No Good Duke Goes Unpunished

Not a dozen feet from where the strange woman stood, the door to Mr. Cross’s office flew open. “What in hell is going on?”

Pippa’s breath caught as the man emerged, tall and lanky and unshaven. He was in his shirtsleeves, cuffs rolled up, and her gaze flew to those long, lean forearms, where muscle curved and rippled over bone. Her mouth went dry. She’d never thought of the forearm as being particularly interesting, but then it was not every day that she saw such a fine specimen.

Yes. It was the anatomy in which she was interested. The bones.

Radius. Ulna.

That did help, to think of the bones.

The cook waved her fish. “Irvington thinks to criticize my sauce! The imbecile would not know a proper sauce if he had a quart of it in his pocket!”

Mr. Cross rolled his eyes. “Didier . . . return to your kitchen and cook your fish. Irvington will eat what we tell him to eat.”

The chef opened her mouth.

“He will eat what we serve him and shan’t know any better.”

“The man has the palate of a goat,” the cook grumbled.

Temple grinned, hands outstretched. “Well, for all our sakes, I hope you do not serve him poisson en papier maché.”

The cook smiled at that. As did Pippa. “I don’t like him.”

“Neither do I, but he and his friends like to lose, so we keep him nonetheless.”

The fight seemed to go out of the cook. “Very well,” she said, wielding the fish in one hand. “I will cook him fish.”

“Perhaps not that exact fish,” Cross said, wryly.

Pippa laughed, forgetting herself, forgetting that sound carried—quick and loud across a cavernous room. His grey eyes snapped to her location. She pulled her head back into the alcove, pressing her back to the wall, heart pounding.

“Now Cross,” she heard Temple cajole from his place on the casino floor.

There was no reply. Pippa strained to hear what happened next, edging closer to the exit, eager for any indication that he’d seen her, that he’d noticed her.

Silence.

For what seemed like an eternity.

Finally, unable to resist, she peered carefully around the side of the enclosure.

To find Mr. Cross standing not six inches away, arms folded over his chest, waiting for her.

She started at his nearness, and said the first thing that came. “Hello.”

One ginger brow rose. “Hello.”

She stepped out to face him, hands clasped tightly in front of her. The cook and Temple were turned toward them, curiosity in their stares. As though this confrontation were somehow stranger than a Frenchwoman brandishing a trout on the floor of a casino.

Well, it wasn’t.

Pippa knew that with utter certainty.

She met Mr. Cross’s cool, grey gaze, and waited for him to say something else.

He did not.

Fine. She could wait. She’d waited before.

Except, after what seemed like a quarter of an hour, she could no longer bear it. “I suppose you are wondering how it is that I came to be here.”

“You are becoming quite a lurker, Lady Philippa.”

She straightened. “I do not lurk.”

“No? My office? Your balcony? Now here . . . in my club . . . in a dark alcove? I would call it lurking.”

“The balcony was mine,” she couldn’t help but point out. “If anyone was lurking, it was you.”

“Mmm.” He narrowed his gaze. “Perhaps you would like to explain your current location?”

“I was nearby,” she explained. “Nearby the club. Not the alcove. Though I suppose one might say that nearby to one is the same as to the other. But I presume the conceptual proximity for each is relative. In your mind. At least.”

Temple snorted from his place a good distance away.

“You would do well to leave us,” Cross said to his partner, not taking his gaze from Pippa. “Before I punish you for letting her in.”

“What was I to do, leave her in the alleyway banging on our door, until someone found her?” Temple’s tone was light and teasing. Out of place. “Besides, she’s not here for you.”

Cross’s grey eyes darkened at the words, and Pippa’s heart began to pound. He was angry. She stepped away from him, unable to stop herself, back into the alcove. He followed, pressing her back, letting the curtains fall behind them, cloaking them in darkness. They were feet from others—who knew they were here, and yet her pulse began to race as he spoke, his voice went dark and threatening. “Why are you here?”

She lifted her chin. “It’s not—” She cleared her throat. “It’s not your concern.”

There was a pause, a hitch in his breathing, as though she’d surprised him. “Did we, or did we not, make a wager?”

“We did.”

He reached out, placing one hand on the wall behind her head, that forearm, clad only in shirtsleeves, more than a little distracting. “And am I wrong in recalling that it involved your commitment to stay away from men who are not your fiancé?”

She did not care for his tone. “You are not wrong.”

He leaned in, so close. Her eyes fell to the open collar of his shirt, where he should have been wearing a cravat but wasn’t. She was irrationally drawn to the triangle of skin there, dusted with hair. She wanted to touch it.

“Explain to me, then, what in hell you are doing with Temple?” His anger pulled her back to the moment at hand. She could hear it in his voice, low and unsettling.

She tried to get her bearings—nearly impossible in this dark space with him so very close. “He let me in.”