The time for observation is through.
It is now time for action.
The Scientific Journal of Lady Philippa Marbury
April 3, 1831; one day prior to her wedding
She was to be married tomorrow.
To another man.
And instead of being at Dolby House, in her bedchamber, in her arms—giving them both a final taste of mutual pleasure—he was here, in one of London’s darkest corners, now lit in brilliant celebration of his own impending marriage.
Knight had not been able to resist glorying in paternal triumph. Cross was to marry Meghan Margaret Knight and gaming hell royalty would soon be born; if that did not call for a night of sin and debauchery, nothing would.
A group of men at a nearby hazard table cried out their excitement, as the roll turned in their favor, and Cross turned to watch as the little ivory dice were raked up and returned to the head of the field, where Viscount Densmore kissed the cubes and threw them down the table again. Three. Four.
The entire table groaned their disappointment at the loss, and Cross took perverse pleasure in the sound. No one should be happy tonight if he could not be. No one should have pleasure if he could not take it.
It had been four days since he’d touched happiness—fleetingly. Four days since he’d brushed against pleasure, all soft skin and breathless words. Four days since he’d had Pippa in one perfect, devastating night. Four days that had stretched like an eternity, every moment taunting him, tempting him to go to her. To steal her away and keep her from scathing words and judging eyes.
He had twenty-five thousand acres in Devonshire where no one ever needed to see them, where she and Trotula could roam. He would build her a house for her scientific research. He’d give her everything she needed. Everything she desired. And he’d roam with them, he and their passel of children as, in his experience, rustication tended to facilitate breeding.
He’d do everything he could to keep her happy.
It wouldn’t be enough.
It would never be enough. He would never be enough for her, just as he hadn’t been enough for Baine or Lavinia. She deserved better.
A wicked ache settled in his chest at the thought.
Castleton wasn’t better. He wouldn’t challenge her. He wouldn’t tempt her.
He wouldn’t love her.
Nearby, Christopher Lowe leaned over at the roulette wheel and barked his triumph as the little white ball seated itself into a red square on the spinning surface.
Cross hissed his displeasure. Roulette was the worst kind of game—entirely chance, never worth the wager, even when resulting in a win. It was a game for idiots. He turned to watch the score of men patting Lowe on the back and placing their blunt on the table. “The wheel’s hot now!” one called.
Cross turned away in irritation.
The whole world—every game designed to tempt and take—was designed for idiots.
“Cross.”
He spun on Sally Tasser, standing several feet away. “I should kill you for what you did,” he growled. “If you were a man, I would.”
She’d sold him out to Knight, forced him into a marriage he didn’t want. Into a life he would never have taken. In this world where they lived and breathed power and sin, pleasure and punishment, betrayal was always a possibility. Losses happened.
But Sally’s actions had not simply punished him; they’d threatened Pippa.
And that, he would never forgive.
Fury raged as he advanced on the prostitute, unsettling her, pushing her back through the throngs of revelers, between card tables and dice fields until they were at the side of the room, dingier and less welcoming than the main floor of the Angel. “Tell me, what was my future worth to you? A few quid? A new gown? A string of paste? After all I’ve done for you? For your girls? And you repay me with this. By threatening the one thing I hold dear?”
She shook her head, brown eyes flashing. “It’s so easy for you to judge me, isn’t it?” she spat.
“You threatened mine,” he thundered, wanting to put his fist through a wall. In six years, he had never felt so out of control. So unhinged. The idea of Pippa in danger made him shake with fear and anger and a half dozen terrifyingly powerful emotions.
What would he do when she was married?
Sally saved him from having to answer the question. “You with your perfect life and your piles of money and never having to get on your knees to earn your next meal and stay on them to thank some stranger for the coin . . . If you’d failed—”
“If I’d failed, I’d have kept you safe.”
“Safe,” she scoffed. “You’d have sent me off to the country to live out my days—an old mare put to pasture? That may be safe, but it’s not satisfaction.”
“Many think otherwise.”
“Well, not me,” she said. “If you’d failed, and Knight had discovered my role in your plans, he’d have pushed me out, and I’d be working the streets.” She paused. “I’ve a good life, Cross, and I protected it. You would have done the same.”
Except he hadn’t. Protecting his life would have meant throwing Pippa to Knight and refusing his request. Refusing to take on Maggie.
But Pippa had come first.
She always would.
“If you think on it, I’ve done you a favor. You get yourself a wife. And an heir. You shan’t regret it.”
The wrong wife. The wrong heir.
“I shall regret every minute of it,” he said.
“Cross—” Sally began. “I am sorry, you know. For the lady.”
He stilled.
“Lady Philippa was kind to me. Kinder than any aristocratic female ever has been. And I knew the moment I told Knight about her that I’d regret it.”
“You are not fit to speak her name.” She was better than this place, and all of them combined.
“Likely not. But it’s not your choice.”
“It should be.”
Sally gave a little smile. “Do not doubt for one moment that what’s done was done for her. Not you.”
Meaning Pippa would be happier without him—that Pippa deserved more than what he could give her.
Truth.
“Attention!” Knight’s great, booming voice distracted them both, and they turned to find the man, scarlet-banded hat askew, high atop a hazard table at the center of the floor of the casino. “Attention!” he called again, banging his silver-tipped walking stick heavily on the worn baize, stopping the lively music and drunken chatter. “I’ve somethin’ te say, ye disrespectful gits!”
Knight grinned as the room tittered its laughter, and Cross gritted his teeth, knowing what was to come.
“I’m still angry at most of ye for taking yer time at the Angel’s tables fer that poncy party they call Pandemonium—drinkin’ yer tea and eatin’ yer cakes with a collection of nobs who don’t know an ace from their arse. But I find myself in a forgivin’ humor tonight, pets—in part because, well”—he turned his twinkling gaze to Cross—“at least one of those gents is about to be family!”
The announcement was met with a raucous, near-deafening cheer, as all heads turned toward Cross, who did not cheer. Did not smile. Did not move.
Knight raised a brow and reached out a hand to his future son-in-law. “Cross! Join me for a word or two!”
The cheer again, grating on every nerve, making Cross wish violence on every man here. He folded his arms across his chest and shook his head, unmoving, and Knight’s gaze darkened. “Aww . . . he doesn’t want to steal my roll! Don’t worry, my boy. The pips . . .” He paused, letting the word fall between them. “They are in my favor these days!”
And with that single syllable, evocative of the woman who consumed his thoughts, Knight made it impossible for Cross to refuse the request. He moved across the room with deliberate calm, despite the desire to pull Knight from the table and tear him limb from limb, and climbed up to join the man who had outplayed him. Finally.
Knight clapped him on the back, and Cross spoke, sotto voce, “Tomorrow, she marries. And you lose that bit of control.”
Knight spoke through wide, smiling teeth. “Nonsense. I can ruin her marriage and her children’s reputation, with one well-placed word.” He turned back to the room, a king speaking to his subjects. “And now, the beautiful lady who has captured his heart! The banns will be read tomorrow, and in three weeks’ time, my girl will be his!”
Maggie was lifted up onto the table, and Cross had to give the young woman credit—no decent father would allow his daughter anywhere near this place. No man would allow a woman for whom he cared here. But this woman, clad in mauve and resignation, stood straight and still, without fidgeting, without blushing.
She looked to him, honesty in her gaze. “My lord.” She curtsied, looking as graceful and proper as one could standing atop a hazard field.
He inclined his head, reminding himself that she was a pawn in this game. That it was Maggie who would lose the most. She would gain a title and wealth beyond imagining, but she would never have a husband who loved her.
Her husband would always love another.
“She’s a helluva treat, Cross!” someone called from the crowd.
“I’d like to get my hands on those legs!” A man reached for her slipper, grazing the toe before she gasped and pulled away, pressing back against Cross.
He might not wish to marry her, but she didn’t deserve this.
He pressed a boot down on the man’s wrist, just hard enough to trap the hand to the table. “Touch her and lose it.”
Knight laughed. “You see how he’s already protectin’ her? Can’t keep his hands off her, that Cross! They’ll make me handsome grandsons! I wager the Viscount Baine arrives before the year is out!”
The sound of Baine’s name on Knight’s lips sent a wave of heat through Cross. “I’ve twenty quid says he’s already on the way!” came a booming retort from the crowd.
Laughter and excited cheers rose up from the floor of the hell, punctuated by a loud, “Kiss ’er!”
“Aye, give the girl a good one, Cross!”
Knight laughed. “I haven’t any problem with it!”
“Of course you don’t, you bastard,” Cross hissed beneath the drunken cheers of agreement. “She’s a future countess, and your daughter, and you want her ruined in a gaming hell?”
“She’s my daughter and your future countess,” Knight replied over the cries of agreement. “I think a kiss in a gaming hell is to be expected. And I’m nothing if not a fine host; she’s not getting off this table until they get what they want.”
Maggie’s cheeks had turned red, and she peered up at Cross through sooty black lashes. “My lord,” she whispered, “please. Let us have done with it, shall we?”
He took pity on the girl. “I’m sorry this must be here.”
But Maggie pitied him as well. “I am sorry it is with me,” she said, all sympathy.
She did not deserve him, either.
He huffed a little, humorless laugh. “It seems I am destined to disappoint women.”
She did not reply, and he leaned down to kiss her, briefly, but the caress was enough to impress the crowd, who did not notice that it was devoid of emotion.
Lie. There was emotion. Guilt. Self-loathing. Betrayal. A dark, devastating sense of wrong. She was not Pippa. She was not his. She never would be.
Maggie would live in the shadow of his brilliant, bespectacled love, a prisoner of his desire to do what was right for one woman even as he destroyed the prospects of another.
Goddammit.
“And now”—Knight rapped his walking stick on the table once more, the blows returning Cross back to the present—“get back to losing money!”
Even that received a cheer on this night of nights, when whiskey flowed freely and the tables called, and the whole of Knight’s membership celebrated their leader’s great triumph.
Cross stood for a long moment on that table, waiting for Maggie and Knight to descend, looking over the casino floor as Knight’s pockmarked second hand drew him away to the back office for some matter of business.
Cross was happy to be rid of his father-in-law, and took calm pleasure in the way the roulette wheel was already spinning, the cards already flying across the baize, dice already rolling down tables; Knight commanded a casino the way Wellington had commanded a battalion—there was money to be made, and it would be done with speed and efficiency.
It was the vingt-et-un table that caught his eye first, five seated across from the dealer, each with an ace or a face card up, the dealer staring at a two. The game went fast; not one man hit. On the flop, every player had twenty or higher.
A near mathematical impossibility.
The thought was chased away by a cheer to his left, where a hazard table celebrated a successful roll, the dice in midpass down the table toward the roller. Cross watched the next toss. Six. Three. “Nine again!” the croupier called.
His heart began to pound.
He came down from the table, distracted by the game, unable to keep himself from watching the next cast. Six. Three. “Huzzah!” those watching the game cried.
“What luck!” called the gamer in possession of the dice, turning to face his growing crowd, his face shielded from Cross. “I’ve never been so lucky!”
“Who is it?” a voice asked at his shoulder.
“If you can believe it,” came the response, “it’s Castleton.”
“Lucky bastard!” Disbelief.
“Well, he’s to marry tomorrow . . . so he deserves one night of bachelorhood to tide him over, don’t you think?”
Castleton.
Married tomorrow.
For a moment, Cross forgot the thread of uncertainty that had drawn him to the game, distracted by the reminder that Pippa was to marry tomorrow. This man, who stood at a hazard table.
Six. Three.
Winning.
Something was off.
He raised his head, scanning the crowd, his attention called to the door to the back rooms, where a great, hulking man towered above the rest of the room.
His brows knit together.
What in hell was Temple doing here?
“Two hundred and fifty quid on number twenty-three!” Christopher Lowe made an exorbitant bet at the roulette wheel to Cross’s right, and Cross could not help but turn to watch as the ball rolled in the track, around and around until it landed in a red groove.
Twenty-three.
The entire table cheered; Lowe had risked a fortune, and won nearly nine thousand pounds.
Lowe, who had never won a single thing in his life.
“What did I say?” the young man crowed. “I’m lucky tonight, lads!”
There’s no such thing as luck.
Something was off.
He pushed through the crowd, each person with whom he came into contact more and more elated with the breathlessness of winning, with the excitement of the flop of the ace, the roll of the hard six, the spin of the wheel, which seemed to be stuck on red . . . everyone ignoring him as he passed among their masses until they finally parted and he had a clear view of Temple, several yards away.
The massive partner of The Fallen Angel was not alone. At his side stood a reedy younger man in an evening suit that hung a touch too large on his shoulders. The man wore a cap pulled low over his brow, making it impossible for Cross to see his face . . . there was something familiar about the way he carried himself. Something unsettling.
It was only when the stranger turned to speak in the ear of one of Knight’s girls, passing her a little pouch, that Cross saw the glint of gold at his temple.
Spectacles.
At her temple.
Philippa.
She turned to him, as though he’d said her name aloud, and smiled an enormous, brilliant smile—one that made his blood pound and his heart ache. How had he ever even imagined that she was a man? She looked scandalous and beautiful and absolutely devastating, and he was suddenly quite desperate to get to her. To touch her. To kiss her. To keep her safe.
Not that it made him want to murder her any less.
He reached for her instinctively, and Temple stepped in, placing enormous hands on Cross’s chest, and said, “Not now. If you touch her, everyone will guess.”
Cross didn’t care. He wanted her safe. But Temple was as strong as he was right. After a long moment, he said, “I shall want my time in the ring with you for this.”
Temple smirked. “With pleasure. But if she pulls it off, my guess is that you’ll be thanking me for it.”
Cross’s brows snapped together. “Pulls it off?” He turned to Pippa. “What have you done?”
She smiled as though they were at tea. Or Ascot. Or walking in the park. Entirely calm, utterly sure of herself and her actions. “Don’t you see, you silly man? I’m saving you.”
The cheers from the gamers around them were impossible to ignore at that point, the thrill of winning was deafening. He didn’t need to look to see what she’d done. “You fixed the tables?”
“Nonsense.” Pippa grinned. “With what I know of Digger Knight, I would wager everything you have that these tables were already fixed. I unfixed them.”
She was mad. And he loved it. His brows rose. “Everything I have?”
She shrugged. “I haven’t very much, myself.”
She was wrong, of course. She had more than she knew. More than he’d dreamed.
And if she asked, he’d let her wager with everything he owned.
God, he wanted her.
He looked around them, registering the flushed, excited faces of the gamers nearby, not one of them interested in the trio standing to the side. No one who was not playing was worth the attention. Not when so many were winning so much.
She was running the tables at one of the most successful casinos in London. He turned back to her. “How did you . . .”
She smiled. “You taught me about weighted dice, Jasper.”
He warmed at the name. “I didn’t teach you about stacked decks.”
She feigned insult. “My lord, your lack of confidence in my intelligence wounds me. You think I could not work out the workings of deck stacking myself?”
He ignored the jest. Knight would kill them when he discovered this. “And roulette?”
She smiled. “Magnets have remarkable uses.”
She was too smart for her own good. He turned to Temple. “You allowed this?”
Temple shrugged one shoulder. “The lady can be very . . . determined.”
Lord knew that was true.
“She knew what she wanted,” the enormous man added, “and we all wanted it as well.”
“Temple was very gracious. As was Miss Tasser,” Pippa added.
Cross’s mind was spinning. Miss Tasser. Sally had helped.
Do not doubt for one moment that what’s done was done for her. Not you.
This is what Sally had meant. The run on Knight’s, not Cross’s, engagement.
Pippa’s insane plan.
But they hadn’t considered everything. They hadn’t considered what would happen when she was discovered. When Knight returned to the floor and understood what they’d done.
“You have to leave here. Before Knight discovers it and everything goes wild. Before he discovers you. You’ll be destroyed, and everything I worked for will be—” He was growing panicked by the idea that she might be hurt. That Knight might react with wicked intent.
“I am not leaving.” She shook her head. “I have to see this through to the end!”
“There is no end, Pippa.” He reached for her again, desperate to touch her, and Temple stopped him once more. Cross stopped. Collected himself. “Dammit. Knight is the best in the business.”
“Not better than you,” she said.
“Yes, better than me,” he corrected her. “There’s nothing he cares about more than this place. Than its success. And all I care about—” He trailed off, knowing he shouldn’t say it. Knowing he couldn’t stop himself. “All I care about is you, you madwoman.”
She smiled, her beautiful blue eyes softening behind her spectacles. “Don’t you see, Jasper? You’re all I care about as well.”
He shouldn’t like the words. Shouldn’t ache for them. But he did, of course.
She moved toward him, and he would have opened his arms and taken her to bed then and there if Temple hadn’t stepped in, looking anywhere but at them. “Can’t you two have your private moments in private? Without me near?”
The words served as a reminder of where they were. Of the danger she was in. He turned to face the room, searching for Knight, finding him, fury in his gaze as he watched the floor, sensing with the keen understanding of a man who had done this for his entire life that something was wrong. That there was too much glee on the floor. Too much winning.
His gaze settled on Cross’s over the crowd, and knowledge flared in the older man’s eyes. He turned and gave instructions to his pit boss, who took off at a run—likely for fresh dice and decks—before Knight started toward them, determination in every step. Cross faced Pippa. “You must go,” he said. “You cannot be caught. You’re to marry tomorrow. I shall take care of this.”
She shook her head. “Absolutely not. This is my plan—crafted for you. For Lavinia. To ensure that Knight can never do his damage again. I shall finish it.”
Ire rose. “Pippa, this is bigger than anything you can imagine. You did not plan for an exit. Knight is not worried. He knows that he will restore the tables to working order tonight, and all these people will stay and gamble back their winnings. Gamers do not stop at the top of their streak.”
She smiled. “You think I do not know that? Need I remind you that I learned about temptation from a very skilled teacher?”
Now was not the time to think of their lessons. He resisted the flash of skin and sighed at the words. “I think you could not have prepared for it. I think that, short of burning this place to the ground, there is no amount of coordinated planning that could convince five hundred gaming addicts to leave their winning tables.” He turned back to Knight, registering the old man’s movement. Closer. “And I think I’m through with this conversation. You will return home with Temple, and you will marry tomorrow, and you will live the life you deserve.”
“I don’t want it,” she said.
“You don’t have a choice,” he replied. “This is the last thing I will give you. And it is the only thing I will ever ask of you.”
She shook her head. “You don’t know what you’re asking!”
“I know exactly what I’m asking.”
I’m asking you to walk away before I find I can no longer bear to be without you.
He feared it might be too late, as it was.
“Leave, Pippa.” The words were a plea, coming on a wave of panic he did not care for. This woman had shattered his control, and he hated it. Lie. “I shall fix this.”
She shook her head. “You once promised that when we wagered at my tables, we would play by my rules.”
He wanted to shake her. “These are not your tables!”
She smiled. “But they are my rules, nonetheless.” She turned to Temple. “Your Grace? Would you do the honors?”
Temple lifted a finger to his thrice-broken nose and brushed the tip. From a hazard table nearby, a loud, innocent voice piped up, “My word! That’s a great deal of winnings!” Castleton. Stupid, simple Castleton was in on the plan . . . had they all gone mad?
Cross looked to Temple, who smirked and shrugged one shoulder. “The lady made the arrangements.”
“The lady deserves a sound thrashing.”
Pippa wasn’t watching him. “You don’t mean that.”
He didn’t, but that was beside the point.
Castleton was chattering again. “I hear that Knight doesn’t usually keep much cash on hand, though. I hope he’s enough to cash me out!”
There was a pause at the table as his words sunk in, then a mad dash for each man to collect his notes and winnings and rush to the cash cages. Within seconds, the shouts echoed through the room.
“Knight can’t cover the wins!”
“Cash out now, before it’s too late!”
“Don’t be left with blank notes!”
“You’ll lose everything if you don’t hurry!”
And like that, the tables were empty . . . they were all headed to the cash cages, where two startled bankers hesitated, not knowing how to proceed.
She’d thought of an exit. He should have expected it, of course. Should have known that Philippa Marbury would wage war like she did everything else . . . brilliantly. Eyes wide, he looked first to Pippa, then to Temple, who smirked, folded his arms, and said nothing.
It was remarkable.
She’d done it.
She was remarkable.
Cross caught Knight’s gaze, wide with shock before it slid to Pippa and narrowed in recognition, then fury.
But the club owner could not act on that anger . . . as he was too close to losing everything he’d built. He took to a tabletop once more, calling out affably, “Gents! Gents! This is Knight’s! We ain’t no haphazard organization! We’re well able to pay our debts! Get back to the tables! Play some more!”
His big grin was sinfully tempting.
There was a pause as the sheep turned to their shepherd, and for one moment, Cross thought the desire to win would run the tables.
Until Castleton saved them all, the earl’s clear, disarming voice rising above the crowd once more. “I’d just as soon have this money now, Knight . . . then I know you’re good for it!”
And the press toward the cages began anew, men shouting and pushing until it was close to a riot.
Knight wouldn’t be able to cover these winnings. They’d paupered him.
Pippa had paupered him.
Because she loved Cross.
Because she cared for his future.
His future, which was bleak indeed without her.
He could not linger on the thought, however, as they were jostled by a wall of gamers pressing toward the cages furiously, desperate for their money. Pippa was carried several feet by the wave of bodies. He reached for her, trying to catch her hand and pull her back, her fingers slipping through his as she fell, swallowed up by the furious crowd.
“Pippa!” he yelled, tossing himself into the fray, pulling men from the place where he had last seen her, tossing them aside until he found her, curled into a ball, hands around her head, a heavy boot connecting with her stomach.
He roared his anger, grasping her unwitting attacker by the collar and planting his fist in the man’s face once, twice, before Temple caught up with him. “Let me have him,” Temple said. “You see to your lady.”
Your lady.
She was his.
Would ever be.
He turned the man over to Temple without a second glance, crouching to uncover Pippa’s face, where one lens of her spectacles had been smashed and a wicked red streak had already bloomed high on one cheek. Suppressing his rage, he stroked his fingers carefully across the place where she’d clearly received a blow. “Can you move?”
She nodded, shaky, and he lifted her in his arms—not caring that he was revealing her as something more than a strange, thin man in an ill-fitting suit—protecting her.
She pressed her face to his neck. “My hat—”
It had been lost in the fray, and her blond hair was loose around her shoulders. “Too late for it now,” he said, desperate for escape.
But there was nowhere to go. Everywhere he looked were angry throngs of gamblers, desperate for their winnings, frustration and greed and his and Temple’s attacks turning them into a terrifying, raging horde.
Moving as quickly as he could, he crouched and pushed Pippa beneath the hazard table where Castleton had started it all, taking a boot to the ribs with a wince before climbing into the space with her, covering her with his body and wrapping his arms about her head to keep her from errant blows.
“Temple—” she said, struggling beneath him.
“Will be fine,” he assured her, adoring the way that she cared for his friend. “He’s a professional fighter—he shall love every minute of this. At least until I have a moment to tear him limb from limb for allowing you to carry out this utterly insane scheme.” He stroked her hair back. “Let me look.”
“It was not insane!” she protested, turning her wound toward him, one hand coming up to test the swelling at her eye. “Ow.”
He ran his fingers over the red welt once more, hating the way she winced. “Gorgeous girl . . .” he whispered, removing her glasses and pressing a kiss to her temple, the corner of her lips, the soft skin at the side of her neck. She was safe. He let out a ragged breath, and said, “I should thrash you.”
“Why me?” she said, eyes wide.
He shot a look at thundering boots beyond the table. “You started a riot.”
“Not on purpose,” she defended, turning to look. “I hypothesized that they would leave, not stampede.”
At another time, when he was less worried for her safety, he would have smiled at the words. Not now. “Well, your hypothesis was incorrect.”
“I see that now.” She paused. “And technically, you started the riot.”
“I thought you were—” He stopped, a chill racing through him. “Pippa, if anything had happened to you . . . You could have been killed,” he thundered, his muscles trembling under the strain of his worry and his desire to do something—to return to the fray and fight until the fear was gone, until she was safe.
“I was with Temple,” she whispered.
“Temple isn’t enough. Temple cannot keep you safe,” he said into her hair, letting himself feel gratitude that he’d found her before all this happened, before Knight or half a dozen other nefarious characters discovered her. “Temple doesn’t love you,” he said.
She stilled beneath him, raising one hand to his cheek. “And you do?”
He wouldn’t say it. Shouldn’t even think it. It would only make things worse. Worse than being trapped in the middle of a riot, alone, beneath a hazard table for God knew how long with the most irresistible woman in Britain. In Europe. On Earth.
Yes. Yes, I love you. Yes, I want you.
“You are a troublesome woman.”
When he opened his eyes, she was beaming at him. “I always have been.”
Before he could reply, Maggie fell to her knees several yards away, pushed over by what looked like another battalion of gamblers. She caught herself on her hands and Pippa gasped, and Cross hesitated, knowing he should go to the other woman and protect her, but not wanting to leave Pippa here. “She’ll be trampled!” she cried, and Cross had just started to move when another came to Maggie’s aid, strong arms sheltering her as the gentleman helped her to safety beneath a nearby table.
It was Castleton.
Cross raised a brow. “It looks as though your fiancé is more than any of us imagined.”
Pippa smiled at the other man, sending Cross’s gut twisting unpleasantly. “He’s a good man.”
I’m better.
How he wanted to say it, but it was false.
He wasn’t better, and now Castleton was proving it with his heroics.
She would be safe with him.
Pippa turned blue eyes on him. “You kissed her.”
“I did.”
Her gaze narrowed. “I did not care for that.”
“I had to.”
She nodded. “I know. But I still did not care for it.” And with that, she reached up and kissed him, pressing her soft, pink lips to his, stroking her tongue across his firm bottom lip until he groaned and tilted his head and took control of the caress. One last moment. One last kiss. One last taste of Pippa before he lived out the rest of his days without her.
She pulled away when they were both breathless. “I love you, Jasper,” she whispered against his lips, and the words were weapons against his coiled, steeled strength.
“Don’t,” he whispered. “I’m not for you. My life, my history, my world . . . none of it is for you. Loving me will only get you ruined.”
He should have known better than to believe that his impassioned plea would change anything. Instead, his perfect Pippa rolled her eyes, and said, “You idiot man. I’m already ruined. You ruined me for all others that morning in your office. I’m not marrying Castleton; I’m going to marry you.”
Yes. Every ounce of him wanted to scream assent.
Every ounce but the shred of decency he found hidden deep in his core. “For a woman with legendary sense, you seem to be struggling not a small amount to come to it. Can you not see that I would make you a terrible husband? Worse than Castleton ever would.”
“I don’t care,” she said, firm and full of those convictions he’d come to adore. “I love you.”
He closed his eyes at the words, at the way they rocketed through him, all honesty and promise. And perfection.
“No you don’t,” he said again, even as a part of him longed to pull her into his arms and reciprocate again and again, over and over, forever. He’d live here, under this hazard table, if he could guarantee she would live here with him.
But look at what he’d done to her.
She was here. In a gaming hell—a lower hell, designed for people and things far more base than anything she’d ever dreamed. He hated that she was here, only slightly less than he hated himself for being the reason she was here. She’d run the tables on one of the longest-standing gaming hells in the city, as though she were born a cheat and a swindler.
And he loved her more for it.
But he’d turned her into this, and she would come to hate it. Hate him for it. And one day she’d realize it, and he would be too far gone in love with her to suffer it. “This is the most dishonest thing you’ve ever done,” he said. “Orchestrating a run on a casino; stealing from a man; causing a riot, for God’s sake. You once told me that you did not approve of dishonesty . . . Look at what I’ve turned you into. Look at how I’ve ruined you.”
“You’ve done nothing of the sort. You’ve proven to me that black and white are not the only two options. You’ve made me realize that there is more than honest and dishonest, than lies and truth. What he’s done . . . stealing your life, blackmailing you, forcing you into a future you do not want . . . all that is dishonest. What is honest is that I love you. And that I will do anything to keep you from being forced into a life you will hate. I would do it again and again and again without an ounce of regret. Without a moment of it.”
“You don’t mean that.”
“Stop telling me what I mean!” she said, strong as steel, her hands on his chest. “Stop telling me what is best for me. What will make me happy . . . I know what will make me happy—you. And you come with this life . . . this fascinating, magnificent life. And it will make me happy, Jasper. It will make me happy because it is yours.”
“Two weeks ago, you wouldn’t have said that. You wouldn’t have dreamed of running the tables of a casino. Of falsifying wins. Of ruining a man.”
“Two weeks ago I was a different woman,” she said. “So simple!”
He’d never once thought her simple.
“And you were a different man,” she added.
Truth. She’d made him infinitely better. But he remained infinitely worse than what she deserved. She deserved better than him. So much better.
“No,” he lied, wishing he could be away from her. Wishing he were not pressed against her, desperate for her. “I am the same, Pippa. I haven’t changed.”
Her eyes went wide at the words—at the blow in them—and before he could apologize, he saw the change in them. The way she believed him. His lie. The biggest he’d ever told.
After a long moment, she spoke, the words catching in her throat. “Stealing your life. Forcing you into a future you do not want, that’s what I’ve done, isn’t it? That’s what I have done to you. What I would be doing if I forced you to marry me? I’m no worse than Knight.”
He wanted to tell her the truth—that she’d not stolen his life, but made it infinitely better. That she hadn’t forced him into anything except falling for her, a beautiful, brilliant lady. But he knew better. Knew that she deserved someone with more to offer than a gaming hell and a tarnished title. She deserved someone who was right and honorable and who would give her everything she ever wanted. Everything she would ever need.
Everything but love.
No one would ever love her the way he loved her. No one would ever celebrate her the way he celebrated her. No one would ever honor her the way he honored her.
He honored her.
And because of that, he did what he knew was right, instead of the thing he wanted desperately to do.
Instead of grabbing her to him, tossing her over his shoulder, and marching away with her forever . . . he gave her back the life she deserved.
“That’s what you’ve done,” he said, the words bitter on his tongue. “I told you once that marriage was not for me. That love was not for me. I don’t want it.”
Her face fell, and he hated himself for hurting her even as he reminded himself that she was his great work. That this would save her. That this would give her the life she deserved.
It would be the one thing he could be proud of.
Even if it hurt like hell.
“Castleton will marry you tomorrow,” he said, perhaps to her . . . perhaps to himself. “He will protect you.” His gaze flickered to the earl, trapped beneath a nearby table with Maggie, arms wrapped around her head. “He protected you tonight, did he not?”
She opened her mouth to say something, then stopped and shook her head, sadness in her blue eyes. “I don’t want him,” she whispered. “I want you.”
The confession was raw and ragged and, for a moment, he thought it might wreck him with desire and longing and love. But he had spent six years mastering his desires, six years that served him well as he shook his head and drove the knife home, uncertain of whose heart he pierced.
I love you so much, Pippa.
So very much.
But I am not worthy of you.
You deserve so much more. So much better.
“I am not an option.”
She was quiet for a long moment, and tears welled in her beautiful blue eyes—tears that did not fall. Tears she would not let fall.
And then she said precisely what he’d hoped she’d say.
What he’d hoped she wouldn’t say.
“So be it.”