One Good Earl Deserves a Lover Page 21

  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.

  But the stallion would have to wait his turn, for seated on the woman’s long torso, in the shadowy stretch between breast and thigh, was a small, ugly figure, part beast, part man. The creature seemed to stare straight out of the painting, meeting the eyes of anyone who dared look. The expression on the goblin’s face was at once patient and possessive, as though he would wait for an eternity for the lady to awaken—and fight to the death to keep her.

  It was the most compelling thing she’d ever seen, scandalous and sinful. She moved closer. “This piece—it is remarkable.”

  “You like it?” She heard the surprise in his tone.

  “I don’t think one likes it. I think one is captivated by it.” She wanted to reach out and wake the woman in the painting, to warn her of what was no doubt the beginning of a terrible demise. “Where did you find it?”

  “It was used to pay a debt,” Cross said, closer, and she looked over her shoulder to find him at the edge of his desk, one hand on the ebony, watching her move toward the oil.

  “A very large one, I imagine.”

  He inclined his head. “I liked the piece enough to allow the debt wiped from the books—free and clear.”

  She was not surprised that he had been drawn to this painting—to the wickedness in each brushstroke, to the darkness of the story it told. She turned back, drawn once more to the strange creature seated on the sleeping woman. “What is it?” she asked, reaching out to the little man, afraid to touch him.

  “It’s an incubus.” He paused. Continued. “A nightmare. Demons were once thought to come at night and wreak havoc on those who slept. Male demons, like that one, preyed upon beautiful women.”

  There was something in the way he spoke, a hint of—memory?—and Pippa looked to him. “Why do you have this?”

  He was no longer watching her, instead, he stared down at the desk, lifting the dice she had placed there, clutching them in his palm. “I do not care much for sleep,” he said, as if it were an acceptable answer.

  Why not?

  She wanted to ask it, but knew, instantly, that he would not tell her. “I am not surprised, considering you spend most of your day in the shadow of this painting.”

  “One becomes comfortable with it.”

  “I rather doubt that,” she said. “How often do you use the passageway?”

  “I find I don’t have much need of it.”

  She smiled. “Then I might appropriate it?”

  “You do not use it well. I heard you the moment you came near.”

  “You did not.”

  “I did. You will no doubt be surprised to discover that you are not very good at sneaking, Lady Philippa.”

  “I’ve not had much cause for the activity, Mr. Cross.”

  One side of his mouth kicked up in an approximation of a smile. “Until recently.”

  “This place rather calls for it, don’t you think?”

  “I do, actually.”

  He returned the dice to the desk with a soft click, and the little white cubes captured her attention and she spoke to them. “Now, if I remember correctly, you owe me the answers to three questions. Four, if you count the one you left unanswered.”

  In the silence that followed the statement, she could not stop herself from lifting her gaze to his. He was waiting for her. “All the dice were weighted. I owe you nothing.”

  Her brows snapped together. “On the contrary, you owe me plenty. I trusted you to tell the truth.”

  “Your mistake, not mine.”

  “You are not ashamed of cheating?”

  “I am ashamed of being caught.”

  She scowled. “You underestimated me.”

  “It seems I did. I will not make the mistake again. I will not have the opportunity.”

  She snapped her head back. “You are reneging?”

  He nodded. “I am. I want you out of this place. Forever. You don’t
belong here.”

  She shook her head. “You said you wouldn’t renege.”

  “I lied.”

  The unexpected words shocked her, so she said the only thing that came to mind. “No.”

  Surprise flared in his eyes. “No?”

  She shook her head, advancing and stopping a foot from him. “No.”

  He lifted the dice again, and she heard the clatter of ivory on ivory as he worried them in his palm. “Upon what grounds do you refuse?”

  “Upon the grounds that you owe me.”

  “Do you plan to run me before a judge and jury?” he asked wryly.

  “I don’t need to,” she retorted, playing her last, most powerful card. “I only have to run you before my brother-in-law.”

  There was a beat as the words sank in, and his eyes widened, just barely, just enough for her to notice before he closed the distance between them, and said, “A fine idea. Let’s tell Bourne everything. You think he would force me to honor our agreement?”

  She refused to be cowed. “No. I think he would murder you for agreeing to it in the first place. Even more so when he discovers that it was negotiated by a lady of the evening.”

  Emotion flared in his serious grey gaze, irritation and . . . admiration? Whatever it was, it was gone almost instantly, extinguished like a lantern in one of his strange, dark passageways. “Well played, Lady Philippa.” The words were soft as they slid over her skin.

  “I rather thought so.” Where had her voice gone?

  He was so close. “Where would you like to begin?”

  She wanted to begin where they’d left off. He could not escape now, not as they stood here, in his office . . . in a gaming hell, feet away from sin and vice and half of London sure to ruin her thoroughly if they were to find her.

  And inches away from each other.

  This was the risk she had vowed to take; his knowledge was the reward.

  Excitement thrummed through her, promising more than she could have expected when she’d left the house this evening. “I should like to begin with kissing.”

  Chapter Eleven

  She might have wanted to begin with kissing, but he wanted to end with her naked, spread across his desk, open to his hands and mouth and body, like a country summer.

  And that was the problem.

  He could not give her what she wanted. Not without taking everything he desired.

  Dammit. She was too close. He took a step back, grateful for his long legs and the firm edge of his desk behind him providing stable, unmoving comfort. “I do not think Bourne would appreciate my instructing you in . . .” He trailed off, finding it difficult to say the word.

  The lady did not have the same problem. “Kissing?”

  He supposed he should be happy she had not asked about the other thing she seemed to have no difficulty referencing. “Yes.”

  She tilted her head, and he could not help but be drawn to the long cord of her neck, the soft white skin there. “I don’t think he would mind, you know,” she said after a long moment. “In fact, I think he would be rather happy that I asked you.”

  He laughed—if one could call the loud, quick ha of disbelief a laugh. “I think you couldn’t be more wrong.”

  Bourne would kill him with his bare hands for touching her. Not that it wouldn’t be worth it.

  It would be worth it.

  He knew that without question.

  She shook her head. “No, I think I’m right,” she said, more to herself than to him, he sensed, and there was a long moment while she pondered the question.

  He’d never known a woman to think so carefully. He could watch her think for hours. For days. The ridiculous thought startled him. Watch her think? What in hell was wrong with him?

  He didn’t have time to consider the answer because something changed in her gaze, partially hidden by the glass of her spectacles when she focused on him once more. “I don’t think this is about Bourne at all.”

  It wasn’t. But she needn’t know that. “Bourne is one of the many reasons why I won’t tell you about it.”

  She looked down at her hands, clenched tightly in front of her, and when she spoke there was something he did not like in her tone. “I see.”

  She shook her head, and he could do nothing but look down at her pale, yellow hair, the color of cornsilk, gleaming in the candlelight.

  He shouldn’t ask. It didn’t matter. “What do you see?”

  She spoke to herself, softly, without looking up. “It never occurred to me. Of course, it should have. Desire is a part of it.”

  Desire. Oh yes. It was an enormous part of it.

  She looked up at him, then, and he saw it. Part uncertainty, part resignation, part—damn him to hell—sadness. And everything he had, everything he was, screamed to reach out to her.

  Dear God. He tried to put more space between them, but his massive desk—the one from which he’d drawn such comfort just seconds earlier—was now trapping him there, altogether too close to her as her big blue eyes grew liquid, and she said, “Tell me, Mr. Cross, do you think I might convince him to touch me?”

  He could have managed the words if not for their intonation—for the slight, panicked emphasis on the him, meaning someone other than he. Meaning Castleton.

  Meaning she had been hoping for Cross to touch her.

  She was temptation. She was torture.

  All he had to do was reach out and take her. No one would ever know. Just once. Just a taste, and he would send her on her way, to her husband. To her marriage.

  To her life.

  No.

  She was untouchable. As untouchable as every other woman he’d known for the last six years. More untouchable.

  Infinitely better.

  His throat worked as he searched for words, hating that she’d rendered him speechless. If his partners could see him now, clever Cross, laid low by this bizarre, bespectacled, beautiful woman.

  The words did not come, so he settled on, “Pippa . . .”

  Color flooded her cheeks, a wicked, wonderful blush—the kind that a younger, reckless Cross would have read as invitation. The kind he would have accepted.

  Instead, she looked back at her hands, spread them wide, not knowing how those crooked fingertips tempted him. “I’m sorry. That was thoroughly . . . It was . . . that is . . .” She sighed, her shoulders bowing with near-unbearable weight. Finally, she looked up and said, simply, “I should not have said it.”

  Don’t ask her. You don’t want to know.

  Except he did. Desperately.

  “What did you mean by it?”

  “I would rather not tell you.”

  One side of his mouth kicked up. Even now, when she no doubt wished to do so, she would not lie. “And yet I would know.”

  She spoke to her hands. “It’s just that . . . since we met, I have been rather . . . well, fascinated by . . .”

  You.

  Say it, he willed, not entirely certain what he would do if she did, but willing to put himself to the test.

  She took another breath. “By your bones.”

  Would she ever say anything expected? “My bones?”

  She nodded. “Yes. Well, the muscles and tendons, too. Your forearms. Your thighs. And earlier—while I watched you drink whiskey—by your hands.”

  Cross had been propositioned many times in his life. He’d made a career of refusing women’s requests. But he had never been complimented on his bones.

  It was the strangest, sexiest confession he’d ever heard.

  And he had no idea how to respond.

  He didn’t have to, however, as she was pressing on. “I can’t seem to stop thinking about them,” she said, her voice low and filled with utter misery. “I can’t seem to stop thinking of touching them. Of their . . . touching me.”

>   God help them both, neither could he.

  He shouldn’t ask. He shouldn’t.

  But the King himself could have stormed into the room and it wouldn’t have stopped him. “Touching you where?”

  Her head snapped up, fast enough to have done damage if she had been standing any nearer—if she’d been standing as near as he would like for her to be. He’d shocked her. “I beg your pardon?”

  “It’s a simple question, Pippa,” he said, leaning back against the desk, impressed with his ability to seem calm while his heart raced and his fingers itched for her. “Where do you imagine coming into contact with my bones?”

  Her mouth fell open, honeyed lips soft in their surprise, and he crossed his arms. Her gaze followed the movement, his hands clutching his biceps, the only thing keeping him from grabbing her and kissing her until they were both gasping for air.

  “Your hands,” she whispered.

  “What about them?”

  “I wonder what they might feel like on . . .” She swallowed, and the movement drew his attention to her throat, where her pulse no doubt pounded. He missed the next words on her lips—which was likely best for them both. “On my skin.”

  Skin. The word conjured images of pale, beautiful flesh, heated curves and soft swells, of wide expanses open to exploration. She would be sin and silk, and everywhere he touched, she would respond to him. He imagined the sounds she would make, the way she would gasp as he stroked up one leg, the way she would sigh when he ran the flat of his palm down her torso, the way she would laugh when he inevitably found a place where she was ticklish.

  She was riveted by his left hand, braced against his arm, and he knew without question that if he moved it, if he reached for her, she would let him have anything he wanted. Everything he wanted.

  He did not move it.

  “Where, specifically, Pippa?”

  She shouldn’t tell him, of course. She should run from this room as quickly as she could . . . no doubt she would be safer on the floor of the casino than she was here, with him. But he wasn’t about to tell her that.

  “My hands,” she started, the hands in question splaying wide. “M—my cheek . . . my neck . . .”