“In order to produce quality silk, the silk maker (NB: sericulturist) ensures a careful diet of mulberry leaves for his worms, taking care that no odd foodstuffs (or even odors) come into contact with the creatures. Once they have eaten their fill, the worms pupate, spinning their cocoons and, when several days have passed, the sericulturist thwarts their incubation and halts the emergence of the moth mining the cocoons for silk.
I have no intention of allowing this to happen to me.
Thank goodness for loopholes logical thinking.”
The Scientific Journal of Lady Philippa Marbury
March 25, 1831; eleven days prior to her wedding
Temple’s laughter echoed through the small, locked room. “Your Grace?” she prompted.
His laugh stopped, as quickly as it had started. He did not respond, instead moving past her to the bookcase that dominated the far end of the room. He inspected the books for a long moment.
He was sending her home. Likely looking for a book to keep strange, scientific Philippa Marbury occupied until he could notify someone of her presence. “I don’t need a book,” she said, “I’m perfectly capable of entertaining myself.” He didn’t reply. “Please don’t tell Bourne. Or my father.”
He slid a red leather-bound volume from a high shelf. “Tell them what?”
The question was forgotten as the wall moved, swinging inward to reveal a yawning, black space.
Pippa gasped and came closer to inspect it. “I’ve never . . .” She reached for the bookcase, peering down what seemed to be an endless corridor. She looked to him, unable to keep the smile from her face. “It’s a secret passageway.”
Temple smiled. “It is.” He handed her a candle and replaced the book, waving her into the mysterious space. But not before she saw the volume that unlocked this impressive secret.
Paradise Lost.
Pippa stepped into the blackness.
Indeed.
Temple led the way down the hallway, and Pippa’s heart pounded, her excitement growing exponentially as they moved deeper into the passage. There were no doors that she could see, and the wall curved in what seemed like an enormous circle. “What is on the other side of this wall?”
Temple did not hesitate. “Nothing of import.”
“Oh, yes. I believe that.”
He laughed. “Perhaps Cross will show you someday. Or Lady Bourne.”
Her brows shot up. “Penelope knows?” It was hard to imagine her proper sister exploring a secret passageway in a notorious men’s club. But then, Penelope was married to one of the owners. “I suppose she does.” It was unfortunate that she could not ask Penelope her questions without rousing suspicion.
Not suspicion. Utter panic.
Not that panic was necessary. After all, if Penelope could know the secrets of the club, why not Pippa?
Because Pippa did not have a protector here.
Not really.
After what seemed like an eternity, Temple stopped and placed his hand flat on the exterior wall of the corridor. Like magic, a door opened as if from nowhere.
He let her into an alcove off the main floor of the Angel, closing the door behind them with a soft click. She turned to inspect the wall, running her fingers along the textured silk. It was only because she knew there was one that she found the seam. She turned wide eyes on her companion. “That is remarkable.”
He didn’t immediately reply, instead staring blankly at the wall for a long moment, as though seeing it for the first time and understanding that the rest of the world did not include secret passageways and curved walls and mysterious men. When realization struck, he smiled. “It is, rather, isn’t it?”
“Who designed them?”
He grinned, white teeth flashing in the dim space. “Cross.”
Her hand went back to the invisible seam in the wall. Of course he had.
“Temple!”
The bellow surprised her, but Temple seemed prepared for it, stepping through the curtains at the entrance to the alcove. He revealed himself to the room at large . . . and a stream of excited French. The enormous man raised his hands as if in surrender and made his way across the casino floor, out of sight. Pippa poked her head out to watch.
There was a woman at the far end of the room, cheeks red, hair asunder, wearing a black apron and . . . was that a fish in her hand? Either way, she was cursing like a sailor. A French sailor.
She switched to English. “That imbecile Irvington sent word that he is bringing a collection of his imbecile friends for dinner. And he thinks to tell me how to prepare his fish! I cooked for Charles the Second! He should get down on his knees and thank God himself that I am willing to cook for Idiot Irvington the First!”
Pippa was fairly certain that he was not the first Irvington to be an idiot. Nor the first to be insensitive. Nor unpleasant.
“Now Didier—” Temple began in perfect French, his voice low and smooth, as though he were speaking to some kind of untamed animal.
And perhaps he was. “You will send word to that cretin and tell him that if he does not want to eat the fish the way I wish to cook it, he may find another fish . . . and another chef . . . and another club!” The last fairly shook the rafters of the massive room.
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.”
“If you even dream of reneging on our wager, I will send God, Bourne, and your father to keep you in check. In that order.”
“I should not be surprised that you believe you have some control over the Almighty,” she retorted.
He looked like he might like to murder someone.
“Cross.” From beyond the curtain, Temple came to her aid.
Rescued. Pippa released the breath she had not known she had been holding.
Cross turned his head but did not move from where he crowded her. “Leave us.”
Temple yanked the curtains back, letting light into the small space. “I don’t think that’s a good idea. The lady is not here for you.”
Cross was across the alcove in seconds. “She sure as hell isn’t here for you.”
A jolt of excitement threaded through her at the words. As though he were defending her. As though he were willing to fight for her.
How fascinating. She caught her breath at the way he moved, quick and economical. They were inches from each other now—Cross tall and lean, all corded muscle and tension, Temple a few inches shorter, but wider by half . . . and smirking.
“No. She’s not,” Temple said. “She’s here for something else.”
Cross looked back to her, over his shoulder, grey eyes flashing.
“I only have eleven days,” she said, ready to explain her purpose. Surely he’d understand, she was in a critical situation.
Temple interjected, “Perhaps you’d like to give her escort?”
At the light words, Cross’s eyes went blank, and she had the instant and irrational desire to reach out to him, as though he could bring back his emotion. Not that she wanted to. Emotion was not her goal.
Knowledge was.
But she couldn’t have, anyway, as he had already turned away, pushing past Temple and making his way to his office.
She followed, as though on a lead. “Is that all?”
When he arrived at the door to his office, he turned back to her. “You are not my concern.”
A sharp pulse of something akin to pain threaded through her at the words. She rubbed absently at her chest. “You are correct. I am not.”
He ignored the last. “I will not be your keeper. Indeed, I’ve more important matters at hand.”
He opened the door to his office, not attempting to conceal the woman inside.
The beautiful, raven-haired woman with dark eyes and red lips and a smile that seemed like a scandal in itself. Pippa took a step back, her gaze riveted to the other woman as she replayed the events of the last few minutes in her head—his unshaven jaw and wrinkled shirtsleeves, the way he’d opened the door with irritation, as though the cook had interrupted something very important.
He’d been inside his office with this woman, this woman who smiled as though he were the only man in the world. As though she were the only woman.
As though they were tasked with repopulation.
Pippa swallowed. “I see.”
He smirked. “I’m sure you do.”
She took another step back as he closed the door.
I’ve never seen you treat a woman so,” Sally Tasser said, pulling her legs up beneath her in the large wing chair to allow Cross room to pace.
Cross ignored the words and the pang of guilt that came with them. “Where were we?”
Why was she here? How had she twisted their wager—one afternoon together—into a welcome for her to invade his space anytime she liked?
The prostitute raised raven brows in silent disbelief and consulted her notes. “I’ve thirteen girls, all working on the list.” She paused. “Who is she?”
She is temptation incarnate. Sent to destroy him.
“Can they be trusted?”
And what the hell was she doing with Temple?
“They know you deliver on promises.” Another pause. “At least, promises made to whores.”
He spun to face her. “What does that mean?”
“Only that you’ve never been anything but a gentleman to my women. And yet this afternoon you appear to have gravely mistreated a lady.”
He resisted the truth in the words. “And since when have you had sympathy for aristocrats?”
“Since that one looked as though you’d kicked her dog.”
The reference to Pippa’s dog reminded Cross of their conversation the night prior—of Castleton’s request—of her hesitation to name his hound. Of the way her lips curved around the words as she attempted to explain her reticence.
Of the way the entire conversation made him want to steal her away and convince her that marriage to Castleton was absolutely wrong for her.
He did not tell Sally any of that, of course. Instead he said, “I want the fifty biggest gamers in the hell. No one can be missed.”
The woman leveled him with a frank look. “You’ll get them. When have I ever failed you?”
“Never. But there is always time to begin.”
“What’s he got on you?”
Cross shook his head. “It doesn’t matter.”
She smiled, small and nearly humorless. “I assume you’ve something to do with the way he’s crowing with pride about marrying his girl off to an earl.”
Cross gave her his darkest look. “I’m not marrying the daughter.”
“So you think. She’ll be here in five days, and when she gets here, he’ll stop at nothing to get you married.” When he did not reply, she added, “You don’t believe it? This is Knight.”
“I am not marrying the girl,” he repeated.
Sally watched him for a long moment before saying, “I shall work the floor that night. If a single deep pocket comes through the door, I’ll slip him an invitation to Pandemonium myself.” She inclined her head toward the door. “Now tell me about the girl.”
He forced himself to sit, and to deliberately misunderstand the question. “I’ve never met Meghan. Ask Knight about her.”
She smiled wryly. “Really, Cross? This silly game?”
He resisted the urge to shove his hands through his hair, instead leaning back in his chair, all control. Pippa Marbury was more than any decent man could handle. And he was far from decent. “She’s someone who should not have come here.”
He should have barred her from entry.
She laughed. “You did not have to tell me that. Yet come here she did.”
“She has a taste for adventure.”
“Well, she’s sniffing round the wrong tree if she wants that.”
He didn’t reply, knowing better.
“You’re trying to keep her away from you?”
God, yes. He didn’t want her here. He didn’t want her touching his things, leaving her mark, tempting him. Didn’t want her threatening his sanctuary. Didn’t want her tainting this dark place with her light. “I’m trying to keep her away in general.”
She leaned forward. “She’s not your lover.”
“Of course not.”
One of her black brows rose. “There’s no of course about it. Perhaps there would have been if I hadn’t seen her face.”
“I may well owe the girl an apology, but that doesn’t make her anything close to my lover.”
Sally smiled at that. “Don’t you see, Cross? It’s because you feel you owe her an apology that makes her closer to your lover than any of the rest of us.” She paused for a long moment before adding, “And even if you didn’t feel that way, the girl’s face would have been enough.”
“She came to request my assistance in a matter.” A ridiculous matter, but Sally need not know that.
“She may request your assistance in one matter,” the prostitute said with a soft, knowing laugh, “but she wants your assistance with something else entirely.”
Cross’s gaze narrowed. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Sex,” she said, plainly, as though she were talking to a child. A child wise beyond his years. “The woman saw what I am. She knows what I do. And she was jealous.”
Cross met her dark eyes, seeing only Pippa’s large, shocked blue ones, made massive by the lenses of her spectacles. “There’s no reason for her to be jealous.”
“Sadly, that is true.” Sally’s mouth pursed in a perfect moue, and she leaned back in the chair. “But she doesn’t know that.”
Frustration coursed through him. “I mean, she wasn’t jealous.”
Sally smiled. “Of course she was. She wants you.”
“No. She wants my assistance with some”—he hesitated on the word—“research.”
Sally laughed, long and loud. “I’ve no doubt she does.”
Cross turned away, reaching blindly for a file he did not need. “We are finished.”
Sally sighed and stood, approaching the desk. “Just tell me, does she know?”
He closed his eyes, frustrated. “Does she know what?”
“Does she know that she’ll never have you?”
“She’s marrying a lord in just over a week.” And even if she weren’t, she’s legions too good for me.
“Engagements are made to be broken.”
“I forget how cynical you can be.”
“It’s a hazard of the occupation.” She moved to the door, turning back before she opened it. “You should tell her. Before the poor thing becomes sick with unrequited love.”
He did not reply.
After a long moment, she said, “I’ll see you tomorrow with your list.”
“Thank you.”
She nodded once and opened the door, turning to leave before she looked back, a smile playing over her too-red lips. “Shall I allow your next appointment in?”
He knew before he looked what he would find when Sally stepped out of the doorway.
Philippa Marbury was seated on a high croupier’s stool, not five feet away, nibbling at the edge of a sandwich.
He did not mean to stand, but he stood anyway, coming around his desk as though he were chased. “Did someone feed you?”
Of course someone had fed her. Didier, no doubt, who had a soft spot for any soiled dove who found her way to the kitchens of the Angel.
But Philippa Marbury was no soiled dove.
Yet.
And she wouldn’t be if he had anything to say about it.
“Your chef was kind enough to make me a plate while I waited.” Pippa stood, extending the plate in question to him. “It’s quite delicious. Would you like some?”
Yes. God, yes, he wanted some.
“No. Why would she feed you?”
“I’m pupating.”
He looked to the ceiling, desperate for patience. “How many different ways do I have to tell you that I’m not interested in helping you emerge from this particular cocoon?”
Her jaw went slack. “You referenced metamorphosis.”
The woman was driving him mad. “You referenced it first. Now, did I or did I not tell you to go home?”
She smiled, a lovely, wide grin that he should not have liked so very much. “In point of fact, you did not tell me to go home. Indeed, you quite washed your hands of me.”
He considered shaking the maddening woman. “Then tell me why it is that you remain here, waiting for me?”
She tilted her head as though he were a strange specimen under glass at the Royal Entomological Society. “Oh, you misunderstand. I am not waiting for you.”
What in hell? Of course she was waiting for him.
Except she wasn’t. She stood, thrust her plate—along with her half-eaten sandwich—into his hands and directed her full attention to Sally. “I’m waiting for you.”
Sally cut him a quick look, clearly unsure of how to proceed.
Pippa did not seem to notice that she’d thrown them all off, instead stepping forward and extending her hand in greeting. “I am Lady Philippa Marbury.”
Goddammit.
He would have given half his fortune to take back the instant when Pippa told Sally her name. One never knew when the madam might rethink her allegiance, and knowledge made for heady power.
For now, however, Sally pushed her surprise away and took Pippa’s hand, dipping into a quick curtsy. “Sally Tasser.”
“It’s lovely to meet you, Miss Tasser,” Pippa said, as though she were meeting a new debutante at tea rather than one of London’s most accomplished whores in a gaming hell. “I wonder if you have a few moments to answer some questions?”
Sally looked supremely entertained. “I believe I do have some time, my lady.”
Pippa shook her head. “Oh, no. There’s no need to stand on ceremony. You must call me Pippa.”
Over his decaying corpse.
“There is absolutely every reason to stand on ceremony,” he stepped in, turning to Sally. “You will under no circumstances call the lady anything but just that. Lady.”
Pippa’s brows snapped together. “I beg your pardon, Mr. Cross, but in this conversation, you are superfluous.”
He gave her his most frightening stare. “I assure you, I am anything but that.”
“Am I right in understanding that you have neither the time nor the inclination to speak to me at this particular moment?”
She had backed him into a corner. “Yes.”
She smiled. “There it is, then. As I find myself with both, I believe I shall begin my research now. Without you.” She turned her back on him. “Now, Miss Tasser. Am I right in my estimation that you are, indeed, a prostitute?”
The word slipped from her lips as though she said it a dozen times a day. “Dear God.” He shot Sally a look. “Do not answer.”
“Whyever not?” Pippa smiled at Sally. “There’s no shame in it.”
Even Sally’s brows rose at that.
Surely this was not happening.
Pippa pressed on. “There isn’t. In fact, I’ve done the research, and the word is in the Bible. Leviticus. And, honestly, if something is in a holy text, I think it’s more than reasonable for one to repeat it in polite company.”
“I’m not exactly polite company,” Sally pointed out, brilliantly, Cross thought.
Pippa smiled. “Never mind that . . . you’re the perfect company for my purposes. Now, I can only assume that your career is just what I imagine, as you are very beautiful and seem to know precisely how to look at a man and make it seem as though you are very much in love with him. You fairly smolder.”
Cross had to stop this. Now. “And how do you know that she is not simply in love with me?”
That was not the way he’d intended to stop it. At all. Dammit.
She looked over her shoulder at him, then back at Sally. “Are you in love with him?”
Sally turned her very best smolder on Pippa, who chuckled, and said, “I didn’t think so. That’s the one. It’s very good.”
Sally met his gaze over Pippa’s shoulder, laughter in her eyes. “Thank you, my lady.”
Well. At least she’d used the honorific.
“May I speak plainly?” Pippa asked, as though she had not been speaking plainly for the last four days. For her entire life.
“Please,” Sally said.
The moment was getting away from him. Something had to be done.
“No,” he interrupted, inserting himself between the two women. “No one is speaking plainly. Certainly not to Sally.”
“I’m happy to speak to the lady, Cross,” Sally said, and he did not miss the dry humor in her tone.
“I’ve no doubt of that,” he said. “And yet, you won’t. As you have somewhere to be. Right now.”
“Nonsense,” Pippa protested, edging him out of the way with a firm elbow at his side. Actually, physically moving him. “Miss Tasser has already said she has time for me.” She blinked up at him from behind thick lenses. “You are dismissed, Mr. Cross.”
Sally barked her laughter.
Pippa returned her attention to the prostitute, taking the woman’s arm and walking her away from Cross, toward the main entrance of the club. She was going to exit the casino, onto St. James’s in the middle of the day, on the arm of a prostitute. “I wonder if you might be willing to teach me how you do it.”
“It?” He hadn’t meant to say it aloud.
Pippa ignored him, but answered the question. “To smolder. You see, I am to be married in eleven days. Slightly less than that now, and I need to—”
“Catch your husband?” Sally asked.
Pippa nodded. “In a sense. I also require your obvious knowledge in other matters of . . . marriage.”
“What kind of matters?”
“Those relating to procreation. I find that what I thought I knew about the mechanics of the act are—well, unlikely.”
“Unlikely, how?”
“To be honest, I thought it was similar to animal husbandry.”
Sally’s tone turned dry. “Sometimes, my lady, I’m afraid it isn’t that different.”
Pippa paused, considering the words. “Is that so?”
“Men are uncomplicated, generally,” Sally said, all too sage. “They’re beasts when they want to be.”
“Brute ones!”
“Ah, so you understand.”
Pippa tilted her head to one side. “I’ve read about them.”
Sally nodded. “Erotic texts?”
“The Book of Common Prayer. But perhaps you have an erotic text you could recommend?”
And there it was—the end of his tether.
“Did you not lose a wager with me that prohibited precisely this kind of interaction?” The words were harsh and unkind. Not that he cared. He turned to Sally. “Leave now, Sally.”
Pippa raised her chin in what he was coming to think of as her most frustrating stance. “I promised no questioning other men. There was nothing in the wager relating to women.”
He opened his mouth to reply. Closed it.
She nodded once, filled with self-satisfaction, and returned her attention to Sally. “Miss Tasser, I assume from what I witnessed that you are clearly skilled . . . at least, Mr. Cross seems to believe so.”
Was she out of her mind?
“Cross and I have, unfortunately, never . . . done business,” Sally said.
Pippa’s mouth fell into a perfect O. “I see,” she said, when she clearly didn’t. “You must be discreet of course. I appreciated that. And I would be happy to pay you for the instruction,” she added. “Would you be willing to visit me at my home?”
He had been wrong; there was the end of his tether.
She would learn nothing from Sally. Nor from Temple. Nor from Castleton, dammit—it didn’t matter that he was her fiancé.
Cross didn’t want anyone touching her.
Not if he couldn’t.
He reached for Pippa, taking her by the arm, pulling her away from Sally, away from whatever scandalous path she had been considering taking. He ignored her gasp of outrage and the way his fingers fairly rejoiced at their contact. “Sally, it is time for you to go.” He turned back to Pippa. “And you. Into my office, before someone discovers you here.”
“The club is closed. Who would discover me?”
“Your brother-in-law, perhaps?”
Pippa remained unmoved. “Bourne and Penelope are fishing today. They left for Falconwell this morning. Back tomorrow.”
“To fish.” If he had an eternity to try, he could not imagine Bourne lakeside, fishing.
“Yes. They’ve fished together for much of their life. I don’t see why it’s such a surprise.”
Sally shook her head. “Tragic when a rogue of Bourne’s caliber goes soft.”
Pippa met her gaze. “I suppose it is for most . . . but my sister seems happy with the results.”
“No doubt she is. Bourne has always been able to keep a lady happy.”
Pippa considered the words for a long moment. “Do you mean to say you have . . . with Bourne?”
“She means no such thing.” He gave Sally a pointed look. “Out.”
The prostitute tilted her head, a wicked gleam in her eye. “I’m afraid I can’t leave, Cross. Not without giving the lady the information she requests.”
Pippa seemed to forget her question about Bourne. Thank heaven. “It’s very kind of you to come to my defense.”
Sally Tasser had spent too long on the streets for kindness. The prostitute did nothing that would not advance her cause. The only reason she was willing to cross Knight was because the Angel offered to pay her triple the amount she received from her current benefactor.
Cross made sure she understood his thoughts with nothing more than a look.
“Sally is leaving, Lady Philippa.” The words came out more harshly than he’d intended. But a man could only be pushed so far.
For a moment, he thought both women would fight him. And then, Sally smiled, tilting her head and turning her coyest smile on him. “Well, someone should answer the lady’s questions.”
Pippa nodded. “It’s true. I will not leave without it.”
The words were out before he could stop them. “I shall answer them.”
Sally looked immensely pleased.
Shit.
There was nothing he wanted to do less than to answer the questions Philippa Marbury had collected in preparation for her lessons from a prostitute.
Pippa’s gaze narrowed. “I don’t know.”
“Cross is highly skilled,” Sally said, extracting herself from Pippa’s grasp, fairly purring the rest. “He knows all your answers, I’m sure.”
Pippa cut him a doubtful look that made him want to prove the prostitute right this very moment.
Sally noticed the exchange and turned a bright, knowing smile on him. “Isn’t that right, Cross? I’m certain you don’t need my help. Aren’t you?”
“I’m certain.” He felt as uncertain as Pippa looked.
“Excellent. I shall see you tomorrow, as planned, then.”
He nodded once.
She turned to Pippa. “It was wonderful meeting you, Lady Philippa. I hope we have the chance to meet again.”
Not if he had anything to say about it.
Once Sally had disappeared through a dark passageway to a rear entrance to the club, he rounded on Philippa. “What would possess you to lie in wait for a prostitute inside a casino?”
There was a long silence, and Cross wondered if she might not reply, which wouldn’t be terrible, as he had had more than enough of her insanity.
But she did reply, eyes wide, voice strong, advancing on him, stalking him across the floor of the casino. “You don’t seem to understand my predicament, Mr. Cross. I have eleven days before I have to take vows before God and man relating to half a dozen things of which I have no knowledge. You and the rest of Christendom—including my sisters, apparently—would have no trouble at all with such an act, but I do have difficulty with it. How am I to take vows that I don’t understand? How am I to marry without knowing all of it? How am I to vow to be a sound wife to Castleton and a mother to his children when I lack the rudimentary understanding of the acts in question?”
She paused, adding as an aside, “Well, I do have the experience from the bull in Coldharbour, but . . . it’s not entirely relevant understanding, as Penelope and you have both pointed out. Can’t you see? I only have eleven days. And I need every one of them.”
He backed into the hazard table, and she kept coming. “I need them. I need the knowledge they can give me. The understanding they can afford. I need every bit of information I can glean—if not from you, then from Miss Tasser. Or others. I have promised to be a wife and mother. And I have a great deal of research to do on the subject.”
She was breathing heavily when she stopped, eyes bright, cheeks flushed, and the skin of her pale breasts straining against the edge of her rose-colored gown. He was transfixed by her, by her passionate concern and her commitment to her ridiculous solution—as though understanding the mechanics of sex would change everything. Would make the next eleven days easy, and the next eleven years even easier. Of course, it wouldn’t.
Knowledge wasn’t enough.
He knew that better than anyone.
“You can’t know everything, Pippa.”
“I can know more than I do,” she retorted.
He smiled at that, and she took a step back, staring up at him, then down at her widespread hands. There was something so vulnerable about her. Something he did not like.
When she returned her unblinking gaze to his and said, “I am going to be a wife,” he had the wicked urge to ferret her into one of the club’s secret rooms and keep her there.
Possibly forever.
A wife. He hated the idea of her as a wife. As Castleton’s wife. As anyone’s.
“And a mother.”
A vision flashed, Pippa surrounded by children. Beaming, bespectacled children, each fascinated with some aspect of the world, listening carefully as she explained the science of the Earth and the heavens to them.
She would be a remarkable mother.
No. He wouldn’t think on that. He didn’t like to consider it.
“Most wives don’t frequent prostitutes to develop their skills. And you have time for maternal research.”
“She seemed as good a research partner as any, considering you’ve already cut my pool of possibilities in half. After all, you have not been helping. Is she your paramour?”
He ignored the question. “Prostitutes seemed a reasonable next step in your plan?”
“Interestingly enough, they didn’t until last night. But when Penelope suggested that there might be prostitutes here—”
“Lady Bourne knows about your ridiculous plans and hasn’t tied you to a chair?” Bourne’s wife or no, the lady deserved a sound thrashing for allowing her unmarried, unprotected sister to gallivant through London’s darker corners without purchase.
“No. She simply answered a few questions about the Angel.”
About him? He wouldn’t ask. He did not wish to know.
“What kind of questions?”
She sighed. “The kind that ended with me knowing that there might be a prostitute or two here. Is she very skilled?”
The question was so forthright, his head spun. She did not need to know that Sally Tasser was perhaps the most skilled workingwoman this side of Montmartre.
“What do you want to know?”
She blinked up at him with those big blue eyes and said, as though it were a perfectly reasonable thing to say, “Everything.”
For one long, lush moment, he was lost to the vision of just what everything might entail. To the way her body might fit to his, the way she might taste, soft and sweet on his tongue, to the wicked, wonderful things she might allow him to do to her. To the lessons for which she did not even know she was asking.
He wanted to show her everything.
And he wanted to begin now.
“Do you think that Miss Tasser would be willing to provide a lesson of sorts?”
It was becoming difficult to breathe. “No.”
Pippa tilted her head. “Are you certain? As I said, I would be willing to pay her.”
The idea of Pippa Marbury paying to learn Sally Tasser’s trade made Cross want to destroy someone. First Bourne, for allowing his sister-in-law to run untethered throughout London, and then the Marquess of Needham and Dolby, for raising a young woman who was completely lacking in sense, and then Castleton, for not keeping his fiancée properly occupied in the weeks leading up to their wedding.
Unaware of the direction of his rioting thoughts, she said, “Lord Castleton has never attempted to compromise me.”
The man was either idiot or saint.
If Cross were Castleton, he’d have had her a dozen different ways the moment she’d agreed to be his wife. In darkened hallways and dim alcoves, in long, stop-and-start carriage rides through the crush of midday traffic, and outside, quickly, against a strong, sturdy tree, with none but nature to hear her cries of pleasure.
To hear their mutual cries of pleasure.
But he was not Castleton.
He was Cross.
And this was thoroughly, completely wrong.
He took a step back, his thoughts making him guilty—making him look around the dim casino floor in sudden fear that someone might see them. Might hear them.
Why was it that she was always where ladies should never be?
“Last night, I attempted to indicate to him that I was happy for him to touch me. Kiss me, even.”
He hated the earl with a wicked, visceral intensity.
She was still talking. “But he didn’t even seem to notice me. Granted, it was just a touch on the hand, but . . .”
Cross would pay good money for her to touch him so simply.
Her big blue eyes were trained on him again. “Do you know why he hasn’t attempted to seduce me?”
“No.” Again, sainthood seemed the only logical answer.
“You needn’t feel that you must protect me from the truth.”
“I don’t.” Except he did. He didn’t want her to know the truth of his own thoughts. Their sordid nature.
“It’s because I am odd.” And then she looked up at him with those enormous blue eyes, and said, “I can’t help it.”
God help him, he wanted to kiss her senseless, odd or not. He wanted to kiss her senseless because she was odd.
“Pippa—” he said, knowing he shouldn’t speak.
She cut him off. “Don’t tell me it’s not true. I know it is. I’m strange.”
“You are.”
Her brows knit together. “Well, you don’t have to tell me it is true either.”
He couldn’t help it. He smiled. “It is not a bad thing.”
She looked at him as though it was he—and not she—who was mad. “Of course it is.”
“No. It’s not.”
“You’re a good man.”
He was nothing of the sort. And there were several key parts of his body that wanted to prove that to her. One of them in particular.
“It’s fine that he is not interested in seducing me,” she said, “but it cannot go on forever.”
“Perhaps he is trying to be a gentleman.”
She did not believe it. “That hasn’t stopped Tottenham.”
A thread of fire shot through him. “Tottenham has attempted to seduce you?” He’d murder him, next prime minister or not.
She looked at him as though he’d sprouted a second head. “No. Why would Tottenham seduce me?”
“You said it.”
“No. I said he’d tried to seduce Olivia.”
She hadn’t said any such thing, but he let it go.
“Not tried to,” she pressed on, “did. Has done.” She closed her eyes. “I’m the only Marbury daughter who has not been seduced.”
He could rectify this tragic wrong.
Except he couldn’t.
She looked up at him. “Can you believe it?”
He did not know what to say. So he said nothing.
“You can, I see.” She took a deep breath. “This is why I required your help from the beginning, Mr. Cross. I need you to show me how to do it.”
Yes.
He swallowed back the word. Surely he was misunderstanding. “How to do what?”
She sighed, frustrated. “How to attract him.”
“Whom?”
“Are you even listening? Castleton!” She turned away, heading for the nearest table, where a roulette wheel stood quiet in its thick oak seat. She spoke to the wheel. “I didn’t know that he should be attempting to seduce me now. Before our wedding. I didn’t know that was a part of it.”
“It’s not. He shouldn’t be doing any such thing.”
“Well, you’ve clearly never been engaged because it seems that this is precisely the kind of thing that happens between to-be-married couples. I thought I had two weeks. Apparently, I don’t.”
There was a roar in his ears that made it difficult to understand her, but when she turned to face him again, shoulders back, as though she were about to do battle, he knew he was done for. “My research must begin immediately.”
He was being punished. That was the only explanation.
“I need someone”—she paused, then reframed the statement—“I need you to teach me how to be normal.”
What a travesty that would be.
“Normal.”
“Yes. Normal.” She lifted her hands helplessly. “I realize now that my original request—for the experience of ruination?” she asked as though he might have somehow forgotten the request in question. As though he might ever forget it. He nodded, nonetheless. “Well, I realize now that it is not at all a strange request.”
“It’s not?”
She smiled. “No. Indeed. In fact, it seems that there are plenty of women in London who fully experience those things that I am interested in before their wedding night—including my sisters. That bit is between us, I hope?”
Finally, a question to which he knew the reply. “Of course.”
She was already moving on. “You see, I thought I would require a certain amount of knowledge on the night in question because Lord Castleton might not have the knowledge himself. But now, I realize . . . well . . . I require it because it’s ordinary.”
“It’s ordinary.”
She tilted her head and considered him curiously. “You do a great deal of repeating me, Mr. Cross.”
Because listening to her was like learning a second language. Arabic. Or Hindi.
She was still talking. “It’s ordinary. After all, if Olivia has it, and Lord Tottenham is quite the gentleman, well then, many must have it, don’t you think?”
“It.”
“Knowledge of the inner workings of the marital . . .” She hesitated. “Process.”
He took a long breath and let it out. “I’m still not certain why you need a prostitute to teach you such . . . workings.”
“It’s no different, really. I continue to require a research partner. Only, it seems now I require research on normalcy. I need to know how it is that ordinary females behave. I need help. Rather urgently. Since you refused, Miss Tasser will do.”
She was killing him. Slowly. Painfully.
“Sally Tasser is no ordinary female.”
“Well, I understand that she is a prostitute, but I assume she has all the required parts?”
He choked. “Yes.”
She hesitated, and something flashed across her face. Disappointment? “You’ve seen them?”
“No.” Truth.
“Hmm.” She did not seem to believe him. “You do not frequent prostitutes?”
“I do not.”
“I am not entirely certain that I support the profession.”
“No?” Thank God. He would not put it past Pippa to simply pronounce a newfound desire to explore all aspects of the world’s oldest profession.
“No.” She shook her head. “I am concerned that the ladies are ill-treated.”
“The ladies who frequent The Fallen Angel are not ill-treated.”
Her brows knit together. “How do you know?”
“Because they are under my protection.”
She froze. “They are?”
He was suddenly warm. “They are. We do all we can to ensure that they are well treated and well paid while under our roof. If they are manhandled, they call for one of the security detail. They file a complaint with me. And if I discover a member is mistreating ladies beneath this roof, his membership is revoked.”
She paused for a long moment, considering the words, and finally said, “I have a passion for horticulture.”
He wasn’t certain how plants had anything to do with prostitutes, but he knew better than to interrupt.
She continued, the words quick and forthright, as though they entirely made sense. “I’ve made a rather remarkable discovery recently,” she said, and his attention lingered on the breathlessness of the words. On the way her mouth curved in a small, private smile. She was proud of herself, and he found—even before she admitted her finding—that he was proud of her. Odd, that. “It is possible to take a piece of one rosebush and affix it to another. And when the process is completed properly . . . say, a white piece on a red bush . . . an entirely new rose grows . . .” She paused, and the rest of the words rushed out, as though she were almost afraid of them. “A pink one.”
Cross did not know much about horticulture, but he knew enough about scientific study to know that the finding would be groundbreaking. “How did you—”
She raised a hand to stop the question. “I’ll happily show you. It’s very exciting. But that’s not the point.”
He waited for her to arrive at the point in question.
She did. “The career . . . it is not their choice. They’re not red or white anymore. They’re pink. And you’re why.”
Somehow, it made sense that she compared the ladies of the Angel to this experiment in roses. Somehow, this woman’s strange, wonderful brain worked in a way that he completely understood.
And as he considered that odd, remarkable truth, she prodded, “Aren’t you?”
It was not the simplest of questions. Nor was it the easiest of answers. “It is not always their choice, no. In many cases, girls fall into it. But here, they are well treated. Well fed. Well paid. And the moment they want to stop their work, we find them other places.”
Her brows rose. “Where?”
He smiled. “We are very powerful men, Pippa. Our membership has need of servants; our vendors require shopgirls. And, if not that, then there are always safe houses far from London, where girls can begin anew.” After a long silence, he added, “I would never force a girl into this life.”
“But some of them choose it?”
It was an incomprehensible truth for some. “The white branch.”
She nodded. “Like Miss Tasser.”
“Like Sally.”
“Well, all the more reason for me to mine her expertise.” She pushed her spectacles up the bridge of her nose. “If she chooses it, she must enjoy it to a certain extent. And there’s no one else. It’s not as though Castleton has offered his assistance.”
As it should be.
No. Not as it should be. Of course Castleton should be offering his assistance. He should be doing much more than that.
The thought made Cross more murderous.
She pursed her lips. “Do you think I ought to ask him? Perhaps that’s how these things are done?”
No! “Yes.”
She blushed, tempting him. “I’m not sure I could.”
“But you can ask me?”
She blinked up at him. “You are different. You are not the kind of man one marries. It’s easier to . . . well . . . engage in a candid discussion of my research with you.” She smiled. “You are a man of science, after all.”
There it was, again. That certainty that he would keep her safe.
That he was in control. Always.
You should tell her.
Sally’s words echoed through him, mocking and correct.
He should tell her. But it wasn’t precisely the kind of thing one told a young, beautiful woman standing by and begging for lessons in ruination.
At least, not an ordinary young woman in such a situation.
But Philippa Marbury was nothing close to ordinary.
Telling her the truth would push her away. And that would be best. For all involved.
Especially him.
Pippa shook her head. “He’ll say no. Don’t you see? There’s no one. No one but Miss Tasser.”
She was wrong, of course.
“There is me,” he said, the words out before he knew they were coming. Her eyes went wide, and she met his gaze.
There was a beat as she heard the words. Their meaning. “You,” she said.
He smiled. “Now it is you repeating me.”
She matched his smile, and he felt the expression deep in his gut. “So I am.”
Perhaps he could do this.
Lord knew he owed it to her, owed it to her for allowing her into the clutches of Knight and Sally and Temple and God knew whoever else she’d met while inside the casino. He owed it to Bourne to keep her safe.
Excuses.
He paused at the thought. Perhaps they were excuses. Perhaps he just wanted a reason to be near her. To talk to her, this bizarre, brilliant woman who threw him off axis every chance she got.
It would be torture, yes.
But Lord knew he deserved torture.
He had to move. Away from her.
He crossed to a hazard table, lifting a pair of dice and testing their weight in his hand. She followed without prompting, moving past him in a cloud of softness scented with fresh linens. How was it that she smelled like sunshine and fresh air even here in darkness? Surrounded by sin and vice?
She had to leave. She was too much temptation for him to bear.
Unaware of his thoughts, she turned her open, fresh face up to him. “I have a number of questions. For example, Madame Hebert has committed to making me nightclothes that she swears will tempt Castleton into seducing me. Can nightclothes do the trick?”
The words were an assault, consuming him with the idea of blond, lithe Pippa in a silk-and-lace creation designed to send men completely over the edge. Something with a devastating number of ribbons, each one in a perfect little bow that, when untied, revealed a patch of soft, warm skin—a luxurious, unbearable present.
A present worthy of the wrapping.
“I don’t think they will be enough,” she said, distracted.
He was certain they would be too much.
“And what of Miss Tasser’s smolder? Can you teach me to do that? It seems like it will help. With the tempting.”
He didn’t look at her. He couldn’t. But he also couldn’t stop himself from saying, “You don’t need to smolder.”
She paused. “I don’t?”
“No. You are tempting in a different way.”
“I am?”
You should tell her.
Before she tempted him anymore.
But he couldn’t.
He met her gaze. “You are.”
Her eyes were wide as saucers behind those maddening spectacles. “I am?”
He smiled. “You are repeating me again.”
She was quiet for a moment. “You won’t change your mind, will you?”
“No.” The idea of her finding another was altogether unacceptable.
Not when it could be him. Not when he could show her pleasure that would shatter her innocence and thoroughly, completely ruin her. He wanted to give her everything for which she asked.
And more.
Like that, the decision was made. “No. I shan’t renege.”
She let out a long breath, and the sound slid through him in the quiet room, making him wonder what else would tempt that little exhalation.
“I should have known that. Gentlemen do not renege.”
“In this case, neither do scoundrels.”
“I don’t understand.”
“The rules of gentlemen insist that honor keep them from reneging, even during a bad bet,” he explained, tempted to smooth the furrow on her brow, resisting it. “The rules of scoundrels insist one only wager if one can win.”
“Which—” She hesitated. “Which are you?”
He could give her the knowledge without giving in to his own desires. Without relinquishing his own commitments. Without relinquishing his own control.
He stepped forward, crowding her. “Which do you think?”
She stepped back. “A gentleman.”
Without touching her.
Because he knew, without a doubt, that after six years of celibacy, if he touched Philippa Marbury, he would not survive it.
Scoundrel.
“Tomorrow. Nine o’clock.”