One Good Earl Deserves a Lover

Bang.

Bang bang.

She cast a furtive look about the massive room. Surely someone heard the clatter. A maid, a kitchen girl, the bespectacled gentleman who had facilitated her own entrance?

Bang bang bang.

No one appeared to be in hearing distance.

Perhaps she should fetch Mr. Cross?

The thought gave her pause. Or, rather, the way the thought brought with it a vision of Mr. Cross’s disheveled ginger hair standing at haphazard angles before he ran his fingers through it and restored it to right gave her pause. The strange increase of her heartbeat at the thought gave her pause. She wrinkled her nose. She did not care for that increase. It was not altogether comfortable.

Bangbangbangbangbang.

The person at the door seemed to be losing patience. And redoubling commitment.

Clearly, his or her matter was urgent.

Pippa headed for the door, which was masked behind a set of heavy velvet curtains that hung from twenty feet up, solid mahogany standing barely open, shielding a small, dark entryway, quiet and unsettling—a River Styx between the club and the outside world.

She moved through the blackness to the exterior steel door, even larger than its interior partner, closed against the day beyond. In the dim light, she ran her hand along the seam where door met jamb, disliking the way the darkness suggested that someone could reach out and touch her without her ever even knowing he was there. She threw one bolt and another before turning the massive handle built into the door and pulling it open, closing her eyes instinctively against the grey March afternoon that seemed somehow like the brightest summer day after her time in the Angel.

“Well, I’ll tell you, I hadn’t expected such a pretty greeting.”

Pippa opened her eyes at the lecherous words, raising her hand to help her vision adjust to the light.

There were few things she could say with certainty about the man in front of her, classic black hat banded in scarlet silk and tilted to one side, silver-tipped walking stick in one hand, broad-shouldered, and handsomely dressed, but she knew this—he was no gentleman.

In fact, no man, gentle or otherwise, had ever smiled at her the way this man did—as though he were a fox, and she were a hen. As though she were a houseful of hens. As though, if she weren’t careful, he would eat her and wander off down St. James’s with a feather caught in his wide, smiling teeth.

He fairly oozed reprobate.

Any intelligent woman would run from him, and Pippa was nothing if not intelligent. She stepped backward, returning to the darkness of the Angel.

He followed.

“Yer a much better door-man than the usual lot. They never let me in.”

Pippa said the first thing that came to mind. “I am not a door-man.”

His ice blue eyes glowed at the words. “You are no kind of man, love. Ol’ Digger can see that.”

The exterior door closed with a loud bang, and Pippa started at the noise, backing toward the hell once more. When her back came up against the interior door, she edged through, pushing aside the curtains.

He followed.

“Perhaps you’re The Fallen Angel herself, then?”

Pippa shook her head.

It seemed to be the answer he was looking for, his teeth flashing in the dim light of the casino floor. He lowered his voice until it was more rumble than sound. “Would you like to be?”

The question hovered in the fast-closing space between them, distracting her. She might not know this man, but she knew, instinctively, that behind his weathered smile he was a rogue and perhaps a scoundrel, and that he knew much about vice in all forms—knowledge she had been seeking when she’d arrived here not an hour ago, prepared to request it from another man. A man who had shown absolutely no interest in imparting it.

So when this man, wicked and carefree, questioned her, she did as she always did. She answered him truthfully. “As a matter of fact, I do have some questions.”

She surprised him. His strange blue eyes widened just barely before narrowing in a wide, jolly grin. He laughed, bright and bold. “Excellent!” he boomed, and reached for her, wrapping one strong arm about her waist and pulling her to him, as though she were a rag doll and he a too-eager child. “I’ve answers aplenty, pet.”

Pippa did not like it, the feeling of being possessed by this too-bold man, and she reached out to brace herself against his chest, her heart pounding even as she realized that she might have said the entirely wrong thing to the entirely wrong person. He thought she wanted to . . .

“My lord,” she rushed to stop him. “I did not mean . . .”

“While I’m no lord, moppet, I should certainly like to be yours,” he laughed, pressing his face into her neck. Pippa struggled against the caress, trying not to inhale. He smelled of perspiration and something sweet. The combination was not pleasant.

She turned her head away, pushing against his chest again, wishing she’d thought this entire thing through slightly more clearly before leaping to converse with this man. He laughed and pulled her closer, promising her more than she’d bargained for with the tightening of his arms and the press of his soft lips against the curve of her shoulder. “C’mon, love, Uncle Digger’ll take care of you.”

“I am not certain the caring to which you refer is at all unclelike,” Pippa pointed out, trying to be as stern as possible as she attempted to extricate herself from his embrace. She looked around wildly; surely there was someone in this massive building who was willing to help her. Where was that someone?

Digger was laughing again. “Yer an exciting one, aren’t you?”