One Good Earl Deserves a Lover (The Rules of Scoundrels 2)

Pippa leaned over to assess the jewel. “It is.” She looked up. “It’s enormous.”

Olivia grinned. “My future husband adores me.”

“Your future husband spoils you.”

Olivia waved away the words. “You say that like I don’t deserve to be spoiled.”

Pippa laughed. “Poor Tottenham. He hasn’t any idea what he’s getting himself into.”

Olivia cut her a dry look. “Nonsense. He knows precisely what he’s getting himself into. And he loves it.” She returned her attention. “It’s so beautiful and red.”

Pippa nodded. “That’s the chromium.”

“The what?”

“Chromium. It is an additive in the crystal that turns it red. If it were anything else added . . . it wouldn’t be a ruby. It would be a sapphire.” Olivia blinked, and Pippa continued, “It’s a common misconception that all sapphires are blue, but that’s not the case. They can be any color . . . green or yellow or pink, even. It depends on the additive. But they’re all called sapphires. It’s only if they’re red that they’re called something else. Rubies. Because of the chromium.”

She stopped, recognizing the blank stare on Olivia’s face. It was the same stare that appeared on most people’s faces when Pippa talked too much.

Not everyone’s, though.

Not Mr. Cross’s.

He’d seemed interested in her. Even as he called her mad. Right up until the moment he cast her out of his club. And his life. Without telling her anything she wished to know.

Olivia looked back to the ring. “Well, my ruby is red. And lovely.”

“It is.” Pippa agreed. “When did you receive it?”

A small, private smile flashed across Olivia’s pretty face. “Tottenham gave it to me last night after the theater.”

“And mother didn’t mention it at breakfast? I’m shocked.”

Olivia grinned. “Mother wasn’t there when he did it.”

There was a twinge of something in the words—an awareness that Pippa almost didn’t notice. That she might not have noticed if not for Olivia’s knowing blue gaze. “Where was she?”

“I imagine she was looking for me.” There was a long pause, in which Pippa knew she should draw meaning. “She was not with us.”

Pippa leaned in, across the table. “Where were you?”

Olivia grinned. “I shouldn’t tell.”

“Were you alone?” Pippa gasped, “With the viscount?”

Olivia’s laugh was bright and airy. “Really, Pippa . . . you needn’t sound like a shocked chaperone.” She lowered her voice. “I was . . . not for long. Just long enough for him to give me the ring . . . and for me to thank him.”

“Thank him how?”

Olivia smiled. “You can imagine.”

“I really can’t.” The truth.

“Surely, you’ve had a reason or two to thank Castleton.”

Except she hadn’t. Well, she had certainly said the words, thank you, to her betrothed, but she’d never had cause to be alone with him while doing so. And she was certain that he’d never imagined giving her such a lavish present as the Viscount Tottenham had bestowed upon Olivia. “How, precisely, did you thank him, Olivia?”

“We were at the theater, Pippa,” Olivia said, all superiority. “We couldn’t do very much. It was just a few kisses.”

Kisses.

In the plural.

Pippa jerked at the words, knocking over her inkpot, sending a pool of blackness across the tabletop toward a young potted lemon tree, and Olivia leapt back with a squeal. “Don’t get it on my dress!”

Pippa righted the inkwell and mopped at the liquid with a nearby rag, desperate for more information. “You’ve been”—she glanced at the door of the orangery to assure herself that they were alone—“kissing Tottenham?”

Olivia stepped backward. “Of course I have. I cannot very well marry the man without knowing that we have a kind of . . . compatibility.”

Pippa blinked. “Compatibility?” She looked to her research journal, lying open on the table, filled with notes on roses and dahlias and geese and human anatomy. She’d trade all of it for a few sound pages of notes from Olivia’s experience.

“Yes. Surely you’ve wondered what it would be like—physically—with Castleton . . . once you are married?”

Wonder was a rather bland word for how Pippa felt about the physical nature of her relationship with Castleton. “Of course.”

“Well, there you have it,” Olivia said.

Except Pippa didn’t have it. Not at all. She resisted the urge to blurt just such a thing out, casting about for another way to discuss Olivia’s experience without making it seem as though she were desperate for knowledge. Which, of course, she was. “And you . . . like the kissing?”

Olivia nodded enthusiastically. “Oh, yes. He’s very good at it. I was surprised at first by his enthusiasm—”

In that moment, Pippa loathed the English language and all its euphemisms. “Enthusiasm?”

Olivia laughed. “In only the very best way . . . I’d kissed a few boys before—” She had? “—but I was a bit surprised by his . . .” She trailed off, waving her bejeweled hand in the air as if the gesture held all relevant meaning.

Pippa wanted to strangle her little sister. “By his . . .” she prompted.

Olivia lowered her voice to a whisper. “His expertise.”

“Elaborate.”

“Well, he has a very clever tongue.”

Pippa’s brow furrowed. “Tongue?”

At her shocked reply, Olivia pulled up straight. “Oh. You and Castleton haven’t kissed.”

Pippa frowned. What on earth did a man do with his tongue in such a situation? The tongue was an organ designed for eating and speaking. How did it play into kissing? Though, logically, mouths touching would make for tongues being rather near each other . . . but the idea was unsettling, honestly.

“ . . . I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised, of course,” Olivia went on.

Wait.

Pippa looked to her sister. “What?”

Olivia waved that rubied hand again. “I mean, it is Castleton.”

“There’s nothing wrong with Castleton,” Pippa defended. “He’s a kind, good man.” Even as she said the words, she knew what Olivia meant. What Mr. Cross had meant the day before, when he’d suggested that Castleton was a less-than-superior groom.

Castleton was a perfectly nice man, but he was not the kind who inspired kissing.

Certainly not with tongues.

Whatever that meant.

“Of course he is,” Olivia said, unaware of Pippa’s rioting thoughts. “He’s rich, too. Which helps.”

“I am not marrying him because he’s rich.”

Olivia’s attention snapped to Pippa. “Why are you marrying him?”

The question was not outrageous. “Because I have agreed to.”

“That’s not what I mean, and you know it.”

Pippa did know it, and there were any number of reasons why she was marrying him. All the things she’d told Olivia and Mr. Cross were true. The earl was good and kind and liked dogs. He appreciated Pippa’s intelligence and was willing to allow her full access to his estate and its inner workings. He might not be intelligent or terribly quick or very amusing, but he was better than most.

No, he was not what most women would deem a catch—not a viscount destined for prime minister like Olivia’s fiancé, and not a self-made marquess with a gaming hell and a wicked reputation like Penelope’s Bourne—but neither was he old like Victoria’s husband or absent like Valerie’s.

And he’d asked her.

She hesitated at the thought.

That, as well.

Philippa Marbury was odd, and Lord Castleton didn’t seem to mind.

But she didn’t want to say that aloud. Not to Olivia—the most ideal bride that ever there was, on the cusp of a love match with one of the most powerful men in Britain. So, instead, she said, “Perhaps he’s an excellent kisser.”

Olivia’s expression mirrored Pippa’s feelings on the matter. “Perhaps,” she said.

Not that Pippa would test the outlandish theory.

She couldn’t test it. She’d agreed to Mr. Cross’s wager. She’d promised.

A vision flashed, dice rolling across green baize, the warm touch of strong fingers, serious grey eyes, and a deep, powerful voice, insisting, You shall refrain from propositioning other men.

Pippa Marbury did not renege.

But this was something of an emergency, was it not? Olivia was kissing Tottenham, after all. No doubt kissing one’s fiancé was not within the bounds of the wager.

Was it?

Except she didn’t want to kiss her fiancé.

Pippa’s gaze fell to the rosebush on which she’d been so focused prior to her sister’s arrival . . . the lovely scientific discovery that paled in comparison to the information Olivia had just shared.

It was irrelevant that she did not wish to proposition Castleton.

And it was irrelevant that it was another man, altogether, whom she wished to proposition—especially so, considering the fact that he’d tossed her out of his club with utter disinterest.

As for the tightness she felt in her chest, Pippa was certain that it was not in response to the memory of that tall, fascinating man, but instead, normal bridal nervousness.

All brides were anxious.

“Twelve days cannot pass quickly enough!” Olivia pronounced, bored with their conversation and oblivious to Pippa’s thoughts.

All brides were anxious, it seemed, but Olivia.

Twenty-eight hours.” Digger Knight lazily checked his pocket watch before grinning smugly. “I confess, my blunt was on fewer than twelve.”

“I like to keep you guessing.” Cross shrugged out of his greatcoat and folded himself into an uncomfortable wooden chair on the far side of Knight’s massive desk. He tossed a pointed look over his shoulder at the henchman who had guarded his journey to Digger’s private offices. “Close the door.”

The pockmarked man closed the door.

“You are on the wrong side of it.”

The man sneered.

Knight laughed. “Leave us.” When they were finally alone, he said, “What can I say, my men are protective of me.”

Cross leaned back in the small chair, folding one leg over the other, refusing to allow the furniture to accomplish its goal—intimidation. “Your men are protective of their cut.”

Knight did not disagree. “Loyalty at any price.”

“A fine rule for a guttersnipe.”

Knight tilted his head. “You’re sayin’ your men aren’t loyal to the Angel for the money?”

“The Angel offers them more than financial security.”

“You, Bourne, and Chase never could resist a poor, ruined soul,” Knight scoffed, standing. “I always thought that particular job best left to the vicar. Gin?”

“I know better than to drink anything you serve.”

Knight hesitated in pouring his glass. “You think I’d poison you?”

“I don’t pretend to know what you’d do to me if given the chance.”

Knight smiled. “I’ve got plans for you alive, my boy.”

Cross did not like the knowledge in the words, the smug implication that he was on the wrong side of the table here—that he was about to be pulled into a high-risk game to which he did not know the rules. He took a moment to have a good look at the inside of Knight’s office.

He’d been here before, the last time six years earlier, and the rooms had not changed. They were still pristine and uncluttered, devoid of anything that might reveal their owner or his private life. On one side of the small room, heavy ledgers—insurance, Knight called them—were stacked carefully. Cross knew better than anyone what they contained: the financial history of every man who had ever played the tables at Knight’s eponymous gaming hell.

Cross knew, not only because a similar set of ledgers sat on the floor of his own offices, but also because he’d seen them that night, six years before, when Digger had thrown open one enormous book, his ham-fisted henchmen showing Cross the proof of his transgressions before they’d beaten him almost to death.

He hadn’t fought them.

In fact, he’d prayed for their success.

Knight had stopped them before they could finish their job and ordered Cross stripped of his money and thrown from the hell.

But not before setting Cross on a new path.

The older man had leaned in, ignoring Cross’s bruised face and his bloody clothes and broken ribs and fingers. You think I don’t see what you’re doing? How you’re playing me? I won’t kill you. It’s not your time.

Cross’s eyes had been swollen nearly shut, but he’d watched as Knight leaned in, all anger. But I won’t let you fleece me again, the older man had said. The way you feel right now . . . this is my insurance. You come back, it will get worse. Do yourself a favor and stay away before I have no choice but to destroy you.

He’d already been destroyed, but he’d stayed away nonetheless.

Until today.

“Why am I here?”

Knight returned to his chair and tossed back a swig of clear alcohol. With a wince, he said, “Your brother-in-law owes me ten thousand pounds.”

Years of practice kept Cross from revealing his shock. Ten thousand pounds was an exorbitant sum. More than most men would make in a lifetime. More than most peers would make in a year. In two. And definitely more than Baron Dunblade could ever repay. He’d already parceled off every bit of free land from the barony, and he had an income of two thousand pounds a year.

Two thousand, four hundred and thirty-five pounds, last year.

It wasn’t much, but it was enough to keep a roof over Dunblade’s wife’s and children’s heads. Enough to send his son to school, eventually. Enough to provide an illusion of respectability that allowed for the baron and baroness to receive coveted invitations from the rest of the ton.

Cross had made sure of it.

“How is that possible?”

Knight leaned back in his chair, rolling the crystal tumbler in his hands. “The man likes the tables. Who am I to stop him?”

Cross resisted the urge to reach across the table and grab the older man by the neck. “Ten thousand pounds is more than liking the tables, Digger. How did it happen?”

“It seems the man was given a line of credit he could not back.”

“He has never in his life had that kind of money.”

Knight’s tone turned innocent and grating. “He assured me he was good for it. I can’t be held responsible for the fact that the man lied.” He met Cross’s eyes, knowledge glittering there. “Some people can’t help it. You taught me that.”

The words were meant to sting—to recall that long-ago night when Cross, barely out of university, bright-eyed and cocksure, had played the tables at Knight’s and won. Over and over, he’d mastered vingt-et-un—unable to do anything but win.

He’d gone from hell to hell for months, playing one night here, two there, convincing every onlooker that he was simply lucky.

Every onlooker but Digger. “So this is your revenge? Six years in the making?”

Knight sighed. “Nonsense. I’m long past it. I never believed in revenge served cold. Always liked my meals hot. Better for the digestion.”

“Then clear the debt.”

Knight laughed, his fingers spreading wide over his mahogany desk. “We’re not that even, Cross. The debt stands. Dunblade’s a fool, but it doesn’t change the fact that I’m owed. It’s business, I’m sure you’ll ag

ree.” He paused for a long moment, then, “It’s a pity he’s a peer. Debtor’s prison might be better than what I have in store for him.”

Cross did not pretend to misunderstand. He ran a hell himself, after all, and knew better than anyone what secret punishments could be meted out to peers who thought themselves immune to debt. He leaned forward. “I can bring this place to rubble. We’ve half the peerage in our membership.”

Knight leaned forward as well. “I don’t need half the peerage, boy. I have your sister.”

Lavinia.

The only reason he was here.

A memory flashed, Lavinia, young and fresh-faced, laughing back at him as she pulled ahead on her favorite chestnut mare along the Devonshire cliffs. She was youngest by seven years, spoiled rotten and afraid of nothing. It was no surprise that she had come to face Knight. Lavinia had never been the kind to stay quiet—even when it was best for everyone.

She’d married Dunblade the year after Baine had died and Cross had left home; he’d read about the marriage in the papers, a fast courtship followed by an even faster wedding—via special license to skirt the issue of the family’s state of mourning. No doubt their father had wanted the marriage done quickly, to ensure that someone would marry his daughter.

Cross met Knight’s brilliant blue gaze. “She is not a part of this.”

“Oh, but she is. It is interesting how ladies manage to get themselves into trouble, isn’t it? No matter how hard one tries to keep her at bay, if a lady has it in mind to meddle, meddle she will,” Knight said, opening an ornate ebony box on his desk and extracting a cheroot and tapping the long brown cylinder, once, twice on the desk before lighting it. After a long pull on the cigarette, he said, “And you have two on your hands. Let’s talk about my new acquaintance. The lady from yesterday. Who is she?”

“She is no one of consequence.” Cross caught the misstep instantly. He should have ignored the question. Should have brushed past it. But his too-quick answer revealed more than it hid.

Knight tilted his head to one side, curious. “It seems that she is very much of consequence.”

Dammit. This was no place, no time for Philippa Marbury with her enormous blue eyes and her too-logical mind and her strange, tempting quirks. He pushed back the thoughts.