No Good Duke Goes Unpunished (The Rules of Scoundrels #3)(44)

“Thank you.”

She nodded once and opened the door, turning to leave before she looked back, a smile playing over her too-red lips. “Shall I allow your next appointment in?”

He knew before he looked what he would find when Sally stepped out of the doorway.

Philippa Marbury was seated on a high croupier’s stool, not five feet away, nibbling at the edge of a sandwich.

He did not mean to stand, but he stood anyway, coming around his desk as though he were chased. “Did someone feed you?”

Of course someone had fed her. Didier, no doubt, who had a soft spot for any soiled dove who found her way to the kitchens of the Angel.

But Philippa Marbury was no soiled dove.

Yet.

And she wouldn’t be if he had anything to say about it.

“Your chef was kind enough to make me a plate while I waited.” Pippa stood, extending the plate in question to him. “It’s quite delicious. Would you like some?”

Yes. God, yes, he wanted some.

“No. Why would she feed you?”

“I’m pupating.”

He looked to the ceiling, desperate for patience. “How many different ways do I have to tell you that I’m not interested in helping you emerge from this particular cocoon?”

Her jaw went slack. “You referenced metamorphosis.”

The woman was driving him mad. “You referenced it first. Now, did I or did I not tell you to go home?”

She smiled, a lovely, wide grin that he should not have liked so very much. “In point of fact, you did not tell me to go home. Indeed, you quite washed your hands of me.”

He considered shaking the maddening woman. “Then tell me why it is that you remain here, waiting for me?”

She tilted her head as though he were a strange specimen under glass at the Royal Entomological Society. “Oh, you misunderstand. I am not waiting for you.”

What in hell? Of course she was waiting for him.

Except she wasn’t. She stood, thrust her plate—along with her half-eaten sandwich—into his hands and directed her full attention to Sally. “I’m waiting for you.”

Sally cut him a quick look, clearly unsure of how to proceed.

Pippa did not seem to notice that she’d thrown them all off, instead stepping forward and extending her hand in greeting. “I am Lady Philippa Marbury.”

Goddammit.

He would have given half his fortune to take back the instant when Pippa told Sally her name. One never knew when the madam might rethink her allegiance, and knowledge made for heady power.

For now, however, Sally pushed her surprise away and took Pippa’s hand, dipping into a quick curtsy. “Sally Tasser.”

“It’s lovely to meet you, Miss Tasser,” Pippa said, as though she were meeting a new debutante at tea rather than one of London’s most accomplished whores in a gaming hell. “I wonder if you have a few moments to answer some questions?”

Sally looked supremely entertained. “I believe I do have some time, my lady.”

Pippa shook her head. “Oh, no. There’s no need to stand on ceremony. You must call me Pippa.”

Over his decaying corpse.

“There is absolutely every reason to stand on ceremony,” he stepped in, turning to Sally. “You will under no circumstances call the lady anything but just that. Lady.”

Pippa’s brows snapped together. “I beg your pardon, Mr. Cross, but in this conversation, you are superfluous.”

He gave her his most frightening stare. “I assure you, I am anything but that.”

“Am I right in understanding that you have neither the time nor the inclination to speak to me at this particular moment?”

She had backed him into a corner. “Yes.”

She smiled. “There it is, then. As I find myself with both, I believe I shall begin my research now. Without you.” She turned her back on him. “Now, Miss Tasser. Am I right in my estimation that you are, indeed, a prostitute?”

The word slipped from her lips as though she said it a dozen times a day. “Dear God.” He shot Sally a look. “Do not answer.”

“Whyever not?” Pippa smiled at Sally. “There’s no shame in it.”

Even Sally’s brows rose at that.

Surely this was not happening.

Pippa pressed on. “There isn’t. In fact, I’ve done the research, and the word is in the Bible. Leviticus. And, honestly, if something is in a holy text, I think it’s more than reasonable for one to repeat it in polite company.”

“I’m not exactly polite company,” Sally pointed out, brilliantly, Cross thought.

Pippa smiled. “Never mind that . . . you’re the perfect company for my purposes. Now, I can only assume that your career is just what I imagine, as you are very beautiful and seem to know precisely how to look at a man and make it seem as though you are very much in love with him. You fairly smolder.”

Cross had to stop this. Now. “And how do you know that she is not simply in love with me?”

That was not the way he’d intended to stop it. At all. Dammit.

She looked over her shoulder at him, then back at Sally. “Are you in love with him?”

Sally turned her very best smolder on Pippa, who chuckled, and said, “I didn’t think so. That’s the one. It’s very good.”