No Good Duke Goes Unpunished (The Rules of Scoundrels #3)(29)

“All right?” he asked, already returning his attention to the room at large.

It did not take a woman of great experience to know that her touch had had no effect on him. Which she supposed was only fair, as his touch was absent an effect on her.

A lady laughed nearby, and Pippa turned toward the sound, light and airy and false. It was the kind of laugh she’d never perfected—her laughs were always too loud, or came at the wrong time, or not at all.

“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.