No Good Duke Goes Unpunished (The Rules of Scoundrels #3)(110)

But Maggie pitied him as well. “I am sorry it is with me,” she said, all sympathy.

She did not deserve him, either.

He huffed a little, humorless laugh. “It seems I am destined to disappoint women.”

She did not reply, and he leaned down to kiss her, briefly, but the caress was enough to impress the crowd, who did not notice that it was devoid of emotion.

Lie. There was emotion. Guilt. Self-loathing. Betrayal. A dark, devastating sense of wrong. She was not Pippa. She was not his. She never would be.

Maggie would live in the shadow of his brilliant, bespectacled love, a prisoner of his desire to do what was right for one woman even as he destroyed the prospects of another.

Goddammit.

“And now”—Knight rapped his walking stick on the table once more, the blows returning Cross back to the present—“get back to losing money!”

Even that received a cheer on this night of nights, when whiskey flowed freely and the tables called, and the whole of Knight’s membership celebrated their leader’s great triumph.

Cross stood for a long moment on that table, waiting for Maggie and Knight to descend, looking over the casino floor as Knight’s pockmarked second hand drew him away to the back office for some matter of business.

Cross was happy to be rid of his father-in-law, and took calm pleasure in the way the roulette wheel was already spinning, the cards already flying across the baize, dice already rolling down tables; Knight commanded a casino the way Wellington had commanded a battalion—there was money to be made, and it would be done with speed and efficiency.

It was the vingt-et-un table that caught his eye first, five seated across from the dealer, each with an ace or a face card up, the dealer staring at a two. The game went fast; not one man hit. On the flop, every player had twenty or higher.

A near mathematical impossibility.

The thought was chased away by a cheer to his left, where a hazard table celebrated a successful roll, the dice in midpass down the table toward the roller. Cross watched the next toss. Six. Three. “Nine again!” the croupier called.

His heart began to pound.

He came down from the table, distracted by the game, unable to keep himself from watching the next cast. Six. Three. “Huzzah!” those watching the game cried.

“What luck!” called the gamer in possession of the dice, turning to face his growing crowd, his face shielded from Cross. “I’ve never been so lucky!”

“Who is it?” a voice asked at his shoulder.

“If you can believe it,” came the response, “it’s Castleton.”

“Lucky bastard!” Disbelief.

“Well, he’s to marry tomorrow . . . so he deserves one night of bachelorhood to tide him over, don’t you think?”

Castleton.

Married tomorrow.

For a moment, Cross forgot the thread of uncertainty that had drawn him to the game, distracted by the reminder that Pippa was to marry tomorrow. This man, who stood at a hazard table.

Six. Three.

Winning.

Something was off.

He raised his head, scanning the crowd, his attention called to the door to the back rooms, where a great, hulking man towered above the rest of the room.

His brows knit together.

What in hell was Temple doing here?

“Two hundred and fifty quid on number twenty-three!” Christopher Lowe made an exorbitant bet at the roulette wheel to Cross’s right, and Cross could not help but turn to watch as the ball rolled in the track, around and around until it landed in a red groove.

Twenty-three.

The entire table cheered; Lowe had risked a fortune, and won nearly nine thousand pounds.

Lowe, who had never won a single thing in his life.

“What did I say?” the young man crowed. “I’m lucky tonight, lads!”

There’s no such thing as luck.

Something was off.

He pushed through the crowd, each person with whom he came into contact more and more elated with the breathlessness of winning, with the excitement of the flop of the ace, the roll of the hard six, the spin of the wheel, which seemed to be stuck on red . . . everyone ignoring him as he passed among their masses until they finally parted and he had a clear view of Temple, several yards away.

The massive partner of The Fallen Angel was not alone. At his side stood a reedy younger man in an evening suit that hung a touch too large on his shoulders. The man wore a cap pulled low over his brow, making it impossible for Cross to see his face . . . there was something familiar about the way he carried himself. Something unsettling.

It was only when the stranger turned to speak in the ear of one of Knight’s girls, passing her a little pouch, that Cross saw the glint of gold at his temple.

Spectacles.

At her temple.

Philippa.

She turned to him, as though he’d said her name aloud, and smiled an enormous, brilliant smile—one that made his blood pound and his heart ache. How had he ever even imagined that she was a man? She looked scandalous and beautiful and absolutely devastating, and he was suddenly quite desperate to get to her. To touch her. To kiss her. To keep her safe.

Not that it made him want to murder her any less.

He reached for her instinctively, and Temple stepped in, placing enormous hands on Cross’s chest, and said, “Not now. If you touch her, everyone will guess.”