No Good Duke Goes Unpunished (The Rules of Scoundrels #3)(117)

He broke the kiss before it consumed them both and pulled away, cupping her face in his hands. “I love you.” She sucked in a breath at the words, and he ran his thumb gently across the wicked bruise that encircled one of her enormous blue eyes. “My God,” he whispered, consumed by emotion, before he repeated, “I love you so much.”

She shook her head, tears welling. “You never said it.”

“I’m an idiot.”

“You are, rather.”

He gave a little laugh and kissed her again, softly, lingering on her lips, wishing they were anywhere but here, in about the most public place in Mayfair. “I never believed I was worthy,” he said, placing a finger over her lips when she started to speak—to correct him. “I never believed I was worthy of my family . . . of my sister . . . of happiness. And then you came along and made me realize that I am utterly, completely unworthy of you.”

She grabbed his finger, pulled it away. “You’re wrong.”

He smiled. “I’m not. There are a hundred men—many of whom are inside that church right now—who deserve you more. But I don’t care. I’m a greedy bastard, and I want you for myself. I can’t imagine a life without you and your unsettling logic and your beautiful mind and your terribly named hound.”

She smiled at that, and he could breathe again, thinking for a moment that he might win her. That he might succeed. The thought pushed him on. “And I don’t care that I’m unworthy of you. Which probably makes me the worst kind of man . . . precisely the kind of man whom you should not marry. But I vow here and now that I will do everything I can to make myself worthy of you. Of your honesty and your kindness and your love.”

He paused, and she did not speak . . . staring up at him, eyes enormous behind her spectacles.

His salvation. His hope. His love.

“I need you, Pippa . . .” he said, the words soft and ragged. “I need you to be my Orpheus. I need you to lead me out of Hell.”

The tears in her eyes spilled over then, and she threw herself into his embrace. He wrapped her tight in his arms and she whispered in his ear, “Don’t you see? I need you, as well. Two weeks, I’ve struggled under the weight of what you do to me . . . what you make me feel. How you own me, body and soul.” She pulled back, meeting his gaze. “I need you, Cross or Jasper or Harlow or whoever you are. I need you to love me.”

And he would. Forever.

He kissed her again, filling the caress with everything he felt, with everything he believed, with everything he vowed. When it ended, they were both breathing heavily, and he pressed his forehead to hers once more. “You did not marry him.”

“I told you; I couldn’t.” She paused, then, “What were you going to do?”

He wrapped her in his arms again, caring only for being near her. For keeping her close. “Whatever it took.”

“You would have stopped Olivia’s wedding?” She sounded shocked.

“Do you think she would have forgiven me?”

She smiled. “Absolutely not.”

“Do you think you would have forgiven me?”

“Absolutely. But I’d already stopped the wedding.” She grimaced toward the door. “There shall be wicked gossip when everyone realizes it . . . but at least Olivia will be a viscountess by then.”

He’d repair it. He’d make Tottenham prime minister and Olivia the most powerful woman in England.

And he’d make Pippa a countess for the ages.

“You wouldn’t have married him,” he said, rocked by gratitude to whatever higher power had brought her to him. Had kept her from marrying the wrong man.

“I told you once that I do not care for dishonesty,” she said. “And there is nothing more dishonest, I find, than pledging to love one man when I have given my heart entirely to another.”

She loved him.

“It seems impossible,” he whispered, “that you might love me.”

She came up on her toes and pressed a kiss to the point of his chin. No one had ever kissed him there. No one had ever loved him as she did. “How strange,” she said, “as it seems quite impossible that I might not love you.”

They kissed again, long and lush, until his options were end the caress or throw her down onto the great stone steps of Mayfair’s parish church and have his way with her. With regret, he chose the first option, breaking the kiss.

Her eyes remained closed for a long moment, and he stared down at this beautiful, brilliant woman who was to be his forever, quiet satisfaction like he’d never known spreading warm and welcome through him.

“I love you, Philippa Marbury,” he whispered.

She sighed and smiled and opened her eyes. “Do you know, I’ve always heard people say they heard bells ringing when they were very very happy . . . but I’ve always thought it an aural impossibility. And yet . . . now . . .”

He nodded, loving her thoroughly, his strange, scientific beauty. “I hear them, too.” And he kissed her.

The smartest couple in London did hear bells—a happy, cacophonous symphony celebrating the end of the marriage ceremony uniting the new Viscount and Viscountess Tottenham . . . a ceremony both Pippa and Cross seemed to have forgotten.

They were forced to remember, however, when the doors to the church opened, and half the aristocracy poured out into the grey April morning, desperate and finally, finally able to gossip about the most important part of the double wedding—one missing bride—only to discover the lady in question was not missing at all. Indeed, she was right outside the church. In the arms of a man to whom she was not affianced.