He turned back, his tone dark. “You are under the mistaken impression that I am interested in doing your bidding, my lady.”
She hesitated. “I didn’t approach him. There’s no harm done. I shall go. Please . . . don’t tell Bourne.”
She might not have said the words at all for the way he ignored her, his gaze having fallen on the hazard table. On the dice she’d left, forgotten, on its mahogany edge.
She took a step toward him, and his gaze swung to meet hers, powerful and direct. She caught her breath. Stilled. “Your dice?”
She nodded. “Yes.”
“You wagered?”
“I had been about to,” she said, the words coming quickly. “When a man doth to Rome come, so to speak.”
He ignored her quip. “With Knight?”
“With myself.”
“The terms?”
“I hadn’t decided. I thought . . . perhaps—” She stopped herself, the heat of her embarrassment washing through her. “Perhaps I could . . .”
His gaze turned searing. “You could . . . ?”
She looked to the dice. “I could redouble my efforts to garner your assistance.”
“With your ruination.”
Well. When he put it like that, in this big room, it sounded much more scandalous than before. “Yes.”
“And if not that? What? You’d go home and wait to be married like a good girl?”
He made her sound like a child. As though her entire plan were idiotic. Did he not see that it was imperative? That it was science? “I hadn’t decided,” she said, smartly. “But I rather think I would have considered alternate opportunities. It’s London in season. There is no shortage of rakes to be found to assist me.”
“You’re as much trouble as your sister is,” he said, flatly.
Confusion flared. “Penelope?”
“The very same.”
Impossible. Penelope was proper in every way. She never would have come here unescorted. She shook her head. “Penelope isn’t any trouble at all.”
One ginger brow cocked in wry disbelief. “I doubt Bourne would agree. Either way, Digger Knight is in no way a viable candidate for such a thing. You would do best to run far and fast should you ever see him again.”
“Who is he?”
“No one whom you should have ever encountered.” He scowled. Good. Why should she be the only one to be irritated? “You did not roll.”
“I did not,” she said. “I’m sure you count yourself very lucky indeed for that. After all, what if I had won?”
His eyes darkened. “I would have been a win?”
She nodded. “Of course. You were the research associate of choice. But as I never had a chance to wager, you may count yourself very lucky indeed,” she said, lifting her skirts to leave as elegantly as possible.
“I count myself no such thing. I don’t believe in luck.”
She dropped her skirts. “You run a casino, and you don’t believe in luck?”
He half smiled. “It’s because I run a casino that I don’t believe in it. Especially with dice. There are odds in this game. But the truth, Lady Philippa, is that even odds would have had no bearing on your roll. It is impossible to wager against oneself.”
“Nonsense.”
He leaned back against the table. “There is no risk in it. If the outcome is what you desire, there is no loss. And if the outcome is not what you desire . . . you may simply renege. With none to hold you accountable, there is no reason to follow through on the results.”
She straightened her shoulders. “I would hold myself accountable. I told you. I dislike dishonesty.”
“And you never lie to yourself?”
“Nor to others.”
“That alone proves that you are in no way prepared for that for which you would have wagered.”
“You find honesty to be an impediment?”
“A wicked one. The world is full of liars, Lady Philippa. Liars and cheats and every sort of scoundrel.”
“Like you?” The retort was out before she could stop it.
He did not seem insulted. “Precisely like me.”
“Well then, it’s best that I remain honest, to offset your dishonest balance.”
He raised a brow. “You do not think that affecting your own secret ruination is dishonest?”
“Not at all.”
“Lord Castleton does not expect you to come to his bed a virgin?”
Heat washed over her cheeks. She supposed that she should have expected the frank words from him, but she’d never had this specific topic raised in conversation before. “I still intend to . . .” She looked away. “To do that. I simply intend to be more knowledgeable about the act.”
He raised a brow. “Let me rephrase. Lord Castleton does not expect you to come to your marriage an innocent?”
“We’ve never discussed it.”
“So you’ve found a loophole.”
Her gaze snapped back to his. “I have not.”
“Dishonesty by omission remains dishonest.”
It was a wonder he had a reputation as a charmer. He didn’t seem at all charming. “If he asks, I shan’t lie to him.”
“It must be lovely to live in black and white.”
She shouldn’t ask. “What does that mean?”
“Only that in the real world, where girls are not protected from every bit of reality, we are all cloaked in grey, where truth is relative.”
“I see now that I was wrong in believing you a scientist. Truth is truth.”
One side of his mouth twisted in a wry smile. “Darling, it’s nothing close to that.”
She hated the way the words rolled off his tongue, utterly certain. This had clearly been a mistake. She’d come in the hopes of gaining experience and knowledge, not a lesson in male superiority.
It was time to leave.
He didn’t say anything as she crossed the room, headed for the exit. He didn’t speak until she had pushed back the curtains and opened the inner door, suddenly eager to leave.
“If you’re going to wager, you should do it honestly.”
She froze, one hand holding a heavy length of velvet. Surely she had misunderstood him. She turned her head, looking over her shoulder to where he stood, tall and slim. “I beg your pardon?”
He slowly removed one hand from the pocket of his coat and extended it toward her. For a moment, she thought he was beckoning her.
For a moment, she almost went.
“You’ve come all this way, Pippa.” It was the first time he’d called her by the nickname, and she was struck by its sound on his tongue. The quick repetition of consonants. The way his lips curved around it. Teasing. And something more. Something she could not explain. “You should have a real wager, don’t you think?”
He opened his hand, revealing two small, ivory squares.
She met his calculating grey gaze. “I thought you did not believe in luck?”
“I don’t,” he said. “But I find that I believe less in making a wager with oneself, thereby forcing the outcome to accommodate your adventure—”
“Not adventure,” she protested. “Experiment.”
“What’s the difference?”
He couldn’t see? “One is silly. The other is science.”
“My mistake. Tell me, where was the science in your potential wager?”
She did not have an answer.
“I’ll tell you . . . there was none. Men of science don’t wager. They know better. They know that no matter how many times they win, the odds remain against them.”
He moved closer, crowding her back into the darkness. He didn’t touch her, but strangely, it didn’t matter. He was close enough to feel, tall and lean and ever so warm. “But you’re going to wager now, Pippa, aren’t you?”
&
nbsp; He was muddling her brain and making it very difficult to think clearly. She took a deep breath, the scent of sandalwood wrapping around her, distracting her.
She shouldn’t say yes.
But somehow, oddly, she found she couldn’t say no.
She reached for the dice, where they lay small and white in his broad palm. Touched them, touched him—the brush of skin against fingertips sending sensation coursing through her. She paused at the feeling, trying to dissect it. To identify it. To savor it. But then he was gone, his hand falling away, leaving her with nothing but the ivory cubes, still warm from his touch.
Just as she was.
Of course, the thought was ridiculous. One did not warm from a fleeting contact. It was the stuff of novels. Something her sisters would sigh over.
He moved, stepping back and extending one arm toward the hazard field. “Are you ready?” His voice was low and soft, somehow private despite the cavernous room.
“Yes.”
“As you are gaming in my hell, I shall set the terms.”
“That doesn’t seem fair.”
His gaze did not waver. “When we wager at your tables, my lady, I shall be more than happy to play by your rules.”
“I suppose that is logical.”
He inclined his head. “I do like a woman with a penchant for logic.”
She smiled. “The rules of scoundrels it is, then.”
They were at one end of the long table now. “A roll of a seven or an eleven wins on the first roll at the Angel. As you are wagering, I shall allow you to name your price.”
She did not have to think. “If I win, you tell me everything I wish to know.”
He paused, and she thought for a moment he might change his mind. Instead, he nodded once. “Fair enough. And if you lose . . . you shall return to your home and your life and wait patiently for your marriage. And you will resist approaching another man with this insane proposal.”
Her brows knit together in protest. “That’s an enormous wager.”
He tilted his head. “It is the only way you have a chance at gaining my participation.”
Pippa considered the words, calculating the probability of the roll in her head. “I don’t like my odds. I only have a twenty-two and two-tenths chance of winning.”
He raised a brow, clearly impressed. Ha. Not a muttonhead after all.
“That’s where luck comes in,” he said.
“That force in which you do not believe?”
He lifted one shoulder in a lanky shrug. “I could be wrong.”
“What if I choose not to wager?”
He crossed his arms. “Then you force me to tell Bourne everything.”
“You cannot!”
“I can, indeed, my lady. I had planned not to, but the reality is this: You cannot be trusted to keep yourself safe. It falls to those around you to do it for you.”
“You could keep me safe by agreeing to my proposal,” she pointed out.
He smiled, and the flash of his white teeth sent a very strange sensation spiraling through her—as though she were in a carriage that had taken a turn too quickly. “It’s much easier for Bourne to accomplish the task. Besides, I like the idea of his locking you in a tower until your wedding day. It would keep you away from here.”
From him. She found she didn’t care much for the thought.
She narrowed her gaze on him. “You are making this my only choice.”
“You are not the first gamer to feel that way. You won’t be the last.”
She rattled the dice. “Fine. Anything other than a seven or an eleven, and I shall go home.”
“And you shall refrain from propositioning other men,” he prompted.
“It was not nearly so salacious as you make it out to be,” she said.
“It was salacious enough.”
He had been nearly naked. That bit had been fantastically salacious. She felt her cheeks warm and nodded once. “Very well. I will refrain from asking any other men to assist in my research.”
He seemed satisfied with the vow. “Roll.”
She took a deep breath, steeling herself for the moment, her heart pounding as she tossed the ivory dice, watching as one knocked into the curved mahogany bumper at the opposite end, bouncing back to land near its sister on a large, white C—the beginning of the word Chance, curling down the table in extravagant script.
Nine.
Chance, indeed.
She had lost.
She put her hands to the cool wood of the table, leaning in, as though she could will one die to keep turning until the game was hers.
She lifted her gaze to her opponent’s.
“Alea iacta est,” he said.
The die is cast. The words Caesar had spoken as he marched to war with Rome. Of course, Caesar’s risk had won him an empire; Pippa’s had lost her this last, fleeting opportunity for knowledge.
“I lost,” she said, not knowing what else to say.
“You did.”
“I wanted to win,” she added, disappointment coursing through her, harsh and unfamiliar.
“I know.” He lifted one hand to her cheek, the movement distracting her from the dice, suddenly making her desperate for something else altogether. She caught her breath at the rushing sensation—a flood of something indescribable in her chest.
His long fingers tempted but didn’t touch, leaving a trail of heat where they almost were. “I am collecting, Lady Philippa,” he said, softly. Collecting. The word was more than the sum of its letters. She was suddenly, keenly aware that he could name his price. That she would pay it.
She met his grey eyes in the dim light. “I only wished to know about marriage.”
He tilted his head, one ginger lock falling over his brow. “It’s the most common thing in the world. Why does it worry you so?”
Because she didn’t understand it.
She kept quiet.
After a long moment, he said, “It is time for you to go home.”
She opened her mouth to speak, to try to convince him that the wager had been silly, to convince him to let her stay, but at the precise moment, his hand moved, tracing the column of her neck, the nearly-there touch an undelivered promise. Her plea was lost in a strange, consuming desire for contact. She caught her breath, resisting the urge to move toward him.
“Pippa,” he whispered, and there was a hint of something there in the name . . . something she could not place. She was having trouble thinking at all. He was so close. Too close and somehow not close enough.
“Go home, darling,” he said, his fingers finally, finally settling, featherlight, on the place where her pulse pounded. Somehow giving her everything and nothing she wanted all at once. She leaned into the caress without thought, wanting more. Wanting to refuse.
He removed his hand instantly—before she could revel in the brush of his fingers—and for a mad, fleeting moment, she considered reaching for him and returning his touch to her person.
How fascinating.
How terrifying.
She took a deep breath and stepped back. A foot, two. Five, as he crossed his arms in a tightly controlled movement she was coming to identify as specific to him. “This is not the place for you.”
And as she watched him, feeling an unsettling, nearly irresistible pull to remain in the club, she realized that this place was far more than she had bargained.
Chapter Four
“The roses have sprouted—two perfect pink buds, right off the stalk of a red bush, as hypothesized. I would be deeply proud of the accomplishment if I had not failed so thoroughly in avenues of non-botanical research.
It seems I’ve a keener understanding of horticulture than humans.
Unfortunately, this is not a surprising discovery.”
The Scientific Journal of Lad
y Philippa Marbury
March 23, 1831; thirteen days prior to her wedding
Really, Pippa”—Olivia Marbury sighed from the doorway of the Dolby House orangery—“one would think that you would have something better to do than fiddle about with your plants. After all, we’re to be married in twelve days.”
“Thirteen,” Pippa corrected, not looking up from where she cataloged that morning’s floral observations. She knew better than to explain to Olivia that her work on the roses was far more interesting and relevant to science than fiddling about.
Olivia didn’t know science from sailing.
“Today doesn’t count!” The second—or first—bride in what was purported to be “the double wedding of the century” (at least, by their mother) replied, the excitement in her voice impossible to miss. “It’s practically over!”
Pippa resisted the urge to correct her younger sister, supposing that if one were looking forward to the event in question, today would not, in fact, count. But as Pippa remained uncertain and anxious when it came to the event in question, today did indeed count. Very much.
There were fourteen hours and—she looked to a nearby clock—forty-three minutes left of today, March the twenty-third, and Pippa had no intention of relinquishing the twelfth-to-the-last day of her premarital life before she’d used every single minute of it.
Olivia was now on the opposite side of Pippa’s worktable, leaning well over the surface, a wide smile on her pretty face. “Do you notice anything different about me, today?”
Pippa set down her pen and looked at her sister. “You mean, aside from the fact that you’re about to sprawl into a pile of soil?”
Olivia’s perfect nose wrinkled in distaste, and she straightened. “Yes.”
Pippa pushed her spectacles up on her nose, considering her sister’s twinkling eyes, secret smile, and generally lovely appearance. She did not notice anything different. “New coiffe?”
Olivia smirked. “No.”
“New dress?”
The smirk became a smile. “For a scientist, you’re not very observant, you know.” Olivia draped one hand across her collarbone, and Pippa saw it. The enormous, glittering ruby. Her eyes went wide, and Olivia laughed. “Ah-ha! Now you notice!”
She thrust the hand in question toward Pippa, who had to lean back to avoid being hit with the jewel. “Isn’t it gorgeous?”
One Good Earl Deserves a Lover Page 5