The Rogue Not Taken

KING ONCE, DUKE TO BE

He spent the next day roaming about the castle, half avoiding Sophie and half hoping he’d find her. Half hoping that seeing her might restore the incredible relief he’d felt once he’d told her the truth about Lorna and she hadn’t run screaming from the room—a relief that had been consumed by guilt at her disappointment when he’d told her he wouldn’t make love to her.

By afternoon, he’d found himself in the library once more, deep into the scotch, seated in the chair where he’d had her the night before, torturing himself with the memory of her exploring the massive room with exhilarating pleasure, eating her tart with the same. It occurred to him that he would think of her that way now, laughing with the servants, sighing over pasties, facing him in the dining room.

He’d think of her with passion.

She was all passion and strength and perfection, and stopping himself from taking her there, in that chair, on the floor, against the shelves of the library, again and again until neither of them remembered anything but each other, had been one of the hardest things he’d ever done.

But leaving her had been far more difficult.

And that terrified him.

As a gentleman, he should not have felt guilt. He did not ruin her, despite their idiotic agreement. That was the point of it, no? It was his role as a decent man to protect her virtue, was it not? But guilty he was, and it had nothing to do with not taking her to bed.

It had to do with the fact that he could not be what she wanted.

He could not give her the love she desired. The love she deserved. And the best thing in the world he could do for her at this point was to pack her back to the inn in Mossband and pretend as though they’d never met.

As though he would forget her.

He drank deep, guilt turning to frustration. What a damn fool he was to have brought Sophie here, to have introduced her to his demons. To have tempted them both with what could never be.

Because even if he did marry her—he could never love her.

He’d done that once. And look where it had landed him. Alone. Drunk. In the library.

“My lord?”

King turned his attention to the door, where Agnes stood. Agnes, who had been by his side from childhood, more mother than housekeeper, more friend than servant. She was the only person in the world who could look at him with such equal parts adoration and disdain. “Come in, Agnes,” he said, waving a hand to the chair opposite. “Sit and tell me tales of the last decade.”

She drew closer, but did not sit. “Are you drunk?”

He looked up at her. “I’m working on it.”

She considered him for a long moment and then said, “Your father wishes to see you.”

“I do not wish to see him.”

“You don’t have a choice, Aloysius.”

“No one calls me that,” he said.

“Well, I am most definitely not going to call you King,” Agnes said, dry and certain. “I already have one of them.”

“And a monarch in London, as well,” King quipped.

“That’s the drink talking, or I’d take a switch to you for rudeness.”

He looked up into her pretty face. The years had been kind to her, despite the fact that he imagined his father was anything but. “I’m too old for switches, Nessie. And I’m well past the age where I mustn’t disrespect the pater.”

She narrowed her brown eyes on him. “You may disrespect your father all you like. I won’t have you disrespecting me. Drunk or otherwise.”

The words set him back. For a boy who had grown up without a mother, Agnes had been the best possible companion, always forthright, always caring, always there. She’d been young and pretty when King was a child, always willing to play. It had been Agnes who had shown King the secret nooks and crannies of the castle, always finding time for him. When King had broken his wrist after tripping down the castle stairs, it had been Agnes who had gathered him in her arms and promised him he would be well. And it had been Agnes who had always told King the truth, even when it made him feel like an ass.

Like now.

“I apologize.”

The housekeeper nodded. “And while we’re at it, why not try your hand at not disrespecting your future wife, either?”

It was too late for that.

“She’s not my future wife.”

Agnes raised a brow. “Has she come to her senses and left you, then?”

Somehow, she hadn’t. But he was through keeping her here, against her wishes, forcing her to tell a story that she didn’t want to tell. He was releasing her from their agreement as soon as possible. This afternoon. The moment he next saw her.

And she would leave him.

“She will,” he replied, hating the words.

“You know that will be entirely your fault.”

He nodded. “I know.”

And he did. He’d drive her away, just as he did with every other woman who had ever shown a modicum of interest in him since Lorna. Except, all the other times, it had been easy . . . a smile, a stolen kiss, a promise that they’d find someone even better. More ideal. Perfect for them.

But he didn’t want Sophie finding someone more perfect.

He wanted to be someone more perfect for her.

Except he didn’t know how to be.

Goddammit.

“I hate this place.”

“Why?”

He sighed, leaning his head back on the chair and closing his eyes. “Because it makes me feel like a child. It makes me feel like the child I was when I lived here, clinging to your skirts, uncertain of what to do next. The only difference is that now I could not care less about his opinion of my actions.”

She watched him carefully. “I’m not certain that’s true.”

She was right, of course. He cared deeply about his father’s opinion of his actions. He wanted him to loathe them. He stood, irritated by the revelation. “When I inherit, I’m razing the place and its memories.” He moved to a low table nearby and filled his glass once more. “Lead on. Take me to the king of the castle, so I may receive my instructions and leave him in peace. If all goes well, we can have it out, and we’ll never see each other again.”

He would have left already, if not for Sophie.

“He is not the villain you think he is, you know.”

He cut her a look. “With due respect, you are not his son.”

“No,” she said, “but I have run his house since you were born. I was here the night you left. I’ve been here all the nights since.”

“Since he forced my hand and left me to kill the woman I loved.”

Agnes stopped short. King had never said the words aloud, and in the last twenty-four hours, he’d said them twice. It was as though telling Sophie had unlocked something in him.

“What is it?” he asked.

She shook her head and began to move again. “I promised your father I’d fetch you.”

“I am fetched, Agnes,” he said. “I do not require escort.”

“I think he is afraid you will leave if you are left to your own devices.”

If not for Sophie, he would have already left.

“He isn’t wrong. I only came to tell him that the line dies with me.”

“You don’t think that lovely girl will want children?”

Of course she would. And she’d make a wonderful mother.

But not to his children.

To someone else’s children. Someone who loved her as she deserved, her and her damn bookshop stocked with texts no one but she would ever want. That would be his gift to her. The freedom to have that bookshop. To find that happiness. That love.

Just as it had been his gift to all the other women whose marriages he’d stopped before they happened. The chance to find love.

The chance Lorna had never had.

Sophie would have it.

That he hated the idea of her in love with another man was irrelevant.

“You’ll hear what he has to say before you leave,” Agnes said, as though it were her bidding that would make him. “You owe it to me.”

“For what?”

She looked to him then, and he realized that, though fifteen years had passed and she remained a beautiful woman, this place had aged her. “For all the years I’ve worried about you.”

He was ever disappointing the women around him.

They were at the door to his father’s study and as he stared at it, he remembered being a child and standing here, heart in his throat, worried about what the man on the other side would say.

There was none of that youthful trepidation in him now.

Agnes lifted her hand to knock, to announce their arrival.

King stayed her. “No.”

He turned the handle, and stepped inside.

The Duke of Lyne was standing at the far end of the study, at the oriel windows that looked out on the vast estate lands. He turned at the sound of the door. His father was impeccably turned out in navy topcoat and buckskin, boots to the knee, and perfectly pressed cravat.

“One would think that you would eschew formal attire this far from London in both distance and time,” King said.

The duke leveled him with a long, thorough, disdainful gaze. “One would think you would remember your manners in spite of the distance, and not turn up drunk in the middle of the day.”

King did not wait to be told to sit, instead sprawling into a chair nearby, enjoying the way one of his father’s grey brows rose in irritation. “I find that alcohol helps with my great distaste for this place.”

“You didn’t hate it when you were a child.”

“I didn’t see its truth.”

“And what is that?”

King drank. “That it turns us into monsters.”

The duke approached and sat in the chair opposite him. King considered his father, still tall and trim, the kind of man women would find handsome even as he aged. And he had aged in the last decade, the silver that had once been the purview of his temples now spread throughout all his hair, lines at his mouth and eyes that King had once heard referred to as signs of good humor.

It was humorous indeed to think of his father as the kind of man who was known for such a thing.

“You look well,” the duke said. “Older.”

King drank. “Why am I here?”

“It is time we speak.”

“You sent word you were dying.”

Lyne waved a hand. “We are all dying, are we not?”

King cut him a look. “Some of us not quickly enough.”

The duke sat back in his chair. “I suppose you think I deserve that.”

“I know you deserve more,” King said. There was a pause, and he said, “I won’t ask again, Your Grace. You either tell me why I’ve been summoned here or I leave, and the next time I see this place, I shall bear its name.”

“I could follow you to London.”

“I have avoided you for fifteen years, your grace. London is a very big city.”

“It will be difficult for you to do so if I resume my role as duke.”

“To do that, you’d have to take your seat in Parliament. I’m sure the rest of the House of Lords would be thrilled you were at last treating your title with respect.” He considered his father. “In fact, for a man who so thoroughly respected the title that he went to such lengths to protect it from being damaged by bad blood, it is a shock that you have eschewed such an important duty. You’ve been in London, what, a half-dozen times in fifteen years?”

“I had my reasons for staying away.”

“I’m sure they were excellent,” King scoffed.

“Some better than others.” The duke inhaled. “I should never have left you alone for so long.”

King raised a brow. “Left me?”

The duke fisted his hands on his knees. “You were young and insolent and you knew nothing of the world. Every time I returned, you refused to see me. A single, petulant message. The line ends with me. I should never have allowed it.”

“I enjoy the way you think you have allowed me to do anything I’ve done since the night you exiled me.”

Lyne leveled him with a cool green gaze that King had used on countless others. He did not like being in its path. “I have allowed you everything. I filled your coffers with funds, I gave you horses, the Mayfair town house, the curricle you drove hell-for-leather for a year before you crashed it, the coach you never used.”

King sat forward, loathing the way his father seemed to claim his successes for himself. “That money is now worth twelve times its original value. The house sits empty, right there on Park Lane, entailed to you. The horses are dead. And yes, the carriage is crashed. Just as the coach here was.” He narrowed his gaze on his father. “I lived by your hand until I could live by my own. And I have never asked you for another shilling. One would think you would not have kept such a ledger. One would have thought you would count those funds as penance for killing a girl so far beneath you that you thought her expendable.”

“And so we get to it.”

“So we do.”

The duke sat back in his chair. “I was not the instrument of her death.”

It was a strange phrasing, one that King imagined his father used to eschew his responsibility. “No, I was, and thank you very much for clarifying the situation as though I wasn’t there.”

“You weren’t, either.”

King held up a hand. “I carried the reins, Your Grace. I heard her scream. I was there when she fell silent. I held her in my arms.”

“And that will be your cross to bear. All men have them.”

King ran a hand through his hair, barely able to contain his fury and frustration. “Why am I here?”

“I offered her money,” the duke said. “The milkmaid.”

“To leave me.” Lorna had never said so, but it was not an enormous surprise.

“I am not proud of it, but I had no other way of ensuring that she wasn’t after your title. Your money. That she wasn’t trying to climb.”

King laughed at that. “I am supposed to believe that you were, what . . . making certain she loved me?”

The duke’s gaze flickered over King’s shoulder. “Believe it or not, it’s the truth.”

“It’s bollocks and you know it. You’ve done nothing for your entire life but espouse the importance of blue blood and good name and strong breeding. If you offered her money, you did it to ensure she would leave me. I assume you offered her father the same.”

The duke nodded. “I did.”

“And he accepted. And she ran to me. Because she loved me. And money wasn’t enough to end that.”

“Neither accepted it,” the duke said, “And money was not enough, you are right. You’d tempted them with something else. Something far more valuable. Something they thought they’d never get, and then . . . it seemed as though they might.”

The words unsettled. She’d wanted to run away from the start. Across the border. Into Scotland. King had pushed her to marry in a church. In Britain. In front of all the world. She’d agreed. Hadn’t she?

“She didn’t tell you about the money,” his father said, “because she knew that if she did, you’d come to me, angry. And I’d tell you the truth. She worried you’d believe it. So she told you something else.”

King did not believe it.

He shook his head. “It’s not true.”

“It’s true.” The words came from the door, where Agnes had apparently stayed, sentinel.

“He even has you lying for him?” he said, betrayal hot and unpleasant in his chest.

“She’s not lying,” the duke said.

“Her father came to the castle after her death, Aloysius,” Agnes said. “After you’d disappeared. He was destroyed. And he told the truth—that they’d been after a title from the start. Together.”

King shook his head. “No. She was afraid of him. She told me her father was coming. That he’d kill her if he found her. That he was afraid of you.”

“That man wasn’t afraid of me,” the duke said. “He had visions of being a Boleyn. He spat in my face and tore her gown. Backhanded her—and well. Split her lip. And vowed to me that she’d be the next Marchioness of Eversley by sunup.”

King could still see the gown, torn at the neck. He could see her lip, bleeding. He pushed memory aside. His father lied. It was what he did.

“Why didn’t you stop them?”

“I went to Rivendel.” The neighboring earl, master of the estate where Lorna and her father lived. The duke laughed at his stupidity. “I actually thought he would be able to help. But your girl and her father had been promised a dukedom. And they were willing to risk all. By the time I returned home, you were gone. With her. And the coach.” The duke paused. “That’s when I learned that against human will, the aristocracy had no power.”

King’s mind reeled with the images of that night, burned into his memory. Her tears, her begs, her eyes filled with fear. Those eyes. She’d have to be the best actress in Britain. Or want something badly enough to do anything.

But the idea that she’d lied—that everything he’d thought about that summer, that girl, the life they could have had, was imagined—it was devastating. And impossible to believe. It did not matter that the doubt was there now, seeded. Growing. What if the only love he’d ever believed was a lie?

What if the darkest pain he’d ever felt was the product of betrayal instead of love?

Who was he if not the man made by that night?

King stood, desperate to leave the room. To be rid of his father. To be rid of Agnes, whom he’d never thought would betray him. He leveled his accusation at her. “You’re both lying to me.”

“Call her a liar again, and you will no longer be welcome in this house,” the duke said, cold fury in his tone. “I will take your insults, but Agnes has been nothing but your champion since the day you were born, and you will not speak ill of her.”

At another time, the anger in his father’s words would have shocked him, but King hadn’t the patience for it now. He rounded on the duke. “This changes nothing. This place still made monsters of us both. The line will end with me, as I have always promised.”

“And the wife you presented to me? What of her desires?”

Sophie.

“Don’t tell me you believe she loves me. She’s a Dangerous Daughter.”

The duke’s gaze did not waver. “After witnessing last night, I think the girl might well care for you. Your milkmaid would never have left you the way the Talbot girl did.”

Perfect, untouched Sophie, who wanted a home full of happiness and honesty. Sophie, whom he would return to the life she desired as soon as possible. King hated the thought of her here, in this place, with this man and his revelations.

There had been a time when he’d believed in love. When he’d desired it. But he’d lost the only thing he ever loved, and now even that truth was clouded with lies. “Then her desires shall suffer along with mine.”

There was only one thing he could ensure remained true.

This place. This line. It ended with him.

Even if it meant leaving Sophie.

Even if leaving Sophie had somehow become the last thing in the world he wanted to do.

His jaw clenched with anger and disbelief and something far more complicated. “Why am I here?” he asked a final time, the words harsh and unpleasant on his tongue.

“You’re my son,” the duke said, simply, something in his eyes that King did not wish to identify. “You’re my son, and there was a time when you were my joy. You deserve to know the truth. And more than that, you deserve to know happiness.” The duke paused, looking older. “Pride be damned.”

The words were the worst kind of blow, and King responded the only way he could. He left the room without a word, going to the only place he could think of to find solace. The labyrinth.

Anger and frustration propelled him through the complex maze, every turn bringing back another memory of his youth, of his mistakes. Of the past he’d been escaping for a dozen years. He followed the path without hesitation, the memory of the route to the center innate. He was Theseus, headed for the Minotaur, the battle already raging in his mind and heart.

But at the center of the labyrinth, he did not find a monster.

He found Sophie.

The Lyne labyrinth was as magnificent as she remembered.

Sophie sat on the edge of the extravagant marble fountain at the heart of the maze, book forgotten in her lap, shoring up her courage to leave the estate.

She’d spent much of the day exploring its twists and turns, the search for the fountain at the center occupying her thoughts just enough to keep her from going mad thinking of King. Of course, she thought plenty of King, of his childhood here, in what he’d confessed was his favorite place on the estate. Of the things he must have avoided when he was hidden away inside this labyrinth.

As one who was avoiding things herself, she could attest to the benefits of this particular location.

He’d escorted her to her bedchamber the previous evening, separated from his own by a wall and an adjoining door, and she’d kept herself from protesting his decision to leave her untouched. She had been masterful at hiding her emotions from him, if she were to offer her own opinion on the matter.

Of course, once her bedchamber door was shut and the candles beside the bed were snuffed, she’d let the tears come, along with the desire—not just for his touch and his words, but for the rest. The story he’d told, the love he’d had for Lorna—she ached for him, and for the girl he’d lost.

And then she’d ached for herself.

She’d ached at the unbearable knowledge that she wanted him. That she wanted his confessions and his desires and his truth. And it didn’t matter. Because she could want him forever, and he would never risk his heart again.

So it was best that she was here, inside this complicated maze, invisible to the world. Here, she could find courage to ignore what she felt for him. And to leave, head high, and find herself another life.

But never another man.

She knew that now. There was no other man for Sophie Talbot, youngest daughter of a North Country coal miner, than the Marquess of Eversley. And the Marquess of Eversley was not for her.

So she was leaving.

Just as soon as she found him, she’d tell him as much.

She dangled her fingers in the cool water, staring up at the magnificent marble battle at the center of the fountain. The Minotaur, head-to-head with Theseus, water cascading around them as they battled hand-to-hand, each as strong as the other. There was something in the fine detail of the sculpture that made her feel for the monster in battle—he’d been a pawn in another’s game, born a monster as punishment to his mother. It didn’t seem fair that his whole life had been spent in solitude, even if the labyrinth of myth was as beautiful as this one.

“You remembered the way in.”

She snatched her hand from the water. He’d found her, first.

Her breath quickened at the words, and she turned to face King at the entrance to her secret hideaway. “I was—”

“Hiding from me.”

She smiled, hating the ache that came at the sight of him. Even with the shadow of an afternoon beard, with his hair in a state of disarray, in shirtsleeves, rolled to the elbow, he unsettled her. Perhaps those things unsettled her more, giving her a taste of the man he was outside of London’s view. Of the man she might have had, at another time, in another place.

She looked away, back to the water. “More from the idea of you than from the actuality of you, if that helps.”

His lips lifted in a small smile. “They are different?”

“The idea of you is much more unsettling.”

“That’s a pity,” he said. “I should like to be unsettling in person.”

Except he was terribly unsettling. Indeed, if he were any more unsettling, she’d have run screaming from this place. As it was, she stood, drying her hand on her skirts. “If you are here to hide from me, my lord, I am happy to leave you in peace.”

She was surprised when, for a moment, he appeared to consider the offer. Surprised, and somewhat affronted. After all, it was he who had insulted her, was it not? It was he who’d made it clear that they were never meant to be. So why would she be the one who left?

She’d been here first, had she not?

She did not imagine that he subscribed to the rules of siblings.

But he seemed to change his mind. “Stay,” he said, quietly. “Stay, and keep me company.”

Something in the soft words had her sitting, turning to him, wishing she were closer. Wishing she could see the glittering green of his gaze. That she could read the emotions there.

And then he added, a soft, unbearable “Please.”

Something had happened.

“My lord,” she said, “is all well?”

He ignored the question and sat on a low stone bench a few yards away, facing her and the fountain, stretching his long legs out and crossing them at the ankle as he crossed his arms over his chest, revealing wide bronzed forearms that she had difficulty ignoring. He lifted his chin, nodding at her lap. “Still reading about henges?”

It took a moment for her to remember that she was holding a book. She clutched it more tightly and said with a forced smile, “Do you care for another reading?”

He didn’t return the expression. “Believe it or not, not even henges could capture my attention at this moment.”

She looked down at her book. “It’s not about henges.”

“What is it?”

She couldn’t remember. She looked down. “It’s the Greek myths.”

“Is it interesting?”

“It’s filled with rakes and cads and every sort of scoundrel.”

“Sounds fascinating.”

“If you enjoy ruiners of women.”

“And do you?”

Yes.

She paused, considering the question. Its answer. She met his gaze. “Well, I like you.”

“I thought we did not like each other?”

She shook her head. “I find that I’ve changed my mind.” He stood then, moving toward her, and she finished. “Even though I shouldn’t.”

He sat next to her on the edge of the fountain, raising a hand and tucking one long lock behind her ear. “You shouldn’t,” he agreed softly. “I won’t ruin you, Sophie.”

“That was the arrangement,” she said.

“So we have both reneged.”

“You take excellent care of me,” she replied, and his brow furrowed in confusion before she clarified. “Something nice about you,” she said. “As agreed. I have not reneged.”

He closed his eyes for a long moment. When he opened them, they glittered brilliant green. “I still renege. I won’t destroy your reputation.”

Her brow furrowed. “Why not? You don’t hesitate with the others.” He paused, and she pressed him. “You didn’t hesitate with Marcella.” Something bothered her about his silence, something that had bothered her that afternoon at the Liverpool soiree. Marcella waving happily from the window above, as though she were perfectly satisfied with King leaving her to pick up the pieces of her ruination.

“You don’t ruin them, do you?”

He raised a brow. “Why would you think that?”

She was flooded with memories. “Because I saw Marcella’s face when you left. When she looked out the window and thanked you.”

He looked down to the water, dragging his fingers across the surface. “Perhaps she enjoyed our tryst.”

Sophie’s gaze narrowed. “I don’t think so.”

“Well. That’s a bit hurtful.”

She ignored the attempt to dodge the point. “I don’t think there was a tryst. Was there?”

He inclined his head. “There was not.”

Her brow furrowed. “Then why the mad escape? Why enrage the earl?” She paused, realization dawning. “I see. Marcella will marry another.”

He nodded. “The owner of Hoff and Chawton menswear, if I recall. He’s promised me cravats any time I require them.”

“Marcella’s father won’t be able to argue the match.”

“I imagine he’ll be grateful for someone to happily marry his daughter. And Mr. Hoff is very wealthy.”

Sophie laughed. “You gave her the marriage she’d never have been able to have.”

“She swore it was a love match.”

“And the others?” Sophie asked. “Did they vow love matches as well?”

“Every one.”

She thought back on the other women, the ones she’d envied during their discussion in the carriage. “You ruin them so they can be happy.”

She would be happy, ruined by him.

“I give them the push they require.”

“I should have seen it,” she said. “If there was something between you, they wouldn’t have—” She stopped. She couldn’t tell him that.

“Wouldn’t have been what?”

“Nothing.”

“Oh, no, Lady Sophie,” he said. “It was just becoming interesting.”

She exhaled sharply, tired of lying. So she told him the truth. “If there were something between you, they wouldn’t have been so quick to tell you good-bye.” He stilled at the words. “Marcella wouldn’t have been able to do it so easily.” He lifted his hand from the fountain, touching her cheek with his cool, wet fingertips. She closed her eyes at the sensation. “It’s very difficult to tell you good-bye,” she whispered.

Silence fell for a yawning stretch of time before he said, quietly, “Is that what you want? To tell me good-bye?”

No.

Never.

King looked to the statue behind them. “What do you know about the Minotaur?”

The question set her back. She followed his gaze to the beautiful stretch of marble—a naked man with the head of a bull. “I know he was trapped in the labyrinth.”

“He was kept at the center of an impossible labyrinth, the solution to which was known only by one person.”

“Ariadne,” she said.

He raised a brow.

She blushed. “I know some of it.”

He took her hand in his, turning it so her palm was open to the air. He dipped a finger into the water and painted the center of her hand with cool drops, the sensations thrumming through her with visceral pleasure. “As the only one who knew the secrets to the labyrinth, Ariadne was tasked with leading the virgin sacrifices to the Minotaur each year to keep the gods happy.”

“That sounds like a terrible task,” Sophie said.

“Her father gave it to her because she was too precious for anything else,” King said, tracing the lines on her palm as though learning her own secret labyrinth. “Making her so essential to the process kept her close to home. It had the added bonus of convincing her that she was not worthy of what was beyond the maze walls.”

Sophie raised a brow. “And was she? Worthy?”

He leveled her with his green gaze. “More than she could ever know. Beautiful beyond imagination, brilliant, and kind.” Her breath caught at the words as he continued. “The Minotaur never attacked her. It was said that he loved her.”

He was not talking about her. She was going mad. Sophie cleared her throat. “Alternatively, he was intelligent enough to know that she was his line to dinner.”

One dark brow rose. “Are you going to let me tell you the story? Or make jokes?”

She put a hand to her breast. “My apologies, my lord. Of course. Do go on.”

“On the third year, as the sacrifice approached, Theseus came to the labyrinth.”

She looked up at the statue. “It seems as though he’ll be trouble.”

“He vowed to slay the Minotaur, and Ariadne agreed to help him navigate the maze.”

She snatched her hand back from him, the swirling touch unsettling. “That seems rather cruel, considering the Minotaur’s feelings.”

“Love makes us do strange things.”

She knew that better than anyone. “She’d fallen in love with Theseus?” At King’s nod, Sophie added, “He was most definitely trouble. The worst kind.”

King continued with the story. “Ariadne led her love to the center of the maze, where he and the Minotaur fought.”

“For their lives,” she offered.

“You see? You’re not paying close enough attention. Theseus fought for his life,” He shook his head. “But the Minotaur, he fought for Ariadne.”

At the words, Sophie went still, her gaze finding King’s, watching as he continued. “He fought to be with her in that world he could not escape, willing to take the years of solitude if it meant that he could see her, however fleetingly. She was the reason he lived; and if he could not have her, he did not care if he died. She was the only person in the world who understood him.” Sophie’s breath came faster and faster, and she leaned forward, listening intently. “The only person he’d ever loved.”

“How tragic,” she whispered.

“But Theseus didn’t have a lock on the fight—the Minotaur was stronger than ten men,” King said, watching her intently. “Theseus had brought the sword of Aegeus with him, the only weapon that could kill the Minotaur, but he lost it mid-fight.” He pointed to the feet of the statue and Sophie looked to find a sword discarded there, in marble. “The Minotaur would have won, if not for Ariadne. She entered the fray and returned the fallen sword to Theseus.”

Sophie shook her head. “The poor beast.”

“Betrayed,” King said, the word rough on his tongue. “By the woman he loved. It’s said that when he saw her choose Theseus, he laid himself down and submitted to the blow.” He paused. “Though I always thought the blow of the sword could not possibly have been as bad as the blow Ariadne dealt.”

She shook her head, tears on her cheeks. “What a terrible story.”

He reached up and brushed away her tears. “Death was likely the best outcome—he’d never have been free of the labyrinth, anyway.” There was a long, silent moment before he let her go. “Suffice to say, I have always been partial to the Minotaur.”

Knowing she shouldn’t, knowing it was a mistake, she reached for him, putting her hand on his warm arm, willing him to look at her. When he didn’t, she came to stand directly in front of him, her skirts brushing against his knees. He did not look up, his gaze locked on her body, staring through it, at the tale he told. At something else.

“King,” she whispered, and he met her gaze, the sadness in his eyes overwhelming her. Without hesitation, she put one hand to his dark hair, loving the feel of it, silk between her fingers. “What has happened?”

He closed his eyes at the question, then did the unthinkable, putting his hands to her waist and pulling her closer, pressing his face into her midriff and inhaling, holding her as tight to him as he could.

Her free hand joined the first, fingers threading through his hair, holding him as well, wanting him, wanting to hear everything he thought, wanting to tell him everything she felt.

She should tell him she wanted to leave.

Except here, in this moment, with his hands on her and his breath against her, she didn’t want to leave. She wanted to stay forever.

“King,” she whispered.

He shook his head at his name. “I want you quite desperately, Sophie.”

Her heart stopped at the words. “You do?”

He looked up at her, handsome and devastating. “I do,” he said. “I’ve wanted you from the start, you know. From the moment I nearly hit you in the head with a boot.”

She smiled, small and sad. “No, you didn’t.”

He tilted his head. “Maybe not just then. But definitely by the time I found you drinking with Warnick in the stables.”

“In your footman’s livery?”

“Ah,” he said. “So you admit he is my footman.”

“Never.” She laughed, loving the feel of him. Loving the look of him.

Loving him.

She took a deep breath. “King, what—”

“She didn’t love me,” he said softly.

Her brow furrowed. “Who?”

“Lorna. She wanted the title and nothing else.”

She couldn’t believe it, not after the way he’d spoken about her. “How do you know that?”

“Because I do.” He released her and stood putting distance between them. “The line ends with me,” he whispered, and she ached at the words even as he continued. “It was so much more than revenge. It was penance. I swore off marriage because I couldn’t bear the thought of betraying the girl I’d once loved.” Sophie ached at the words, tears threatening as he continued, devastating betrayal in his tone. “But now . . . she wanted to marry me for money. For title. For security. She lied to me.”

He turned away from Sophie, making his way to the labyrinth’s path. He turned back before he entered the maze and looked at her for a long while, anger and frustration and disappointment in his gaze. “I thought she was the only person who had ever wanted me for me. And now I know the truth. She wanted me for my title and my fortune. Not for me. There’s never been anyone who wanted me.”

Sophie did not hesitate, a desperate need for him to hear the truth propelling her closer to him. “That’s not true.” She wanted him. Desperately.

He understood, his gaze turning predatorial. He, the hunter. She, the prey. And then he said, “I can’t love you.”

A single tear slipped down her cheek as she nodded. “I know.”

“I don’t want you to leave. I want you to stay here. I want to keep you here, at the center of this labyrinth. Even though it’s the worst possible thing I can think to do to you.”

“I don’t think I can survive your betrayal.”

He came to her then, quick and purposeful, lifting her face to his, staring deep into her eyes. “I don’t want you to go,” he said. “I want you to stay.”

“And what happens if I do? What is my life if I stay?” Her throat ached with the words. Because she knew the answer. She knew he’d never be able to give her what she wanted. What she’d always wanted and somehow had never realized she wanted.

He would never love her. He would never marry her. They would never have children, despite her ability to see them quite clearly, little dark-haired cherubs, with his beautiful green eyes and dimples that showed when they smiled.

He didn’t ask her what she saw. What she wanted. He already knew. “Sophie . . .” he started, and she heard the knowledge. Heard the denial. She didn’t want to hear the words.

Instead, she reached for him, her fingers trailing down his cheek, drawing him closer to her. “Tomorrow,” she whispered, so close to his lips that it felt as though he had spoken instead. “What if we return to the world tomorrow?”

“Yes,” he replied, the word somehow a vow and a prayer and a curse all at once. “Yes,” he said again. “Tomorrow.”

And then he lifted her in his arms and carried her back to the fountain.

And she knew, this place, this man—he would always be home.