The Rogue Not Taken

SOILED S SCHEDULE: WAKE . . . WASH . . . WOO?

Night fell, and King let her sleep for several hours before summoning a bathtub and cold water, and then, once she grew restless beneath the sheets, hot water. Once steam rose from the copper tub and the women who’d carried the pails had been paid, he waited for Sophie to wake.

He watched her from his place leaning against the wall of the small room, his focus on her face in the candlelight as she came out of her deep sleep, the comfort of slumber giving way to the pain of her shoulder. The pain of reality.

He wondered if his father was dead yet.

Agnes’s missive had been urgent. It was possible King was already the Duke of Lyne. Possible that he’d lost his final chance to have the last, punishing word with the man who had so roundly punished him.

Who had ruined his chance for family. For happiness. For love.

A memory came, unbidden, King in the Lyne hedge maze, his father behind him, revealing its code. “Two lefts and a right, then one left and a right. Until the center,” the duke had said, urging him forward. “Go on then. To the center.”

King had led the way, and at the center, his father had told him the story of Theseus and the Minotaur. “Who are we?” King had asked.

“Theseus, of course!” the duke had crowed. “Great heroes.”

King came off the wall at the memory.

Heroes. What a fucking lie.

He moved to stand over Sophie. He could not spare time for this girl, who was turning out to be a cyclone of scandal. London called her the plain, boring Talbot girl. He huffed a little laugh at the thought. If they could see her now, bullet wound in her shoulder, sleeping under an assumed identity in a pub in the middle of nowhere.

There was nothing boring about Sophie Talbot.

She was to be married.

Why in hell hadn’t she told him that from the beginning?

King knew about women who wished to marry for love.

He’d been the love in question, once.

Who was Sophie’s love? If she was escaping London in exile, with specific plans for a future with this Robbie fellow—though King questioned the precise manliness of a grown man who used the name Robbie—why hadn’t she said so?

Robert was a better name for her husband. More forthright. More likely to care for her.

Not that King minded one way or the other.

At the thought, her brow furrowed and her breath quickened. She would wake soon, and she would hate what consciousness brought with it.

King sat beside her on the bed. Telling himself he was checking for fever, he placed the back of his hand on her cool forehead, relief spreading through him at the temperature. The furrow deepened and, unable to stop himself, he smoothed his thumb over the little ridge between her brows.

She settled at the touch, and he ignored the pride that threaded through him as he moved to cup her cheek. He did not wish to be her comfort. She was trouble, and he had enough of that without her.

But he did not remove his hand.

“Sophie,” he said her name softly, telling himself he was waking her for the bath she’d seemed to desperately want, and not to see her deep blue eyes.

She sighed and turned into his touch, but did not wake.

“Sophie,” he repeated, ignoring the fact that he liked the sound of the name on his lips, ignoring the fact that he should not continue the caress, even as he did just that. Instead, he marveled over the softness of her skin, the silky threads of her eyebrows, the dark wash of her lashes against her pale cheeks, the pink of her lips—

He lifted his hand as though it had been burned, and shot to his feet.

The color of her lips was not for him to notice.

She’d asked for a bath, and he’d fetched her one. That was the extent of their interaction in this moment. He’d keep his hands—and his observations—to himself. “Sophie,” he said more firmly, louder.

Her eyes flew open, finding him instantly.

“Your bath,” he said.

Her gaze flew to the other end of the room as she clutched the bedclothes to her chin. “They brought it in while I slept?”

“They did.”

Her voice lowered to a whisper. “Did they see me?”

He smiled at that. “Would it matter?”

Her eyes went wide. “Of course!”

“They did not. I set the dressing screen by the bed.”

She nodded. “Thank you.”

“But I saw you,” he said, unable to resist teasing her. “Doesn’t that bother you?”

“You don’t count,” she replied.

The words did not sit well. “I beg your pardon?”

“You don’t like me.”

“I don’t?”

She shook her head. “No. You’ve more than enumerated the reasons why.” She pushed herself to a seated position, wincing. “But you’ve endeavored to eliminate the most offensive one, thankfully.”

“I like you fine.”

“And a ringing endorsement that is.”

He liked her fine when she was not infuriating, that was. He changed the subject. “I found you a frock, as well.”

Her gaze fell to the simple grey dress that hung over the dressing screen. She nodded. “Could you summon Mary?”

“Why?”

“I need assistance.”

“I can assist you.”

Sophie shook her head. “Not in this.”

“Which is?”

She flushed. “My lord, I cannot bathe with you.”

She didn’t mean for the words to tempt him. Christ, she was covered in remnants of her adventure—blood and gin and dirt and God knew what else. And of course baths required a lack of clothing. But for some reason, the quiet implication of her nudity had him hard and unsettled in an instant.

She was to be married, dammit.

“I can help you,” he snapped, knowing he was being unnecessarily coarse.

She shook her head. “No.”

“Why not?”

She looked at him as though he was an imbecile. “You are a man.”

“I thought I didn’t count.”

She rolled her eyes at that. “You count in this.”

He should do as she asked. Go get the girl and leave the two of them to it. But the past days had him feeling contrary. “She’s not available.”

Sophie blinked. “Where is she?”

“In the room I have paid for, at your request.”

“You deserved that for pronouncing us married without my permission.”

“I was to wait for you to regain consciousness before defining our relationship?”

“You could have told the truth,” she said.

“Really?” he asked, “You think that would have helped your situation?”

She sighed, and he knew he had won. “It’s the middle of the night and the girl is caring for two other children,” he said, matter-of-factly. “If you want a bath, you’ll have to accept my help.”

She pursed her lips at that, her gaze settling longingly on the steaming bath. “You mustn’t look.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it.” It might have been the most obvious lie he’d ever told.

Somehow, she believed it, nodding and throwing back the coverlet to step out of the bed. She came to her feet, the top of her head at his chin, and he resisted the urge to help her across the room. “How do you feel?” he asked, hearing the gravel in his words. He cleared his throat.

“As though I’ve been shot, I’d imagine.”

He raised a brow. “Clever.”

She smiled. “My shoulder is sore, and I feel as though I’ve been asleep for a week.”

He moved to the fire burning beside the bathtub and hung a kettle over the flames. “More tea when you’ve bathed,” he said, returning to her. “There’s food as well.” The words summoned a low growl from her, and her hands flew to her stomach. Her cheeks turned red, and he smiled. “I take it you are hungry.”

“It seems so,” she said.

“Food after the bath. And then tea. And then sleep.”

She met his gaze. “You’re very domineering.”

“It’s a particular talent.”

“What with you being called King.”

“Name is destiny.”

She ignored that, moving past him to the high copper bathtub. She turned back. “Thank you.”

He resumed his place against the wall, arms crossed, watching her carefully. “You’re welcome.”

She reached down, her long fingers trailing in the hot water as she sighed her anticipation. The sound was like gunfire in the room—pure, unadulterated pleasure. It was delicious.

King stiffened. He was not interested in the lady’s pleasure.

If only someone would tell his body that.

If only someone would tell it that it was not interested in the way the borrowed nightrail pulled across her breasts, the way it bunched above her hips and clung to the curves of her hips and thighs. Nor did it have any interest in where else those fingers might find purchase.

King dragged his gaze up to find her staring at him.

He coughed. “Aren’t you going to bathe?”

She raised her brows. “As soon as you turn your back, yes.”

He didn’t want to turn his back. “What if you need assistance into the bath?”

She shook her head. “I won’t.”

He narrowed his gaze. “You might.”

“Then you shall be mere feet away. Ready to act as my savior, despite your better judgment.”

He scowled at that and did as he was told. Watching her undress would have been the highest form of masochism, after all, as he had no intention of touching Sophie Talbot. Turning his back was best.

Except it wasn’t.

It was sheer torture.

He sensed his mistake immediately, the moment she began to remove the shift, the sound of fabric sliding over skin, the quickening of her breath as she navigated her wound, the little, nearly inaudible sound she made as she must have moved her arm in an uncomfortable way.

“Do you require assistance?” he asked, the words harsh in the quiet room.

She was silent for a moment before the soft reply came. “No.”

He cleared his throat. “Be careful of your arm.”

“I have been.”

Past tense. Christ. Her shoulders were bare.

The moment the thought came, he heard proof of it, the hiss of fabric as she pushed it over her hips, the sound rhythmic enough to make him think she was moving them to ease passage. Undulating.

He clenched his fists and leaned against the wall, his imagination running wild.

Her breath came slightly faster, but not nearly as fast as his. Not nearly as fast as his heart was beating.

Not nearly as fast as other parts of him throbbed.

And then he heard the scrape of the wooden bath stool against the floor as she positioned it, and the soft pad of her feet as she climbed it and sank into the water with a stunning, glorious sigh, as though she sank into pure, unadulterated pleasure.

This was, by far, one of the worst nights of his life.

It took all his power not to turn around. Not to go to her. Not to stare into that damn tub and take in the long length of her, flushed and pink from the heat. From his gaze.

Christ.

He did not want her.

But he did.

She was to be married.

To a bumpkin called Robbie.

Where the hell had she met him? How was she planning to marry someone in Cumbria? He shoved his hands in his pockets. He didn’t care.

She was plain and proper and uninteresting.

Liar.

And then she began to wash herself, and he resisted roaring his frustration at the sound of water against her skin, against the bathtub, sloshing and sluicing as she cleaned herself. He imagined arms and legs peeping over the edge of the tub as wet cloth slid down perfect, pale skin. Her head tipped back as she washed her neck and chest, her hands moving slowly, with infinite pleasure, across her body, above and then below the water, over curves and valleys, down, down, until the cloth disappeared and it was nothing but her hand, those long fingers dipping into moisture of a different kind—

“Why do they call you King?”

He nearly leapt from his skin at the words.

He closed his eyes, clenched his fists, and somehow found words. “It’s my name.”

The water shifted. “Your parents christened you King?”

He exhaled, not wishing to prolong her bath. “Kingscote.”

“Ah,” she said, and was quiet for a long moment, still, too. “What an extravagant name.”

“My family prides itself on extravagance.”

“I was on the grounds of Lyne Castle once.” The reminder of his childhood home was unwelcome. He did not reply, but she spoke anyway. “The duke opened them to visitors for some reason. There was a labyrinth there.” He could hear the smile in her memory of the place he’d just been remembering himself. “My sisters and I spent half the day lost inside—I found the heart of it and spent an hour or two reading at the center. They never found me.”

“It’s considered one of the most difficult labyrinths in Britain,” he said. “I’m impressed you found your way through. You were how old?”

“Seven? Eight? It’s magical. You must have adored living with it as a child.”

It had been there for generations, perfectly groomed and rarely used, and King had spent countless afternoons exploring the twists and turns of the maze, losing his governesses and tutors and nurses without any difficulty. The only person who could ever find him there was his father.

He cleared his throat. “It was my favorite place on the estate.”

“I imagine that it was. It was magical.”

There was reverence in the words and, though he did not wish to, he was soon thinking of her there, at the fountain at the heart of the labyrinth, the marble statue of the Minotaur rising above her like fury. It occurred to him that if he had her at the center of that labyrinth right now, she wouldn’t be reading.

He shoved a hand through his hair at the thought. He’d never have her there.

Not ever.

Once she was well, he’d be rid of her.

Finally.

“Do you travel home often?”

Why did she have to make conversation? It made it very difficult to hear the lap of water against her.

He gritted his teeth. “No.”

“Oh,” she said, obviously hoping that he would have said more. “When was the last time you were home?”

“Fifteen years ago.”

“Oh,” she repeated, the word softer, more surprised. “Why now?”

“You really don’t read gossip columns, do you?” he asked. Wasn’t that what ladies in London did between embroidery and tea?

“A truth that makes my mother quite anxious,” she answered, and he could hear the smile in her voice. He wanted to look to see if she was, in fact, smiling. “But I don’t like the way they speak of my sisters.”

“You’re very loyal.”

She looked away. “It shouldn’t bother me so much. My sisters adore TALBOT TATTLING. They’re in constant competition for the most scandalous of tidbits.”

“Who is winning?”

There was a pause as the sloshing water indicated she shifted in the bath. “These days, it is Seline. The one betrothed to Mark Landry. Do you know him?”

“I do.”

“Well, The Scandal Sheet reported several weeks ago that Mr. Landry taught Seline to ride on a stunning black mare and then gifted her with the same horse, prompting my father to insist they marry.”

“Because of an extravagant gift?”

“Because the horse is named Godiva. The implication being that Seline allegedly learned in the nude in the private stables at Landry’s estate.”

“That sounds false.”

There was a smile in her words when she replied, “It sounds uncomfortable.”

He laughed.

“Needless to say,” she added, laughing herself, “Seline adored the ridiculous story. Mr. Landry, too.”

“Never let it be said that Mark Landry doesn’t have a taste for the brazen.”

“Likely why he and my sister are such a match,” she replied. “You’ve bought horses from him, I imagine.”

“That, and we share a club.”

“I find it difficult to believe that Landry is welcome in White’s,” she said dryly. “I’ve never heard him speak a sentence that didn’t include something shocking.”

“It’s not White’s,” King said. “We frequent the same gaming hell.”

“Oh,” she said quietly. “I’ve never thought much about gaming hells.”

“You’d like it there,” he said. “Filled with gossip and scandal and not entirely safe from gunfire.”

She laughed. “I wouldn’t be welcome, I’m sure. As we’ve established, I don’t know enough about gossip to hold my own.” There was a pause before she said, “Which returns us to, why do you return to Lyne Castle?”

Levity disappeared from the room with her question, and for a long moment he did not answer, not wishing to lose the moment. It was gone nonetheless. “My father is dying.”

She stopped moving in the bath. Silence stretched around them, heavy and deafening. “Oh,” she said again. “I am sorry.”

He straightened at the honesty in the words. “I’m not.”

Why was it so easy to tell her the truth?

She was silent for long minutes, the water quiet around her. “You’re not?”

“No. My father is a bastard.”

“And you return home anyway?”

He considered the words and the question in them, and then thought of his father, the man who had ruined his future all those years ago. Who had taken the one thing King had wanted and destroyed it. Who had made King’s entire life about reciprocating—destroying the only thing the duke had wanted.

Later, he would not understand why he told her. “He summoned me. And I have something to tell him.”

More silence. And finally a soft “I am through.”

Thank God.

He did not turn as she lifted herself up in the tub, not even as he heard the water slosh around her when she returned to the bath with a little squeak. Not when it happened a second time. He amassed tremendous amounts of credit for his gentlemanly decorum.

Instead, he asked, “Is there a problem?”

“No,” she said, and the sound repeated itself.

He risked a look over his shoulder.

Mistake.

He could see only her head over the lip of the deep copper tub, but if her cheeks were any indication, she was clean and pink and perfect.

“Don’t look!” she cried.

“What is the problem?”

“I . . .” She hesitated. “I can’t get out.”

What did that mean? “Why not?”

“It’s too slippery,” she said, the words despondent. “And my shoulder—I can’t put pressure on my arm.”

Of course. Surely he was being punished by the universe.

He turned, already shucking his coat.

“Don’t turn around!” she cried, sinking below the lip of the tub.

He ignored the words and walked toward her, frustration manifesting itself as irritation as he rolled up his shirtsleeves. “I assure you, my lady, I don’t wish to help any more than you wish to be helped.”

It was true, if slightly disingenuous.

She peeked over the rim of the bathtub. “Well. You needn’t be rude.”

Another man might have felt a pang of remorse at the fact she took the words as an insult and not as self-preservation.

Though her hands were placed in critical positions to hide her most inappropriate parts, it did not have the intended effect. Indeed, it drew his attention to the long, errant strand of her hair that curved, dark and tempting, down her shoulder to tease at the water, and made him desire, quite thoroughly, to move it. And replace it with his lips.

This was madness.

King kept his gaze on her face—he had to, in order to retain his sanity. “I’m going to lift you out.”

Her eyes went wide. “But I am—”

“I am quite aware of your situation, my lady.” Perhaps if he used the honorific, he wouldn’t be so inclined to join her in the damn tub.

“Close your eyes,” she said.

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t want to drop you on your head. If you want eyes closed, I suggest you close yours.”

Before she could argue, he leaned down and lifted her, water pouring off her, soaking his shirtfront and trousers on its way to the puddle on the floor of the room.

She squeaked as he raised her, and she did close her eyes, her hands moving to clutch his shoulders and steady her imbalance. It was a natural reaction to being hauled about, King had no doubt, but it was a mistake, nevertheless, as with her hands at his shoulders, the rest of her lacked cover.

The soft, pink rest of her.

He wasn’t looking at her face anymore.

She opened her eyes and noticed, her already pink skin turning close to crimson. “Put me down!” He did, as though she were aflame, and she immediately wrapped herself in a towel. “You said you wouldn’t look!”

“No,” King said, “I said I didn’t wish to look.”

She stalked away from him, putting herself on the other side of the bed. Clearly unthinkingly, as the memory of her flushed skin in combination with a bed did not exactly dissuade him from his thoughts.

Not that he would act on them.

He did not want Lady Sophie Talbot, dammit.

Well, he wanted her. But he did not want to want her.

“That’s a semantic argument.”

Had he spoken aloud? No. She meant the looking.

“Madam,” he said in his most serious tone. “No man in his right mind would honor that promise.”

She pulled the towel more tightly around herself. “A gentleman would.”

He laughed, frustration making the sound hoarse. “I assure you, he wouldn’t. Not even the most pious of priests.”

Her lips flattened into a thin line. “You are wet. I suggest you find yourself some dry clothes.”

He’d been dismissed. By a haughty miss in nothing but a strip of linen.

A lesser man would take his leave. And Lord knew King should. He should give her time to dress and climb beneath the covers. Allow her a few moments to enjoy her cleanliness. Fetch her food. Get decent.

A gentleman would.

But King was no gentleman. As if it weren’t bad enough that he’d had to suffer the temptation of the sounds of her bath, he then had to hold her, quite nude, and pretend to be unmoved by the experience when he was, in fact, very moved, as his soaking trousers did little to conceal.

He hadn’t asked for this.

For her.

She riled him. And now, even as he knew he shouldn’t, he wanted to rile her in return.

“Dry clothes it is,” he said, enjoying the way she nodded, victory in her blue eyes right up until he untucked his shirt and pulled it over his head, and victory dissolved into shock.

“What are you doing?” she fairly shrieked.

“Donning dry clothes.”

“It might work better if you did so in your own chamber!”

He pointed to the small trunk at the wall. “This is my chamber.”

Her eyes went wide. “You have been sharing my room?”

“More than that,” he goaded her. “There’s only one bed.”

She scowled at him. “You didn’t.”

“I didn’t,” he conceded. “The stench, remember?” It was a lie. He’d been too worried that she might not wake to even consider sleeping. But she need not know that.

She was too irritating for him to tell her. Instead, he reached for the fall of his trousers, enjoying the way her gaze followed his hands. “A lady wouldn’t look, Sophie.” She immediately snapped her attention to his face, her cheeks blazing crimson. If he weren’t so damn frustrated with her, he’d be positively gleeful. “I believe it’s time for you to turn around.”

She did not turn around, and it occurred to King that she was stronger than she seemed, this girl who was supposed to be plain and uninteresting. She narrowed her gaze on him. “I shall do no such thing, you horrible, arrogant scoundrel. This is my bedchamber, in which you take such rapscallionesque liberties.”

He raised a brow. “Rapscallionesque isn’t a word.”

She did not hesitate. “I’m certain that those who invent words need only to meet you to see that it should be. As I imagine I would inspire them to commit unfun to the dictionary.” She paused, pulling herself up to her full height. “I suggest you find another chamber, my lord. You are not welcome here.”

Anger became her, this strange, unexpected woman. She stood before him, wet and wounded, and somehow a warrior nonetheless.

He wanted her.

And that was altogether too dangerous. For both of them.

He was here to keep her alive. And that was it.

He moved to the fireplace and poured her tea, letting silence stretch between them before he approached her, coming around the bed and closing the distance between them as she stood her ground, shoulders square, knuckles white in the fist that held the linen taut around her. He reached past her, exchanging the cup of steaming liquid with the pot of honey on the bedside table, his bare chest nearly grazing her.

It was a feat of great strength that he kept from touching her.

But in the moment, she did not back away, even as he knew her heart must have pounded as his did. She lifted her chin, but did not speak, despite the emotion in her gaze. Mistrust. Irritation. And something else he did not dare name.

“Sit,” he said, the word harsh, echoing through the chamber.

She looked askance at the bed. “Why?”

“Because I vowed you would not die on my watch.” He lifted the pot. “And I mean to keep the promise.” His attention fell to the wound on her shoulder, which still showed no signs of infection, thankfully. The mad doctor was either quite lucky or quite intelligent.

“I’m quite able to manage, my lord.”

He ignored the words. “Sit.”

She sat, the linen clutched around her as he coated his fingers in honey. Silence fell, and they both watched his fingers work, the stickiness of the honey nothing compared to the softness of her skin. King supposed he’d used enough of the salve, but he could not stop touching her, spreading it smoother and smoother across her shoulder.

Wishing it was not only her shoulder. Wishing it were the rest of her as well, on all that pristine, pretty, pink, unbearably soft skin.

The moment was getting away from him and he cast about for a safe topic. “Who is Robbie?”

There was a pause. “Robbie?”

He didn’t want to talk about the man, honestly. Not when she was here, clean and naked and fresh from a bath, smelling like summer. “Yes. Robbie. Your betrothed.”

Her gaze snapped to his at the words. Was it confusion he saw there? It was gone before he could be sure. “Of course. Robbie. We’ve known each other since we were children,” she said, the words perfunctory.

“Who is he?” he pressed.

“He is the baker in Mossband.”

A baker. Likely short in the leg and weak in the chin.

“And you will run a bookshop.” He was finished. He should stop.

She nodded, the movement stilted. “I will run a bookshop.”

It was the perfect life for her. Married with a bookshop. He imagined her disheveled and covered with dust, and he liked it far too much.

He lifted his fingers and looked down at them, glistening with honey. She looked, as well. “You should wash them,” she said quietly.

He should. There was a bathtub full of water mere feet away. And a washbasin and fresh water even closer. But he did not go to either. Instead, he lifted his hand to his mouth and licked the honey from his fingers, meeting her eyes. Willing her to look away.

Her eyes widened. Darkened. But did not waver. It was then that he knew.

If he kissed her, she would not stop him.

And if he kissed her, he would not stop.

Dangerous Daughter, indeed.

“There’s a dress for you,” he said.

“I—I beg your pardon?”

“A dress,” he repeated, turning on his heel and tossing his shirt over his head before adding, “and boots.” He tore open the door. “Wear the damn boots.”

And he left the room.