I do have some questions. He wouldn’t like to know she’d said that.
He took a step toward her, blocking her exit. “How, precisely?”
She looked up at him, feeling more guilty than she should. After all, it wasn’t as though she’d tossed herself into the man’s arms. “Did you proposition him?”
“No!” She did not hesitate. She hadn’t. Exactly.
He heard the thought as though she’d screamed it. “I’m not certain I believe you. After all, you propositioned me not thirty minutes ago.”
“It’s not the same, and you know it.” If you’d said yes, I wouldn’t be in this situation.
“No?” He rocked back on his heels.
“No!” She exhaled on a huff of displeasure. “You were part of a plan.” A plan you then thoroughly mucked up.
His gaze was narrowed on her, as though he could hear her thoughts. “I suppose that makes sense in a strange way.” He turned away from her, stalking across the dark floor of the club, tossing back, “I suggest you return home and await your brother-in-law, Lady Philippa; he will no doubt come looking for you when I tell him that you’re a complete madwoman.”
He could not tell Bourne. Bourne would tell Father, and Father would lock her away in Surrey until the morning of the wedding. Without question. And Pippa would be without the information she required. Without the security knowledge brought. Without the safety of it. She could not allow it.
“No!” she cried across the room.
He turned back, his tone dark. “You are under the mistaken impression that I am interested in doing your bidding, my lady.”
She hesitated. “I didn’t approach him. There’s no harm done. I shall go. Please . . . don’t tell Bourne.”
She might not have said the words at all for the way he ignored her, his gaze having fallen on the hazard table. On the dice she’d left, forgotten, on its mahogany edge.
She took a step toward him, and his gaze swung to meet hers, powerful and direct. She caught her breath. Stilled. “Your dice?”
She nodded. “Yes.”
“You wagered?”
“I had been about to,” she said, the words coming quickly. “When a man doth to Rome come, so to speak.”
He ignored her quip. “With Knight?”
“With myself.”
“The terms?”
“I hadn’t decided. I thought . . . perhaps—” She stopped herself, the heat of her embarrassment washing through her. “Perhaps I could . . .”
His gaze turned searing. “You could . . . ?”
She looked to the dice. “I could redouble my efforts to garner your assistance.”
“With your ruination.”
Well. When he put it like that, in this big room, it sounded much more scandalous than before. “Yes.”
“And if not that? What? You’d go home and wait to be married like a good girl?”
He made her sound like a child. As though her entire plan were idiotic. Did he not see that it was imperative? That it was science? “I hadn’t decided,” she said, smartly. “But I rather think I would have considered alternate opportunities. It’s London in season. There is no shortage of rakes to be found to assist me.”
“You’re as much trouble as your sister is,” he said, flatly.
Confusion flared. “Penelope?”
“The very same.”
Impossible. Penelope was proper in every way. She never would have come here unescorted. She shook her head. “Penelope isn’t any trouble at all.”
One ginger brow cocked in wry disbelief. “I doubt Bourne would agree. Either way, Digger Knight is in no way a viable candidate for such a thing. You would do best to run far and fast should you ever see him again.”
“Who is he?”
“No one whom you should have ever encountered.” He scowled. Good. Why should she be the only one to be irritated? “You did not roll.”
“I did not,” she said. “I’m sure you count yourself very lucky indeed for that. After all, what if I had won?”
His eyes darkened. “I would have been a win?”
She nodded. “Of course. You were the research associate of choice. But as I never had a chance to wager, you may count yourself very lucky indeed,” she said, lifting her skirts to leave as elegantly as possible.
“I count myself no such thing. I don’t believe in luck.”
She dropped her skirts. “You run a casino, and you don’t believe in luck?”
He half smiled. “It’s because I run a casino that I don’t believe in it. Especially with dice. There are odds in this game. But the truth, Lady Philippa, is that even odds would have had no bearing on your roll. It is impossible to wager against oneself.”
“Nonsense.”
He leaned back against the table. “There is no risk in it. If the outcome is what you desire, there is no loss. And if the outcome is not what you desire . . . you may simply renege. With none to hold you accountable, there is no reason to follow through on the results.”
She straightened her shoulders. “I would hold myself accountable. I told you. I dislike dishonesty.”
“And you never lie to yourself?”
“Nor to others.”
“That alone proves that you are in no way prepared for that for which you would have wagered.”
“You find honesty to be an impediment?”
“A wicked one. The world is full of liars, Lady Philippa. Liars and cheats and every sort of scoundrel.”