The Rogue Not Taken (Scandal & Scoundrel #1)(17)

He was horrible. Not that she’d been the most genteel of characters, but still. He was worse. “What they say about you is right.”

“Which part?”

“You are no gentleman.”

His gaze raked down her body, taking in her ill-fitting, too-tight livery, reminding her with every lingering inch that she’d made a terrible mistake. “Forgive me, love, but you don’t seem much a lady tonight.”

And he disappeared into the inn, leaving her considering her next action—the stables, or the road.

The frying pan, or the fire.

Chapter 4

SOILED S STOLEN!

SCOUNDREL SUSPECTED!

Several hours later, after the inn had gone dark and quiet, Kingscote, Marquess of Eversley, future Duke of Lyne, notorious rogue who took great pride in his reputation as a scoundrel, lay in bed, awake.

Awake, and very, very irritated.

She’d ruined his win.

And of all the things in the world that King enjoyed, there was nothing he enjoyed so very much as winning. It did not matter what he won—women, fights, road races, cards. It mattered only that the win was his.

It was not a simple thing, King’s relationship with victory. It was not for mere pleasure, though many thought it such. It had little to do with diversion, or recreation. Where other men enjoyed winning, King required it. The thrill of victory was as essential as food and air to him. In victory, he was most free.

In the win, he forgot what he had lost.

And he had won the curricle race, roundly beating the half-dozen other men, each a better driver than the next, careening up the Great North Road with breathless speed, horses tearing up the hard pack of the road, exhilaration and thrill coursing through him, clearing his mind of this northward journey’s purpose. Of what would greet him when he reached his final destination.

Of the past.

The win had been hard-fought. The other men had driven with impressive skill, threatening his victory, teasing him with the possibility of loss. But King had won, and it had been sweet and deeply satisfying. It was the taste of freedom, elusive and fleeting.

As he’d caught his breath high atop the curricle that would require new wheels before he started again the next day, he had experienced the keen pleasure of knowing that he’d sleep well that evening, before the light of day reminded him of truth and duty.

Except he did not get the evening.

He did not even get the hour.

Because the first thing he’d seen after coming to a stop in the drive of the Fox and Falcon was Lady Sophie Talbot, pressed up against his coach, looking ridiculous in Eversley livery.

And, like that, she’d ruined his win.

At first, he told himself it couldn’t be. After all, of all the outrageously foolish things he’d seen women do in his life, this one had to be the most foolish. But he knew better. He knew how desperate girls could get. The lengths to which they would go for what they wanted.

He knew it better than anyone.

So, of course, it was she. Lady Sophie, youngest of the Soiled S’s, to whom he had expressly refused conveyance, had refused to leave well enough alone.

And she’d stowed away.

As she was dressed as a footman, he imagined that she had not ridden inside the carriage, where she would have been safest. Instead, she’d likely ridden atop the vehicle, next to the driver. Christ. She could have fallen off.

She could have been killed, and it would have been on his head.

He closed his eyes, and an image flashed, a girl, broken and lifeless, flaxen hair spread out in a halo against the packed dirt of the road.

Except, it wasn’t Sophie Talbot he saw lifeless and broken. It was another girl, another time.

He cursed, low and dark in the quiet room, and threw the heavy duvet back, coming to his feet and crossing the room to find something to drink, to push the memory away. He poured his scotch, ignoring the tremor in his hands, and drank deep, turning to the window, looking down at the inn’s courtyard, empty.

Unlike earlier, when he’d found his footman missing and Sophie Talbot in his place, eyes wide, shocked that he’d recognized her. He’d have to be dead not to recognize her.

Christ. How had no one else recognized her?

And where had she gone?

He didn’t care. Sophie Talbot wasn’t his problem. He’d told her as much.

And she’d cried.

He ignored the thought. The way the tears had somehow made the blue of her eyes, lined with those thick, sooty lashes, even more blue in the yellow lantern light outside the inn. She’d done it to manipulate him. After all, wasn’t that what the Talbot sisters did? Trap unsuspecting aristocrats into marriage?

It had made a duchess of the eldest, why not a future duchess of the youngest?

Well, she had chosen the wrong mark.

She’d landed herself here, buying off a footman, surviving the carriage ride. Sophie Talbot was no simpering wallflower, whatever her reputation. He knew little about the girl—only that she was the most serious of the five Talbot sisters—not a difficult task considering the tittering vanity and disdain for propriety that marked the others in the family.

Her actions did not bear out her seriousness, however. Indeed, they made her seem positively foolish.

Well. She might be a fool, but he wasn’t.

He wasn’t getting anywhere near her.

She wasn’t his problem.

She’d found her way here; she could find her way home.