No Good Duke Goes Unpunished (The Rules of Scoundrels #3)(6)

“I did not know you slept here,” she said. “Nor did I expect you to be asleep at one o’clock in the afternoon.”

He raised a brow. “I work quite late.”

She nodded. “I imagine so. You really should purchase a bed, however.” She waved a hand toward his makeshift pallet. “That cannot be comfortable.”

She was steering them away from the topic at hand. And he wanted her out of his office. Immediately. “I am not interested, nor should you be, in aiding you in public ruination.”

Her gaze snapped to his, shock in her eyes. “I am not requesting public ruination.”

Cross liked to think he was a reasoned, intelligent man. He was fascinated by science and widely considered to be a mathematical genius. He could not sit a vingt-et-un game without counting cards, and he argued politics and the law with quiet, logical precision.

How was it, then, that he felt so much like an imbecile with this woman?

“Have you not, twice in the last twenty minutes, requested I ruin you?”

“Three times, really.” She tilted her head to the side. “Well, the last time, you said the word ruination, but I think it should count as a request.”

Like a complete imbecile.

“Three times, then.”

She nodded. “Yes. But not public ruination. That’s altogether different.”

He shook his head. “I find myself returning to my original diagnosis, Lady Philippa.”

She blinked. “Madness?”

“Precisely.”

She was silent for a long moment, and he could see her attempting to find the right words to sway him toward her request. She looked down at his desk, her gaze falling to a pair of heavy silver pendula sitting side by side. She reached out and set them in gentle motion. They watched the heavy weights sway in perfect synchrony for a long moment.

“Why do you have these?” she asked.

“I like the movement.” Their predictability. What moved in one direction would eventually move in the other. No questions. No surprises.

“So did Newton,” she said, simply, quietly, speaking more to herself than to him. “In fourteen days, I shall marry a man with whom I have little in common. I shall do it because it is what I am expected to do as a lady of society. I shall do it because it is what all of London is waiting for me to do. I shall do it because I don’t think there will ever be an opportunity for me to marry someone with whom I have more in common. And most importantly, I shall do it because I have agreed to, and I do not care for dishonesty.”

He watched her, wishing he could see her eyes without the shield of thick glass from her spectacles. She swallowed, a ripple of movement along the delicate column of her throat. “Why do you think you will not find someone with whom you have more in common?”

She looked up at him and said simply, “I’m odd.”

His brows rose, but he did not speak. He was not certain what one said in response to such an announcement.

She smiled at his hesitation. “You needn’t be gentlemanly about it. I’m not a fool. I’ve been odd my whole life. I should count my blessings that anyone is willing to marry me—and thank heavens that an earl wants to marry me. That he’s actually courted me.

“And, honestly, I’m quite happy with the way the future is shaping up. I shall move to Sussex and never be required to frequent Bond Street or ballrooms again. Lord Castleton has offered to give me space for my hothouse and my experiments, and he’s even asked me to help him manage the estate. I think he’s happy to have the assistance.”

Considering Castleton was a perfectly nice, perfectly unintelligent man, Cross imagined the earl was celebrating the fact that his brilliant fiancée was willing to run the family estate and save him the complications. “That sounds wonderful. Is he going to give you a pack of hounds as well?”

If she noticed the sarcasm in his words, she did not show it, and he found himself regretting the tone. “I expect so. I’m rather looking forward to it. I like dogs quite a bit.” She stopped, tilting her chin to the side, staring up at the ceiling for a moment before saying, “But I am concerned about the rest.”

He shouldn’t ask. Marriage vows were not a thing to which he’d ever given much thought. He certainly wasn’t going to start now. “The rest?”

She nodded. “I feel rather unprepared, honestly. I haven’t any idea about the activities that take place after the marriage . . . in the evening . . . in the bed of the marriage,” she added, as though he might not understand.

As though he did not have a very clear vision of this woman in her marriage bed.

“And to be honest, I find the marriage vows rather specious.”

His brows rose. “The vows?”

She nodded. “Well, the bit before the vows, to be specific.”

“I sense that specificity is of great importance to you.”

She smiled, and the office grew warmer. “You see? I knew you would make an excellent research associate.” He did not reply, and she filled the silence, reciting deliberately, “Marriage is not by any to be enterprised, nor taken in hand unadvisedly, lightly, or wantonly.”

He blinked.

“That is from the ceremony,” she explained.

It was, without a doubt, the only time someone had quoted the Book of Common Prayer in his office. Possibly, in the entire building. Ever. “That sounds reasonable.”