One Good Earl Deserves a Lover

by Sarah MacLean

  “I don’t think you simple,” she said, wanting him to know that. Wanting him to understand that this mess she was making had nothing to do with him. He was not lacking. “I think you will make someone a very happy match.”

  “But not you,” he said, simply.

  She shook her head. “Not me.”

  There was a time when you might have. It was true. She’d been happy to live out her days in country idyll, talking of crop rotation and animal husbandry and consulting the men and women who lived on Castleton land.

  There was a time when I would have been content with you.

  “If you change your mind . . .” he said. “If you wake up on Sunday morning and wish for marriage . . . I shall be ready,” he finished, so generous. So deserving of love.

  She nodded once, seriously. “Thank you, my lord.”

  He cleared his throat. “What next?”

  The question had rattled through her during every waking moment of every day since the morning Cross had left her, sleeping, in her bed after making it impossible for her to marry Castleton. After making it impossible to do anything but care for him . . . more than she’d ever cared for anyone. What next?

  What happened now?

  She’d approached the problem in the same way she’d forever approached every part of her life. She’d considered it from all angles, posited answers, hypothesized outcomes. And, eventually, come to a conclusion—the only one that had any chance of resulting in the outcome she desired. For which she ached.

  So this morning, she’d risen early, dressed, and come to Berkeley Square. She’d knocked, met her fiancé—who seemed to be more intelligent than anyone in Britain gave him credit for—and broken her engagement.

  And what came next would be the most important experiment of her life.

  “I admit, I am happy that you asked.” She took a deep breath, met Castleton’s gaze, and answered his question. “You see, I require your assistance for what comes next.”

  Two hours later, Pippa and Trotula were waiting at the rear entrance to The Fallen Angel, for someone to open the door.

  When no one responded to her several knocks on the great steel slab, Pippa grew impatient and moved to the entrance to the club kitchens. Knocking there produced a result—a red-faced boy who was at once elated to see a dog at the door and perplexed by the presence of the hound’s mistress.

  “Didier!” he called out, “ ’ere’s a lady at the door! A real one! And a dog!”

  “I am tired of the jokes you play on me, Henri,” came a familiar booming voice from outside Pippa’s view. “Now come back here before the béchamel is destroyed by your laziness.”

  “But Didier!” he called, not taking his gaze from Pippa. “’Tis a lady! The one who comes for Cross!”

  Pippa’s jaw dropped at the identification. How did this boy know about her meetings with Jasper? Before she could ask, the French cook had pushed the boy from view and faced Pippa with a wide smile. “Back for another of my sandwiches?”

  Pippa smiled. “No one answered the rear door of the club.”

  Didier stepped back, letting Pippa into the sweltering kitchens. “That’s because the doormen are all bothering me.” She cast a skeptical glance at Trotula. “The hound may enter, but I won’t have her near my food.”

  Pippa stepped inside, directing the dog to a corner and registering the stares from a motley collection of servants and workers gathered around the great table at the center of the Angel’s kitchens. Uncertain and not a small amount uncomfortable, she gave a little curtsy, sending all their brows to the sky. “I am Lady Philippa Marbury.”

  The doorman she’d met the evening she’d come with Cross stood, hulking and overwhelming. “We know who you are.”

  She nodded. “Excellent. Then you won’t mind telling His Grace that I am here.” There was a pause, confusion flaring on several faces before she clarified. “I believe you call him Temple.”

  The boy who’d answered the door was the first to speak. “But yer Cross’s lady,” he said, as if that was all there was to say.

  Cross’s lady. The words warmed her.

  Even if they weren’t true.

  “Today, I’ve need of Temple.”

  And Temple would help her get the rest.

  When they arrived home that night, Pippa and Trotula had covered a wide swath of London, and both mistress and hound were exhausted.

  Ignoring her mother’s admonitions that countesses did not leave the house with only their hounds to keep them company, and that Pippa would be devastated if she awoke on her wedding day with a cold, and that she simply must eat something, she forwent the family meal and made her way to her bed, crawling between crisp linen sheets she fancied smelled of the man she’d thought of all day. All week. For what seemed like forever. She should have slept, but instead she played her plan over and over in her mind. The moving pieces, the variables—both fixed and unfixed—the process, the participants.

  Stroking Trotula’s head, Pippa lay in her bed, thinking of Jasper Arlesey, Earl Harlow. Of all the things she’d ever heard about this strange, elusive peer. She knew that he did not take his seat in Parliament. She knew that he did not frequent balls or dinners or even the theater. In fact, it seemed he did nothing that brought him into contact with society . . . nothing except running London’s most exclusive gaming hell.

  And she knew that he was being an utter cabbagehead, about to toss his life away in a mad belief that he was saving her.

  But most importantly, she knew that he was wrong. It was not she who required saving.

  It was he.

  And she was just the woman to do it.

  Chapter Eighteen

  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 ach
e 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.