His heart began to pound.
He came down from the table, distracted by the game, unable to keep himself from watching the next cast. Six. Three. “Huzzah!” those watching the game cried.
“What luck!” called the gamer in possession of the dice, turning to face his growing crowd, his face shielded from Cross. “I’ve never been so lucky!”
“Who is it?” a voice asked at his shoulder.
“If you can believe it,” came the response, “it’s Castleton.”
“Lucky bastard!” Disbelief.
“Well, he’s to marry tomorrow . . . so he deserves one night of bachelorhood to tide him over, don’t you think?”
Castleton.
Married tomorrow.
For a moment, Cross forgot the thread of uncertainty that had drawn him to the game, distracted by the reminder that Pippa was to marry tomorrow. This man, who stood at a hazard table.
Six. Three.
Winning.
Something was off.
He raised his head, scanning the crowd, his attention called to the door to the back rooms, where a great, hulking man towered above the rest of the room.
His brows knit together.
What in hell was Temple doing here?
“Two hundred and fifty quid on number twenty-three!” Christopher Lowe made an exorbitant bet at the roulette wheel to Cross’s right, and Cross could not help but turn to watch as the ball rolled in the track, around and around until it landed in a red groove.
Twenty-three.
The entire table cheered; Lowe had risked a fortune, and won nearly nine thousand pounds.
Lowe, who had never won a single thing in his life.
“What did I say?” the young man crowed. “I’m lucky tonight, lads!”
There’s no such thing as luck.
Something was off.
He pushed through the crowd, each person with whom he came into contact more and more elated with the breathlessness of winning, with the excitement of the flop of the ace, the roll of the hard six, the spin of the wheel, which seemed to be stuck on red . . . everyone ignoring him as he passed among their masses until they finally parted and he had a clear view of Temple, several yards away.
The massive partner of The Fallen Angel was not alone. At his side stood a reedy younger man in an evening suit that hung a touch too large on his shoulders. The man wore a cap pulled low over his brow, making it impossible for Cross to see his face . . . there was something familiar about the way he carried himself. Something unsettling.
It was only when the stranger turned to speak in the ear of one of Knight’s girls, passing her a little pouch, that Cross saw the glint of gold at his temple.
Spectacles.
At her temple.
Philippa.
She turned to him, as though he’d said her name aloud, and smiled an enormous, brilliant smile—one that made his blood pound and his heart ache. How had he ever even imagined that she was a man? She looked scandalous and beautiful and absolutely devastating, and he was suddenly quite desperate to get to her. To touch her. To kiss her. To keep her safe.
Not that it made him want to murder her any less.
He reached for her instinctively, and Temple stepped in, placing enormous hands on Cross’s chest, and said, “Not now. If you touch her, everyone will guess.”
Cross didn’t care. He wanted her safe. But Temple was as strong as he was right. After a long moment, he said, “I shall want my time in the ring with you for this.”
Temple smirked. “With pleasure. But if she pulls it off, my guess is that you’ll be thanking me for it.”
Cross’s brows snapped together. “Pulls it off?” He turned to Pippa. “What have you done?”
She smiled as though they were at tea. Or Ascot. Or walking in the park. Entirely calm, utterly sure of herself and her actions. “Don’t you see, you silly man? I’m saving you.”
The cheers from the gamers around them were impossible to ignore at that point, the thrill of winning was deafening. He didn’t need to look to see what she’d done. “You fixed the tables?”
“Nonsense.” Pippa grinned. “With what I know of Digger Knight, I would wager everything you have that these tables were already fixed. I unfixed them.”
She was mad. And he loved it. His brows rose. “Everything I have?”
She shrugged. “I haven’t very much, myself.”
She was wrong, of course. She had more than she knew. More than he’d dreamed.
And if she asked, he’d let her wager with everything he owned.
God, he wanted her.
He looked around them, registering the flushed, excited faces of the gamers nearby, not one of them interested in the trio standing to the side. No one who was not playing was worth the attention. Not when so many were winning so much.
She was running the tables at one of the most successful casinos in London. He turned back to her. “How did you . . .”
She smiled. “You taught me about weighted dice, Jasper.”