“Pippa!” he yelled, tossing himself into the fray, pulling men from the place where he had last seen her, tossing them aside until he found her, curled into a ball, hands around her head, a heavy boot connecting with her stomach.
He roared his anger, grasping her unwitting attacker by the collar and planting his fist in the man’s face once, twice, before Temple caught up with him. “Let me have him,” Temple said. “You see to your lady.”
Your lady.
She was his.
Would ever be.
He turned the man over to Temple without a second glance, crouching to uncover Pippa’s face, where one lens of her spectacles had been smashed and a wicked red streak had already bloomed high on one cheek. Suppressing his rage, he stroked his fingers carefully across the place where she’d clearly received a blow. “Can you move?”
She nodded, shaky, and he lifted her in his arms—not caring that he was revealing her as something more than a strange, thin man in an ill-fitting suit—protecting her.
She pressed her face to his neck. “My hat—”
It had been lost in the fray, and her blond hair was loose around her shoulders. “Too late for it now,” he said, desperate for escape.
But there was nowhere to go. Everywhere he looked were angry throngs of gamblers, desperate for their winnings, frustration and greed and his and Temple’s attacks turning them into a terrifying, raging horde.
Moving as quickly as he could, he crouched and pushed Pippa beneath the hazard table where Castleton had started it all, taking a boot to the ribs with a wince before climbing into the space with her, covering her with his body and wrapping his arms about her head to keep her from errant blows.
“Temple—” she said, struggling beneath him.
“Will be fine,” he assured her, adoring the way that she cared for his friend. “He’s a professional fighter—he shall love every minute of this. At least until I have a moment to tear him limb from limb for allowing you to carry out this utterly insane scheme.” He stroked her hair back. “Let me look.”
“It was not insane!” she protested, turning her wound toward him, one hand coming up to test the swelling at her eye. “Ow.”
He ran his fingers over the red welt once more, hating the way she winced. “Gorgeous girl . . .” he whispered, removing her glasses and pressing a kiss to her temple, the corner of her lips, the soft skin at the side of her neck. She was safe. He let out a ragged breath, and said, “I should thrash you.”
“Why me?” she said, eyes wide.
He shot a look at thundering boots beyond the table. “You started a riot.”
“Not on purpose,” she defended, turning to look. “I hypothesized that they would leave, not stampede.”
At another time, when he was less worried for her safety, he would have smiled at the words. Not now. “Well, your hypothesis was incorrect.”
“I see that now.” She paused. “And technically, you started the riot.”
“I thought you were—” He stopped, a chill racing through him. “Pippa, if anything had happened to you . . . You could have been killed,” he thundered, his muscles trembling under the strain of his worry and his desire to do something—to return to the fray and fight until the fear was gone, until she was safe.
“I was with Temple,” she whispered.
“Temple isn’t enough. Temple cannot keep you safe,” he said into her hair, letting himself feel gratitude that he’d found her before all this happened, before Knight or half a dozen other nefarious characters discovered her. “Temple doesn’t love you,” he said.
She stilled beneath him, raising one hand to his cheek. “And you do?”
He wouldn’t say it. Shouldn’t even think it. It would only make things worse. Worse than being trapped in the middle of a riot, alone, beneath a hazard table for God knew how long with the most irresistible woman in Britain. In Europe. On Earth.
Yes. Yes, I love you. Yes, I want you.
“You are a troublesome woman.”
When he opened his eyes, she was beaming at him. “I always have been.”
Before he could reply, Maggie fell to her knees several yards away, pushed over by what looked like another battalion of gamblers. She caught herself on her hands and Pippa gasped, and Cross hesitated, knowing he should go to the other woman and protect her, but not wanting to leave Pippa here. “She’ll be trampled!” she cried, and Cross had just started to move when another came to Maggie’s aid, strong arms sheltering her as the gentleman helped her to safety beneath a nearby table.
It was Castleton.
Cross raised a brow. “It looks as though your fiancé is more than any of us imagined.”
Pippa smiled at the other man, sending Cross’s gut twisting unpleasantly. “He’s a good man.”
I’m better.
How he wanted to say it, but it was false.
He wasn’t better, and now Castleton was proving it with his heroics.
She would be safe with him.
Pippa turned blue eyes on him. “You kissed her.”
“I did.”
Her gaze narrowed. “I did not care for that.”
“I had to.”
She nodded. “I know. But I still did not care for it.” And with that, she reached up and kissed him, pressing her soft, pink lips to his, stroking her tongue across his firm bottom lip until he groaned and tilted his head and took control of the caress. One last moment. One last kiss. One last taste of Pippa before he lived out the rest of his days without her.
She pulled away when they were both breathless. “I love you, Jasper,” she whispered against his lips, and the words were weapons against his coiled, steeled strength.
“Don’t,” he whispered. “I’m not for you. My life, my history, my world . . . none of it is for you. Loving me will only get you ruined.”
He should have known better than to believe that his impassioned plea would change anything. Instead, his perfect Pippa rolled her eyes, and said, “You idiot man. I’m already ruined. You ruined me for all others that morning in your office. I’m not marrying Castleton; I’m going to marry you.”
Yes. Every ounce of him wanted to scream assent.
Every ounce but the shred of decency he found hidden deep in his core. “For a woman with legendary sense, you seem to be struggling not a small amount to come to it. Can you not see that I would make you a terrible husband? Worse than Castleton ever would.”
“I don’t care,” she said, firm and full of those convictions he’d come to adore. “I love you.”
He closed his eyes at the words, at the way they rocketed through him, all honesty and promise. And perfection.
“No you don’t,” he said again, even as a part of him longed to pull her into his arms and reciprocate again and again, over and over, forever. He’d live here, under this hazard table, if he could guarantee she would live here with him.
But look at what he’d done to her.
She was here. In a gaming hell—a lower hell, designed for people and things far more base than anything she’d ever dreamed. He hated that she was here, only slightly less than he hated himself for being the reason she was here. She’d run the tables on one of the longest-standing gaming hells in the city, as though she were born a cheat and a swindler.
And he loved her more for it.
But he’d turned her into this, and she would come to hate it. Hate him for it. And one day she’d realize it, and he would be too far gone in love with her to suffer it. “This is the most dishonest thing you’ve ever done,” he said. “Orchestrating a run on a casino; stealing from a man; causing a riot, for God’s sake. You once told me that you did not approve of dishonesty . . . Look at what I’ve turned you into. Look at how I’ve ruined you.”
“You’ve done nothing of the sort. You’ve proven to me that black and white are not the only two options. You’ve made me realize that there is more than honest and dishonest, than lies and truth. What he’s done . . . stealing your life, blackmailing you, forcing you into a future you do not want . . . all that is dishonest. What is honest is that I love you. And that I will do anything to keep you from being forced into a life you will hate. I would do it again and again and again without an ounce of regret. Without a moment of it.”
“You don’t mean that.”
“Stop telling me what I mean!” she said, strong as steel, her hands on his chest. “Stop telling me what is best for me. What will make me happy . . . I know what will make me happy—you. And you come with this life . . . this fascinating, magnificent life. And it will make me happy, Jasper. It will make me happy because it is yours.”
“Two weeks ago, you wouldn’t have said that. You wouldn’t have dreamed of running the tables of a casino. Of falsifying wins. Of ruining a man.”
“Two weeks ago I was a different woman,” she said. “So simple!”
He’d never once thought her simple.
“And you were a different man,” she added.
Truth. She’d made him infinitely better. But he remained infinitely worse than what she deserved. She deserved better than him. So much better.
“No,” he lied, wishing he could be away from her. Wishing he were not pressed against her, desperate for her. “I am the same, Pippa. I haven’t changed.”
Her eyes went wide at the words—at the blow in them—and before he could apologize, he saw the change in them. The way she believed him. His lie. The biggest he’d ever told.
After a long moment, she spoke, the words catching in her throat. “Stealing your life. Forcing you into a future you do not want, that’s what I’ve done, isn’t it? That’s what I have done to you. What I would be doing if I forced you to marry me? I’m no worse than Knight.”
He wanted to tell her the truth—that she’d not stolen his life, but made it infinitely better. That she hadn’t forced him into anything except falling for her, a beautiful, brilliant lady. But he knew better. Knew that she deserved someone with more to offer than a gaming hell and a tarnished title. She deserved someone who was right and honorable and who would give her everything she ever wanted. Everything she would ever need.
Everything but love.
No one would ever love her the way he loved her. No one would ever celebrate her the way he celebrated her. No one would ever honor her the way he honored her.
He honored her.
And because of that, he did what he knew was right, instead of the thing he wanted desperately to do.
Instead of grabbing her to him, tossing her over his shoulder, and marching away with her forever . . . he gave her back the life she deserved.
“That’s what you’ve done,” he said, the words bitter on his tongue. “I told you once that marriage was not for me. That love was not for me. I don’t want it.”
Her face fell, and he hated himself for hurting her even as he reminded himself that she was his great work. That this would save her. That this would give her the life she deserved.
It would be the one thing he could be proud of.
Even if it hurt like hell.
“Castleton will marry you tomorrow,” he said, perhaps to her . . . perhaps to himself. “He will protect you.” His gaze flickered to the earl, trapped beneath a nearby table with Maggie, arms wrapped around her head. “He protected you tonight, did he not?”
She opened her mouth to say something, then stopped and shook her head, sadness in her blue eyes. “I don’t want him,” she whispered. “I want you.”
The confession was raw and ragged and, for a moment, he thought it might wreck him with desire and longing and love. But he had spent six years mastering his desires, six years that served him well as he shook his head and drove the knife home, uncertain of whose heart he pierced.
I love you so much, Pippa.
So very much.
But I am not worthy of you.
You deserve so much more. So much better.
“I am not an option.”
She was quiet for a long moment, and tears welled in her beautiful blue eyes—tears that did not fall. Tears she would not let fall.
And then she said precisely what he’d hoped she’d say.
What he’d hoped she wouldn’t say.
“So be it.”
Chapter Nineteen
Discovery:
Logic does not always rule the day.
The Scientific Journal of Lady Philippa Marbury
April 4, 1831; the morning of her wedding
Cross stood at the window of the owners’ suite at the Angel the next morning, watching as the maids below extinguished candles across the floor of the casino, casting hell into darkness. He often watched this work, enjoying the organized process, the way the great chandeliers were lowered to the floor, the flames extinguished, and the wax replaced in preparation for the evening’s revelry.
There was order to it. Dark followed light inside the hell even as light followed dark in the world beyond. Fundamental truths.
He placed one wide palm against the stained glass, swirling the scotch in the crystal tumbler in his hand. He’d poured the drink an hour earlier, after he’d smuggled Pippa from Knight’s and left her in Temple’s care, trusting his friend to return her home.
Knowing he would never be able to do the same.
He pressed his forehead to the cool glass, staring down into the pit, watching as Justin stacked dice in neat rows along the edge of one hazard table.
She’d saved him that evening, a veritable Boadicea, with her sharp mind and her weighted dice—his weighted dice, he imagined—and her stacked decks and magnetic roulette wheel. As though it were a simple piece of scientific research, she’d controlled the pit of Knight’s with the ease and comfort of a lifelong gamer.