The Rogue Not Taken

ROYAL ROGUE AND SOILED SOPHIE— WAR? OR MORE?

He followed her into the carriage without hesitation, closing them into the tight, small space, and waiting for the vehicle to move before he spoke, frustration and anger and no small amount of embarrassment driving his words.

“It seems, my lady”—he drawled the honorific, knowing she would loathe it—“that you have forgotten how very much I have done for you in the past week.”

Her gaze shot to his, furious. “Do edify me.”

“I had plans of my own, you might consider. I was hieing north on a rather time-sensitive matter.”

She raised a brow. “Oh, yes. To find one final way to punish your father on death’s door. Very noble.”

“If you knew my father—”

“I don’t,” she said, all casualness, reaching into the basket on the seat next to her and extracting a book. “But frankly, my lord, I am not feeling very kind toward you at this particular moment, so if you’re angling for my sympathy, perhaps save your stories for another time.”

She was the most infuriating woman he’d ever met. “I gave you everything you wished. I brought you to damn Mossband instead of packing you back to London, as I should have the moment I discovered you, like the baggage you are. I protected you from your father’s damn hunters. Oh, yes. And I saved your damn life.”

“It’s hard to believe that a Dangerous Daughter’s life was worth the trouble, honestly.” She opened the book calmly. “My apologies for your wasted time.”

He sat back on the seat, watching her. Shit. It wasn’t a waste. None of it. Indeed, he wouldn’t give up a moment of the last week for anything. Even though she was the most difficult woman in Christendom. “Sophie,” he said, trying to change tack.

She wasn’t having it. Turning a page, she said calmly, “Do not worry, my lord. Your ailing father will loathe me. I shall make him wish death would come sooner. And when you get your perfect revenge, we’ll be through with each other. Blessedly.”

King watched her for a long moment before he said, quietly, “I don’t think less of you, you know.”

She turned another page. “For being too common for your perfect life? For being so common the mind will boggle at the possibility that I might make a decent wife? For being so common that you can hardly deign to breath the same air I breathe?”

Damn. That wasn’t what he meant at all. “I don’t think you are common.”

She turned pages more quickly now. “It’s difficult to believe that, I must admit, as you have spent the entirety of our acquaintance reminding me of my common appearance.” Flip. “My common background.” Flip. “My common past.” Flip. “My common family.” Flip. “My most common character.” Flip. Flip. Flip. “Indeed, my lord, you have been very clear on the matter. Clear enough for me to think you’re something of an ass.”

He stilled. “What did you call me?”

“I feel confident that your hearing is in full working order.”

Flip.

He reached across and snatched the book from her hands.

She scowled at him, then sat back, crossed her arms over her chest, and spat, “I shall be very happy to see the end of this carriage.”

“I cannot imagine why,” he retorted. “As I rather adore it.”

The words weren’t as sarcastic as he wished. Indeed, when he thought of this carriage, it gave him a great deal of pleasure. More than any carriage he’d ridden in since the last time he was here, in Cumbria. More than any carriage he’d been in since he was a young man.

Except it wasn’t the carriage.

It was her.

The realization came with no small amount of discomfort—he did not wish for her to give him pleasure. This journey was not for pleasure, it was for pain. For his father’s pain. He came to watch the old man die. Came to ensure that, finally, he was punished for the way he had manipulated and machinated King’s life.

Sophie was a means to that end, and nothing else.

She couldn’t be anything more than that.

He didn’t have room for her in his life.

She wasn’t his problem.

Even if he wished her to be.

He sighed, leaning back against the seat, frustration and anger coursing through him. He had been an ass. He’d insulted her from the start. She didn’t deserve it. She deserved better than him. The thoughts echoed around him as the carriage began to move, and they drew closer and closer to Lyne Castle.

She deserved better than this.

He looked to her, sitting stick-straight on the opposite seat. Minutes crept by as he considered her, wearing that abomination of a gown. He’d summon a seamstress from somewhere. He’d buy her a wardrobe full of frocks.

Not that there was any kind of seamstress for miles.

He’d send to Edinburgh. To London if he had to.

And boots. He’d have a half-dozen pairs made for her. In leather and suede, in all the latest fashions. He’d have a pair made that laced high up her calf.

He’d like that.

He shifted in his seat, thinking of unlacing such a boot, and put the thought from his mind. He hadn’t seen her in anything but livery and ill-fitting dresses since they’d met. He imagined that she’d been wearing a legitimate gown when they’d first encountered each other at the Liverpool party, but he’d been so committed to descending the trellis and escaping the events of the afternoon that he hadn’t had a decent look.

His shifted his attention to the place where her breasts rose over the line of her dress, lifting to trace the long column of her neck, the curve of her jaw, the pink swell of her lips.

He’d been a fool.

And apparently more than once. They’d danced at a ball before that, one he could not remember. But it was difficult to imagine that he wouldn’t remember her. That he wouldn’t remember the feel of her, lush and tempting in his arms. That he wouldn’t remember the scent of her, soap and summer sunshine. That he wouldn’t remember her, all clever remarks and cutting retorts and a brave, bold way of facing the world.

Christ. He’d remember her after this.

Even after she’d long put him out of her mind and built a new life, all her own. Even after he gave her all the happiness she desired.

He’d never forget her.

I am sorry.

He wanted quite desperately to say the words to her. To begin again. To embrace this wild journey as not a man and a stowaway, a lady and her aide. But as King and Sophie, and whoever . . . whatever . . . they might be.

It was impossible, of course.

She hated everything he was, and he would never be good enough for her.

There was nothing common about her.

He should tell her that, here. Now. Before they turned down the drive to Lyne Castle and he lost the chance.

But she was so livid with him, he had no doubt she wouldn’t believe him. And perhaps that was best. Perhaps it was best that he so infuriated her. That she look forward to leaving him. That she desire to put him behind her.

The carriage turned off the main thoroughfare, and he looked up, keenly aware that they drew ever closer to Lyne Castle, where his past and future held sway.

Where his father might already be dead.

He returned his attention to Sophie, suddenly a port in a very turbulent storm. “We are nearly there.”

She smoothed her skirts. “I shall require a bath and a change of clothes before I meet your father. While I appreciate that this dress might well-suit your desire to infuriate him, I will not meet him in an ill-fitting frock looking like I’ve been driving for hours on end. Even a Talbot daughter knows how to behave around aging dukes.”

He nodded. “I hope you will sleep as well. You are past due for your herbs.” If he wasn’t so thoroughly transfixed by her, he might not have noticed the way her breath caught. He did, however, and would have offered a small fortune to know what she was thinking. Instead, she turned back to the window as though he wasn’t there.

The carriage turned once, twice, and Lyne Castle rose from the horizon, setting his heart beating faster and harder as the great grey stones loomed and the coach pulled to a stop in front of the home he’d known for his entire childhood.

Something edged through him. Something like sadness.

Tearing his gaze away, he looked to Sophie, wanting to say something. Wanting to tell her that he was sorry.

Instead, he opened the door, stepping out to face the great behemoth, memories of his time here assaulting him: the scent of the green hills of Cumbria, rolling to the River Esk on one side and to the Scottish border on the other; the remains of Hadrian’s Wall that made his mountain as a child; the warm food and kind words of Agnes, the castle’s housekeeper, the closest thing it had to a mistress and the closest thing he had to a mother; his father, stern and cautious, with a single goal—to raise a future duke.

And Lorna. Golden-haired and pale skinned, filled with promise. The promise of love. Of a future. Of a life beyond name and propriety.

Of happiness.

They’d been so young. Too young for him to realize that none of those things were for him.

He pushed the memories away, turning to help Sophie down, his hands at her waist. When she was on solid ground, she looked up at the stone walls of the castle and then to him, a question in her eyes. “Are you well?”

Even now, the echo of her frustration around them, she found room for concern. He released a breath he had not known he held, considering her big blue eyes, the color on her cheeks, the way she thought of him. For a moment, he wondered what would happen if he leaned down and took those full pink lips for the kiss he’d wanted to give her since day had broken. He’d linger there, at the soft skin, reminding himself of her taste. Replacing the memories of his youth here with something else.

But he knew better than to kiss her here, in this place where memories seemed to etch themselves into the ancient stones.

Instead, he released her. “As well as can be expected.”

A shout punctuated the words and King turned to see a great grey horse in the distance, followed by a pack of dogs. He squinted at the rider, tall and grey-haired, ruddy-cheeked and filled with vitality.

It couldn’t be.

“Shit,” he whispered.

“Who is that?” Sophie asked, and her soft words at his shoulder might have pleased him at another time, the way they curled around him, making him a partner in her curiosity.

He was too livid to find pleasure in anything, however. “That is the Duke of Lyne.”

“Your father?”

“The very one.”

“He doesn’t look to be at death’s door to me,” she said, and he was almost certain he heard pleasure in the observation.

“The duke requests your company at the evening meal.”

Sophie stood at the far corner of the room to which she had been assigned, considering the extravagant view. She’d bathed and slept much of the day in the massive, deliciously comfortable bed, and she’d woken to a collection of no doubt borrowed gowns, several of which actually fit.

A maid helped her dress before leaving her alone to wait there, in the window, considering the labyrinth in the foreground and the rolling green hills of a North Country summer beyond, wondering what was to come next before King rapped on the door and entered without summons. She turned to face him, still full of the anger she’d felt earlier in the day, when he’d made it clear that she was nothing but scandal to him.

Still attempting not to be hurt by it.

Still trying to put the evening before—the way he’d touched her and kissed her and whispered her name in the darkness—out of her mind.

She met his gaze, hating the way his presence had her breath quickening. “Mine alone?”

He leaned against the jamb. “Sadly, no. Ours, together.” His gaze lowered to her bad shoulder. “Are you feeling well?”

She smiled, a brilliant, false expression that would have made her sisters proud. “I am about to sup with two men who disdain me, so I have, in fact, felt better.”

He cut her a look. “I meant your shoulder. And I don’t disdain you.”

She ignored the last. “The herbs and honey are working well.”

“Did you bathe?”

Her cheeks warmed. “Not that it is your business, but yes.”

“It’s my business.”

“Because if I die you’ll be out your revenge?”

He narrowed his gaze on her. “I don’t care for your smart mouth.”

Another smile. “And here I was working so very hard to make you care.” She approached. “Have you told him that you’ve returned with a Dangerous Daughter on your arm?”

He looked over his shoulder into the hallway and stepped inside the room, quickly closing the door. “I haven’t,” he said quietly, “But he’ll know soon enough.”

“Do I look enough the part for you?” she asked, knowing she looked as much of a Dangerous Daughter as she could without her sisters’ belongings nearby.

“You look fine.”

She made a show of furrowing her brow. “Are you sure? Women like me, we don’t know much about dining with dukes. What with our background.”

He cursed beneath his breath. “Stop that.”

She blinked. “Stop what?”

“Stop condescending to me.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it.”

“You would, and you are. You no more think of yourself as less than me than you think you can sprout wings and fly. You know you’re better than all of us.”

She opened her mouth to reply, but closed it, stunned by the unexpected words. Who was this man who so easily insulted her, and at the same time seemed to do the opposite?

“You deserve better than us, as well,” he grumbled.

“That, at least, is true.” If only she could convince herself of it. “I have been considering our agreement,” she continued, turning for the looking glass, making a show of pinching her cheeks as she’d watched Sesily do in preparation for her suitors. Men like to feel as though you’ve been dreaming of them, her sister liked to say by way of explanation.

Ironic, that, as Sophie would do anything to keep King from knowing how she dreamed of him.

He watched her from the door, his gaze on her in the mirror. She made a show of straightening her neckline, drawing attention to her ample breasts, already near bursting from the gown. He’d asked for a Soiled S. And here she was.

“Don’t tell me you’re reneging,” he said.

“I wouldn’t dare,” she said. “A Talbot keeps her word. But it occurs that what with my father’s funds, I don’t require your money so much as something else.”

His brow furrowed so quickly that she might not have seen it if she weren’t so thoroughly focused on him. “And what is that?”

She bit her lips once, twice, hard enough for them to go red and slightly swollen. Yes. Sesily would be very proud. “I want you to ruin me.”

“What in hell does that mean?”

“You’re such an expert, my lord, I can’t imagine you don’t already know.”

He came toward her, his voice suddenly lower, darker. “How, precisely, do you wish me to ruin you?”

“How do you ruin all the others?” She waved a hand when his eyes widened. “It doesn’t matter. We’ve spent the better part of a week together without a chaperone, and last night—”

“Don’t,” he said.

She looked to him. Finally looked, for the first time since Mossband. Something in his gaze made her not want to finish her thought about the night before. Made her want to believe it had meant something to him. As it had to her. “Well, the point is, I would appreciate it if you would render me fully unmarriageable. Then I will be able to find myself a new life. I shall get my bookshop somewhere quiet, and live a life. Free.”

“Free of what?” he asked.

“Of all of it,” she said, unable to keep the truth from her tone. “Of the gossip. The aristocracy. Of all the things I loathe.”

“Of me.”

No.

She forced a smile. “You know better than anyone how we truly feel about each other.”

He was silent for a long moment, and Sophie found herself wondering what he was thinking.

We don’t even like each other, she wanted to remind him.

To remind herself.

He broke the silence and did the reminding himself. “Done. I’ll see you publicly ruined if that’s what you want.”

“It is. I want the freedom that comes with it.”

He nodded. “Play this game well, Lady Sophie, and we’ll be rid of each other before you even realize we were together.”

Except she had realized it. She’d realized it the day prior, when they’d raced from the Warbling Wren, and the night prior, when he’d kissed her until she thought she’d go mad from the pleasure. And this morning, when he’d hurt her so thoroughly, and without thought.

They were together, and somehow, she adored and loathed it all at the same time.

She shook out her skirts. “Is it time for supper?”

His gaze flickered to the deep blue fabric, bordering on purple. “That color is beautiful on you.”

She willed herself not to blush under his compliment. Failed. She looked away. “They call it royal blue.”

Fit for a King.

When she returned her attention to him, it was to find him watching her thoughtfully. “It’s beautiful. If slightly too short.”

Leave it to him to insult her again. “Yes, well, once again, I haven’t much of a choice. And I’m not precisely looking to impress my dinner companions.”

“I should like to see you in a dress that fits you. You deserve one that fits. That’s all I meant.” There was legitimate surprise in the words, and she hated that he hadn’t meant to hurt her. Hated that the fact warmed her. Hated the words.

Crossing the room, careful to keep her posture perfect, she faced him, mere inches between them. “You haven’t any idea what I deserve.”

There was a beat, and he said, “I know you deserve better than this.”

Her breath caught at the echo of the words, no longer a taunt, now an honest, quiet observation. She willed herself not to allow him access to the part of her that cared what he thought. The part of her that could too easily imagine that he cared for her. That he thought highly of her. He didn’t. The morning had proved it. This afternoon proved it. Now proved it. She pushed past him and opened the door. “The faster we begin our charade, the faster it is complete.”

He turned, but did not approach, watching her for a long moment before he said, “Full cooperation, Sophie, or no ruination.”

She smiled her most brilliant smile and agreed. “Full cooperation.”

They walked through the long, dark hallways of the castle, down several flights of stairs and through a brightly lit landing before they arrived at the dining room, a massive stone space decorated with ancient suits of armor and medieval tapestries, enormous chandeliers lowered over a table that stretched farther than any table Sophie had ever seen. It could seat forty or fifty easily, in the high-backed mahogany chairs that sat heavy and imposing. It was a room designed to overwhelm, and it did. She stilled just inside the door.

King was there instantly, his fingers on her elbow. Understanding her. “He chose this room for a reason,” he whispered, so softly she barely heard him. “To intimidate. Don’t allow it.”

For a moment, she imagined that he wished to comfort her. To make her feel valued in this massive, imposing space. But she knew better. He simply didn’t wish his father to win. And he would do whatever it took to ensure that happened, including flattery.

She smiled and stiffened her shoulders, not caring a bit about what the duke saw—caring only that her discomfort was invisible to King. Softly, she said, “Talbots don’t intimidate easily.”

At the far end of the table stood the Duke of Lyne, tall and handsome despite the hair that shot silver at his temples and the lines that marked the edges of his eyes. Those eyes, the same brilliant green as King’s, saw everything. He indicated the place settings halfway down the table, where matching footmen held chairs. The duke’s gaze was unwavering. “Welcome. Please sit.”

There was no request in the words, only command. No ceremonial introduction. Nothing approximating politeness.

Despite a keen desire to ignore it and leave the house, Sophie approached the table.

King spoke up. “You’ve no interest in meeting Lady Sophie?”

“I imagine we will have met after a meal, don’t you?”

Sophie was already at the chair closest to the door when the duke spoke, his words cool and, at best, unmoved by her presence. At worst, he was rude. Irritation flared, and she swerved around the footman proffering the seat, shocking everyone. The duke’s gaze widened barely. “But why wait, Your Grace?” She gave him her broadest smile, one she’d learned from Seleste—designed to win the crustiest of aristocrats—and extended a hand to him. He had no choice but to take it, and she sank into a perfect curtsy. “Lady Sophie Talbot. Enchanté.”

No one can resist French, Seleste liked to say.

It seemed the Duke of Lyne could. He looked down his nose at her. “Well, Aloysius, I imagine you are very proud of the fact that your guest shares your manners.”

Sophie straightened, willing away the embarrassment at the words. Talbots were not embarrassed. Not one of her sisters would care in the slightest if this man disliked them.

And besides, nothing about this endeavor had to do with her. It was all to do with King and his father. She was a placeholder. A pawn. She could be invisible and the evening would be no different.

Ignoring both men, she sat.

Soup appeared before her, ladled from a porcelain terrine not by a footman, but by a beautiful older woman who, from her dress, appeared to be a housekeeper of sorts.

The duke turned on his heel and took the seat at the head of the table, his cool gaze falling to Sophie. “Talbot. I suppose I knew your father.”

“Many in Cumbria did,” she said.

The woman had made her way to the other side of the table, where she served King.

“Hello, Agnes,” he said to her.

She smiled warmly at him. “Welcome home, my lord.”

King matched the smile, the expression one of the few honest ones Sophie had seen in the last day. “You, at least, have the feel of home.”

She put her hand to his shoulder so quickly that Sophie wasn’t entirely certain the touch had happened.

“He has a knack for finding coal,” the duke said sharply, drawing Sophie’s attention. He spoke of her father still.

“I’m not certain it is a knack,” she said. “He simply works harder than most men I have known.”

Not that hard work was a worthy endeavor for aristocrats—something she’d witnessed again and again as a child. A memory flashed, of her father at a ball several years earlier, a group of aristocratic ladies tittering at his “crass hands,” weathered and calloused. “He should wear gloves when in London,” one woman had protested. “He shouldn’t be anywhere near London, with or without gloves,” someone had replied, and the whole group had laughed.

Sophie had hated them for the words. For their insult. For the way they valued appearance over work. For the way they valued snobbery over honor.

“He has a knack for coal,” the duke repeated. “And a knack for climbing.” He paused. “As do his daughters, apparently.” Sophie looked to King, finding his gaze on her as the duke added, “You could have sent word that you were not coming alone.”

King drank deep from his wineglass. “You could have sent word that you weren’t dying.”

The duke turned a cool gaze on him. “And disappoint you?”

Sophie looked from one man to the other, noting the resemblance in the stubborn set of their jaws as King gave a little huff of laughter. “I should have known, of course. Disappointment has ever been part and parcel of being heir to your throne.”

Sophie’s gaze widened at the stinging words.

The duke remained unmoved. “I imagined that if you were told I was near the end, you would return. We’ve things to discuss. It’s time for that, at least.”

King toasted his father. “Well, I have returned. Prodigal son.” He looked to Sophie. “And daughter.”

A gasp sounded in the darkness behind Sophie, and she looked back to find the housekeeper watching the meal wide-eyed.

The duke sat back in his chair. “So you are married.”

“Betrothed,” Sophie corrected immediately. There was no way she would allow these two men to send her farther down this garden path.

King turned a winning smile on Sophie. “For now.”

The duke drank, savoring the wine for a long moment. “So this is your plan, is it? To return home with a Soiled S in tow?”

Sophie set down her soup spoon. She should not have been surprised by the words, by the moniker, and still she was. This duke seemed not to stand on the same ceremony as the rest of the aristocracy. And despite her loathing the man’s words, and the man himself, she had to admit that there was something rather refreshing about them spoken aloud, in public, without shame.

Or, rather, with shame, but lacking in the secret pleasure that so often accompanied the name.

King stiffened on the other side of the table, no doubt surprised and irritated that his idiot plan was discovered within minutes of his return. Sophie would be lying if she were to say she did not find a modicum of pleasure in his failure, for certainly someone with as much arrogance as the Marquess of Eversley deserved to be taken down a notch now and then. If they were discovered, she’d no longer be beholden to their agreement, and she could go on her way. She’d happily bear the weight of her sisters and their reputation if it meant being able to witness the demise of King’s plan.

He slammed one hand onto the table, the force of it sending the plates rattling. Her attention flew to him, unprepared for him to redouble his efforts to present her as a woman for whom he cared. “Call her that again and I will not be responsible for what I do.” She certainly had not been prepared for that. “I won’t let you do it again,” he said. “I won’t let you drive another away.”

Another.

Sophie inhaled sharply.

“And we get to the heart of it,” the duke said, waving a footman forward for more wine. “Your precious love.” He turned to her. “Not you, of course.”

She did not look away from King who, despite his silence, revealed more than he should have. She wondered at the way he’d spoken of love a few evenings earlier: It is not the stuff of poems and fairy tales.

And while she’d kept from asking if the duke had hurt the girl he’d once loved, he’d answered her nonetheless. As though he’d held a pistol to her head.

Good Lord.

Oblivious to her thoughts, the duke continued, goading his son. “And this one?” he prompted, waving a hand in Sophie’s direction, “Do you love her as well?”

This was a mistake.

She stiffened with silent realization. She didn’t want this. Any of it. She didn’t want him to fabricate a love, didn’t want to playact it. She looked to King, recognizing the silent fury on his face, knowing that he cared not a bit for her. Knowing that this entire journey, all the little moments of laughter and caring and strange, undeniable interest, paled in comparison to his interest in another, long gone.

Knowing that his desire for Sophie paled in comparison to his desire for vengeance.

She willed him to tell the truth.

To release them both from the lies that bound them.

To let her free.

Perhaps if he let her go, she might still find happiness.

But she knew he would not and, somehow, she couldn’t entirely blame him. This place must be filled with memories of that horrible past. She hated him for what he’d done to her, for forcing her to be a part of this mad play, but at the same time . . . she understood him.

Sophie knew better than most what desperation drove one to do.

“Don’t leave the poor girl wondering, Aloysius,” the Duke of Lyne fairly drawled.

King looked to her and time seemed to slow. Sophie could hear her heart beating, knowing that she could not believe the words he said, whatever they might be. She did not want him to say he loved her. She didn’t think she could bear hearing the words for the first time and know they weren’t true.

And, somehow, strangely, she did not want him to not say that he loved her.

She didn’t wish to be the means to his end.

She wanted to be more than that.

She wanted to be more than he offered.

“Lady Sophie knows precisely how I feel about her.”

It was the faintest praise she’d ever received, and it stung more harshly than all the aristocratic scorn she’d ever heard. With those simple words, Sophie was through. She no longer cared about the agreement—not in the face of this moment. Not in the face of her desire for something else. For more.

She didn’t want to be a part of this back-and-forth, this battle between powerful men who didn’t know a thing about what was really important in the world.

And so it was that Sophie Talbot lived up to her reputation as a Talbot sister, ignoring what was correct, and instead doing what was right.

She folded her napkin into a perfect square and stood. Both men stood with her, their ridiculous manners seeming to somehow matter in this, but not in the rest of the evening. Sophie bit back a laugh at that, instead turning to the Duke of Lyne and inclining her head. “I find I’ve lost my appetite, Your Grace.”

“No doubt,” he replied in a voice devoid of surprise.

“I shall take my leave,” she replied.

“I shall come with you,” King said, already moving around the table. “We needn’t dine with the duke. Not if he cannot accept you.”

Of course, he must be positively gleeful that his father could not accept her. That was the entire point.

She wasn’t acceptable. Not to father or son.

“No,” she said, the single word sounding like gunshot in the room.

King stopped, halfway around the foot of the table.

“I shall take my leave,” she repeated. “Alone.”

He moved once more, his long legs disappearing the distance between them with speed and purpose. “You needn’t be alone,” he said, the words firm and strangely forthright before he added, softly, “He needn’t come between us, love.”

The endearment did her in.

What a terrible lie he told.

What a terrible mistake she’d made.

She lifted one hand, staying him again. “He’s not between us,” she said, her voice calm and cool and filled with truth. “He is not the problem.”

“It certainly isn’t you who is the problem.”

“I’m quite aware of who the problem is.”

He looked as though he’d been struck with a soup ladle, just on top of his handsome head, but she took no pleasure in the moment. She was too busy keeping her back straight and her tears at bay as she turned and left the room.