Free One Enchanted Evening by Lynn Kurland Page B

your designs are a bit less . . . er, how shall we say it?”
    “Gaudy?” Pippa suggested.
    “Ah—”
    And that was the last thing he managed before the beauty queen fluttered down in a flurry of skirts and tapped her chosen victim on the arm playfully with her wand that easily sported a thousand dollars’ worth of crystals. Pippa was half tempted to follow Cindi around and gather up all the stones she lost. It might be a decent way to make a quick buck since it was obvious by the look on Stephen de Piaget’s face that any conversation with him was going to be out of the question before the clock struck twelve and she turned back into a pumpkin.
    She watched morosely as Cindi flirted with Stephen. In fact, she watched Cindi at it for so long that she began to have a grudging admiration of her sister’s technique. Cindi was managing to keep Lord Stephen captivated and charm little girls at the same time with an ease that was truly remarkable.
    Periodically, Cindi would excuse herself to Tess’s office only to return with renewed energy for both her pursuits. Pippa followed her once, out of a morbid sense of curiosity, only to find her sister helping herself to something out of a little bear-shaped cookie tin she pulled from a pocket in her skirt. The tin looked suspiciously like what their mother had been clutching earlier in the week, a container that Peaches had been fairly sure contained brownies.
    And they all knew what sort of things their mother baked into brownies.
    “She’s stoned.”
    Pippa looked at Tess who had materialized next to her, accompanied by a disapproving frown.
    “Nah,” Pippa said. “It’s just jet lag.”
    “Are you kidding?” Tess said severely, gesturing to Cindi, who was again flitting off into the room with boundless amounts of energy. “She’s giggling, for pity’s sake.”
    “Maybe she took too many aspirin.”
    “What she’s going to take is a very short trip into my moat if she doesn’t get it together,” Tess said furiously. “Damn her, she is not going to blow this for me. Stephen de Piaget is not someone I want to look like a flake in front of.” She looked around very briefly, then took Pippa by the arm. “Let’s go rifle through her things.”
    Pippa wasn’t opposed to it. It might give her the chance to find and confiscate other sartorial goodies before Cindi could parade them in front of Mr. Deep Pockets.
    She followed Tess up the stairs and down the hall—only to find herself squeaking in surprise at what she saw.
    There was a red-haired, Claymore-bearing, bekilted Scots-man standing just outside Cindi’s door, looking terribly guilty. Pippa grabbed the back of her sister’s bodice and realized only after Tess complained that she had almost jerked her sister off her feet.
    “What?” Tess asked, turning around to look at Pippa in annoyance.
    Pippa pointed over Tess’s shoulder. “Him.”
    Tess looked back down the hallway. “I don’t see anything.”
    Pippa felt her mouth fall open. Now she didn’t, either, though she was a hundred percent positive she’d seen someone standing there not ten seconds earlier, someone with knobby knees and dirks stuck down his socks.
    “Jet lag,” she managed. She was definitely losing something and she thought it just might be her mind. She turned around and looked at her sister. “I need a nap.”
    Tess took her arm. “Take one later. We’ve got investigations to carry out now.”
    Pippa let Tess pull her along down the hallway without complaint. It didn’t take long to get into Cindi’s room and even less time for Tess to unearth a bottle from a fluffy pile of tulle. Pippa sat down in a chair strewn with foundation garments.
    “Advil?” she asked.
    “Valium,” Tess corrected. “It’s Mom’s stash.”
    “How do you know?”
    “Because the bottle says Mom’s stash ,” Tess said. She sat down on top of an evening gown that had to have cost a small fortune—or been free from a designer. “Maybe we