One Good Earl Deserves a Lover (15 page)

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.”

Chapter Eight

“Astronomy has never been my forte, but I find myself considering the scope of the universe today. If our Sun is one of millions of stars, who is to say that Galileo was not right? That there is not another Earth far away on the edge of another Galaxy? And who is to say there is not another Philippa Marbury, ten days before her wedding, waiting for her knowledge to expand?

It’s irrelevant, of course. Even if there were a duplicate Earth in some far-off corner of the universe, I’m still to be married in ten days.

And so is the other Pippa.”

The Scientific Journal of Lady Philippa Marbury

March 26, 1831; ten days prior to her wedding

T
he next evening, Pippa sat on a small bench perched just outside a collection of cherry trees in the Dolby House gardens, cloak wrapped tightly about her, Trotula at her feet, stargazing.

Or, at least, attempting to stargaze.

She’d been outside for more than an hour, having finally given up on feigning illness and escaping the house once supper had been officially served, preferring outside to inside, even on this cold March night.

She was too excited.

Tonight, she would learn about seduction.

From
Cross.

She took a deep breath and released it, then another, hoping they would calm her racing thoughts. They did not. They were clouded with visions of Mr. Cross, of the way he looked as he glowered at her across the floor of his gaming hell, the way he smiled at her in the darkness, the way he crowded her in his office.

It wasn’t him, of course. She would feel this way if anyone had promised her the lesson he’d promised.

Liar.

She exhaled long and loud.

The breathing was not helping.

She looked over her shoulder at the dim light trickling down from the Dolby House dining room. Yes, it was best that she spend the time leading up to their meeting alone in the cold rather than going mad at a meal with her parents and Olivia, who would no doubt be discussing the particulars of “The Wedding” at that exact moment.

A vision flashed from the previous afternoon, Olivia resplendent in her wedding gown, glowing with the excitement of prenuptial bliss, Pippa’s reflection in the mirror behind, smaller and dimmer in the wake of her younger, more luminous sister.

The Wedding would be remarkable. One for the ages. Or, at least the gossips.

It would be just what the Marchioness of Needham and Dolby had always dreamed—an enormous, formal ceremony designed to showcase the pomp and circumstance befitting the Marbury daughters’ birth. It would erase the memory of the two previous weddings of the generation: Victoria and Valerie’s double wedding to uninspiring mates, performed hastily in the wake of Penelope’s scandalous, broken engagement, and, more recently, Penelope’s wedding, performed by special license in the village chapel near the Needham country estate the day after Bourne had returned from wherever it was he’d gone for a decade.

Of course, they all knew where Bourne had gone.

He’d gone to The Fallen Angel.

With Mr. Cross.

Fascinating, unnerving Mr. Cross, who was beginning to unsettle her even when she was not near him. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes, assessing the change that came over her when she was in proximity—either mental or physical—to the tall, ginger-haired man who had begrudgingly agreed to assist her in her quest.

Her heart seemed to race, her breath coming more shallowly. More quickly.

Her muscles tensed and her nerves seemed to hover at attention.

She grew warm . . . or was that cold?

Either way, they were all signs of heightened awareness. Symptoms of excitement. Or nervousness. Or fear.

She was being overly dramatic. There was nothing to fear from this man—he was a man of science. In utter control at all times.

The perfect research associate.

Nothing more.

It did not matter that the research in question was somewhat unorthodox. It was research nonetheless.

She took another breath and withdrew the watch from her reticule, holding it up to read its face in the dim light seeping through the windows of the ground-floor sitting room.

“It’s nine o’clock.” The words were soft, rising out of the darkness, and Trotula leapt to her feet to greet the newcomer, giving Pippa a chance to address the thundering of her heart. Later, she would wonder at the fact that she was breathless, but not startled, instead something different. Something more.

In the moment, however, there was only one thing she could think.

He had come.

She smiled, watching him crouch to greet her hound. “You are very punctual.”

His task completed, he rose and sat next to her, close enough to unsettle, far enough away to avoid contact. Out of the corner of her eye, she realized how long his thighs were—nearly half again the length of her own, pulling the wool of his trousers tight along lean muscle and bone. She should not be considering his thighs.

Femurs.

“And yet, you are waiting for me.”

She turned to him to find him watching the sky, face shadowed in the darkness, leaning back on the bench as though they had been sitting there all night, as though they might sit there still, all night. She followed his gaze. “I’ve been here for more than an hour.”

“In the cold?”

“It’s the best time for stargazing, don’t you think? Cold nights are always so much clearer.”

“There’s a reason for that.”

She turned to face him. “Is there?”

He did not look to her. “There are fewer stars in the winter sky. How is your toe?”

“Right as rain. You are an astronomer as well as a mathematician?”

He turned to face her, finally, half his face cast into shadowy light from the manor beyond. “You are a horticulturalist as well as an anatomist?”

She smiled. “We are surprising, aren’t we?”

His lips twitched. “We are.”

A long moment stretched out between them before he turned away again, returning his attention to the sky. “What were you looking at?”

She pointed to a bright star. “Polaris.”

He shook his head, and pointed to another part of the sky. “That’s Polaris. You were looking at Vega.”

She chuckled. “Ah. No wonder I was finding it unimpressive.”

He leaned back and stretched his long legs out. “It’s the fifth brightest star in the sky.”

She laughed. “You forget I am one of five sisters. In my world, fifth brightest is last. She looked up. “With apologies to the star in question, of course.”

“And are you often last?”

She shrugged. “Sometimes. It is not a pleasant ranking.”

“I assure you, Pippa. You are rarely last.”

He had not moved except to turn his head and look at her, the angles of his face hard and unforgiving in the darkness, sending a shiver of something unfamiliar through her. “Be careful what you say. I shall have to tell Penny that you find her lacking.”

He turned a surprised look on her. “I didn’t say that.”

“She’s the only one of my sisters whom you’ve met. If I am not last, then in your mind, she must trail behind.”

One side of his mouth kicked up. “In that case, let’s not recount this conversation to anyone else.”

“I can agree to that.” She returned her attention to the sky. “Tell me about this magnificent, fifth-best star.”

When he spoke, she could hear the laughter in his deep voice, and she resisted the urge to look at him. “Vega belongs to the constellation Lyra, so named because Ptolemy believed it looked like Orpheus’s lyre.”

She couldn’t resist teasing him, “You’re an expert in the classics, as well, I gather?”

“You mean you are not?” he retorted, drawing a laugh from her before adding, “Orpheus is one of my favorites.”

She looked to him. “Why?”

His gaze was locked on the night sky. “He made a terrible mistake and paid dearly for it.”

With the words, everything grew more serious. “Eurydice,” she whispered. She knew the story of Orpheus and his wife, whom he loved more than anything and lost to the Underworld.

He was quiet for a long moment, and she thought he might not speak. When he did, the words were flat and emotionless. “He convinced Hades to let her go, to return her to the living. All he had to do was lead her out without looking back into Hell.”

“But he couldn’t,” Pippa said, mind racing.

“He grew greedy and looked back. He lost her forever.” He paused, then repeated, “A terrible mistake.”

And there was something there in his tone, something that Pippa might not have noticed at another time, in another man. Loss. Sorrow. Memory flashed—the whispered conversation in this very garden.

You shouldn’t have married him.

I didn’t have a choice. You didn’t leave me with one.

I should have stopped it.

The woman in the garden . . . she was his Eurydice.

Something unpleasant flared in her chest at the thought, and Pippa couldn’t resist reaching out to touch him, to settle her hand on his arm. He jerked at the touch, pulling away as though she’d burned him.

They sat in silence for a long moment. Until she couldn’t stop herself from saying, “You made a mistake.”

He slid his gaze to her fleetingly, then stood. “It’s time to go. Your lesson awaits.”

Except she did not want to go anymore. She wanted to stay. “You lost your love.” He did not look to her, but she could not have looked away if a team of oxen had driven through the gardens of Dolby House in that moment. “The woman in the gardens. Lavinia,” she said, hating that she could not simply keep quiet.
Don’t ask, Pippa. Don’t.
“You . . . love her?”

The word was strange on her tongue.

It should not surprise her that he had a paramour, after all, there were few men in London with the kind of reputation that Mr. Cross had as both a man and a lover. But she confessed, he did not seem the kind of man who would be drawn to more serious emotions—to something like love. He was, after all, a man of science. As she was a woman of science. And she certainly did not expect for love to ever make an appearance in her own mind.

And yet, in this strange moment, she found she was desperate to hear his answer. And there, in the desperation, she discovered that she was hoping that his answer would be no. That there was no unrequited love lurking deep in his breast.

Or requited love, for that matter.

She started at the thought.

Well.

That was unexpected.

His lips twisted at the question, as he turned his face from the light and into the darkness. But he did not speak. “Curiosity is a dangerous thing, Lady Philippa.”

She rose to face him, keenly aware of how much taller he was than she, keenly aware of
him.
“I find I cannot help myself.”

“I have noticed that.”

“I only ask because I am intrigued by the idea of your loving someone.”
Stop it, Pippa. This is not the path down which intelligent young ladies tread.
She changed tack. “Not you, that is. Anyone. Loving someone.”

“You have opposition to love?”

“Not opposition so much as skepticism. I make it a practice not to believe in things I cannot see.”

She’d surprised him. “You are no ordinary female.”

“We have established that. It is why you are here, if you recall.”

“So it is.” He crossed his long arms over his chest, and added, “So you wish to tempt your husband, whom you do not expect to love.”

“Precisely.” When he did not immediately respond, she added, “If it helps, I do not think he expects to love me, either.”

“A sound English marriage.”

She considered the words. “I suppose it is, isn’t it? It’s certainly like any of the marriages to which I am close.”

His brows rose. “You doubt the fact that Bourne cares deeply for your sister?”

“No. But that’s the only one.” She paused, considering. “Maybe Olivia and Tottenham, too. But my other sisters married for much the same reason as I shall.”

“Which is?”

She lifted one shoulder in a little shrug. “It is what we are expected to do.” She met his gaze, unable to read it in the darkness. “I suppose that doesn’t make sense to you, seeing as you are not an aristocrat.”

One side of his mouth kicked up. “What does being an aristocrat have to do with it?”

She pushed her spectacles up on her nose. “You may not know this, but aristocrats have a great many rules with which to contend. Marriages are about wealth and station and propriety and position. We cannot simply marry whomever we wish. Well, ladies can’t at least.” She thought for a moment. “Gentlemen can weather more scandal, but so many of them simply flop over and allow themselves to be dragged into uninspired marriages anyway. Why do you think that is?”

“I wouldn’t like to guess.”

“It is amazing what power men have and how poorly they use it. Don’t you think?”

“And if you had the same powers?”

“I don’t.”

“But if you did?”