“They aren’t mine.” He made sure of it. Not one of them had ever come close to being his.
“Irrelevant,” Bourne said. “They adore you.”
“They adore what I can do for them.”
Temple’s tone turned wry. “I’ll bet they do.”
“What of your sister?” Bourne asked. “The only way the threat works is if she stays away from him. Dunblade as well.”
Cross watched the men below, absently calculating their bets—how much they usually wagered, how much the take was when their hand was lost. How much was risked when they won. “I shall speak with her.”
There was a long silence that he did not misunderstand. The idea that he might speak to his sister—to any member of his family—was a surprise. Ignoring his partners’ shock, Cross turned to meet Bourne’s gaze. “Why are there so few members here tonight?”
“The Marbury betrothal ball,” Bourne said, his words punctuated by the crack of ivory on ivory. “I understand my mother-in-law has invited the entire peerage. I’m surprised the two of you did not receive invitations.”
Temple laughed. “Lady Needham would run for her smelling salts were I to darken her doorstep.”
“That does not say much. The lady runs for her smelling salts more often than most.”
The Marbury betrothal ball. Pippa Marbury’s betrothal ball.
Guilt flared again. Perhaps he should tell Bourne everything.
Don’t tell Bourne, please. The lady’s plea echoed through him, and he gritted his teeth. “Lady Philippa is still for Castleton?” Cross asked, feeling like an idiot, certain that Bourne would see through the query, would recognize his curiosity. Would question it.
“She’s been given every opportunity to end it,” Bourne said. “The girl is too honorable, she’ll be bored with him in a fortnight.”
Less than that.
“You should stop it. Hell, Needham should stop it,” Cross said. Lord knew the Marquess of Needham and Dolby had stopped engagements before. He’d nearly ruined all five of his daughters’ chances for proper marriages by ending a legendary engagement years ago.
“It’s my fault, dammit. I should have put an end to it before it even began,” Bourne said bitterly, no small amount of regret in his words. “I’ve asked her to end it—Penelope, too. We’ve both told her we’d protect her. Hell, I’d find her a proper groom tonight if I thought it would help. But Pippa doesn’t want it stopped.”
I shall do it because I have agreed to, and I do not care for dishonesty. He heard the words, saw her serious blue gaze as she defended her choice to marry Castleton—a man so far beneath her in intellect, it was impossible to believe the impending marriage was not a farce.
Nevertheless, the lady had made a promise, and she intended to keep it.
And that, alone, made her remarkable.
Unaware of Cross’s thoughts, Bourne straightened and adjusted his coat sleeves with a wicked swear. “It is too late now. She’s at her betrothal ball in front of all the ton as we speak. I must go. Penelope will have my head if I do not appear.”
“Your wife has you right where she wants you,” Temple said dryly, the carom balls clacking together as he spoke.
Bourne did not rise to the bait. “She does indeed. And someday, if you are lucky, you will take the same pleasure I do in the location.” He turned to leave, heading for his other life—a newly returned aristocrat.
Cross stopped him. “Most of the peerage is there?”
Bourne turned back. “Is there someone specific you seek?”
“Dunblade.”
Understanding flared in Bourne’s brown eyes. “I imagine he will attend. With his baroness.”
“Perhaps I will pay Dolby House a visit.”
Bourne raised a brow. “I do enjoy operating beneath my father-in-law’s notice.”
Cross nodded.
It was time he see his sister. Seven years had been too long.
Half of London was in the ballroom below.
Pippa peered down from her hiding place in the upper colonnade of the Dolby House ballroom, pressed flat against one massive marble column, stroking the head of her spaniel, Trotula, as she watched the swirling silks and satins waltz across the mahogany floor. She pushed back a heavy drape of velvet curtain, watching her mother greet an endless stream of guests at this—what might be the Marchioness of Needham and Dolby’s greatest achievement.
It was not every day, after all, that mothers of five daughters have the opportunity to announce the marriage of her final offspring. Her final two offspring. The marchioness was fairly weak from glee.
Sadly, not weak enough to forgo a double betrothal ball large enough to accommodate an army. “Just a selection of dear friends,” Lady Needham had said last week, when Pippa had questioned the sheer volume of replies that had arrived piled high on a silver tray one afternoon, threatening to slide off the charger and onto the footman’s shiny black boot.
Dear friends, Philippa recalled wryly, her gaze scanning the crowd. She’d have sworn she’d never even met the greater share of people in the room below.
Not that she did not understand her mother’s excitement. After all, this day—when all five of the Marbury girls were officially and publicly matched—was a long time coming, and not without its hesitations. But finally, finally, the marchioness was to have her due.
Weddings were nothing if not for mothers, were they not?
Or, if not weddings, at least betrothal balls.
That went doubly so when the betrothal ball was to celebrate two daughters.
Pippa’s gaze slid from her mother’s flushed face and effusive movements to settle on the youngest Marbury sister, holding a court of her own on the opposite end of the ballroom, in a crush of well-wishers, smiling wide, one bejeweled hand on the arm of her tall, handsome fiancé.
Olivia was the prettiest and most ebullient of the quintet, she had seemed to get all the best bits from the rest of the family. Was she utterly self-involved and filled with more than her fair allotment of confidence? Certainly. But it was difficult to judge the traits harshly, as Olivia had never once met a person she could not win.
Including the man who was predicted to soon become one of the most powerful in Britain, for if there were two things a politician’s wife required, they were a bold smile and a desire to win—things Olivia had in spades.
Indeed, all of London was abuzz with the news of the couple’s impending marriage, Pippa rather thought that no one downstairs would even notice she was gone.
“I thought I might find you here.”
Pippa let the curtain drop and spun to face her eldest sister, the recently minted Marchioness of Bourne. “Shouldn’t you be at the ball?”
Penelope leaned down to pay Trotula some attention, smiling when the hound groaned and leaned into the caress. “I could ask you the same thing. After all, now that I’m married off, Mother is far more interested in you than she is me.”
“Mother doesn’t know what she’s missing,” Pippa replied. “You’re the one married to the legendary scoundrel.”
Penelope grinned. “I am, aren’t I?”
Pippa laughed. “So proud of yourself.” She turned back to the ball, scanning the crowd below. “Where is Bourne? I don’t see him.”
“Something kept him at the club.”
The club.
The words echoed through her, a reminder of two days earlier. Of Mr. Cross.
Mr. Cross, who would have been as out of place in the world below as Pippa felt. Mr. Cross, with whom she had wagered. To whom she had lost.
She cleared her throat, and Penelope mistook the sound. “He swore he’d be here,” she defended her husband. “Late, but here.”
“What happens at the club at this hour?” Pippa could not keep herself from asking.
“I—wouldn’t kno
w.”
Pippa grinned. “Liar. If your hesitation had not revealed the untruth, your red face would have.”
Chagrin replaced embarrassment. “Ladies are not supposed to know about such things.”
Pippa blinked. “Nonsense. Ladies who are married to casino owners may certainly know such things.”
Penelope’s brows rose. “Our mother would disagree.”
“Our mother is not my barometer for how women should and should not behave. The woman lunges for her smelling salts every thirty minutes.” She pushed back the curtain to reveal the marchioness far below, deep in conversation with Lady Beaufetheringstone—one of the ton’s greatest gossips. As if on cue, Lady Needham released an excited squeak that carried high into the rafters.
Pippa looked to Penelope knowingly. “Now, tell me what happens at the club.”
“Gaming.”
“I know that, Penny. What else?”
Penelope lowered her voice. “There are women.”
Pippa’s brows went up. “Prostitutes?” She supposed there would be. After all, in all the texts she’d read, she’d come to discover that men enjoyed the company of women—and rarely their wives.
“Pippa!” Penny sounded scandalized.
“What?”
“You shouldn’t even know that word.”
“Why on earth not? The word is in the Bible, for heaven’s sake.”
“It is not.”
Pippa thought for a long moment before leaning back against the colonnade. “I think it is, you know. If it isn’t, it should be. The profession is not a new one.”
She paused.
Prostitutes would have eons of institutional knowledge to address her concerns. To answer her questions.
Have you asked your sisters? The echo of Mr. Cross’s words from the previous afternoon had Pippa turning to her eldest sister. What if she did ask Penny?
“May I ask a question?”
Penelope raised a brow. “I doubt I could stop you.”
“I’m concerned about some of the . . . logistics. Of marriage.”
Penelope’s gaze grew sharp. “Logistics?”
Pippa waved one hand in the air. “The . . . personal bits.”
Penelope went red. “Ah.”
“Olivia told me about tongues.”
The eldest Marbury’s brows rose. “What does she know about them?”
“More than I think either of us imagined,” Pippa replied, “but I couldn’t ask her to elaborate—I couldn’t bear taking lessons from my youngest sister. You, on the other hand . . .”
There was a pause as the words sank in, and Penelope’s eyes went wide. “Surely you don’t expect me to school you!”
“Just on a few critical issues,” Pippa said urgently.
“For example?”
“Well, tongues, for one.”
Penelope put her hands over her ears. “No more! I don’t want to think of Olivia and Tottenham doing . . .” She trailed off.
Pippa wanted to shake her. “Doing what?”
“Doing any of it!”
“But don’t you see? How can I be prepared for all this if I don’t understand it? Bulls in Coldharbor are not enough!”
Penelope gave a little laugh. “Bulls in Coldharbor?”
Pippa went red. “I’ve seen . . .”
“You think it’s like that?”
“Well, I wouldn’t if someone would tell me . . . I mean, are men’s . . . are their . . .” She waved a hand in a specific direction. “Are they so large?”
Penelope clapped a hand over her mouth to stem her laughter, and Pippa found herself growing irritated. “I am happy I’m giving you such a laugh.”
Penny shook her head. “I’m—” She giggled again, and Pippa cut her a look. “I’m sorry! It’s just . . . no. No. They have little in common with the bull in Coldharbor.” There was a pause. “And thank God for that.”
“Is it . . . frightening?”
And, like that, Penelope’s gaze filled with doe-eyed sentimentality. “Not at all,” she whispered, all treacle, and while the honest answer was comforting, Pippa nevertheless resisted the urge to roll her eyes.
“And, like that, I’ve lost you.”
Penelope smiled. “You’re curious, Pippa. I understand. But it will all become clear.”
Pippa did not like the idea of relying on the promise of clarity. She wanted it now.
Damn Mr. Cross and his idiot wager.
Damn herself for taking it.
Penelope was still speaking, voice all soft and saccharine. “And if you’re lucky, you shall discover . . .” She sighed. “Well, you shall enjoy it quite a bit, I hope.” She shook her head, coming out of her dream, and laughed again. “Stop thinking about bulls.”
Pippa scowled. “How was I to know?”
“You’ve a library full of anatomy texts!” Penny whispered.
“Well, I question the scale of the illustrations in several of those texts!” Pippa whispered back.
Penny started to say something and thought better of it, changing tack. “Conversations with you always take the strangest turns. Dangerous ones. We should go downstairs.”
Sisters were useless. Pippa would be better off talking to one of the prostitutes.
The prostitutes.
She adjusted her spectacles. “Back to the ladies, Penny. Are they prostitutes?”
Penny sighed and looked to the ceiling. “Not in so many words.”
“It is only one word,” Pippa pointed out.
“Well, suffice to say, they come with the gentlemen, but they are certainly not ladies.”
Fascinating.
Pippa wondered if Mr. Cross associated with the ladies in question. She wondered if they lay with him on that strange, small pallet in his cluttered, curious office. At the thought, something flared heavy and full in her chest. She considered the feeling, not quite nausea, not quite breathlessness.
Not quite pleasant.
Before she could assess the sensation further, Penelope continued. “At any rate, no matter what is happening at the club this evening, Bourne is decidedly not consorting with prostitutes.”
Pippa couldn’t imagine her brother-in-law doing anything of the sort. Indeed, she couldn’t imagine her brother-in-law doing much but dote on his wife these days. Theirs was a curious relationship—one of the rare marriages built on something more than a sound match.
In fact, most rational people would agree that there was absolutely nothing about Penelope and Bourne that would make for a sound match.
And somehow, they’d made just that.
Another curiosity.
Some might call it love, no doubt. And perhaps it was, but Pippa had never given much credence to the sentiment—with so few love matches in society, they were rather like mythological figures. Minotaurs. Or unicorns. Or Pegasuses.
Pegasii?
Neither, presumably, as there was only one Pegasus, but, as with love matches, one never knew.
“Pippa?” Penelope prodded.
Pippa snapped back to the conversation. What had they been discussing? Bourne. “Well, I don’t know why he would come,” Pippa pointed out. “No one expects him to stand on ceremony for society.”
“I expect him to do so,” Penelope said simply, as if that were all that mattered.
And apparently, it was. “Really, Penny. Leave the poor man alone.”
“Poor man,” Penny scoffed. “Bourne gets everything he wants, whenever he wants it.”
“It’s not as though he doesn’t pay a price,” Pippa retorted. “He must love you fiercely if he is coming. If I could avoid tonight, I would.”
“You are doing an excellent job of it as it is, and you cannot avoid tonight.”
Penny was right, of course. Half of London was belo
w, and at least one of them was waiting for her to show her face.
Her future husband.
It was not difficult to find him among the throngs of people. Even dressed in the same handsome black frock coat and trousers that the rest of the peerage preferred, the Earl of Castleton seemed to stand out, something about him less graceful than a normal aristocrat.
He was at one side of the ballroom, leaning low as his mother whispered in his ear. Pippa had never noticed it before, but the ear in question also stood out at a rather unfortunate angle.
“You could still beg off,” Penelope said quietly. “No one would blame you.”
“The ball?”
“The marriage.”
Pippa did not reply. She could. She could say any number of things ranging from amusing to acerbic, and Penny would never judge her for them. Indeed, it would very likely make her sister happy to hear that Pippa had an opinion one way or another about her betrothed.
But Pippa had committed herself to the earl, and she would not be disloyal. He did not deserve it. He was a nice man, with a kind heart. And that was more than could be said about most.
Dishonesty by omission remains dishonest.
The words echoed through her, a memory of two days earlier, of the man who had questioned her commitment to truth.
The world is full of liars. Liars and cheats.
It wasn’t true, of course. Pippa wasn’t a liar. Pippa didn’t cheat.
Trotula sighed and leaned against her mistress’s thigh. Pippa idly stroked the dog’s ears. “I made a promise.”
“I know you did, Pippa. But sometimes promises . . .” Penelope trailed off.
Pippa watched Castleton for a long moment. “I dislike balls.”
“I know.”
“And ballrooms.”
“Yes.”
“He’s kind, Penny. And he asked.”
Penelope’s gaze turned soft. “It’s fine for you to wish for more than that, you know.”
She didn’t. Did she?
Pippa fidgeted inside her tightly laced corset. “And ball gowns.”
Penelope allowed the change in topic. “It is a nice gown, nonetheless.”
Pippa’s gown—selected with near-fanatical excitement by Lady Needham—was a beautiful pale green gauze over white satin. Cut low and off the shoulder, the gown followed her shape through the bodice and waist before flaring into lush, full skirts that rustled when she moved. On anyone else, it would look lovely.