The Rogue Not Taken (12 page)

“Hmm?” It was difficult to keep up with the conversation.

“Who is Robbie?”

Memory came, hazy and welcome, blond hair and ruddy cheeks. Her friend. The only friend she’d ever really had. “We’ll marry,” he’d promised once long ago.

She smiled. It would be nice to marry a friend. Perhaps he’d love her. It would be nice to be loved. Perhaps they’d marry. Perhaps they’d be happy.

After all, they’d promised it all those years ago. She’d said it, too. “We’ll marry.”

She repeated the words now, aloud, the Marquess of Eversley watching over her.

N
ight 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 him
self, 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.”