One Good Earl Deserves a Lover

So, no, it was not only the abacus that intrigued her.

It was the man himself. When she’d arrived at the club, she’d expected to find the Cross of legend—handsome and clever and charming and able to strip the clothes from any female in his presence in a matter of seconds . . . without the use of his hands.

But she hadn’t found that man at all. There was no doubt he was clever, but there hadn’t been much charm at all in their interaction, and as for handsome—well, he was very tall, all long limbs and sharp angles, with a mop of finger-combed ginger hair that she would never have imagined he’d have. No, he wasn’t handsome. Not classically.

He was interesting. Which was much better.

Or worse, as the case may be.

He was clearly knowledgeable in the areas of physics and geography, and he was good with numbers—she would wager that the lack of scratch paper on his desk pointed to his ability to calculate the ledger in his head. Impressive, considering the sheer quantity of numbers held therein.

And he slept on the floor.

Half-nude.

That part was rather curious.

Pippa liked curious.

But apparently he did not. And that was critical.

She’d gone through a great deal of trouble concocting a plan, however, and she would not let the contrariness of one man—however fascinating—get in her way. She was in a gaming hell, after all. And gaming hells were purported to be filled with men. Surely there was another man who might be more amenable to her request. She was a scientist, and scientists were nothing if not adaptable.

Pippa would, therefore, adapt and do whatever it took to gain the understanding that she required to ensure that she was completely prepared on the evening of her marriage.

Her marriage.

She didn’t like to say it—she didn’t like to even think it—but the Earl of Castleton wasn’t exactly the most exciting of potential husbands. Oh, he was fair to look at and titled, which her mother appreciated. And he had a lovely estate.

But he wasn’t very smart. Even that was a generous way of putting it. He’d once asked her what part of the pig the sausage came from. She did not want to even consider what he believed the answer to be.

It wasn’t that she didn’t want to marry him. He was no doubt her best option, dull or less than brilliant or otherwise. He knew he lacked intellectual prowess and seemed more than willing—eager, in fact—to have Pippa help him manage his estate and run his house. She was looking forward to it, having read a number of texts on crop rotation, modern irrigation, and animal husbandry.

She would be an excellent wife in that sense.

It was the rest about which she had questions. And she had fourteen days in which to discover the answers.

Was that too much to ask?

Apparently so. She cast a look at the now-closed door to Mr. Cross’s rooms, and felt a pang of something not altogether pleasant in her chest. Regret? Discontent? It did not matter. What mattered was, she had to reconsider her plan.

She sighed, and the noise swirled around her, drawing her attention to the enormous, empty room.

She had been so focused on finding her way to Mr. Cross’s private offices earlier that she hadn’t had an opportunity to explore the casino itself. Like most women in London, she’d heard the gossip about The Fallen Angel—that it was an impressive, scandalous place where ladies did not belong. That it was on the floor of the Angel and not that of Parliament where men forged the future of Britain. That it was the owners of the Angel who wielded London’s most insidious power.

Considering the quiet, cavernous room, Pippa conceded that it was certainly an impressive space . . . but the rest of the gossip seemed slightly exaggerated. There wasn’t much to say about this place except that it was . . .

Rather dark.

A small row of windows near the ceiling on one side of the room was the only source of light, allowing a few errant rays of sunshine in. Pippa followed one long shaft of light, peppered with slow, swirling particles of dust, to where it struck a heavy oak table several feet away, lighting thick green baize painted in white and yellow letters, numbers, and lines.

She approached, a strange grid of numbers and words printed down the long oval coming into view, and she could not resist reaching down to run her fingers across the fabric, along the markings—hieroglyphs to her—until she brushed up against a row of perfect white dice stacked against one wall of the table.

Lifting a pair, she examined the perfect dimples in them, testing the weight of the little ivory squares in her palm, wondering at the power they held. They seemed innocuous enough—barely worth considering—and yet, men lived and died by their toss. Long ago, her brother-in-law had lost everything on one wager. True, he’d earned it all back, but Pippa wondered at the temptation that made one do something so foolish.

No doubt, there was power in the little white cubes.

She rattled them in her palm, imagining a wager of her own—imagining what it would take to tempt her to game. Her research. An understanding of the secrets of marriage, of married life. Of motherhood. Clear expectations for that too-cloudy future.

Answers. Where she had none.

Information that would ease the tightness in her chest that cloyed every time she considered her marriage.

If she could wager for that . . . she would.

She rotated the dice in her hands, wondering at the wager that would bring revelation before she could establish her fate, however, a thunderous pounding at the door of the club gained her attention with its loud and unceasing racket. She set the dice on the edge of the hazard table and moved toward the noise before realizing that she had nothing to do with the door in question and should, therefore, not open it.