I have studied a great many species of flora and fauna over the years, and if there is one truth to be found, it is this: Whether hounds or humans, siblings almost always display more heterogeneity than they do homogeneity. One need only look at Olivia and me to see the proof.
Parents are the red rosebush . . . offspring the white branch.
The Scientific Journal of Lady Philippa Marbury
March 28, 1831; eight days prior to her wedding
I came to tell you to leave us alone.”
Cross stood just inside the closed, locked door to his office, beyond which two hundred of Britain’s most powerful men wagered. On the way there, he’d considered a half dozen things he might say to his sister, all variations on the theme of “What in hell would possess you to come here?”
But he did not have the opportunity to say any of them. His sister spoke the instant the lock clicked, as though she had nothing in the world about which to worry but that single calm, clear sentence.
“Lavinia—” he began, but she cut him off, her serious brown gaze unwavering.
“I am not here to discuss it,” she said, the words like steel. “I came from Knight’s, and he refused to see me. Because of you.”
Ire flared. “As well it should be. You should never have gone to him. And if he knows what’s best for him, he’ll never see you again.”
She looked tired—pale and thin and uncomfortable, with dark circles beneath her eyes and hollow cheeks, as though she had not slept or eaten in days. But it had been more than days that had made her this way—that had stolen the bright-eyed, happy seventeen-year-old girl and left behind this stoic twenty-four-year-old woman who seemed years older and decades wiser.
Too wise. She did not back down. “This is none of your concern.”
“Of course it is my concern. You’re my sister.”
“You think that the pronouncement of the words makes them true?”
He moved toward her, hesitating when she pressed back, clasping the edge of his desk as though she could gain strength from the great slab of ebony. “There is no making about it. They are true.”
Her lips twisted in a bitter, humorless smile. “How simple you make it seem. As though you have done nothing wrong. As though we are all expected to forget that you deserted us. As though we are expected to pretend that all is well, and nothing has changed. As though we are to slaughter the fatted calf and welcome you back into our lives—our prodigal son.”
The words stung, even as Cross reminded himself that Lavinia had been so young when Baine had died. Seventeen and barely out, she’d been too focused on her own pain and her own tragedy to see the truth of what had happened. To see that Cross had had no choice but to leave the family.
To see that he’d been pushed out.
To see that they would have never forgiven him. That, in their eyes, he would never have been good enough, strong enough, Baine enough.
Not only in their eyes. His as well.
He did not correct her—did not tell her. Instead, he let the words sting. Because he deserved them. Still.
He always would.
When he did not reply, his sister added, “I have come to tell you that whatever arrangement you have made, whatever deals you have struck with Mr. Knight—I don’t want them. I want you to rescind them. I shall take responsibility for my family.”
The words made him angry. “You should not have to take responsibility. You have a husband. This is his purpose. His role. It is he who should be protecting his children’s futures. His wife’s reputation.”
Her brown eyes flashed. “That is none of your concern.”
“It is if you require protecting, and he cannot provide it.”
“Now you play the expert in familial protection? The perfect older brother? Now, after seven years of desertion? After seven years of invisibility? Where were you when they married me to Dunblade to begin with?”
He’d been counting cards in some casino, trying to pretend he did not know where his sister was. What she was doing. Who she was marrying. Why. Ironically, that casino had likely been Knight’s. “Lavinia,” he tried to explain, “so much happened when Baine died. So much you don’t know.”
She narrowed her gaze on him. “You still think me a little girl. You think I don’t know? You think I don’t remember that night? Need I remind you that I was there? Not you. Me. I am the one who carries the scars. The memory of it. I carry it with me every day. And somehow, it is you who has taken ownership of the evening.”
She shifted, and he noticed the flash of discomfort on her face as she leaned into her finely wrought cane. He moved to a nearby chair, lifting a stack of books from its seat. “Please. Sit.”
She stiffened, and when she spoke, the words were like ice. “I am quite able to stand. I may be lame, but I am not crippled.”
Goddammit. Could he do nothing right? “I never meant—Of course you are able to stand. I simply thought you would be more comfortable—”
“I don’t require you to make me comfortable or to make my life easier. I require you to stay out of my life. I came to tell you that. And to tell you that I will not allow you to involve yourself with Knight on my behalf.”
Anger flared, and frustration. “I am afraid the decision is out of your hands. I will not allow you to sacrifice yourself to Knight. Not when I can help it.”
“It’s not your place to step in.”
“It is precisely my place. Like it or not, this is my world, and you are my sister.” He paused, hesitating on the next words, not wanting to say them, but knowing he owed them to her. “Knight came after you to get to me.”
Her brows snapped together. “I beg your pardon?”
He hated himself in that moment, almost as much as he hated the look in her eyes, suspicion and disbelief. “He wants me, Lavinia. Not you. Not Dunblade. He knew that threatening you would be the fastest way to get what he wants from me.”
“Why would he think that?” she scoffed. “You’ve never given a moment’s thought to us.”
The words stung. “That’s not true.”
She shifted again, and he couldn’t stop himself from looking to her cane again, from wishing he could see her leg. He knew how it pained her; he paid her doctors handsomely to keep him apprised of the seven-year-old injury.
He looked up at her. “Lavinia,” he began. “Please. Sit. We will discuss this.”
She did not sit. “We suffer because of you?”
It did not matter that they suffered because her husband was weak-willed. If Cross were not Cross . . . if he did not have a past with Knight . . . they would be safe. “He threatens you to access me. To take from me what he wants. Stay away from him. I will make this go away. I need four days.”
“What does he want?”
My title. My name. Your children’s inheritance. “It does not matter.”
“Of course it does.”
“No. It does not matter because he will not get it. And he will not get you, either.”
Something flared in her brown eyes, something close to loathing, and she laughed without humor. “I suppose I should not be surprised. After all, my pain has always been the result of your actions, hasn’t it? Why should now be any different?”
Silence stretched between them, the words hovering in the room, their weight familiar and unbearable, echoing the cold accusations of his father that night, seven years ago. It should have been you.
And the keening wails of his mother. If only it had been you.
And of Lavinia’s cries of pain as the surgeons did what they could to set bone and clean wounds, and rid her young, frail body of the fever that had raged, threatening her young life.
Threatening Cross’s sanity.
He wanted to tell her the truth, that he’d been consumed with guilt that night, and fear the nights after, that he’d wished over and over, again and again, for years, that it had been him in that carriage. That it had been Baine at home—strong, steady, competent Baine, who never would have left them. Who never would have let her marry Dunblade.
That it had been Cross who had died—so he never would have failed them.
But the words wouldn’t come.
Instead he said, “I will repair the damage. He will never bother you again.”
That laugh again, hurt and hateful, with more experience than it should hold. “Please, don’t. You are too good at causing damage to have any skill at repairing it.” She added, “I don’t want you in my life. I will deal with him.”
“He won’t see you,” he said. “That is part of our bargain.”
“How dare you negotiate with him on my behalf?”
He shook his head and spoke the truth, tired of holding it back. “He came to me, Lavinia. And as much as you would like to believe otherwise, I couldn’t let him hurt you. I will never let him hurt you.”
The words might have had an impact, but he would never know, because at that precise moment, as they faded into the air around him, there was a loud thump from the opposite side of the large painting that hung on one wall of his office, and a dreadful knowledge settled deep and unpleasant in his gut. He knew what was on the other side of that painting, knew where it led.
Knew, too, with utter certainty, who was standing mere inches away from his office.
Lifting a hand to keep his sister from saying any more, he rounded his desk and grasped one edge of the massive gilt frame, giving the enormous oil painting a heavy yank, opening the secret entrance and revealing a wide-eyed Philippa Marbury, who tumbled out of the passageway beyond, barely catching herself on a nearby table before straightening and facing the occupants of the room.
She did not miss a beat, righting her spectacles and moving past him, into the office, to say, “Hello, Lady Dunblade,” before turning a cool blue gaze on him, triumphantly setting a pair of ivory dice on the edge of his great black desk, and adding, “You, sir, are a liar and a cheat. And I will not be ordered about like a prize hound.”
There was a moment of collective stunned silence, during which Lavinia’s jaw dropped and Cross wondered how precisely his calm, collected life had gone spiraling so completely out of control.
His Lavinia was Lavinia, Baroness Dunblade. A lady.
It was fascinating how simply society rendered invisible those who had suffered unfortunate circumstances. Lady Dunblade might require a cane to aid in her unavoidable limp, but now, as she stood on one side of Mr. Cross’s cluttered office, Pippa wondered how the lady could escape notice. Injury aside, she was tall and beautiful, with lovely red hair and brown eyes that Pippa could not help but admire.
Apparently, she was not the only one to admire those eyes. Apparently, Mr. Cross thought they were worthy of admiration as well. Pippa shouldn’t be surprised. After all, Mr. Cross was a notorious rogue—even if he’d never even hinted at any kind of roguish behavior with Pippa—and Lady Dunblade so often went beyond notice, that she could easily come and go from The Fallen Angel without causing scandal.
But scandal she was, apparently, as she was here, standing in Cross’s office, straight and proud, like a Grecian queen.
And why shouldn’t she stand proud? She’d apparently caught the attention of one of the most powerful men in London.
Pippa would be quite proud herself if she had done the same.
She resisted the thought and the thread of newly, unpleasantly, defined emotion that coursed through her with it, and turned to close the door to the secret passageway. She should have guessed that he had chosen a room with a passage leading to his office—he was not the kind of man who relied on coincidence.
And he was likely not the kind of man to be happy that she’d just tumbled through the wall and into his office . . . and if what she had overheard was to be believed . . . into a very private conversation.
I will never let him hurt you.
Even through the wall, she’d heard the fierceness in his tone. The commitment. Even through the wall, she’d felt the words like a blow. He clearly cared for the lady. Cared for her enough to leave Pippa in a locked room and go to her.
She shouldn’t be upset. After all, theirs was a partnership, not a relationship.
This was no time for jealousy. No place for it. There was no jealousy in science.
Except, apparently, there was.
She shouldn’t be jealous. She should be angry. He’d defiled their agreement by cheating her with weighted dice and wicked lies. Yes. In fact, that was why she had come here furious, was it not? If she was upset, it should be for that reason, and nothing else.
Certainly not because he’d left her to come for this lady.
She should not be upset about that at all.
And yet, that seemed to be precisely the reason for her upset.
Curious, that.
Once the passageway was closed, she spun back to face Mr. Cross and Lady Dunblade. Taking in the fury on his face and the shock on hers, Pippa said the first thing that came to mind. “I am sorry to interrupt.”
There was a beat, as they heard the words, before they both spoke.
“We are through,” said the lady, shoulders squaring as she seemed to remember where she was, backing toward the door. “I am leaving.”
“What in hell are you doing inside that passageway? I told you not to move from that room,” said Mr. Cross at the same time.
“You left me in a locked room and expected me not to attempt to escape?” Pippa said, unable to keep the frustration from her tone.
“I expect you to keep yourself safe from harm.”
Her eyes went wide. “What harm could possibly come to me?”
“In a dark, secret passageway in a gaming hell? You’re right. No harm indeed.”
She took a step back. “Sarcasm does not become you, Mr. Cross.”
He shook his head in frustration and turned to Lady Dunblade, who had reached the door. “You are not leaving.”
The lady’s gaze narrowed. “We are through. I have delivered my message. And I am most definitely leaving.”
Pippa pressed back against the painting through which she’d come, as Cross took a step toward Lady Dunblade, the emotion in his words obvious. “Lavinia—” he started before she held up a hand and stopped him.
“No. You made this choice. You cannot change the past.”
“It is not the past I wish to change, dammit. It is the future.”
Lavinia turned and made for the door that led to the floor of the casino. “The future is not yours to affect.”
Pippa watched them, head turning from one to the other, as though they were in a badminton match, questions rising, desperate for facts. What had happened in their past? What was happening now to threaten their future? How were they connected?
And there, seeking her answer, she discovered the anguish in his gaze.
He loved her.
She stiffened at the last, the thought unsettling and unpleasant.
Lavinia’s hand settled on the door handle and Cross swore. “Goddammit, Lavinia. Half of London is out there. If you’re seen, you’ll be ruined.”
She looked over her shoulder. “Am I not already on that path?”
What did that mean?
His gaze narrowed. “Not if I can stop it. I shall take you home.”
Lavinia looked to Pippa. “And Lady Philippa?”
He turned to Pippa, surprise in his gaze, as though he’d forgotten she was there. She ignored the disappointment that flared at the thought. “I shall take you both home.”
Pippa shook her head. Whatever was happening here with Lady Dunblade, it did not change Pippa’s plans for the evening. Ignoring the weight in her chest at her earlier discovery—a pang that was becoming familiar—she said, “I am not interested in returning home.”
At the same time, Lavinia said, “I will not go anywhere with you.”
He reached for one of several pulls on the wall behind him, yanking it with more force than necessary. “I will not force you to stay, but I will not allow you to destroy yourself either. You will have an escort home.”
Bitterness laced the baroness’s tone. “Once more, you leave me in the hands of another.”
Cross went ashen at the words; the room was suddenly too small, and Pippa was out of place. There was something so connected about these two, in the way they faced each other, neither one willing to back down. There was a similarity in them—in the way they stood tall and refused to cow.
There was no doubt they had a past. No doubt they’d known each other for years.
No doubt there had been a time they cared for each other.
Still did, perhaps.
The thought had Pippa wishing she could crawl back into the painting and find another way out of the club. She turned to do just that, pulling once on the heavy frame, preferring that empty, locked hazard room to this.
But this time, when the painting swung open, it was to reveal a man in the passageway. The enormous brown-skinned man seemed as surprised by Pippa as she was by him. They stared at each other for a moment before she blurted, “Excuse me. I should like to get past.”
His brows furrowed and he turned a confused look on Cross, who swore wickedly and said, “She’s not going anywhere.”
Pippa looked back at him. “I shall be quite fine.”
He met her gaze, grey eyes serious. “Where do you plan to go?”
She wasn’t exactly sure. “Into the . . .” She waved into the blackness behind the large man blocking the entryway, “ . . . wall,” she finished.
He ignored her, his attention flickering to the man in the wall. “Take Lady Dunblade home. Be sure she is not seen.”
Pippa craned her head to look up at the large man—larger than any man she’d ever met. It was difficult to imagine that he was skilled at clandestine late-night female ferreting, but Mr. Cross was a legendary rake, so this was likely not the first time he’d been asked to do just that.
“I’m not going with him,” Lady Dunblade said firmly.
“You do not have a choice,” Cross said, “unless you would prefer I take you.”
Pippa found she did not like that idea, but remained quiet.
“How do I know I can trust him?”
Cross looked to the ceiling, then back to the lady. “You don’t. But it strikes me that your choices of whom to trust or mistrust are entirely arbitrary, so why not place him in the trustworthy column?”
They stared at each other, and Pippa wondered what would happen. She would not have been surprised if Lady Dunblade had thrown open the main door to Mr. Cross’s office and marched, proud and proper, out onto the floor of the casino, just to spite him.
What had he done to her?
What had she done to him?
After a long moment, Pippa could not help herself. “Lady Dunblade?”
The lady met her gaze, and Pippa wondered if she’d ever had a conversation with this woman. She didn’t think so. Right now, in this moment, she was certain that if she had, she would remember this proud, brown-eyed, flame-haired warrior. “Yes?”
“Whatever it is,” Pippa said, hesitating over the words, “it is not worth your reputation.”
There was a beat as the words carried through the room, and for a moment, Pippa thought the baroness might not react. But she did, leaning into her cane and moving across the room to allow the massive man, still elevated inside, to help her up into the dark passageway.
Once there, Lady Dunblade turned back, meeting Pippa’s gaze. “I could say the same to you,” she said. “Will you join me?”
The question hovered between them, and somehow Pippa knew that her answer would impact more than her activities that evening. She knew that a yes would remove her from Mr. Cross’s company forever. And a no might keep her there for far too long.
For longer than she had been planning.
She looked to him, his grey gaze locking with hers, unreadable and still so powerful—able to quicken her breath and tumble her insides. She shook her head, unable to look away. “No. I wish to stay.”
He did not move.
Lady Dunblade spoke. “I do not know why you are here, Lady Philippa, but I can tell you this—whatever this man has promised you, whatever you think to gain from your acquaintance, do not count on receiving it.” Pippa did not know how to respond. She did not have to. “Your reputation is on the line.”
“I am taking care,” Pippa said.
One of the baroness’s ginger brows rose in disbelief, and something flashed, familiar, there then gone before Pippa could place it. “See that you do.”
The baroness disappeared into the blackness of the secret passageway, the hulking man following behind. Pippa watched them go, the light from the body-man’s lantern fading around a corner before she closed the painting once more and turned back to Cross.
He was pressed to the far side of the room, back to a large bookshelf, arms folded over his chest, eyes on the floor.
He looked exhausted. His shoulders hunched, almost in defeat, and even Pippa—who never seemed to be able to properly read the emotions of those around her—understood that he had been wounded in the battle that had taken place in this room.
Unable to stop herself, she moved toward him, her skirts brushing against the massive abacus that stood to one side of the room, and the sound pulled him from his thoughts. He looked up, his grey gaze meeting hers, staying her movement.
“You should have gone with her.”
She shook her head, her words catching in her throat as she replied, “You promised to help me.”
“And if I said I wish to dissolve our agreement?”
She forced a smile she did not feel. “The desire is not mutual.”
His eyes darkened, the only part of him that moved. “It will be.”
She couldn’t resist. “Who is she?”
The question broke the spell, and he looked away, rounding the edge of his desk, placing the wide ebony surface between them and fussing with the papers on the desk. “You know who she is.”
She shook her head. “I know she is the Baroness Dunblade. Who is she to you?”
“It does not matter.”
“On the contrary, it seems to matter quite a bit.”
“It should not to you.”
It was rather unsettling how much it mattered. “And yet it does.” She paused, wishing he would tell her, knowing that her request was futile, and still unable to stop herself from asking, “Do you care for her very much?”
Don’t tell me. I don’t want to know.
Except she did. Quite desperately.
When he did not reply, she added, “I only ask because I am curious as to why her visit would move you to lock me in a hazard room for an indefinite amount of time.”
He looked up. “It was not indefinite.”
She came to stand on the opposite side of the desk. “No thanks to you.”
“How did you find the passageway?”
“You would be surprised by what irritation does to aid one’s commitment to a cause.”
One side of his mouth twitched. “I assume you refer to your imprisonment?”
“And to your cheating,” she added.
His gaze flickered to the dice she had placed on the edge of the desk. “Those are the winning dice.”
“You think I care if the dishonesty was for win or loss? It’s still cheating.”
He laughed, the sound humorless. “Of course you don’t care. It was for your own good.”
“And the sevens?”
“Also weighted.”
She nodded. “The nine I rolled on that first afternoon? The wager that sent me home, vowing not to approach any more men?”
He poured himself a glass of scotch. “Those, too.”
She nodded once. “I told you I do not care for liars, Mr. Cross.”
“And I told you, scoundrels lie. It was time you learned.”
The man was frustrating. “If all lies are as easily recognized as your silly weighted dice, I think I shall be just fine in the world.”
“I am surprised you noticed.”
“Perhaps your other ladies would not have noticed an epidemic of sixes and threes,” Pippa said, unable to keep the ire from the words, “but I am a scientist. I understand the laws of probability.”
“My other ladies?” he pressed.
“Miss Sasser . . . Lady Dunblade . . . any others you have lying about,” she said, pausing at the visual her words brought about and not particularly enjoying it. “At any rate, I am unlike them.”
“You are unlike any woman I have ever known.”
The words stung. “What does that mean?”
“Only that most women do not frustrate me quite so much.”
“How interesting, as I have never met a man who exasperates me quite so much.” She pointed to the painting. “You should not have locked me inside that room.”
He drank deep and returned the tumbler to its place on the sideboard. “I assure you, you were quite safe there.”
She hadn’t felt unsafe, but that wasn’t the point. “What if I were phobic?”
His head snapped up, his gaze instantly meeting hers. “Are you?”
“No. But I could have been.” She hesitated. “What if there had been a fire?”
His gaze did not waver. “I would have fetched you.”
His certainty set her back for a moment. When she recovered, she asked, “Through your miracle passageway?”
“Yes.”
“And if the fire had already destroyed it?”
“I would have found a way to get to you.”
“I am to believe that?”
“Yes.” He sounded so certain, as though nothing would stop him.
“Why?”
“Because it is true.” The words were ever so quiet in the small, enclosed space, and Pippa realized two things in that moment. First, that they had both leaned in, across the great slab of ebony—an emblem of power as strong as Charlemagne’s army—until they were mere inches apart.
And second, that she believed him.
He would have come for her.
She let out a long breath, and said, “I came for you, instead.”
One side of his mouth twitched into a half smile. “You didn’t know where the passage would lead.”
Everything about him, his eyes, his voice, the sandalwood scent of him tempted her, and she hovered on the edge of closing her eyes and leaning into the moment, into him. When she spoke, the words were barely above a whisper. “I was hopeful that it would lead to excitement.”
That it would lead to you.
He pulled back sharply, as though she’d spoken the words aloud, jerking her from the moment. “In that case, I am sorry that it brought you here.”
She straightened as well, turning her attention to the painting through which she had come—the painting she’d barely noticed the first two times she’d been inside this room and that now seemed to swallow the space, dwarfing one wall of the office, five feet wide and twice as tall, at once grotesque and beautiful and deeply compelling.
At the center of the oil, a woman wrapped in white linens slept on her back in a state of utter abandon, arms above her head, blond curls tumbling to the floor, loose and free. Her skin was pale and perfect, and the only source of light in the piece, so bright that it took a moment to see what lurked in the shadows of her bedchamber.
To one side, through a red velvet curtain peeked a great, black horse, with terrifying, wild eyes and a wide-open mouth filled with enormous white teeth. The beast seemed to leer at the sleeping figure, as though he could sense her dreams and was merely biding his time before he struck.
But the stallion would have to wait his turn, for seated on the woman’s long torso, in the shadowy stretch between breast and thigh, was a small, ugly figure, part beast, part man. The creature seemed to stare straight out of the painting, meeting the eyes of anyone who dared look. The expression on the goblin’s face was at once patient and possessive, as though he would wait for an eternity for the lady to awaken—and fight to the death to keep her.
It was the most compelling thing she’d ever seen, scandalous and sinful. She moved closer. “This piece—it is remarkable.”
“You like it?” She heard the surprise in his tone.
“I don’t think one likes it. I think one is captivated by it.” She wanted to reach out and wake the woman in the painting, to warn her of what was no doubt the beginning of a terrible demise. “Where did you find it?”
“It was used to pay a debt,” Cross said, closer, and she looked over her shoulder to find him at the edge of his desk, one hand on the ebony, watching her move toward the oil.
“A very large one, I imagine.”
He inclined his head. “I liked the piece enough to allow the debt wiped from the books—free and clear.”
She was not surprised that he had been drawn to this painting—to the wickedness in each brushstroke, to the darkness of the story it told. She turned back, drawn once more to the strange creature seated on the sleeping woman. “What is it?” she asked, reaching out to the little man, afraid to touch him.
“It’s an incubus.” He paused. Continued. “A nightmare. Demons were once thought to come at night and wreak havoc on those who slept. Male demons, like that one, preyed upon beautiful women.”
There was something in the way he spoke, a hint of—memory?—and Pippa looked to him. “Why do you have this?”
He was no longer watching her, instead, he stared down at the desk, lifting the dice she had placed there, clutching them in his palm. “I do not care much for sleep,” he said, as if it were an acceptable answer.
Why not?
She wanted to ask it, but knew, instantly, that he would not tell her. “I am not surprised, considering you spend most of your day in the shadow of this painting.”
“One becomes comfortable with it.”
“I rather doubt that,” she said. “How often do you use the passageway?”
“I find I don’t have much need of it.”
She smiled. “Then I might appropriate it?”
“You do not use it well. I heard you the moment you came near.”
“You did not.”
“I did. You will no doubt be surprised to discover that you are not very good at sneaking, Lady Philippa.”
“I’ve not had much cause for the activity, Mr. Cross.”
One side of his mouth kicked up in an approximation of a smile. “Until recently.”
“This place rather calls for it, don’t you think?”
“I do, actually.”
He returned the dice to the desk with a soft click, and the little white cubes captured her attention and she spoke to them. “Now, if I remember correctly, you owe me the answers to three questions. Four, if you count the one you left unanswered.”
In the silence that followed the statement, she could not stop herself from lifting her gaze to his. He was waiting for her. “All the dice were weighted. I owe you nothing.”
Her brows snapped together. “On the contrary, you owe me plenty. I trusted you to tell the truth.”
“Your mistake, not mine.”
“You are not ashamed of cheating?”
“I am ashamed of being caught.”
She scowled. “You underestimated me.”
“It seems I did. I will not make the mistake again. I will not have the opportunity.”
She snapped her head back. “You are reneging?”
He nodded. “I am. I want you out of this place. Forever. You don’t belong here.”
She shook her head. “You said you wouldn’t renege.”
“I lied.”
The unexpected words shocked her, so she said the only thing that came to mind. “No.”
Surprise flared in his eyes. “No?”
She shook her head, advancing and stopping a foot from him. “No.”
He lifted the dice again, and she heard the clatter of ivory on ivory as he worried them in his palm. “Upon what grounds do you refuse?”
“Upon the grounds that you owe me.”
“Do you plan to run me before a judge and jury?” he asked wryly.
“I don’t need to,” she retorted, playing her last, most powerful card. “I only have to run you before my brother-in-law.”
There was a beat as the words sank in, and his eyes widened, just barely, just enough for her to notice before he closed the distance between them, and said, “A fine idea. Let’s tell Bourne everything. You think he would force me to honor our agreement?”
She refused to be cowed. “No. I think he would murder you for agreeing to it in the first place. Even more so when he discovers that it was negotiated by a lady of the evening.”
Emotion flared in his serious grey gaze, irritation and . . . admiration? Whatever it was, it was gone almost instantly, extinguished like a lantern in one of his strange, dark passageways. “Well played, Lady Philippa.” The words were soft as they slid over her skin.
“I rather thought so.” Where had her voice gone?
He was so close. “Where would you like to begin?”
She wanted to begin where they’d left off. He could not escape now, not as they stood here, in his office . . . in a gaming hell, feet away from sin and vice and half of London sure to ruin her thoroughly if they were to find her.
And inches away from each other.
This was the risk she had vowed to take; his knowledge was the reward.
Excitement thrummed through her, promising more than she could have expected when she’d left the house this evening. “I should like to begin with kissing.”