’d stumbled into a lover’s quarrel. Well, not current lovers by the sound of it . . . past lovers. The question was, who where the lovers in question?
“I should have stopped it,” he whispered.
“Well, you didn’t,” she shot back.
Pippa pressed against a great stone column that provided a lovely shadow in which to hide, and edged her head to one side, holding her breath, unable to resist her attempt to discover their identity.
The balcony was empty.
She poked her head out from behind the column.
Totally empty.
Where were they?
“I can repair the damage. But you must stay away from him. Far away. He mustn’t have access to you.”
In the gardens below.
Pippa moved quietly toward the stone balustrade, curiosity piqued in the extreme.
“Oh, I am to believe you now? Suddenly, you are willing to keep me safe?”
Pippa winced. The lady’s tone was scathing. The gentleman in question—who was no gentleman at all, if Pippa had to guess—had most definitely wronged her in the past. She increased her pace, nearly to the edge, almost able to peer over the side of the balcony and identify the mysterious ex-lovers below.
“Lavinia . . .” he began softly, pleading, and excitement coursed through Pippa. A name!
That’s when she kicked the flowerpot.
They might not have heard the little scrape that came as she made contact with the great, footed beast of a thing . . . if only she hadn’t cried out in pain. It did not matter that her hand immediately flew to cover her mouth, turning her very loud “Oh!” into a very garbled “Oof.”
But the instant silence from below was enough to prove that they’d heard her quite clearly.
“I shouldn’t be here,” the lady whispered, and Pippa heard a rustle of skirts fading away.
There was a long moment of silence, during which she remained still as stone, biting her lip against the throbbing pain in her foot before he finally spoke, cursing in the darkness. “Goddammit.”
Pippa crouched low, feeling for her toes, and muttered, “You no doubt deserved that,” before realizing that taunting an unidentified man in the darkened gardens of her ancestral home was not a sound idea.
“I beg your pardon?” he asked quietly, no longer whispering.
She should return to the ball. Instead, she said, “It does not sound as though you have been very kind to the lady.”
Silence. “I haven’t been.”
“Well then, you deserve her desertion.” She squeezed her smallest toe and hissed in pain. “Likely more than that.”
“You hurt yourself.”
She was distracted by the pain, or she wouldn’t have responded. “I stubbed my toe.”
“Punishment for eavesdropping?”
“No doubt.”
“That will teach you.”
She smiled. “I hardly think so.”
She couldn’t be sure, but she was almost positive that he chuckled. “You had best be certain that your partners do not tread upon your toes when you return.”
A vision of Castleton flashed. “I am afraid it is very likely that at least one of them will do just that.” She paused. “It seems you gravely wronged the lady. How?”
He was quiet for so long that she thought he might have left. “I was not there for her when she needed me.”
“Ah,” she said.
“Ah?” he asked.
“One need not read romantic novels as frequently as my sister does to understand what happened.”
“You don’t read romantic novels, of course.”
“Not often,” Pippa said.
“I imagine you read books on more important things.”
“I do, as a matter of fact,” she said, proudly.
“Tomes on physics and horticulture.” Pippa’s eyes went wide. “Those are the purview of Lady Philippa Marbury.”
She shot to her feet and peered over the edge of the balcony, into the pit of darkness below. She couldn’t see anything. She heard the swipe of wool as his arms shifted, or perhaps his legs. He was right there. Directly beneath her.
She moved without thinking, reaching for him, arms extending toward him as she whispered, “Who are you?”
Even through the silk of her gloves, his hair was soft—like thick sable. She let her fingers sink into the strands until they rested on his scalp, the heat of it a stark contrast against the cold March air.
It was gone before she could revel in it, replaced by one large, strong hand, no more than a shadow in the yawning blackness, capturing both of hers with ease.
She gasped and tugged.
He did not let go.
What had she been thinking?
Her spectacles were slipping, and she stilled, afraid they would topple off her nose if she moved too much.
“You should know better than to reach into the darkness, Pippa,” he said softly, the sound of her name familiar on his lips. “You never know what you might find.”
“Release me,” she whispered, risking movement to look over her shoulder to the still-open door to the ballroom. “Someone will see.”
“Isn’t that what you want?” His fingers tangled with hers, the heat of his grasp nearly unbearable. How was he so warm in the cold?
She shook her head, feeling the wire frames of her glasses slip more. “No.”
“Are you certain?” His grip shifted, and suddenly, it was she holding him, not the other way around.
She forced herself to release him. “Yes.” She put both hands safely on the stone railing, straightening, but not before her glasses dropped into the darkness. She reached for them, knocking them off course with her fingertips, sending them shooting through the night. “My spectacles!”
He disappeared, the only sign of him the whisper of fabric as he moved away from her. And she didn’t know how, but she could feel the loss of him. The top of his head came into view, a few inches of blurred, burnt orange gleaming in the candlelight loosed from the ballroom.
Recognition surged on a tide of excitement. Mr. Cross.
She pointed toward him. “Do not move.”
She was already heading for the far end of the balcony, where a long staircase led down to the gardens.
He met her at the base of the stone steps, the dim light from the house casting his face into wicked shadows. Extending her spectacles to her, he said, “Return to the ballroom.”
She snatched the glasses and put them on, his face becoming clear and angled once more. “No.”
“We agreed you would relinquish your quest for ruination.”
She took a deep breath. “Then you should not have encouraged me.”
“Encouraged you to eavesdrop and hobble yourself?”
She tested her weight on the foot, wincing at the pinch of pain in the toe. “I think at the worst it is a minor phalangeal fracture. It will heal. I’ve done it before.”
“Broken your toe.”
She nodded. “It’s just the smallest toe. A horse once stepped on the same toe on the opposite side. Needless to say, ladies’ footwear does not provide much in the way of protection from those so far better shod than we.”
“I suppose anatomy is another one of your specialties?”
“It is.”
“I am impressed.”
She was not certain he was telling the truth. “In my experience, ‘impressed’ is not the usual reaction to my knowledge of human anatomy.”
“No?”
She was grateful for the dim light, as she could not seem to stop speaking. “Most people find it odd.”
“I am not most people.”
The response set her back. “I suppose you’re not.” She paused, thinking of the conversation she’d overheard. She ignored the thread of discomfort that came with the memory. “Who is Lavinia?”
“Go back to your ball, Pippa.” He turned away from her and started along the edge of the house.
She could not let him leave. She might have promised not to approach him, but he was in her gardens. She followed.
He stopped and turned back. “Have you learned the parts of the ear?”
She smiled, welcoming his interest. “Of course. The exterior portion is called the pinna. Some refer to it as the auricle, but I prefer the pinna, because it’s Latin for feather, and I’ve always rather liked the image. The inner ear is made up of an impressive collection of bones and tissue, beginning with—”
“Amazing.” He cut her off. “You seem to know so much about the organ in question, and yet you fail so miserably at using it. I could have sworn I told you to return to your ball.”
He turned away again. She followed.
“My hearing is fine, Mr. Cross. As is my free will.”
“You are difficult.”
“Not usually.”
“Turning over a new leaf?” He did not slow.
“Do you make it a practice to force the ladies of your acquaintance to run to keep up with you?”
He stopped, and she nearly ran into him. “Only those whom I would like to lose.”
She smiled. “You came to my location, Mr. Cross. Do not forget that.”
He looked to the sky, then back at her, and she wished that she could see his eyes. “The terms of our wager were clear; you are not to be ruined. If you remain here, with me, you will be missed, and sought. And if you are discovered, you will be ruined. Return. Immediately.”
There was something very compelling about this man—about the way he seemed so calm, so controlled. And she had never in her life wanted to do something less than leave him. “No one will miss me.”