One Good Earl Deserves a Lover (The Rules of Scoundrels, #2)

by Sarah MacLean

“I assume you know that ladies do not do such things?” A tiny wrinkle appeared between her brows. “It’s a silly rule, don’t you think? I mean, the female sex has had access to bipedal locomotion since . . . well . . . Eve.”

Pippa did not believe in lying, either to herself or to others. It was perfectly fine if those around her wanted to hide the truth, but she had found long ago that dishonesty only made for more work in the long run. So, no, it was not only the abacus that intrigued her. It was the man himself.

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.

Oh dear. This wasn’t going at all according to plan. She was going to have to scream for help. Screaming was so emotional. Not at all scientific.

Pippa frowned. What on earth did a man do with his tongue in such a situation? The tongue was an organ designed for eating and speaking. How did it play into kissing? Though, logically, mouths touching would make for tongues being rather near each other . . . but the idea was unsettling, honestly.

Castleton was a perfectly nice man, but he was not the kind who inspired kissing. Certainly not with tongues. Whatever that meant.

Pandemonium—held every year on the twenty-ninth of March—was the one night of the year when the Angel opened its doors to nonmembers. An invitation provided its bearer with access to the casino floor from sundown to sunup. With one, a man could steep himself in sin and vice

“Back to the ladies, Penny. Are they prostitutes?” Penny sighed and looked to the ceiling. “Not in so many words.” “It is only one word,” Pippa pointed out.

with so few love matches in society, they were rather like mythological figures. Minotaurs. Or unicorns. Or Pegasuses. Pegasii?

“Worms have nothing to do with weddings!” Pippa thought it was rather a perfect time to think of worms. Hardworking worms that had left the life they’d known—and all its comforts—and spun cocoons, preparing for a life they did not understand and could not imagine, only to be stopped halfway through the process and turned into a wedding gown.

Once they have eaten their fill, the worms pupate, spinning their cocoons and, when several days have passed, the sericulturist thwarts their incubation and halts the emergence of the moth mining the cocoons for silk. I have no intention of allowing this to happen to me. Thank goodness for loopholes logical thinking.”

“The rules of gentlemen insist that honor keep them from reneging, even during a bad bet,” he explained, tempted to smooth the furrow on her brow, resisting it. “The rules of scoundrels insist one only wager if one can win.”

“You would be surprised by what irritation does to aid one’s commitment to a cause.”