He wanted to shake her. “These are not your tables!”
She smiled. “But they are my rules, nonetheless.” She turned to Temple. “Your Grace? Would you do the honors?”
Temple lifted a finger to his thrice-broken nose and brushed the tip. From a hazard table nearby, a loud, innocent voice piped up, “My word! That’s a great deal of winnings!” Castleton. Stupid, simple Castleton was in on the plan . . . had they all gone mad?
Cross looked to Temple, who smirked and shrugged one shoulder. “The lady made the arrangements.”
“The lady deserves a sound thrashing.”
Pippa wasn’t watching him. “You don’t mean that.”
He didn’t, but that was beside the point.
Castleton was chattering again. “I hear that Knight doesn’t usually keep much cash on hand, though. I hope he’s enough to cash me out!”
There was a pause at the table as his words sunk in, then a mad dash for each man to collect his notes and winnings and rush to the cash cages. Within seconds, the shouts echoed through the room.
“Knight can’t cover the wins!”
“Cash out now, before it’s too late!”
“Don’t be left with blank notes!”
“You’ll lose everything if you don’t hurry!”
And like that, the tables were empty . . . they were all headed to the cash cages, where two startled bankers hesitated, not knowing how to proceed.
She’d thought of an exit. He should have expected it, of course. Should have known that Philippa Marbury would wage war like she did everything else . . . brilliantly. Eyes wide, he looked first to Pippa, then to Temple, who smirked, folded his arms, and said nothing.
It was remarkable.
She’d done it.
She was remarkable.
Cross caught Knight’s gaze, wide with shock before it slid to Pippa and narrowed in recognition, then fury.
But the club owner could not act on that anger . . . as he was too close to losing everything he’d built. He took to a tabletop once more, calling out affably, “Gents! Gents! This is Knight’s! We ain’t no haphazard organization! We’re well able to pay our debts! Get back to the tables! Play some more!”
His big grin was sinfully tempting.
There was a pause as the sheep turned to their shepherd, and for one moment, Cross thought the desire to win would run the tables.
Until Castleton saved them all, the earl’s clear, disarming voice rising above the crowd once more. “I’d just as soon have this money now, Knight . . . then I know you’re good for it!”
And the press toward the cages began anew, men shouting and pushing until it was close to a riot.
Knight wouldn’t be able to cover these winnings. They’d paupered him.
Pippa had paupered him.
Because she loved Cross.
Because she cared for his future.
His future, which was bleak indeed without her.
He could not linger on the thought, however, as they were jostled by a wall of gamers pressing toward the cages furiously, desperate for their money. Pippa was carried several feet by the wave of bodies. He reached for her, trying to catch her hand and pull her back, her fingers slipping through his as she fell, swallowed up by the furious crowd.
“Pippa!” he yelled, tossing himself into the fray, pulling men from the place where he had last seen her, tossing them aside until he found her, curled into a ball, hands around her head, a heavy boot connecting with her stomach.
He roared his anger, grasping her unwitting attacker by the collar and planting his fist in the man’s face once, twice, before Temple caught up with him. “Let me have him,” Temple said. “You see to your lady.”
Your lady.
She was his.
Would ever be.
He turned the man over to Temple without a second glance, crouching to uncover Pippa’s face, where one lens of her spectacles had been smashed and a wicked red streak had already bloomed high on one cheek. Suppressing his rage, he stroked his fingers carefully across the place where she’d clearly received a blow. “Can you move?”
She nodded, shaky, and he lifted her in his arms—not caring that he was revealing her as something more than a strange, thin man in an ill-fitting suit—protecting her.
She pressed her face to his neck. “My hat—”
It had been lost in the fray, and her blond hair was loose around her shoulders. “Too late for it now,” he said, desperate for escape.
But there was nowhere to go. Everywhere he looked were angry throngs of gamblers, desperate for their winnings, frustration and greed and his and Temple’s attacks turning them into a terrifying, raging horde.
Moving as quickly as he could, he crouched and pushed Pippa beneath the hazard table where Castleton had started it all, taking a boot to the ribs with a wince before climbing into the space with her, covering her with his body and wrapping his arms about her head to keep her from errant blows.