One Good Earl Deserves a Lover
Page 5

She stilled for a long moment, and he realized that her lack of movement was out of character. The woman had not been still since he’d woken to the soft sound of her fingertips sliding over the pages of the ledger. The fact that she was still now unnerved him; he steeled himself for what came next, for some logical defense, some strange turn of phrase that would tempt him more than he was willing to admit.
“I suppose it will be easy for you to forget me.”
There was nothing in the tone to suggest that she angled for a compliment or a refusal. Nothing he would have expected from other women. Though he was coming to realize that there was nothing about Lady Philippa Marbury that was at all like other women.
And he was willing to guarantee that it would be impossible to forget her.
“But I’m afraid that I cannot allow it,” she pressed on, frustration clear in her tone as he had the impression that she was speaking to herself rather than to him. “I have a great deal of questions, and no one to answer them. And I’ve only fourteen days to learn.”
“What happens in fourteen days?”
Dammit. He didn’t care. He shouldn’t have asked.
Surprise flashed at the question, and he had the sense that she had forgotten him. She tilted her head again, brow furrowed as though his query was ridiculous. Which, of course, it was.
“I am to be married.”
That, he knew. For two seasons, Lady Philippa had been courted by Lord Castleton, a young dandy with little between his ears. But Cross had forgotten her future husband the moment she’d introduced herself, bold, brilliant and not a little bit bizarre.
There was nothing about this woman to indicate that she would make an even-halfway-decent Countess of Castleton.
It’s not your problem.
He cleared his throat. “My very best wishes.”
“You don’t even know who my husband is to be.”
“As a matter of fact, I do.”
Her brows shot up. “You do? How?”
“Aside from the facts that your brother-in-law is my business partner, and that the double wedding of the final sisters Marbury is the talk of the ton, you will find that there are few things that happen at any level of society about which I do not know.” He paused. “Lord Castleton is fortunate indeed.”
“That’s very gracious of you.”
He shook his head. “Not grace. Truth.”
One side of her mouth twitched. “And me?”
He crossed his arms over his chest. She’d be bored of Castleton within twenty-four hours of their marriage. And then she’d be miserable.
It’s not your problem.
“Castleton is a gentleman.”
“How diplomatic,” she said, spinning the globe and letting her fingers trail across the raised topography on the sphere as it whirled around. “Lord Castleton is indeed that. He is also an earl. And he likes dogs.”
“And these are the qualities women seek in husbands these days?”
Hadn’t she been about to leave? Why, then, was he still speaking to her?
“They’re better than some of the lesser qualities with which husbands might arrive,” she offered, and he thought he heard an edge of defensiveness in her tone.
“For example?”
“Infidelity. Tendency toward drink. Interest in bull-baiting.”
“Bull-baiting?”
She nodded once, curtly. “A cruel sport. For the bull and the dogs.”
“Not a sport at all, I would argue. But more importantly, are you familiar with a great deal of men who enjoy it?”
She pushed her glasses high on the bridge of her nose. “I read quite a bit. There was a very serious discussion of the practice in last week’s News of London. More men than you would think seem to enjoy its barbarism. Thankfully, not Lord Castleton.”
“A veritable prince among men,” Cross said, ignoring the way her gaze narrowed at the sarcasm in his tone. “Imagine my surprise, then, to find his future countess at my bedside this very morning, asking to be ruined.”
“I did not know you slept here,” she said. “Nor did I expect you to be asleep at one o’clock in the afternoon.”
He raised a brow. “I work quite late.”
She nodded. “I imagine so. You really should purchase a bed, however.” She waved a hand toward his makeshift pallet. “That cannot be comfortable.”
She was steering them away from the topic at hand. And he wanted her out of his office. Immediately. “I am not interested, nor should you be, in aiding you in public ruination.”
Her gaze snapped to his, shock in her eyes. “I am not requesting public ruination.”
Cross liked to think he was a reasoned, intelligent man. He was fascinated by science and widely considered to be a mathematical genius. He could not sit a vingt-et-un game without counting cards, and he argued politics and the law with quiet, logical precision.
How was it, then, that he felt so much like an imbecile with this woman?
“Have you not, twice in the last twenty minutes, requested I ruin you?”
“Three times, really.” She tilted her head to the side. “Well, the last time, you said the word ruination, but I think it should count as a request.”
Like a complete imbecile.
“Three times, then.”
She nodded. “Yes. But not public ruination. That’s altogether different.”
He shook his head. “I find myself returning to my original diagnosis, Lady Philippa.”
She blinked. “Madness?”
“Precisely.”
She was silent for a long moment, and he could see her attempting to find the right words to sway him toward her request. She looked down at his desk, her gaze falling to a pair of heavy silver pendula sitting side by side. She reached out and set them in gentle motion. They watched the heavy weights sway in perfect synchrony for a long moment.