The Rogue Not Taken

For
Dr. Howard
Riina

and the wife he loves.

With endless gratitude.

London

June 1833

I
f only the Countess of Liverpool hadn’t been such an admirer of aquatic creatures, perhaps things would have turned out differently.

Perhaps no one would have witnessed the events of the thirteenth of June, the final, legendary garden party of the 1833 season. Perhaps London would have happily packed itself into myriad coaches that would have spread like beetles across the British countryside into summer idyll.

Perhaps.

But one year earlier, the Countess of Liverpool had received a gift of a half-dozen pretty orange-and-white fish that were said to be direct descendants of those beloved of the Shogun of Japan. Sophie thought the tale wholly unbelievable—Japan being notoriously insulated from the rest of the world—but Lady Liverpool was exceedingly proud of her pets, caring for the things with near-fanatical passion. Six had turned into two dozen, and the overlarge bowl in which the creatures were delivered had
been traded for a container that could only be described as pondlike.

The fish had sparked the countess’s imagination however, and the Liverpool Summer Soiree was oddly China-themed, despite the Countess of Liverpool knowing even less about China than she did of Japan. Indeed, when Lady Liverpool had greeted them in an elaborate white and orange diaphanous silk clearly intended to evoke her prized fish, she’d explained the disconnect. “No one knows a thing about Japan, you see. It’s terribly private, which makes for no fun when it comes to a theme. And China is so very close . . . it’s practically the same.”

When Sophie had told the Countess that it was, in fact, not the same at all, the Countess had tittered with laughter and waved one arm replete with silk fins. “Don’t fret, Lady Sophie, China has fish as well, I’m sure.”

Sophie had cut her mother a look at the ignorant words, but received no acknowledgement. For weeks, she’d insisted that China and Japan were not one in the same but no one had been inclined to listen—her mother far too grateful for the invitation to such an elaborate affair. The Talbot sisters, after all, were exceptional at being elaborate.

They, along with the rest of the aristocracy, had turned out in an array of reds and golds, brocades each more intricate than the last, and topped with outrageous hats that had no doubt kept the milliners of London working night and day since the invitations had arrived.

Sophie, however, had resisted her mother’s insistence that she participate in the farce and, to her family’s dismay, arrived in ordinary pale yellow.

And so it was that on that lovely day in the middle of June, Lady Liverpool took pity on poor, uninteresting Sophie—the Talbot daughter who was neither the prettiest, nor the most diverting, nor the one who played the
best pianoforte—and suggested that the young fish-out-of-water might like to visit with fish in their proper environment.

Sophie happily accepted the offer, grateful to exit the party of tittering aristocrats and their combined gaze—one that carefully avoided her and her family. There was, after all, never a stare so blatant as the one that carefully evaded its object. This was particularly true when the objects in question were so impossible to ignore.

The stares had followed the young ladies Talbot since they’d had their comings out—five in four years—each less welcome in Society than the last, the invitations growing fewer and fewer as the years progressed.

Sophie had always rather wished that her mother would give up on the dream of making her daughters Society darlings, but that would never happen. As a consequence, Sophie was here, alternately hiding in the topiary of the Liverpool estate and pretending not to hear the insults so regularly whispered about her sisters that they were barely whispered anymore.

So it was with no small amount of relief that Sophie followed her hostess’s directions into the legendary Liverpool greenhouse, enormous and glass-enclosed, filled with a stunning array of flora and promising no gossip.

She searched for the fishpond, weaving her way between potted lemon trees and impressive ferns, until she heard the sound—a cry of sorts, rhythmic and unsettling, as though some poor creature was being tortured among the rhododendrons.

As she was not without conscience, and the creature in question clearly required assistance, Sophie investigated. Unfortunately, when she found the source of the noise, it became very clear that the woman did not require assistance.

She was already receiving assistance.

From Sophie’s brother-in-law.

It bears noting that the woman was not Sophie’s sister.

Which was why, upon recovering from her initial shock, Sophie felt perfectly within her rights to interrupt. “Your Grace,” she said, not at all quietly, the words filled with her contempt for this moment, this man, and this world that had given him so much power.

The pair stilled. A pretty blond head popped out from behind his arm, topped with a towering red silk pagoda, gold tassels hanging from its multitude of corners, swinging at her ears. Large blue eyes blinked.

The Duke of Haven did not deign to look at Sophie. “Leave us.”

There was nothing in the world Sophie hated more than the aristocracy.

“Sophie? Mother is looking for you . . . She’s waylaid Captain Culberth on the croquet field, poor man, and she’s swatting him with that enormous fan she insisted on bringing. You should rescue the poor man.”

Sophie closed her eyes at the words, willing them away. Willing their speaker away with them. She whirled around to stop her sister’s advance. “No, Sera—”

“Oh.” Seraphina, Duchess of Haven, née Talbot, came up short as she turned the corner into the copse of potted plants, taking in the scene, her hands flying to her ever-so-slightly-protruding stomach, where the future Duke of Haven grew. “Oh.” Sophie saw shock flash in her sister’s eyes as she took in the scene, followed quickly by sadness, and then cool calm. “Oh,” the Duchess of Haven repeated.

The duke did not move. Did not look at his wife, the mother of his future child. Instead, he pushed one hand
into those blond curls and spoke to the crook of his paramour’s neck. “I said,
leave us
.”

Sophie looked to Seraphina, tall and strong and hiding all the emotions that she must have been feeling. That Sophie couldn’t help but feel with her. She willed her sister to speak. To stand for herself. For her unborn child.

Seraphina turned away.

Sophie couldn’t help herself. “Sera! Will you not say something?” The eldest Talbot sister shook her head, and the resignation in the movement sent anger and indignation rioting through Sophie. She turned on her brother-in-law. “If she won’t, I certainly will. You are disgusting. Pompous, hateful, and loathsome.”

The duke turned a disdainful gaze on her.

“Shall I go on?” Sophie prompted.

The blond in his arms gasped. “Really! Speaking to a duke that way. It’s terribly disrespectful.”

Sophie resisted the urge to tear the stupid hat from the woman’s head and club them both with it. “You’re right.
I
am the disrespectful one in this situation.”

“Sophie,” Seraphina said softly, and Sophie heard the urgency in the word, the way it urged her away from the scene.

The duke heaved a long-suffering sigh, extricating himself from the lady in question, lowering her skirts and lifting her down from the table where she was perched. “Run along.”

“But—”

“I said, go.”

The woman knew when she was forgotten and she did as she was told, straightening her tassels and smoothing her skirts before taking her leave.

The duke turned, still buttoning the falls of his trou
sers. His duchess looked away. Sophie did not, moving in front of her sister, as though she could protect Seraphina from this horrible man she’d married. “If you think to frighten us off with your crassness, it won’t work.”

He raised a brow. “Of course it won’t. Your family thrives on crassness.”

The words were meant to sting, and they did.

The Talbot family was the scandal of the aristocracy. Sophie’s father was a newly minted earl, having received his title a decade earlier from the then King. Though her father had never confirmed the gossip, it was generally accepted that Jack Talbot’s fortune—made in coal—had purchased his title. Some said it was won in a round of faro; some said it was payment for the earl assuming a particularly embarrassing debt belonging to the King.

Sophie did not know, and she did not much care. After all, her father’s title had nothing to do with her, and this aristocratic world was not one she would have chosen for herself.

Indeed, she would have chosen any world but this one, where people so misjudged and mistreated her sisters. She lifted her chin and faced her brother-in-law. “You don’t seem to mind spending our money.”

“Sophie,” her sister said again, and this time, she heard the censure in the word.

She turned on Seraphina. “You cannot mean to protect him. It’s true, isn’t it? Before you, he was impoverished. What good is a dukedom if it’s in shambles? He should be on his knees in gratitude that you came along and saved his name.”

“Saved my name, did she?” The duke straightened one coat sleeve. “You’re addled if you think that’s how it happened. I landed your father every aristocratic investor he has. He exists because of my goodwill. And I spend the
money with pleasure,” he spat, “because being trapped into marriage by
your whore of a sister
has made me a laughingstock.”

Sophie bit back her gasp at the insult. She knew the stories about her sister landing the duke, knew that her mother had crowed far and wide when her eldest had become a duchess. But it did not make his insults fair. “She’s to bear your child.”

“So she says.” He pushed past them, making for the exit of the greenhouse.

“You doubt she increases?” she called after him, shocked, turning wide eyes on Seraphina, looking down at her hands clasped over the swell of her growing body. As though she could keep her child from the knowledge that his father was a monster of a man.

And then Sophie realized what he really meant. She chased after the duke. “You cannot doubt that it is
your
child?”

He swung around, gaze cold and filled with disdain. He did not look at Sophie, though. Instead, he looked at his wife. “I doubt every word that drips from her lying lips.” He turned away, and Sophie looked to her sister, tall and proud and filled with cool reserve. Except for the single tear that spilled down her cheek as she watched her husband leave.

And in that moment, Sophie could no longer bear it, this world of rules and hierarchy and disdain. This world into which she had not been born. This world she had never chosen.

This world she hated.

She followed her brother-in-law, wanting nothing more than to avenge her sister.

He turned, possibly because he heard the desperation with which her sister called her name, or possibly because
the sound of a woman running toward him was strange enough to surprise, or possibly because Sophie couldn’t help but voice her frustration, the sound echoing loud and nearly feral in the glass enclosure.

She pushed him as hard as she could.

If he hadn’t been turning, already off balance . . .

If she hadn’t had momentum on her side . . .

If the ground beneath him hadn’t been slick from the gardeners’ thorough attention to their duties earlier in the day . . .

If the Countess of Liverpool hadn’t had such a fondness for her fish . . .

“You little shrew!” the duke cried from the spot where he landed, at the center of the fishpond, knees drawn up, dark hair plastered to his head, eyes full of fury, making a promise he did not have to voice, but did nonetheless. “I shall destroy you!”

Sophie took a deep breath—knowing with utter certainty that, in this case, in for a penny was most definitely in for a pound—and stood, arms akimbo, at the edge of the pool, staring down on her usually imposing brother-in-law.

Not so imposing, now.

She grinned, unable to help herself. “I should like to see you try.”

“Sophie,” her sister said, and she heard the dismay and regret and sorrow in her name.

“Oh, Sera,” she said, turning her smile on her sister, ignoring the dulcet tones of her brother-in-law’s sputtering. “Tell me you didn’t thoroughly enjoy that.”

Sophie hadn’t had such a pleasing moment in all her time in London.

“I did,” her sister allowed quietly, “But I am, unfortunately, not the only one.”

The duchess pointed over Sophie’s shoulder, and she turned, dread pooling, to find the entirety of London staring at her through the enormous glass wall of the greenhouse.

T
he shaming came almost immediately.

It did not matter that her brother-in-law had deserved every bit of wet clothing, ruined boots, and embarrassment. It did not matter that any man who flaunted his sexual escapades before his increasing wife and her unmarried sister was the worst kind of beast. It did not matter that the scandal should have belonged wholly and exclusively to him.