No Good Duke Goes Unpunished (The Rules of Scoundrels #3)(46)

Pippa seemed to forget her question about Bourne. Thank heaven. “It’s very kind of you to come to my defense.”

Sally Tasser had spent too long on the streets for kindness. The prostitute did nothing that would not advance her cause. The only reason she was willing to cross Knight was because the Angel offered to pay her triple the amount she received from her current benefactor.

Cross made sure she understood his thoughts with nothing more than a look.

“Sally is leaving, Lady Philippa.” The words came out more harshly than he’d intended. But a man could only be pushed so far.

For a moment, he thought both women would fight him. And then, Sally smiled, tilting her head and turning her coyest smile on him. “Well, someone should answer the lady’s questions.”

Pippa nodded. “It’s true. I will not leave without it.”

The words were out before he could stop them. “I shall answer them.”

Sally looked immensely pleased.

Shit.

There was nothing he wanted to do less than to answer the questions Philippa Marbury had collected in preparation for her lessons from a prostitute.

Pippa’s gaze narrowed. “I don’t know.”

“Cross is highly skilled,” Sally said, extracting herself from Pippa’s grasp, fairly purring the rest. “He knows all your answers, I’m sure.”

Pippa cut him a doubtful look that made him want to prove the prostitute right this very moment.

Sally noticed the exchange and turned a bright, knowing smile on him. “Isn’t that right, Cross? I’m certain you don’t need my help. Aren’t you?”

“I’m certain.” He felt as uncertain as Pippa looked.

“Excellent. I shall see you tomorrow, as planned, then.”

He nodded once.

She turned to Pippa. “It was wonderful meeting you, Lady Philippa. I hope we have the chance to meet again.”

Not if he had anything to say about it.

Once Sally had disappeared through a dark passageway to a rear entrance to the club, he rounded on Philippa. “What would possess you to lie in wait for a prostitute inside a casino?”

There was a long silence, and Cross wondered if she might not reply, which wouldn’t be terrible, as he had had more than enough of her insanity.

But she did reply, eyes wide, voice strong, advancing on him, stalking him across the floor of the casino. “You don’t seem to understand my predicament, Mr. Cross. I have eleven days before I have to take vows before God and man relating to half a dozen things of which I have no knowledge. You and the rest of Christendom—including my sisters, apparently—would have no trouble at all with such an act, but I do have difficulty with it. How am I to take vows that I don’t understand? How am I to marry without knowing all of it? How am I to vow to be a sound wife to Castleton and a mother to his children when I lack the rudimentary understanding of the acts in question?”

She paused, adding as an aside, “Well, I do have the experience from the bull in Coldharbour, but . . . it’s not entirely relevant understanding, as Penelope and you have both pointed out. Can’t you see? I only have eleven days. And I need every one of them.”

He backed into the hazard table, and she kept coming. “I need them. I need the knowledge they can give me. The understanding they can afford. I need every bit of information I can glean—if not from you, then from Miss Tasser. Or others. I have promised to be a wife and mother. And I have a great deal of research to do on the subject.”

She was breathing heavily when she stopped, eyes bright, cheeks flushed, and the skin of her pale br**sts straining against the edge of her rose-colored gown. He was transfixed by her, by her passionate concern and her commitment to her ridiculous solution—as though understanding the mechanics of sex would change everything. Would make the next eleven days easy, and the next eleven years even easier. Of course, it wouldn’t.

Knowledge wasn’t enough.

He knew that better than anyone.

“You can’t know everything, Pippa.”

“I can know more than I do,” she retorted.

He smiled at that, and she took a step back, staring up at him, then down at her widespread hands. There was something so vulnerable about her. Something he did not like.

When she returned her unblinking gaze to his and said, “I am going to be a wife,” he had the wicked urge to ferret her into one of the club’s secret rooms and keep her there.

Possibly forever.

A wife. He hated the idea of her as a wife. As Castleton’s wife. As anyone’s.

“And a mother.”

A vision flashed, Pippa surrounded by children. Beaming, bespectacled children, each fascinated with some aspect of the world, listening carefully as she explained the science of the Earth and the heavens to them.

She would be a remarkable mother.

No. He wouldn’t think on that. He didn’t like to consider it.

“Most wives don’t frequent prostitutes to develop their skills. And you have time for maternal research.”

“She seemed as good a research partner as any, considering you’ve already cut my pool of possibilities in half. After all, you have not been helping. Is she your paramour?”

He ignored the question. “Prostitutes seemed a reasonable next step in your plan?”