No Good Duke Goes Unpunished (The Rules of Scoundrels #3)(116)

“Is she well?”

“She’ll be sporting a purple eye . . . not exactly the most fitting of accessories for a bride.”

She’d still be beautiful. “I don’t mean the eye. I mean . . .” What did he mean?

“You mean, did she weep and wail the whole way home?”

Oh God. Had she? He felt ill.

Temple took pity on him. “No. As a matter of fact, she was grave as granite. Didn’t speak at all.”

He couldn’t have known it, but that was the worst thing Temple could have said. The idea of inquisitive, chatty Pippa without words made Cross ache. “Not at all?” he asked.

Temple met his gaze. “Not a word.”

He’d hurt her.

She’d begged him to stay. To love her. To be with her. And he’d refused, knowing he was not for her. Knowing someone else would make her happy. That she would heal. She had to. “She’ll heal,” he said quietly, as though saying it aloud could make it true.

She would heal, and she would be happy.

And that would be enough for him.

Wouldn’t it?

Chase broke the silence. “She may heal . . . but will you?”

Cross snapped his head up, met first Chase’s gaze, then Temple’s.

And, for the first time in an eternity, he told the truth.

“No.”

He’d actually thought he could resist her pull. He thought back to that first morning in his office, when they’d discussed the coupled pendula, the steel drops moving away from, then toward each other, ever drawn together.

He wanted her. Forever.

He was already headed for the door.

Chase and Temple watched as Cross left the room, desperation propelling him toward the woman he loved before it was too late.

Chase poured two tumblers of scotch and passed one crystal glass to Temple. “To love?”

Temple considered the door for a long moment, and drank without speaking.

“No toast?”

“Not to love,” Temple said wryly. “Women may be warm and welcome . . . but they’re not to be trusted.”

“Now that you’ve said it, you know what that means.” Temple raised a black row as Chase toasted him with a grin. “You’re next.”

Cross covered half of London that morning, having left the Angel and gone straight to Dolby House, thinking he could catch Pippa before she left for the ceremony.

Before she made the biggest mistake of his life.

When he’d arrived there, a very stern butler pronounced that the entire family was not at home. Not, celebrating the marriage of the young ladies of the house. Not even, at church. Simply, not at home.

If Cross hadn’t been so terrified that he’d missed her, he would have laughed at the ridiculous moment—utterly aristocratic in its understatement. Instead, he’d returned to his curricle with a single goal. Get to the church. Immediately.

Immediately on London mornings was easier spoken than done, and by the time he turned down Piccadilly into what appeared to be a never-ending throng of traffic, he’d had enough. Did no one in this entire town understand that the woman he loved was marrying another?

And so, he did what any self-respecting gentleman would do: he left the damned carriage in the middle of the street and took off at a dead run.

Thank heavens for bipedal locomotion.

Moments later, he turned the corner to the final peal of church bells, signifying the call to service at St. George’s.

He tore toward the church, stopping traffic with height and determination, and very likely the fact that few ever raced through Mayfair.

Few ever had anywhere so very important to be.

Few ever had anyone so very important to love.

He climbed the stone steps to the church door two at a time, suddenly quite desperate to be quick about it, in case he missed the bit where he was to now speak, else hereafter forever hold his peace.

Not that he would forever hold his peace if he were too late.

Indeed, he wasn’t leaving this church until he could forever hold Philippa Marbury—soon to be Philippa Arlesey, Countess Harlow if he had anything to do with it.

His hand came to the steel handle, and with a deep breath, he tugged open the door, unlocking the low drone of a minister.

The wedding had begun.

“Dammit,” he said, muscles tensing, ready to carry him straight down the aisle and into Pippa’s arms, damn Castleton, damn the congregation, damn the minister if any of them thought to stop him.

“You shouldn’t curse in church.”

He froze at the words, which came from behind him.

She was several feet away, by one of the great stone columns that marked the exterior gallery of the church.

Not inside.

Not at the altar.

Not marrying Castleton.

The door closed once more, leaving them in the cold, grey quiet, and he couldn’t stop himself. He reached out and pulled her to him, lifting her from the ground, holding her close enough to feel the heat of her through a half dozen layers of clothing, close enough to revel in her smell and her shape and the way she gave herself up to him whenever he touched her. And there, on the steps of St. George’s, in full view of God and London, he kissed her, loving her little sighs and the flexing of her fingers as she threaded them through his hair and forgot that the entire city could see them.