The Rogue Not Taken

SOPHIE’S FROCK FOUND! FOUL PLAY FEARED!

It took longer than it should have for Sophie to realize that the carriage was not headed for Mayfair.

Had she realized this prior to clandestinely squeezing into Matthew’s livery and tucking her hair up under his cap, she might have had the presence of mind to turn back. She most certainly would have taken the calculated risk to sit up on the block next to the coachman instead of refusing his invitation.

Unfortunately, she did not realize it—despite the coachman’s raised brows and skeptical “Suit yourself”—instead taking her place as an outrider at the back of the coach, standing tall on the back step of the coach, clinging tightly, and quite happily, to its handles.

Nor did she realize it when the coach reached the end of the long drive of Liverpool House and turned left instead of right.

Nor did she realize it when the passing landscape became more pastoral. Instead, she took several deep breaths of what her father would call “fine fettled air,” and felt—for the first time since she and her sisters had been packed up and transported to London—rather free.

And decidedly fun.

Take that, odious Royal Rogue.

Thinking of the unknowing Marquess of Eversley, inside the very carriage upon which she stowed away, she laughed. So much for his thinking she wouldn’t get that for which she’d asked. She almost regretted that he wouldn’t know it when she leapt from the carriage and sallied home.

She’d pay good money to see his smug expression turned to shock.

She chuckled to herself, watching blue sky and green farmland pass, dotted with flocks of sheep, copses of trees, and bales of hay. And gloried in the fact that she had escaped without the aid or the attention of the aristocracy. She could never tell anyone this story, sadly. Within moments of her return to the Talbot house on Berkeley Square, she would have to dispose of Matthew’s exceedingly helpful—if ill-fitting—clothing and concoct a new tale of her return. And swear her father’s new young footman to secrecy.

But for now, until the rooftops of London appeared in the distance and reminded her that the afternoon—and her public and no doubt long-term shaming—were inescapable, she would enjoy her triumph.

And she did enjoy it, cheeks aching from the pull of her grin, until she became aware of other aches, in her legs and arms.

At first, she ignored them. She was strong enough to manage for the few miles back to Mayfair. The streets of London would require stops and starts and slow going, and all she had to do was keep her head down and hold fast, and she’d be home within the hour.

And then her feet started in, still in their silken slippers, as Matthew’s boots had been too small for her always-too-long “flippers,” as her father referred to them, refusing to accept the fact that the comparison to water creatures was not at all complimentary.

Silk slippers, it turned out, were not made for outriding.

Nor, it turned out, was Sophie.

Indeed, within half an hour, she was having a difficult time of it, her hands now aching as well, under the too-tight grip she had on the back of the carriage. She hadn’t expected her role as outrider to be quite so taxing.

She gritted her teeth, reminding herself that there were more difficult situations than this one in the world. Men had built bridges. Families had fled to the Colonies. She was daughter to a coal miner. Granddaughter to one.

Sophie Talbot could hang on to a carriage for the two miles it took to get home.

The carriage increased its speed, as though the universe itself had heard her words and desired to underscore her idiocy. She looked down and considered leaping to the ground and walking the rest of the way. Watching the road tear past, she unconsidered it.

She’d wished to leave a garden party, not the earth.

“Oh, bollocks.”

Sophie. Language. She heard her mother’s admonition in the minuscule part of her brain that was not currently panicking, but she had no doubt that if there was ever a time for cursing, it was this one—dressed as a servant, clinging to a carriage, certain she was going to die.

And then the coach passed a mail coach laden with people, a small child hanging off the top of it, grinning down at her.

That’s when Sophie realized that, wherever this carriage and the man inside were headed, it was not London.

“Oh, bollocks,” she repeated. Louder.

The child waved.

Sophie did not dare release her grip to return the gesture. Instead, she tightened her hold, pressed her forehead to the cool wood of the carriage, and chanted her litany.

“Bollocksbollocksbollocks,” she said.

As though punishing her for her crassness, a wheel hit a rut in the road, and the vehicle bounced, jarring her spine and nearly tossing her from the back of the coach. She cried out in fear and desperation. Clinging tightly, the ache in her hands sharp now.

There was only one option. She had to get off this carriage. Immediately. It was only two or three miles to the Talbot home. She could walk if she exited this ridiculous situation immediately.

The coachmen called back, “I told you to sit with me!”

Sophie closed her eyes. “When do we stop?”

She waited long seconds for the terrifying reply. “It’s good weather, so I’d say we’ll make it in three hours. Maybe four!”

She groaned, the sound coming on a word far worse than bollocks. Leaping from the carriage was suddenly an entirely viable possibility.

“I suppose you’re changing your mind about riding on the block?” called the coachman.

Of course she was changing her mind. She never should have gone through with such a terrible plan. If she hadn’t vowed to run from the silly garden party, she’d be home now. And not here—minutes away from falling to her death.

“Shall I stop so you can join me?”

She barely heard the part of the question that came after the word stop.

Dear God. Yes. Please stop.

“Yes, please!”

The carriage began to slow, and relief flooded her, replacing everything else, making her forget her panic and pain for a fleeting moment. A very fleeting moment.

“I thought it odd, that you would want to ride on the back of the coach all afternoon.”

Well, the coachman could have said as much. Then they wouldn’t be in this predicament. As Sophie wouldn’t have set foot on the coach if she had known that there was even a hint of possibility that the Marquess of Eversley wasn’t headed to Mayfair. But she was not about to waste time dwelling on her mistake, when she could be spending time rectifying it. She released her grip, shoulders straight and head high, taking a deep breath, preparing to descend from the carriage and announce that Matthew was not joining them for the ride to wherever they were headed. And neither was she.

Freedom was a wonderful thing.

She was half looking forward to the marquess’s shock when he discovered that she’d stowed away. He could do with a surprise now and then to offset his arrogant existence, and she was thrilled to be able to give it to him.

Right up until her legs gave way and she collapsed to the ground in an ungraceful, inglorious heap.

“Bollocks.” It was becoming her very favorite word.

The coachman’s eyes widened from high above, and she couldn’t blame him, as she felt certain that outriders had one, single responsibility—to refrain from falling off the carriage.

“On your feet, you clumsy git,” the coachman called, no doubt thinking he sounded charmingly teasing. “I haven’t all day to wait for you!”

Gone was her triumph.

Gone was her freedom.

She pushed up onto her hands and knees, muscles aching after the strain of hanging on to the carriage along the bumpy roads. She stood slowly, keeping her back to the carriage as she straightened her spine and rolled her shoulders back. “I’m afraid you shall have to wait,” she said, “as I require an audience with the marquess.”

There was a beat as the words settled with the driver, along with a fair amount of shock, no doubt, that a footman would deign to demand to speak with his master.

Wouldn’t he be surprised when he realized that the Marquess of Eversley was not her master after all. And that she was not his footman.

She felt a slight twinge of remorse when she considered that the coachman would have to retrace their path to London once she revealed herself—his body was no doubt protesting their travels as much as hers was.

“Are you mad?” he asked, all incredulity.

She looked up at him. “Not at all.” She approached the carriage and banged on the door. “Open, my lord.”

There was no movement from inside the vehicle. The door remained firmly shut.

“You are mad!” the coachman announced.

“I swear to you, I am not,” she said. “Eversley!” she called, ignoring the twinge of pain that came as she rapped smartly on the great black coach. He was probably asleep, as one would expect from a lazy aristocrat. “Open this door!”

He was going to be furious when he saw her, but she did not care. Indeed, Sophie had a keen, unyielding desire to teach the outrageous, unbearable aristocrat a lesson. She was certain that no one had ever done such a thing—no one had ever crossed the Marquess of Eversley, known in private conversations as King. As though he weren’t pompous enough, he assumed the highest title in Britain as his name.

And all of London simply accepted it. They called him by the ridiculous moniker. Or the other one—the Royal Rogue—as though it were a compliment and not complete blasphemy.

And she’d been exiled for telling the truth about a duke.

Anger flared, threaded with something else—something she did not enjoy and which she would not name.

Sophie scowled at the carriage, as though it were the manifestation of the man inside. Of the world that created him, empty and aristocratic, imperious and infuriating.

As though nothing ever defied him.

Until now. Until her.

“He’s not in there.”

She looked up to the coachman. “What did you say?”

He was exasperated—that much was clear—becoming less and less forgiving of her perceived madness. “The marquess isn’t inside and the ride has addled you. Get up on the block. We’re miles from anywhere, and you’re wasting the daylight, you mad git.”

She looked to the door, refusing to believe the words. “What do you mean, he isn’t inside?”

The coachman stared down at her, unamused. “He. Ain’t. Inside. Which part of it is confusing?”

“I saw him get in!”

The driver spoke as though she was a child. “We’re to meet him there.”

She blinked. “Where?”

Exasperation won the day, and the driver turned back to the road with a sigh. “I told them not to saddle me with a boy I didn’t know. Suit yourself. I haven’t the time to wait for your senses to return from wherever they’ve run off.”

With a flick of his wrists, the horses were moving, along with the carriage.

Leaving her stranded on the road.

Alone.

To be set upon by whomever happened by.

Bollocks.

She cried out, “No! Wait!”

The carriage stopped, barely long enough for her to scramble up onto the driver’s block before it moved again.

For a moment, she considered telling the coachman everything. Revealing herself. Throwing herself at his mercy and hoping that he would take her home.

Home. A vision flashed, lush green land that ran for miles, hills and dales and wild northern sunsets. Not London. Certainly not Mayfair, where the only thing lush were the silk skirts she was forced to wear every day, in case someone came for tea.

And her father had enough money that someone always came for tea.

London wasn’t home. It never had been—not for a decade. Not in all the time that she’d lived in that perfect Mayfair town house that her mother and sisters adored, as though they didn’t miss the past. As though they’d hated the life they’d lived all those years ago. As though they would forget it if they needed to. As though they had forgotten it.

Tears came, surprising and unbidden, and she blinked them away, blaming the summer wind and the speed of the carriage.

She was alone on the driving block of a carriage, dressed as a footman, headed God knew where.

And somehow, it was the thought of returning to London that made her sad.

So she stayed quiet, knowing it was mad, willing the coachman not to notice her, listening to the sound of the wheels and the horses’ hooves as the coach moved north.

Hours later, when the sun had set, it had become clear that Sophie was out of her element. She’d thought that wearing a footman’s livery, masquerading as a boy, and riding on the outside of a coach would be the most difficult parts of the charade, only to realize that those bits were, in fact, nothing in comparison to the arrival at the posting inn.

She watched from the driver’s block as the coachman climbed down to arrange space in the stables for the horses and, ostensibly, for storage of the carriage itself.

The thought gave her pause. Where did carriages go when they weren’t in use? It was a question she’d never had cause to consider.

“Are you going to sit up there like a lord? Or are you planning to come down and do some work?”

The words startled her from her thoughts, and she looked down to find the coachman staring up at her, his earlier exasperation edging into something else entirely. Suspicion.

Well. She couldn’t have that. Not now, at least, before she’d decided the next steps of her plan.

Plan was something of a misnomer for this outrageous situation. Disaster was a better descriptor.

“Where are we?” she asked, deliberately lowering the tenor of her voice—she couldn’t have him realizing that she was a woman now—and scurrying down from the carriage, willing to wager that, while she did not know what a footman did at this exact moment, descending to earth was an excellent first step. Once on the ground, she bowed her head and just barely caught herself before she sank into a curtsy. Footmen did not curtsy. That part, she knew.

“All that matters is that we are here before the marquess.”

“Where is he?” The question was out before she could stop it. She did not require the cold, critical gaze of the coachman to know that she had overstepped her bounds, but he provided it nonetheless.

“I don’t know what is wrong with you, boy,” he said, “but you had better set yourself straight. Servants don’t question their masters’ whereabouts, nor do they ask questions to which they don’t need answers. Servants serve.”

That was just the problem, of course. Sophie had no idea how to begin doing such a thing. “Yes, sir. I shall do just that.”

He nodded and turned away, tossing over his shoulder, “See that you do.”

She had no choice but to call after him, “That said . . . what . . . what shall I do?”

He stilled, then turned around slowly. Blinked at her. Then spoke as though she was a child. “Begin with your job.”

That wasn’t helpful.

She took a deep breath as he turned back to the horses, considering all the things she’d witnessed footmen doing in the past.

Her gaze flickered to the great black coach, empty. Except, it would not be empty. Eversley wouldn’t have traveled such a distance without having prepared for it. There would be bags. Luggage.

And footmen collected luggage.

With renewed purpose, she opened the door and climbed into the carriage, prepared to collect whatever items the marquess had left for his servants to shuttle into his rooms, before she stilled in the darkness, the sounds of the bustling inn from outside muffled as she considered the inside of the massive coach. Massive, indeed. It was one of the largest private coaches she’d ever seen—bordering on conspicuously enormous—one that might boast three rows of seats without effort. But it didn’t. There was a single row of seats at the back of the conveyance, leaving a great, yawning chasm of space inside, large enough for a man to lie flat. For several men to lie flat.

There were no men in the space, however. Instead, it was filled with great wooden wheels. There were ten of them, perhaps twelve. She couldn’t take an exact count in the dark space, but she paused nonetheless, considering the cargo. Why was the Marquess of Eversley shuttling carriage wheels? Did they lack wheelwrights north of London?

Indeed, the only evidence of the Marquess of Eversley was a pile of formalwear—clothing that she’d watched float down from up on high when he escaped his pursuing earl.

Where had he gone?

“Boy!”

Sophie let out an exasperated sigh. The coachman was quickly becoming an unwelcome companion. Through gritted teeth she called back, “Yes, sir?”

“You’re no more useful inside the coach then you were atop it!”

And then, shockingly, a hand came to her bottom, grasping the waistband of her trousers and yanking her, bodily, from the carriage. She let out a wild squeak as the coachman stood her on her feet and closed the door with a perfunctory click. After all, it was not every day that she was manhandled quite so . . . well . . . handily.

When the coachman rounded on her, she knew she was done for. Indeed, it was best that Matthew was to be employed by her father, as she felt certain that the house of Eversley was about to sack him. Also handily. “Have you lost your—”

The man’s assessment of her mental faculties—or lack thereof—was cut off by the noise—a near-deafening clattering, punctuated by wild hoofbeats, the heavy breathing of horses, and exuberant male shouts. She turned just in time to see the first of the curricles bearing down on her with speed that would break both axles and necks, as though they were on a long stretch of clear road instead of a crowded posting inn drive.

With a cry, Sophie leapt backward, pressing herself to the outer wall of the coach, eyes wide, as the lead curricle tipped on one wheel, dangerously close to toppling before it slammed down, one wheel spoke flying across the yard as the driver executed a perfect half turn to face the vehicles following behind. The driver stood tall on legs that should have been tired, but instead seemed incredibly strong, towering over horse and vehicle, arms akimbo as he faced his no-doubt maniacal comrades. Much of his face was obscured by the low brim of his hat, but the light from the inn was drawn, nonetheless, to his wide, wicked grin.

Sophie found that she was oddly drawn to that grin herself.

“Looks as though I won, lads.” The others were stopped now, and a chorus of groans rose from myriad curricles when he added, “Again.”

As this was the first time Sophie had been outside a posting inn after dark, she had to imagine that this was an ordinary occurrence—but she’d certainly never thought that men raced their curricles up the Great North Road for fun.

Fun.

The word echoed, reminding her of her earlier conversation with Eversley, in which he’d called her unfun.

Irritation flared. She was perfectly fun.

After all, she was here, wasn’t she? Dressed as a boy in a courtyard filled with men who appeared to have a keen knowledge of fun.

Her thoughts were interrupted by the man’s movement as he leapt down from the carriage and headed to his horses to give the great, matching beasts praise for their work. He swaggered to the animals that huffed and sighed, great ribs heaving from their long run, even as they leaned into the weighty caress of their master.

Sophie was transfixed by him—by the group he seemed to lead. She’d never seen anything like them, clad all in black, and with great informality—black coats over black linen, and not a cravat to be seen among them. Their trousers gleamed in the light from the lanterns posted around the drive—she considered the attire. Was it . . . leather? How odd. And how fascinating.

Her gaze flickered to the leader, and the long curve of this thigh, hugged tightly by the attire. She had considered the line of that muscle for longer than was appropriate.

He was an exceedingly well-made man. Empirically so.

The second she had noticed in a single day.

She coughed at the thought, heat spreading across her cheeks, and the noise brought his attention, his head immediately turning to her. Though his eyes remained obscured, Sophie had never felt so well inspected, and she found herself immensely grateful for Matthew’s livery, hiding the truth of her—that she had never been in such a situation, that she did not belong here.

She dropped her gaze to his boots, eager to disappear.

That’s when she noticed that he was not wearing boots.

At least, he was not wearing two of them.

Bollocks.

The Marquess of Eversley had arrived.

And from the way he came toward her—the swagger she’d identified earlier likely due to his lacking one boot—he was about to discover that she had done the same. She did not look up at him, keeping her gaze firmly affixed on his feet, hoping he would ignore her.

It did not work. “Boy,” he drawled, coming entirely too close. Unsettlingly close.

She shifted from one foot to the other, willing him away.

That did not work, either.

“Did you hear me?” he prompted.

She moved, dropping a half inch before she stopped herself from curtsying. Even if she weren’t dressed as a man, he didn’t deserve politeness of any kind, this ruiner of women who represented everything she loathed about the Society that had so roundly turned its back upon her. This man who had turned his back upon her. If only he’d been willing to help her, she wouldn’t be in this ridiculous situation.

“Are you able to hear?” he fairly barked the last.

Straightening, she coughed and pressed her chin tighter to her chest, lowering her voice. “Yes, my lord.” The honorific was strangled in her throat.

She was saved from whatever he was about to say by the arrival of one of his comrades. “Goddammit, King, you’re fucking fearless. I thought you were going to kill yourself on the last turn.”

She inhaled, not because of the unexpected foul language—a childhood around coal miners made one immune to profanity—but because of the unexpected voice, thick with a Scottish brogue. Her gaze snapped up, and she found herself face-to-face with the Duke of Warnick, a legendary scoundrel in his own right—an uncultured Scotsman who unexpectedly ascended to a dukedom, sending all of London into a panic. The duke was rarely seen in London and even more rarely welcome in London, but here he stood, half a yard from her, laughing and clapping the Marquess of Eversley on the shoulder to congratulate him for what Sophie could only imagine was not killing himself in the process of arriving at the inn.

Eversley matched the duke’s wide grin, all arrogance and awfulness. “Broke two spokes on my right wheel,” he boasted, the words explaining why the man traveled with a carriage full of curricle wheels. “But fearlessness begets victory, it seems.”

Warnick laughed. “I had a half a mind to run you off the road in that last quarter mile.”

“Even if you could have caught me,” King boasted, “you’re too much a coward to have done it.”

Sophie rather thought that not killing a man was more honorable than cowardly, but she refrained from pointing it out, instead easing away from the duo, eager to escape discovery by the marquess in this open space, where he could thoroughly ruin her in front of what she now realized was a collection of men who might easily recognize a Talbot sister.

The duke stepped closer to Eversley, lowering his voice to a menacing pitch. “Did you just call me a coward?”

“I did, indeed. When was the last time you were in London?” Eversley asked pointedly before he noticed her moving. “Stay right there,” he said, one finger staying her even as he did not take his gaze from the duke, leaving her no choice but to freeze in place until they finished their conversation.

She had never quite realized how rude aristocrats could be to their servants. After all, she had work to do. She wasn’t certain what kind of work, specifically, but she was sure it had little to do with staring at these two cabbageheads.

The duke tilted his head. “You would know about avoiding unpleasant locales.”

Eversley grinned at that. “I am an expert at it.”

At that, Warnick reached into his open coat and extracted a coin. “Your winnings.”

He tossed the coin and Eversley snatched it from the air, pocketing it. “I do enjoy taking your money.”

“Money,” the duke scoffed. “You don’t care about the ha’penny. You care about the win.”

Sophie resisted the urge to roll her eyes. Of course he only cared about the win. She had no doubt that the Marquess of Eversley cared for nothing but winning.

She should like to ensure that this man lost, and roundly.

Before she could enjoy her private fantasy of the marquess’s loss, however, the duke lobbed his final barb. “Not that it will get you anywhere near the cost of your missing boot. Tell me you left it as a souvenir at the site of your latest assignation.”

Sophie’s heart began to pound at the words, at the reminder of Eversley’s reputation, at the reminder of her own idiocy in turning up here, wherever they were, far from home, and with no plan to speak of.

What came next?

She was going to have to rely upon the kindness of someone in the inn to get herself home. She was going to have to beg a journey to London, which would not be easy. She would have to promise someone the funds upon arrival, and she knew how difficult that would be.

“I think the boot will be easily recovered.”

The words pulled her from her thoughts, their meaning sending her gaze flying to find his, shrouded by the brim of his cap. Was it possible he recognized her?

“Perhaps I’ll send the boy to fetch it.”

She stilled, even her breath caught in her lungs.

He recognized her.

The duke laughed, unaware of what had happened before his eyes, and returned to his curricle, tossing back, “The boy might get an eyeful stealing into the lady’s boudoir.”

Sophie couldn’t help her little huff of indignation. Of course, Marcella was criticized for her actions as the marquess was lauded by his brawny, boorish brethren.

Eversley cut her a look at the sound. “I hope my boot is inside that carriage.”

She resisted the urge to tell him precisely what he could do with the boot in question, instead playing the perfect servant. “Unfortunately not, my lord.”

He raised a brow. “No?”

She wished she could meet his gaze. Granted, his brilliant green eyes were unsettling in the extreme, but at least if she could see them, she would be able to glean something of his thoughts on the situation. Instead, she soldiered on, lifting her chin, and he noted the defiance in the gesture. “No.”

He lowered his voice. “Where is it, then?”

She lowered her voice to match his. “I imagine it is where I left it. In the Liverpool hedge.”

She rather enjoyed the way his throat worked in the moment of silence following her announcement. “You left my Hessian in a hedge.”

“You left me in a hedge,” she pointed out.

“I had no use for you.”

“Well, I had no use for your boot.”

He considered her for a long moment, and changed the topic. “You look ridiculous.”

Of course she did. She lifted one shoulder, let it drop. “It’s your livery.”

“It’s for a footman! Not some spoiled girl looking for a lark.”

Anger flared at the words. “You know nothing about me. I am not spoiled. And it was not a lark.”

“Oh? I suppose you have a perfectly reasonable explanation for why you stole my footman’s livery and stowed away in my carriage.”

“I do, as a matter of fact. And I was not in your carriage. I was on it.”

“Along with my blind coachman, it seems. Why were you up there?”

She smirked. “Footmen don’t ride inside carriages, my lord. And even if they did, the carriage in question is filled with wheels. Why is that?”

“In case I need a replacement,” he said without hesitation. “Where is my footman, anyway? Did you knock him unconscious and leave him naked in the hedge alongside my boot?”

“Of course I didn’t. Matthew is perfectly well.”

“Is he wearing your dress?”

She blushed. “No. He bought a set of clothes from one of the Liverpool stableboys.”

He did not pause in his questions. “And you? Did you strip in front of all London?”

“Of course not!” She was growing indignant. “I’m not mad.”

“Oh, no,” he said, “Of course not.”

“I’m not!” she insisted, hissing the words so as not to draw attention to them. “I changed clothes in my family’s carriage. And I paid Matthew for his livery before sending him to my father for another position.”

He stilled. “You stole my footman.”

“It wasn’t stealing.”

“I had a footman this morning. And now I don’t have one. How is that not stealing?”

“It was not stealing,” she insisted. “It’s not as though you owned him.”

“I paid him!”

“It seems I paid him better.”

He went quiet, and she could see the frustration in his gaze before he offered a single, perfunctory nod and said, “Fair enough.”

He turned away.

Well. That was unexpected. And not at all ideal, as she had no money, and he was the only person in the place who might be inclined to help her get home, assuming it meant that she was gone from his life.

She ignored the fact that stowing away on his carriage might have worked against her.

Sophie sighed. He was insufferable, but she was intelligent enough to know when she needed someone. “Wait!” she called, drawing the attention of the coachman and several of his companions from earlier in the evening, but not the man in question.

He was ignoring her. Deliberately.

She scurried after him, ignoring the pain of the gravel on her slippered feet. “My lord,” she called, all nervousness. “There is one more thing.” He stopped and turned to face her. She drew close to him, suddenly keenly aware of his height, of the way her forehead aligned with his firm, straight, unyielding lips.

“It doesn’t fit you.”

She blinked. “I beg your pardon?”

“The livery. It’s too tight.”

First he described her as unfun and now as plump. She knew it of course, but he didn’t have to point out the fact that she wasn’t the most lithe of women. She swallowed around the tightness in her throat and brazened on. “Excuse me, Lord Perfection, I did not have time to visit a modiste on the way.” He did not apologize for his rudeness—not that she was surprised—but neither did he leave, so she pressed on. “I require conveyance home.”

“Yes, you said as much this afternoon.”

When he’d refused to help and landed her in this mess.

He wasn’t alone in landing you in this mess. She ignored the thought. “Yes, well, it remains the case.”

“And, as was the case this afternoon, it is not my problem.”

The words surprised her. “But . . .” She trailed off, not quite knowing what to say. “But I . . .”

He did not wait for her to find words. “You’ve stolen my boot and my footman in what I can only assume is a misguided attempt to gain my attention and my title, if the former actions of your family are any indication. I’m sure you’ll understand if I am less than amenable to providing you aid.” He paused, and when she did not speak, he added, “To put it plainly, you may be a colossal problem, Lady Sophie, but you are not my problem.”

The words stung quite harshly, and the way he turned his back on her, as though she were nothing, worth nothing—not even thought—delivered an unexpected blow, harsher than it might have been on another day, when all of Society and her family hadn’t turned their backs upon her in a similar fashion.

A memory flashed of the events of the afternoon, the aristocracy, en masse, disowning her, choosing their precious duke over the truth. Over the right.

Tears came, unbidden. Unwelcome.

She would not cry.

She sucked in a breath to keep them at bay.

Not in front of him.

They stung at the bridge of her nose, and she sniffed, all unladylike.

He turned back sharply. “If you are attempting to prey upon my kindness, don’t. I haven’t much of it.”

“Do not worry,” she replied. “I would never dream of thinking you kind.”

He watched her for a long, silent moment before the coachman spoke from above, where he was disconnecting the reins from the driving block. “My lord, is the boy bothering you?”

The marquess did not take his eyes from her. “He is, rather.”

The other man scowled at her. “Get to the stables and find the horses some food and water. That should be something you cannot muck up.”

“I—”

Eversley interrupted her. “I should do as John Coachman says,” he cut her off. “You don’t want to suffer his wrath.”

Her wide eyes flickered from one man to the other.

“After you’re done with that, find your bed, boy,” the coachman said. “Perhaps a good sleep will return the brain to your head.”

“My bed,” she repeated, looking to the marquess, hating the way his lips twitched.

“They’ve space in the hayloft.” The coachman’s exasperation was unmistakable as he spoke to her—as though she were an imbecile—before returning to his four-legged charges, leaping down and unhitching them to bring them to the stables, leaving Sophie and Eversley in the center of the quickly emptying courtyard.

“The hayloft sounds quite cozy,” the marquess said.

Sophie wondered if the marquess would find a blow to the side of his head cozy, but she refrained from asking.

“So cozy,” he continued, “that I think I shall find my own bed. It seems that one of my feet is quite cold. I should like to go in and warm it up by the fire.”

Her feet were also cold and aching. Silk slippers were not designed for coach-top rides through Britain or the work of footmen, after all. She thought of the warm fire that was no doubt burning inside the inn.

She wasn’t certain what would be in the hayloft, but if she had to imagine, she’d say hay . . . and that meant there wouldn’t be a warm fire there.

She could reveal herself. Now was the time. She could take off her hat and point out her own ridiculous footwear. She could announce herself Lady Sophie Talbot, rely upon the kindness of one of the other men who had barreled into the Fox and Falcon atop their strange-looking curricles, and beg for conveyance home.

Eversley seemed to understand her intentions even before they were fully formed. “An excellent idea. Saddle yourself to another. Warnick is a duke.”

She did not pretend to misunderstand. “I wouldn’t marry you if you were the last man in Christendom.”

“You only say that because I’ve thwarted your idiot plan.”

“This was never my plan.”

“Of course not, why would I think it from a Dangerous Daughter?” he scoffed, and she hated him then. Hated him for invoking the ridiculous moniker. For being just like all the others. For believing that she wanted the life into which she’d been thrust.

For believing that life worth something. Worth more than the life she’d been born into. For refusing to see—just as the rest of London refused to see—that Sophie was different. And that she had been perfectly happy before. Before titles and town houses and teas and trappings of the ton.

Before those trappings had trapped her.

She swallowed back her frustration. “I thought you were heading to Mayfair,” she said, hating the smallness in her voice.

He pointed to the road without hesitation. “Thirty miles to the south. Perhaps you’ll be lucky and a mail coach will happen by.”

The words reminded her of her current circumstances. “I haven’t any money for a mail coach.”

“It is unfortunate, then, that you gave it all to my footman.”

“Not unfortunate for the boy, I imagine,” she replied, unable to keep the tartness from her voice. “After all, I saved him from having to serve you for the rest of his days.”

He smirked. “It looks like you’ve quite a walk ahead of you, then. If you start now, you’ll be there by tomorrow evening.”

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.