One Good Earl Deserves a Lover Read online

  “Get out.” Cross had had enough.

  Chase did not move. “I didn’t have you followed. But I see now that it would have been edifying had I done.”

  Cross swore, brutal and barbaric.

  “You have had a bad night, haven’t you? Where did you go?”

  “I saw my sister.”

  Chase’s golden brows rose. “You went to Needham’s ball?”

  I also saw Philippa Marbury. Well, he certainly wasn’t going to tell Chase that. Instead, he said nothing.

  “I take it the meeting did not go well,” Chase said.

  “She wants nothing to do with me. Even when I told her I would take care of Knight, she had little to say. She didn’t believe me.”

  Chase was quiet for a long moment, considering the situation. “Sisters are difficult. They do not always respond well to the dictates of older brothers.”

  “You would know that better than anyone.”

  “Would you like me to speak with her?”

  “You think far too highly of yourself.”

  Chase smiled. “Ladies tend to welcome me with open arms. Even ladies like your sister.”

  Cross’s gaze narrowed. “I don’t want you near her. It’s bad enough she’s to deal with Digger . . . and with me.”

  “You wound me.” Chase savored the cigar. “Will she stay away from him?”

  He considered the question, and his sister’s fury earlier in the evening. Lavinia had been seventeen when Baine died, when Cross left. She’d been forced into a marriage with Dunblade because he’d been willing to take her on—despite her imperfections.

  Imperfections Cross had caused.

  Imperfections that should have been overlooked—would have been if she’d been able to escape their mother’s sorrow and their father’s wrath. If she hadn’t been forced to survive on her own, with no one to help her.

  Without a brother to keep her safe.

  No wonder she did not believe him when he told her he would repair the damage Knight and her husband had done. Anger and frustration and not a small amount of self-loathing flared. “I don’t know what she’ll do. But I know Knight won’t do anything to jeopardize his daughter’s marriage.”

  “We should have ruined him years ago.” When Cross did not reply, Chase added, “You’ve always had too soft a spot for him.”

  Cross lifted one shoulder in a small shrug. “Without him . . .”

  White teeth flashed. “You wouldn’t have us.”

  Cross laughed at that. “When put that way, perhaps I shouldn’t hesitate in ruining him.”

  Chase savored a long puff on the cigar, thinking before saying, “You have to keep up the ruse until you’re ready to take him out. To protect Lavinia.” Cross nodded. “Temple said you’re planning to use the ladies? You realize you’ll need me to get the ladies.”

  Cross raised a brow. “I don’t think that will be necessary.”

  “Are you sure? They like me a great deal.”

  “I am sure.”

  Chase nodded once. “I wonder what the daughter is like.”

  “She’s Knight’s progeny, so I’m guessing either a raving bitch or a poor soul.”

  “She’s also a woman, so those are the two most likely options, of course.” A pause. “Perhaps you should marry her. It did wonders for Bourne.”

  “I am not Bourne.”

  “No. You’re not.” Chase sat up, spinning the globe once more and looking around the room. “It is a wonder you can find anything in here. I’ve half a mind to have the girls come in and clean up.”

  “Try it.”

  “Not worth your wrath.” Chase tamped out the cigar and stood, coming nearer and tapping one finger on the enormous betting book. “It’s late, and I am for home, but before I go, I thought perhaps you’d like to make a wager.”

  “I don’t wager in the book. You know that.”

  One of Chase’s golden brows rose. “Are you certain you don’t want to make an exception for this one? You’ve excellent odds.”

  Unease settled in Cross’s chest, and he folded his arms, leaning back in his chair to level his partner with a cool look. “What is it?”

  “Lady Philippa Marbury,” Chase said.

  Unease turned to dread. Chase knew. It was not a surprise. Not really. Chase always knew everything. Still, Cross was not required to admit it. “Who?”

  Chase cut him a look. “Is this how it is to be then? You’re going to pretend not to know to what I am referring?”

  “No pretending about it,” Cross made a show of leaning back in his chair. “I haven’t any idea what you’re on about.”

  “Justin let her in, Cross. Pointed her in the direction of your office. And then he told me about it.”

  Goddammit. “Justin is a gossiping female.”

  “Having one or two of them around can be rather helpful, I find. Now, about the girl.”

  Cross scowled, his mood turning from dark to deadly. “What of her?”

  “What did she want here?”

  “It’s none of your concern.”

  “But it might be Bourne’s concern, so I ask nonetheless.”

  If he had my sister in his clutches, I’d consider doing his bidding.

  Bourne’s words echoed through Cross on a tide of guilt.

  “What she wanted is irrelevant. But it’s worth mentioning that Knight saw her.”

  A casual observer would not have seen the slight stiffening of Chase’s spine. “Did he recognize her?”

  “No.” Thank God.

  Chase heard the hesitation in the word. “However?”

  “She intrigued him.”

  “I’m not surprised. Lady Philippa is an intriguing sort.”

  “That’s a mild way of putting it.” He did not like the understanding that flashed in his partner’s eyes at the words.

  “You haven’t told Bourne?”

  For the life of him, Cross didn’t know why. Bourne was widely considered one of the coldest, hardest men in London. If he thought for one moment that Pippa was in danger, Bourne would destroy the threat with his bare hands.

  But Cross had promised to keep her secrets.

  The world is full of liars.

  The words whispered through him. There was no reason to keep his promise to the lady. He should tell Bourne. Tell him, and be through with it.

  And yet . . .

  He thought of her earlier in the evening, smiling happily at her hound, the expression on her face sending a thread of warmth through him even now. He liked to watch her smile. He liked to watch her do just about anything.

  He liked her.

  Shit.

  “I took care of it.”

  Chase was quiet for a long moment before repeating, “You did.”

  Cross resisted the urge to look away. “The girl came to me.”

  “I remain unclear on those particulars.”

  “You needn’t know everything.”

  One side of Chase’s mouth lifted in a wry smile. “And yet, I so often do.”

  “Not this.”

  Chase considered him for a long moment, a battle of will. “No. It seems not.”

  “You’ll refrain from telling Bourne?”

  “Unless he requires telling,” Chase said, leaning back in the chair. “And besides, telling Bourne won’t help my end of the wager.”

  He shouldn’t care.

  But the echo of Pippa’s soft touch and her strange words had clearly made him as mad as she was. “What are the terms?”

  Chase grinned, all white teeth. “One hundred pounds says she’s the woman who breaks you of your curse.”

  His curse.

  It took everything he had not to react to the words. To the taunt in them.

  One golden brow rose. “No
t willing to take it?”

  “I don’t wager in the book,” Cross repeated, the words coming out like gravel.

  Chase smirked, but said nothing, instead standing, limbs unfolding with an uncanny grace. “Pity. I thought for sure that would make me a quick hundred.”

  “I did not know you were short on blunt.”

  “I’m not. But I do like to win.”

  Cross didn’t reply as his partner left, the sound of the large mahogany door closing softly the only sign that Chase had been there at all.

  Only then did Cross release the long breath he’d been holding.

  He should have taken the wager.

  Chase might know more than most about the secrets of London’s elite, but there was one fact that was beyond doubt.

  Cross would not touch Philippa Marbury again.

  He couldn’t.

  Pippa, it’s time to try your dress.”

  The Marchioness of Needham and Dolby’s words—part excitement, part scolding—drew Pippa’s attention from where she’d been watching the mass of bodies weaving in and out of the shops on Bond Street. While Pippa liked the window of Madame Hebert’s shop very much—it afforded a rather spectacular view of the rest of the London aristocracy going about their daily business—she did not particularly care for dressmakers. They, like dancing, were not her preferred way of spending time.

  But wedding dresses required modistes. As did trousseaus.

  And so, here she was, at what would most certainly be the longest trip to the dressmaker in the history of dress shopping.

  “Philippa!” She snapped her attention from the group of men across the street at the entrance to Boucher & Babcock’s Tobacconist and toward her mother’s sharp, excited cry from the inner fitting room of the shop. “Come see your sister!”

  With a sigh, Pippa turned from the window and pushed her way through the curtains, feeling as though she were steeled for battle. The velvet drapes hadn’t returned to their place when she came up short, taking in Olivia, petite and perfect on a raised platform at the center of the room, in what had to be the most beautiful wedding dress ever made.

  “Olivia,” Pippa said quietly, shaking her head. “You are . . .”

  “Gorgeous!” the marchioness exclaimed, clapping her hands together in maternal glee.

  Olivia fluffed the skirts of the lovely ivory lace and grinned. “Absolutely stunning, aren’t I?”

  “Stunning,” Pippa agreed. It was the truth after all. But she could not resist adding, “And so modest.”

  “Oh, tosh,” Olivia said, turning to look more carefully in the mirror. “If you cannot tell the truth in Hebert’s back room, where can you? Dressmaker’s shops are for gossip and honesty.”

  The seamstress—widely acknowledged as the best in Britain—removed a pin from between her lips and pinned the bodice of the gown before winking at Pippa from her position behind Olivia’s shoulder. “I could not agree more.”

  Olivia was unable to take her eyes off her reflection in one of the score of mirrors placed around the room. “Yes. It’s perfect.”

  It was, of course. Not that Olivia needed a dress to make her beautiful. The youngest, prettiest Marbury sister could wear a length of feed sack fetched from the Needham Manor stables and still look more beautiful than most women on their very best days. No, there was little doubt that two weeks hence, when Olivia and Viscount Tottenham stood in St. George’s in front of all of London society, she would be a stunning bride—the talk of the ton.

  Pippa would no doubt pale in comparison as she played her part in the double wedding.

  “Lady Philippa, Alys is ready for you.” The dressmaker pulled her from her thoughts with a wave of one long arm, adorned with a scarlet pincushion, in the direction of a young assistant standing near a tall screen on one end of the room, a mass of lace and silk in her hands.

  Pippa’s wedding gown.

  Something turned deep within, and she hesitated.

  “Go on, Pippa. Put it on.” Olivia looked down at the dressmaker. “It’s very different, I hope. I wouldn’t like us to be thought to wear the same dress.”

  Pippa had no doubt that, even if the dresses were an exact copy, there would be no mistaking the two brides on the fast-approaching day.

  Where the four older Marbury daughters had been landed with flat, ashy blond hair, skin either too ruddy (Victoria and Valerie) or too pale (Pippa and Penelope), and bodies either too plump (Penelope and Victoria) or too lean (Pippa and Valerie), Olivia was perfect. Her hair was a lush, sparkling gold that shimmered in the sunlight, her skin was clear and pink, and her shape—the ideal combination of curved and trim. She had a body that was made for French fashion, and Madame Hebert had designed her a dress to prove it.

  Pippa doubted the dressmaker—best in London or no—could do the same for her.

  The gown was over her head then, the sound of fabric rustling in her ears chasing away her thoughts as the young seamstress tightened and fastened, buttoned and tied. Pippa fidgeted through the process, keenly aware of the harsh lace edging against her skin, of the way the stays threatened to suffocate.

  She had not yet seen herself in it, but the dress was remarkably uncomfortable.

  When Alys had completed her work, she waved Pippa out into the main room, and for one small moment, Pippa wondered what would happen if, instead of emerging to the critical gaze of her sister and mother and the finest dressmaker this side of the English Channel, she fled into the rear of the shop and out the back door.

  Perhaps then she and Castleton could forgo the entire wedding and simply get to the marriage bit. That was, after all, the important part of it all, wasn’t it?

  “This shall be the wedding of the season!” Lady Needham crowed from beyond the screen.

  Well . . . perhaps marriage was not the most important part for mothers.

  “Of course it shall,” Olivia agreed. “Didn’t I tell you that, Penny-disaster or no, I would marry well?”

  “You did, my darling. You always achieve that which you set your mind to.”

  Lucky Olivia.

  “My lady?” The young seamstress looked confused. Pippa gathered that it was not every day that a bride was so hesitant to show off her wedding gown.

  She stepped around the screen. “Well? Here I am.”

  “Oh!” Lady Needham nearly toppled from her place on a lavishly appointed divan, tea sloshing from her cup as she bounced up and down on the sapphire fabric. “Oh! What a fine countess you shall make!”

  Pippa looked past her mother to Olivia, who was already back to watching the half dozen young seamstresses on their knees, pinning the hem of her gown, lifting flounces and moving ribbons. “Very nice, Pippa.” She paused. “Not as nice as mine, of course . . .”

  Some things did not change. Thankfully. “Of course not.”

  Madame Hebert was already helping Pippa up onto her own raised platform, pins lodged firmly between the dressmaker’s teeth as she cast a disparaging gaze along the bodice of the gown. Pippa turned to look at herself in a large mirror, and the Frenchwoman immediately stepped into her line of vision. “Not yet.”

  The seamstresses worked in silence as Pippa ran the tips of her fingers over the bodice of the gown, tracing the curves of lace and the stretches of silk. “Silk comes from caterpillars,” she said, the information a comfort in the odd moment. “Well, not precisely caterpillars—the cocoons of the silkworm.” When no one replied, she looked down at her hands, and added, “The Bombyx mori pupates, and before it can emerge as a moth—we get silk.”

  There was silence for long moments, and Pippa looked up to discover everyone in the room staring at her as though she had sprouted a second head. Olivia was the first to reply. “You are so odd.”

  “Who can think of worms at a time like this?” the marchioness chimed in. “Worms have nothing to do with we
ddings!”

  Pippa thought it was rather a perfect time to think of worms. Hardworking worms that had left the life they’d known—and all its comforts—and spun cocoons, preparing for a life they did not understand and could not imagine, only to be stopped halfway through the process and turned into a wedding gown.

  She did not imagine that her mother would care for that description, however, and so she said nothing as the woman began to pin, and the bodice of the gown grew tighter and tighter. After several long moments, Pippa coughed. “It’s rather constricting.”

  Madame Hebert did not seem to hear her, instead pinching a quarter of an inch of fabric at Pippa’s waist and pinning it tight.

  “Are you sure—?”

  Pippa tried again before the modiste cut her a look. “I am sure.”

  No doubt.

  And then the dressmaker stepped away and Pippa had a clear line to the looking glass, where she faced her future self. The dress was beautiful, fitted simply to her small bust and long waist without making her look like any kind of long-legged bird.

  No, she looked every inch a bride.

  The dress seemed to be growing tighter by the moment. Was such a thing possible?

  “What do you think?” the dressmaker asked, watching her carefully in the mirror.

  Pippa opened her mouth to respond, not knowing what was to come.

  “She adores it, of course!” The marchioness’s words came on a squeal. “They both adore them! It shall be the wedding of the season! The wedding of the century!”

  Pippa met the modiste’s curious chocolate gaze. “And the century has barely begun.”

  The Frenchwoman’s eyes smiled for the briefest of instants before Olivia sighed happily. “It shall indeed. And Tottenham shan’t be able to resist me in this dress. No man could.”

  “Olivia!” the marchioness said from her place. “That is entirely unladylike.”

  “Why? That is the goal, is it not? To tempt one’s husband?”

  “One does not tempt one’s husband!” the marchioness insisted.

  Olivia’s smile turned mischievous. “You must have tempted yours once or twice, Mother.”

  “Oh!” Lady Needham collapsed back against the settee.