One Good Earl Deserves a Lover

She put them on quickly and huffed a little sigh. “I cannot wear the mask. It will not fit.” She hated the pout in her voice. She sounded like Olivia.

She wrinkled her nose and met his gaze.

He did not speak, instead reaching out to straighten the glasses on her nose without touching her. They hovered there, in silence, for a long moment before he said, softly, “I should have thought of that.”

She shook her head. “I’m sure you’ve never had such a problem before . . .” A vision of Sally Tasser flashed, the beautiful, perfectly sighted woman who would have no difficulty whatsoever wearing a mask and achieving flawless mystery.

The only thing Pippa achieved flawlessly was peculiarity.

And suddenly, she was keenly aware that this world, this night, this experience was not for her. It was a mistake. Orpheus looking back into Hell.

“I should not be here,” she said, meeting his gaze, expecting to see satisfaction there—relief that she had finally given up.

But she did not see relief. Instead, she saw something else. Something firm and unyielding. “We shall just have to be careful in a different way.” He started for the club, the expectation that she should follow clear.

As they approached the great steel door that marked the rear entrance to the hell, a second carriage came trundling down the alleyway, stopping several yards from the conveyance in which they had arrived. A servant stepped down as the carriage door swung open from within on a collection of feminine laughter.

Pippa stopped at the sound, turning toward it.

Mr. Cross swore, low and wicked and grabbed her by the hand before she could resist, spinning her back against the outer wall of the club and blocking her from view with his looming frame.

She tried to move, and he pressed her to the wall, preventing her from seeing the women who had descended from the carriage and were now giggling and chattering as they made their way to the wall. She craned her neck to see them, curiosity making her careless, but he predicted her movements and shifted closer, crowding her back, making it impossible for her to see anything.

Anything but him.

He was so very tall. She’d never known anyone as tall as him. And when he was so close, it was difficult to think of anything but him. Him, and his warmth, the way his unbuttoned coat fell open around them, bringing her closer to a man in shirtsleeves than she’d ever been before.

Her thoughts were interrupted by another burst of laughter, followed by a hushing sound. “Look!” a woman said loudly. “We’re disturbing the lovers!”

“Someone couldn’t wait until she was inside!” Another feminine voice said.

“Who is it?” a third whispered.

Pippa’s eyes went wide, and she spoke to his chest. “Who are they?”

“None you need worry about.” He crowded closer, grimacing as he lifted one hand and placed it flat on the wall above her head, obscuring her face with his long arm and the lapel of his coat.

She was a hairsbreadth from his chest, and she couldn’t stop herself from inhaling, the scent of clean, fresh sandalwood wrapping around her. Her hands, hanging limp at her sides, itched to touch him. She clenched her fists and looked up at him, meeting his dark eyes.

“I can’t see her,” one of the ladies said, “but I’d know that man anywhere. It’s Cross.” She raised the volume of her voice. “Isn’t it, Cross?”

A thread of heat coursed through Pippa at the woman’s familiarity, at the laughter in her tone—as though she knew precisely what it was like to be here, pressed between the stone wall of London’s most legendary gaming hell and her proud, brilliant owner.

“Go inside, ladies,” he said at full volume, without looking away from Pippa. “You’re missing the fight.”

“It looks like there’s just as much to watch outside, tonight!” one retorted, drawing a chorus of appreciative laughter from the others.

Cross shifted, dropping his head, and Pippa realized how it would appear to the onlookers—as though he was about to kiss her. “Now, ladies,” he said, his voice low and filled with promise, “I don’t gawk at your evening entertainments.”

“You’re welcome to anytime you like, darling.”

“I’ll remember that,” he said, the words lazy and luxurious. “But I’m occupied this evening.”

“Lucky girl!”

Pippa gritted her teeth as a knock sounded on the steel door, and the ladies were admitted to the club.

Leaving them alone in the alleyway once more, in the closest thing she’d ever had to an embrace.

She waited for him to move, to unwrap himself from her.

Except he didn’t.

No, he remained just as he was, pressed close, lips at her ear. “They think you lucky.”

Her heart was pounding like mad. She was sure he could hear it. “I thought you didn’t believe in luck.”

“I don’t.”

Her voice was shaking. “If you did, would you call this lucky?”

“I would call this torture.”

It was at that moment, the words a breath against the sensitive skin beneath her ear, that she realized that he wasn’t touching her. He was so close . . . but even now, pushing her back against the stone façade of this massive building, he was careful not to touch her.

She sighed.

Apparently she was the only female in Christendom whom he had resolved not to touch.

Fleetingly, she wondered what would happen if she were to take matters into her own hands. She turned her head toward him, and he pulled back—not far, but far enough to ensure distance between them. Now they were face-to-face, their lips barely apart, at once millimeter and mile from each other.