No Good Duke Goes Unpunished (The Rules of Scoundrels #3)(81)

“I was invited.”

Nothing scared Pippa Marbury. “You shouldn’t have come.”

“No one can see me. I’m masked.”

He reached up for the mask in question, running his fingers along the delicate curving piece, all fine metalwork and architecture. Of course, Chase would have considered her spectacles. Chase considered everything. A thread of irritation began to unfurl in Cross’s chest, adding a harshness to his next words. “What would possess you to accept this invitation? Anything could happen to you here. Tonight.”

“I came to see you.”

The words were soft and simple and unexpected, and Cross had to pause for a moment to take them in. “To see me,” he repeated, like the imbecile into which he turned whenever she was around.

She nodded once. “I am angry with you.”

She didn’t sound it. And that was how he knew it was true. Pippa Marbury wouldn’t suffer ire the way other women would. Instead, she would develop the emotion and consider it from all angles before acting on it. And with that uncommon precision, she would take her opponent off guard as easily as if she’d launched a sneak attack in the dead of night.

“I am sorry,” he said, in the interest of self-preservation.

“For what?” she asked. He paused. No woman had ever asked him that. At his lack of reply, she added, “You don’t know.”

Not accusation. Fact.

“I don’t.”

“You lied to me.”

He had. “About what?”

“I take your question to mean that you’ve done it more than once,” she said.

He couldn’t see her eyes through the mask, and he wanted to tear it from her face for this conversation.

No, he didn’t. He didn’t want to have this conversation at all.

He wanted her to go home and get into bed and behave like a normal, aristocratic lady. He wanted her to be locked in a room until she became Lady Castleton and left London and his thoughts forever.

It appeared that he lied to himself, too.

He released her shoulders, loathing the loss of her soft skin.

“You’re an earl.”

The words were quiet, but the accusation in them was undeniable.

“I don’t like to think on it much.”

“Earl Harlow.”

He resisted the urge to wince. “I like to hear it even less.”

“Did you enjoy making a fool of me? Embarrassing me? All that mistering? And when I told you that if you’d been an aristocrat, I wouldn’t have asked for your help? Did you laugh uproariously after I left you that night?”

After she’d left him that night, he’d been utterly destroyed and desperate to be near her again. Laughing had been the farthest thing from his mind. “No,” he said, knowing he should add something else. Knowing there was more to be said. But he couldn’t find it, so he repeated, “No.”

“And I am to believe that?”

“It is the truth.”

“Just like the fact that you are an earl.”

He wasn’t entirely certain why this was such a frustration for her. “Yes. I’m an earl.”

She laughed, the sound devoid of humor. “Earl Harlow.”

He pretended it didn’t bother him, the name on her lips. “It’s not as though it’s a secret . . .”

“It was a secret to me,” she defended.

“Half of London knows it.”

“Not my half!” Now she was growing irritated.

As was he. “Your half was never meant to know. Your half never needed to know.”

“I should have known. You should have told me.”

He shouldn’t feel guilty. He shouldn’t feel beholden to her. He shouldn’t feel so out of control. “Why? You already have an earl. What good are two?”

Where in hell had that come from?

She stiffened in the darkness, and he felt low and base and wrong. And he hated that she could make him feel that way. He wanted to see her eyes. “Remove your mask.”

“No.” And that’s when he heard it. The sting in her voice. The edge of sorrow. “Your sister was right.”

The words shocked him. “My sister?”

“She warned me off you. Told me you never followed your word . . . told me never to believe you.” Her voice was low and soft, as though she wasn’t speaking to him, but to herself. “I shouldn’t have believed in you.”

He heard the addition of the in. Hated it. Lashed out at her. “Why did you, then? Why did you believe in me?”

She looked up at him, seeming surprised by his words. “I thought—” she began, then stopped. Rephrased. “You saw me.”

What in hell did that mean?

He didn’t ask. She was already explaining. “You listened to me. You heard me. You didn’t mind that I was odd. In fact, you seemed to enjoy it.”

He did enjoy it. By God, he wanted to bask in it.

She shook her head. “I wanted to believe that someone could do all those things. Perhaps, if you did . . . then . . .”

She trailed off, but he heard the words as though she’d shouted them. Then Castleton might.

If he hadn’t already felt like a dozen kinds of ass, he would now. “Pippa.” He reached for her again, knowing he shouldn’t. Knowing that this time he could not resist touching her. And he might not be able to resist claiming her.