“But you can ask me?”
She blinked up at him. “You are different. You are not the kind of man one marries. It’s easier to . . . well . . . engage in a candid discussion of my research with you.” She smiled. “You are a man of science, after all.”
There it was, again. That certainty that he would keep her safe.
That he was in control. Always.
You should tell her.
Sally’s words echoed through him, mocking and correct.
He should tell her. But it wasn’t precisely the kind of thing one told a young, beautiful woman standing by and begging for lessons in ruination.
At least, not an ordinary young woman in such a situation.
But Philippa Marbury was nothing close to ordinary.
Telling her the truth would push her away. And that would be best. For all involved.
Especially him.
Pippa shook her head. “He’ll say no. Don’t you see? There’s no one. No one but Miss Tasser.”
She was wrong, of course.
“There is me,” he said, the words out before he knew they were coming. Her eyes went wide, and she met his gaze.
There was a beat as she heard the words. Their meaning. “You,” she said.
He smiled. “Now it is you repeating me.”
She matched his smile, and he felt the expression deep in his gut. “So I am.”
Perhaps he could do this.
Lord knew he owed it to her, owed it to her for allowing her into the clutches of Knight and Sally and Temple and God knew whoever else she’d met while inside the casino. He owed it to Bourne to keep her safe.
Excuses.
He paused at the thought. Perhaps they were excuses. Perhaps he just wanted a reason to be near her. To talk to her, this bizarre, brilliant woman who threw him off axis every chance she got.
It would be torture, yes.
But Lord knew he deserved torture.
He had to move. Away from her.
He crossed to a hazard table, lifting a pair of dice and testing their weight in his hand. She followed without prompting, moving past him in a cloud of softness scented with fresh linens. How was it that she smelled like sunshine and fresh air even here in darkness? Surrounded by sin and vice?
She had to leave. She was too much temptation for him to bear.
Unaware of his thoughts, she turned her open, fresh face up to him. “I have a number of questions. For example, Madame Hebert has committed to making me nightclothes that she swears will tempt Castleton into seducing me. Can nightclothes do the trick?”
The words were an assault, consuming him with the idea of blond, lithe Pippa in a silk-and-lace creation designed to send men completely over the edge. Something with a devastating number of ribbons, each one in a perfect little bow that, when untied, revealed a patch of soft, warm skin—a luxurious, unbearable present.
A present worthy of the wrapping.
“I don’t think they will be enough,” she said, distracted.
He was certain they would be too much.
“And what of Miss Tasser’s smolder? Can you teach me to do that? It seems like it will help. With the tempting.”
He didn’t look at her. He couldn’t. But he also couldn’t stop himself from saying, “You don’t need to smolder.”
She paused. “I don’t?”
“No. You are tempting in a different way.”
“I am?”
You should tell her.
Before she tempted him anymore.
But he couldn’t.
He met her gaze. “You are.”
Her eyes were wide as saucers behind those maddening spectacles. “I am?”
He smiled. “You are repeating me again.”
She was quiet for a moment. “You won’t change your mind, will you?”
“No.” The idea of her finding another was altogether unacceptable.
Not when it could be him. Not when he could show her pleasure that would shatter her innocence and thoroughly, completely ruin her. He wanted to give her everything for which she asked.
And more.
Like that, the decision was made. “No. I shan’t renege.”
She let out a long breath, and the sound slid through him in the quiet room, making him wonder what else would tempt that little exhalation.
“I should have known that. Gentlemen do not renege.”
“In this case, neither do scoundrels.”
“I don’t understand.”
“The rules of gentlemen insist that honor keep them from reneging, even during a bad bet,” he explained, tempted to smooth the furrow on her brow, resisting it. “The rules of scoundrels insist one only wager if one can win.”
“Which—” She hesitated. “Which are you?”
He could give her the knowledge without giving in to his own desires. Without relinquishing his own commitments. Without relinquishing his own control.
He stepped forward, crowding her. “Which do you think?”
She stepped back. “A gentleman.”
Without touching her.
Because he knew, without a doubt, that after six years of celibacy, if he touched Philippa Marbury, he would not survive it.
Scoundrel.
“Tomorrow. Nine o’clock.”
Chapter Eight
“Astronomy has never been my forte, but I find myself considering the scope of the universe today. If our Sun is one of millions of stars, who is to say that Galileo was not right? That there is not another Earth far away on the edge of another Galaxy? And who is to say there is not another Philippa Marbury, ten days before her wedding, waiting for her knowledge to expand?
It’s irrelevant, of course. Even if there were a duplicate Earth in some far-off corner of the universe, I’m still to be married in ten days.
And so is the other Pippa.”
The Scientific Journal of Lady Philippa Marbury
March 26, 1831; ten days prior to her wedding
The next evening, Pippa sat on a small bench perched just outside a collection of cherry trees in the Dolby House gardens, cloak wrapped tightly about her, Trotula at her feet, stargazing.
Or, at least, attempting to stargaze.
She’d been outside for more than an hour, having finally given up on feigning illness and escaping the house once supper had been officially served, preferring outside to inside, even on this cold March night.
She was too excited.
Tonight, she would learn about seduction.
From Cross.
She took a deep breath and released it, then another, hoping they would calm her racing thoughts. They did not. They were clouded with visions of Mr. Cross, of the way he looked as he glowered at her across the floor of his gaming hell, the way he smiled at her in the darkness, the way he crowded her in his office.
It wasn’t him, of course. She would feel this way if anyone had promised her the lesson he’d promised.
Liar.
She exhaled long and loud.
The breathing was not helping.
She looked over her shoulder at the dim light trickling down from the Dolby House dining room. Yes, it was best that she spend the time leading up to their meeting alone in the cold rather than going mad at a meal with her parents and Olivia, who would no doubt be discussing the particulars of “The Wedding” at that exact moment.
A vision flashed from the previous afternoon, Olivia resplendent in her wedding gown, glowing with the excitement of prenuptial bliss, Pippa’s reflection in the mirror behind, smaller and dimmer in the wake of her younger, more luminous sister.
The Wedding would be remarkable. One for the ages. Or, at least the gossips.
It would be just what the Marchioness of Needham and Dolby had always dreamed—an enormous, formal ceremony designed to showcase the pomp and circumstance befitting the Marbury daughters’ birth. It would erase the memory of the two previous weddings of the generation: Victoria and Valerie’s double wedding to uninspiring mates, performed hastily in the wake of Penelope’s scandalous, broken engagement, and, more recently, Penelope’s wedding, performed by special license in the village chapel near the Needham country estate the day after Bourne had returned from wherever it was he’d gone for a decade.
Of course, they all knew where Bourne had gone.
He’d gone to The Fallen Angel.
With Mr. Cross.
Fascinating, unnerving Mr. Cross, who was beginning to unsettle her even when she was not near him. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes, assessing the change that came over her when she was in proximity—either mental or physical—to the tall, ginger-haired man who had begrudgingly agreed to assist her in her quest.
Her heart seemed to race, her breath coming more shallowly. More quickly.
Her muscles tensed and her nerves seemed to hover at attention.
She grew warm . . . or was that cold?
Either way, they were all signs of heightened awareness. Symptoms of excitement. Or nervousness. Or fear.
She was being overly dramatic. There was nothing to fear from this man—he was a man of science. In utter control at all times.
The perfect research associate.
Nothing more.
It did not matter that the research in question was somewhat unorthodox. It was research nonetheless.
She took another breath and withdrew the watch from her reticule, holding it up to read its face in the dim light seeping through the windows of the ground-floor sitting room.
“It’s nine o’clock.” The words were soft, rising out of the darkness, and Trotula leapt to her feet to greet the newcomer, giving Pippa a chance to address the thundering of her heart. Later, she would wonder at the fact that she was breathless, but not startled, instead something different. Something more.
In the moment, however, there was only one thing she could think.
He had come.
She smiled, watching him crouch to greet her hound. “You are very punctual.”
His task completed, he rose and sat next to her, close enough to unsettle, far enough away to avoid contact. Out of the corner of her eye, she realized how long his thighs were—nearly half again the length of her own, pulling the wool of his trousers tight along lean muscle and bone. She should not be considering his thighs.
Femurs.
“And yet, you are waiting for me.”
She turned to him to find him watching the sky, face shadowed in the darkness, leaning back on the bench as though they had been sitting there all night, as though they might sit there still, all night. She followed his gaze. “I’ve been here for more than an hour.”
“In the cold?”
“It’s the best time for stargazing, don’t you think? Cold nights are always so much clearer.”
“There’s a reason for that.”
She turned to face him. “Is there?”
He did not look to her. “There are fewer stars in the winter sky. How is your toe?”
“Right as rain. You are an astronomer as well as a mathematician?”
He turned to face her, finally, half his face cast into shadowy light from the manor beyond. “You are a horticulturalist as well as an anatomist?”
She smiled. “We are surprising, aren’t we?”
His lips twitched. “We are.”
A long moment stretched out between them before he turned away again, returning his attention to the sky. “What were you looking at?”
She pointed to a bright star. “Polaris.”
He shook his head, and pointed to another part of the sky. “That’s Polaris. You were looking at Vega.”
She chuckled. “Ah. No wonder I was finding it unimpressive.”
He leaned back and stretched his long legs out. “It’s the fifth brightest star in the sky.”
She laughed. “You forget I am one of five sisters. In my world, fifth brightest is last. She looked up. “With apologies to the star in question, of course.”
“And are you often last?”
She shrugged. “Sometimes. It is not a pleasant ranking.”
“I assure you, Pippa. You are rarely last.”
He had not moved except to turn his head and look at her, the angles of his face hard and unforgiving in the darkness, sending a shiver of something unfamiliar through her. “Be careful what you say. I shall have to tell Penny that you find her lacking.”
He turned a surprised look on her. “I didn’t say that.”
“She’s the only one of my sisters whom you’ve met. If I am not last, then in your mind, she must trail behind.”
One side of his mouth kicked up. “In that case, let’s not recount this conversation to anyone else.”
“I can agree to that.” She returned her attention to the sky. “Tell me about this magnificent, fifth-best star.”
When he spoke, she could hear the laughter in his deep voice, and she resisted the urge to look at him. “Vega belongs to the constellation Lyra, so named because Ptolemy believed it looked like Orpheus’s lyre.”
She couldn’t resist teasing him, “You’re an expert in the classics, as well, I gather?”
“You mean you are not?” he retorted, drawing a laugh from her before adding, “Orpheus is one of my favorites.”
She looked to him. “Why?”
His gaze was locked on the night sky. “He made a terrible mistake and paid dearly for it.”
With the words, everything grew more serious. “Eurydice,” she whispered. She knew the story of Orpheus and his wife, whom he loved more than anything and lost to the Underworld.
He was quiet for a long moment, and she thought he might not speak. When he did, the words were flat and emotionless. “He convinced Hades to let her go, to return her to the living. All he had to do was lead her out without looking back into Hell.”
“But he couldn’t,” Pippa said, mind racing.
“He grew greedy and looked back. He lost her forever.” He paused, then repeated, “A terrible mistake.”