One Good Earl Deserves a Lover

Pippa Marbury did not renege.

But this was something of an emergency, was it not? Olivia was kissing Tottenham, after all. No doubt kissing one’s fiancé was not within the bounds of the wager.

Was it?

Except she didn’t want to kiss her fiancé.

Pippa’s gaze fell to the rosebush on which she’d been so focused prior to her sister’s arrival . . . the lovely scientific discovery that paled in comparison to the information Olivia had just shared.

It was irrelevant that she did not wish to proposition Castleton.

And it was irrelevant that it was another man, altogether, whom she wished to proposition—especially so, considering the fact that he’d tossed her out of his club with utter disinterest.

As for the tightness she felt in her chest, Pippa was certain that it was not in response to the memory of that tall, fascinating man, but instead, normal bridal nervousness.

All brides were anxious.

“Twelve days cannot pass quickly enough!” Olivia pronounced, bored with their conversation and oblivious to Pippa’s thoughts.

All brides were anxious, it seemed, but Olivia.

Twenty-eight hours.” Digger Knight lazily checked his pocket watch before grinning smugly. “I confess, my blunt was on fewer than twelve.”

“I like to keep you guessing.” Cross shrugged out of his greatcoat and folded himself into an uncomfortable wooden chair on the far side of Knight’s massive desk. He tossed a pointed look over his shoulder at the henchman who had guarded his journey to Digger’s private offices. “Close the door.”

The pockmarked man closed the door.

“You are on the wrong side of it.”

The man sneered.

Knight laughed. “Leave us.” When they were finally alone, he said, “What can I say, my men are protective of me.”

Cross leaned back in the small chair, folding one leg over the other, refusing to allow the furniture to accomplish its goal—intimidation. “Your men are protective of their cut.”

Knight did not disagree. “Loyalty at any price.”

“A fine rule for a guttersnipe.”

Knight tilted his head. “You’re sayin’ your men aren’t loyal to the Angel for the money?”

“The Angel offers them more than financial security.”

“You, Bourne, and Chase never could resist a poor, ruined soul,” Knight scoffed, standing. “I always thought that particular job best left to the vicar. Gin?”

“I know better than to drink anything you serve.”

Knight hesitated in pouring his glass. “You think I’d poison you?”

“I don’t pretend to know what you’d do to me if given the chance.”

Knight smiled. “I’ve got plans for you alive, my boy.”

Cross did not like the knowledge in the words, the smug implication that he was on the wrong side of the table here—that he was about to be pulled into a high-risk game to which he did not know the rules. He took a moment to have a good look at the inside of Knight’s office.

He’d been here before, the last time six years earlier, and the rooms had not changed. They were still pristine and uncluttered, devoid of anything that might reveal their owner or his private life. On one side of the small room, heavy ledgers—insurance, Knight called them—were stacked carefully. Cross knew better than anyone what they contained: the financial history of every man who had ever played the tables at Knight’s eponymous gaming hell.

Cross knew, not only because a similar set of ledgers sat on the floor of his own offices, but also because he’d seen them that night, six years before, when Digger had thrown open one enormous book, his ham-fisted henchmen showing Cross the proof of his transgressions before they’d beaten him almost to death.

He hadn’t fought them.

In fact, he’d prayed for their success.

Knight had stopped them before they could finish their job and ordered Cross stripped of his money and thrown from the hell.

But not before setting Cross on a new path.

The older man had leaned in, ignoring Cross’s bruised face and his bloody clothes and broken ribs and fingers. You think I don’t see what you’re doing? How you’re playing me? I won’t kill you. It’s not your time.

Cross’s eyes had been swollen nearly shut, but he’d watched as Knight leaned in, all anger. But I won’t let you fleece me again, the older man had said. The way you feel right now . . . this is my insurance. You come back, it will get worse. Do yourself a favor and stay away before I have no choice but to destroy you.

He’d already been destroyed, but he’d stayed away nonetheless.

Until today.

“Why am I here?”

Knight returned to his chair and tossed back a swig of clear alcohol. With a wince, he said, “Your brother-in-law owes me ten thousand pounds.”

Years of practice kept Cross from revealing his shock. Ten thousand pounds was an exorbitant sum. More than most men would make in a lifetime. More than most peers would make in a year. In two. And definitely more than Baron Dunblade could ever repay. He’d already parceled off every bit of free land from the barony, and he had an income of two thousand pounds a year.

Two thousand, four hundred and thirty-five pounds, last year.

It wasn’t much, but it was enough to keep a roof over Dunblade’s wife’s and children’s heads. Enough to send his son to school, eventually. Enough to provide an illusion of respectability that allowed for the baron and baroness to receive coveted invitations from the rest of the ton.

Cross had made sure of it.