One Good Earl Deserves a Lover (20 page)

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.