No Good Duke Goes Unpunished (The Rules of Scoundrels #3)(61)

If he were to kiss her, Cross would take great pleasure in destroying him.

It took every ounce of his strength to keep from leaping over the table, lifting her in his arms, pressing her back against the wall, and ravishing her. He opened his mouth to speak, not knowing what would come, but knowing, without a doubt, that if she said one more perfectly reasonable, rational, insane thing, he would not be able to resist her.

Before either of them could speak, there was a knock at the door, and he was saved.

Or perhaps ruined.

Either way, Pippa was saved.

They both looked to the door, surprised and confused by the sound for an instant before he was moving to open it, using his tall frame to block the view into the room.

Chase stood on the other side of the door.

“What is it?” Cross snapped. Smirking, Chase attempted to see past him into the room. Cross narrowed the gap between door and jamb. “Chase,” he warned.

There was no mistaking the smug laughter in Chase’s brown eyes. “Hiding something?”

“What do you want?”

“You have a visitor.”

“I am otherwise occupied.”

“Intriguing.” Chase attempted another look into the room, and Cross could not help the low, unintelligible threat that came at the movement. “Did you just growl? How primitive.”

Cross did not rise to his friend’s bait. “Tell someone to handle it. Handle it yourself.”

“As the it in this scenario is your . . . Lavinia, I am not certain you would like me handling it.”

Lavinia.

Surely he’d misunderstood. “Lavinia?”

“She is here.”

She couldn’t be. She wouldn’t risk herself. She wouldn’t risk her children. Fury flared, hot and quick. “Are we simply allowing entry to every woman in London these days?”

Chase was still attempting to see inside the room. “Some of us are more to blame for the recent rash of peeresses than others. She is in your office.”

Cross swore, harsh and soft.

“Shame on you. In front of a lady, no less.”

He closed the door on Chase’s smug face, turning to Pippa.

What a disaster.

She and his sister, under the same, scandalous roof, and it was his fault.

Goddammit.

He was losing control of the situation, and he did not care for it.

She had edged closer, her curiosity making her brave, and she was only a few feet from him. Two minutes earlier, and he would have closed the distance and kissed her senseless.

But Chase’s intrusion was best for both of them, clearly.

Perhaps he could will it to be true.

He had to deal with his sister.

Now.

“I shall be back.”

Her eyes went wide. “You’re leaving me?”

“Not for long.”

She took a step toward him. “But you didn’t answer my question.”

Thank God for that.

He took a step back, reaching for the handle of the door. “I will be back,” he repeated. “You’re safe here.” He opened the door a crack, knowing that there was little he could do. Lavinia could not be left alone in the casino.

Not that Pippa was entirely trustworthy. Indeed, this lady could wreak no small amount of havoc if she were left to her own devices here, on the Other Side.

For a moment, he hovered between staying and going, finally meeting her big blue eyes and saying in his most commanding tone, “Stay.”

Lord, deliver him from women.

Did he think her a hound?

Pippa circled the hazard table, absently collecting the dice and rotating them over and over in the palm of her hand.

She hadn’t heard much, but she’d heard Cross say her name.

Felt the keen disappointment that came—altogether irrationally—with the syllables on his tongue.

He’d left her, for another woman. For Lavinia. The woman from the gardens.

With nothing more than a masterful, “Stay.”

And he hadn’t even answered her question.

She hesitated, turning to face one long edge of the table, placing her hands on the finely carved mahogany bumper that kept the dice from rolling right off the table and clattering to the floor. She tossed the dice that she had been clutching in frustration, not watching as they knocked against the wood and tumbled to a stop.

The man would learn quickly that she was in no way houndlike.

Leaning over the table, she stared long and hard at the hazard field, mind racing, the green baize, with its white and red markings, blurring as she considered her next course of action. For she certainly was not going to stand by and wait in this tiny, constricting chamber as all manner of excitements occurred in the club beyond.

Not while he scurried off to do whatever it was scoundrels did with women for whom they pined.

And he certainly pined for this Lavinia person.

He’d pined enough that he’d met her clandestinely, at Pippa’s betrothal ball. He’d pined enough that he chased after her today. And he clearly pined enough that honoring his commitment to Pippa was easily forgotten in Lavinia’s presence.

Suddenly, her chest felt quite tight.

Pippa coughed, standing straight, her gaze falling on the closed door to the little room where he’d left her. She lifted one hand to her chest, running her fingers along the bare skin above the edge of the wool bodice, attempting to ease the discomfort.