Her brows knit together in protest. “That’s an enormous wager.”
He tilted his head. “It is the only way you have a chance at gaining my participation.”
Pippa considered the words, calculating the probability of the roll in her head. “I don’t like my odds. I only have a twenty-two and two-tenths chance of winning.”
He raised a brow, clearly impressed. Ha. Not a muttonhead after all.
“That’s where luck comes in,” he said.
“That force in which you do not believe?”
He lifted one shoulder in a lanky shrug. “I could be wrong.”
“What if I choose not to wager?”
He crossed his arms. “Then you force me to tell Bourne everything.”
“You cannot!”
“I can, indeed, my lady. I had planned not to, but the reality is this: You cannot be trusted to keep yourself safe. It falls to those around you to do it for you.”
“You could keep me safe by agreeing to my proposal,” she pointed out.
He smiled, and the flash of his white teeth sent a very strange sensation spiraling through her—as though she were in a carriage that had taken a turn too quickly. “It’s much easier for Bourne to accomplish the task. Besides, I like the idea of his locking you in a tower until your wedding day. It would keep you away from here.”
From him. She found she didn’t care much for the thought.
She narrowed her gaze on him. “You are making this my only choice.”
“You are not the first gamer to feel that way. You won’t be the last.”
She rattled the dice. “Fine. Anything other than a seven or an eleven, and I shall go home.”
“And you shall refrain from propositioning other men,” he prompted.
“It was not nearly so salacious as you make it out to be,” she said.
“It was salacious enough.”
He had been nearly naked. That bit had been fantastically salacious. She felt her cheeks warm and nodded once. “Very well. I will refrain from asking any other men to assist in my research.”
He seemed satisfied with the vow. “Roll.”
She took a deep breath, steeling herself for the moment, her heart pounding as she tossed the ivory dice, watching as one knocked into the curved mahogany bumper at the opposite end, bouncing back to land near its sister on a large, white C—the beginning of the word Chance, curling down the table in extravagant script.
Nine.
Chance, indeed.
She had lost.
She put her hands to the cool wood of the table, leaning in, as though she could will one die to keep turning until the game was hers.
She lifted her gaze to her opponent’s.
“Alea iacta est,” he said.
The die is cast. The words Caesar had spoken as he marched to war with Rome. Of course, Caesar’s risk had won him an empire; Pippa’s had lost her this last, fleeting opportunity for knowledge.
“I lost,” she said, not knowing what else to say.
“You did.”
“I wanted to win,” she added, disappointment coursing through her, harsh and unfamiliar.
“I know.” He lifted one hand to her cheek, the movement distracting her from the dice, suddenly making her desperate for something else altogether. She caught her breath at the rushing sensation—a flood of something indescribable in her chest.
His long fingers tempted but didn’t touch, leaving a trail of heat where they almost were. “I am collecting, Lady Philippa,” he said, softly. Collecting. The word was more than the sum of its letters. She was suddenly, keenly aware that he could name his price. That she would pay it.
She met his grey eyes in the dim light. “I only wished to know about marriage.”
He tilted his head, one ginger lock falling over his brow. “It’s the most common thing in the world. Why does it worry you so?”
Because she didn’t understand it.
She kept quiet.
After a long moment, he said, “It is time for you to go home.”
She opened her mouth to speak, to try to convince him that the wager had been silly, to convince him to let her stay, but at the precise moment, his hand moved, tracing the column of her neck, the nearly-there touch an undelivered promise. Her plea was lost in a strange, consuming desire for contact. She caught her breath, resisting the urge to move toward him.
“Pippa,” he whispered, and there was a hint of something there in the name . . . something she could not place. She was having trouble thinking at all. He was so close. Too close and somehow not close enough.
“Go home, darling,” he said, his fingers finally, finally settling, featherlight, on the place where her pulse pounded. Somehow giving her everything and nothing she wanted all at once. She leaned into the caress without thought, wanting more. Wanting to refuse.
He removed his hand instantly—before she could revel in the brush of his fingers—and for a mad, fleeting moment, she considered reaching for him and returning his touch to her person.
How fascinating.
How terrifying.
She took a deep breath and stepped back. A foot, two. Five, as he crossed his arms in a tightly controlled movement she was coming to identify as specific to him. “This is not the place for you.”
And as she watched him, feeling an unsettling, nearly irresistible pull to remain in the club, she realized that this place was far more than she had bargained.
Chapter Four
“The roses have sprouted—two perfect pink buds, right off the stalk of a red bush, as hypothesized. I would be deeply proud of the accomplishment if I had not failed so thoroughly in avenues of non-botanical research.