“Of course it is!” he burst out, spinning away from her. “It’s all mine. I’ve spent the last six years trying to rewrite it, but that is my past. It’s my legacy. I am the contact for the girls at the Angel . . . I choose to be. I try to keep them safe. The second they want out . . . the moment they choose another life for themselves, I help them. They come to me; I get them out. I’ve helped dozens of them . . . found places for them, work that can be done on their feet instead of their back. Country estates where they can be safe . . . every one of them a placeholder for her.”
For the sister he could not save, whose life he’d destroyed.
For the brother whose life he’d taken as surely as if he’d crashed the damn carriage himself.
“It’s not your fault,” she said again. “You couldn’t have known.”
He’d thought the words a hundred times. A million. But they never comforted. “If Baine were earl . . . he would have heirs. He would have sons. He would have the life he deserved.”
“The life you deserve as well.”
The words came on a vision of that life. Of those little blond, bespectacled girls and laughing boys capturing frogs in the heat of a Devonshire summer. Of their mother. Of his wife. “That’s where you’re wrong. I don’t deserve it. I stole it from him. I robbed it from him while I was in the arms of his mistress.”
She stilled at the words. “His mistress. That’s why you didn’t touch me. Didn’t kiss me. Why you don’t . . . with other women.” How the hell did she know that? She answered before he could ask the question. “The lady at the card table . . . and Miss Tasser . . . they both implied that . . .”
Dammit. “Did they.” It was not a question.
She pinned him with that knowing blue gaze. “Is it true?”
He could lie. He’d spent half a decade convincing London that he hadn’t stopped the rakish behavior. That he’d made women his life’s work. He could lie, and she’d never discover the truth.
But he did not want to lie to her. Not about this. “It’s been six years.”
“Since you’ve lain with a woman?”
He did not speak, and the truth was in the silence.
She pressed on, eyes wide. “Since you’ve lain with any woman?”
She sounded so shocked. “Any woman.”
“But . . . your reputation. You’re a legendary lover!”
He inclined his head. “I told you that you should not believe everything you hear in ladies’ salons.”
“Forgive me, but if I remember correctly, you did divest me of my clothes without the use of your hands.”
The image of her in his office, draped over his chair, flashed. More welcome than he’d ever admit. He met her gaze. “Luck.”
“You don’t believe in it.”
She was incredible. His perfect match.
“Six years without touching a woman,” she said in awe.
He paused. “Until tonight.”
“Until me,” she breathed.
He wanted to share that breath, to touch her again. “I can’t stop myself with you.”
Her lips curved into a smile of utter feminine satisfaction, and Cross was instantly heavy and stiff, even as he renewed his vow not to take her. Not to lose himself in her. Not even now, when she owned him inch by unworthy inch.
“It is your punishment, then? Your penance? Celibacy?”
“Yes.” On her lips, it sounded idiotic. Celibacy had no place near Philippa Marbury. Not when she was so obviously made for him.
Fifteen minutes in an alcove at the Angel had not been enough.
A lifetime would not be enough.
“I cannot. Not with you, Pippa. You’re to be married.”
She hesitated, then whispered, “To another.”
He ached at the words. “Yes. To another.”
“Just as you are.”
“Yes.” His ultimate penance.
She lifted one hand, settling the soft palm on his cheek and he could not resist capturing it with his own hand, holding her touch there. Savoring it. “Jasper.” His given name whispered through him, and he loved it on her lips. Wanted to hear it over and over again, forever. If he were another man, he might have a chance to.
But he had to leave her.
She was not his to touch.
“Jasper,” she whispered again, coming up on her bare toes, wrapping her other hand around his neck, pressing her beautiful body against him, nothing but a scrap of linen between his hands and her soft, lovely skin.
He shouldn’t.
Every inch of him ached for her—the product of too long a time without her followed by too brief a time with her. He wanted to lift her and throw her onto her bed and take her . . . just once.
It would never be enough.
“If you really want to save me . . .” she whispered, her lips disastrously close.
“I do,” he confessed. “God help me . . . I can’t bear the thought of you hurt.”
“But you have hurt me. You hurt me even now.” Her voice was low and soft, with a thread of irresistible wickedness he did not expect.
His hands came around her waist, adoring the heat of her through her night rail. “Tell me how to stop it,” he said . . . knowing the answer.
“Want me,” she said.
“I do.” He had wanted her since the moment he met her. Since before. “I want every inch of you . . . I want your mind and body and soul.” He hesitated, the words an ache in the room. “I have never wanted anything like you.”
Her fingers slid into his hair, tangling in the strands. “Touch me.”