The Rogue Not Taken (39 page)

“I love you. My husband. My King.” She paused, then whispered, “Now you say it again.”

And he did, again and again, until she couldn’t remember a time when it wasn’t true.

November 1833

“
T
his is deeply embarrassing,” Sophie said from her place high atop her husband’s curricle. “Are we able to be seen by a great deal of people?”

“As it is midday on a Tuesday,” he replied, the words deep and dry and lovely, “Yes. We are.”

She blushed. “This is absurd.”

“Shall I tell you some news that I think will take your mind from it?”

She turned to him, loving the way he laughed. She smiled. “Do I look ridiculous?”

“You look perfect.” He took one of her gloved hands and lifted it for a kiss. “I received news from the idyllic Sprotbrough this morning.”

She straightened. Mary, John, and Bess had ultimately chosen to settle in Sprotbrough. “And?”

“Your doctor reports that Mary is the best nurse this side of the channel, and that John has a particular head for anatomy. The doctor has hopes that such a head, combined with nimble fingers, will make him a brilliant surgeon someday. Bess is running her governess ragged.”

Sophie smiled. “And the doctor?”

“I’m sure the madman enjoys every bit of the mayhem.”

She smiled at that. “I think it’s wonderful. Everyone received their happy ever after.” She had high hopes for Mary becoming more than the doctor’s nurse.

The carriage made a left turn, and Sophie lifted her hands to remove her blindfold. “Is the blindfold entirely necessary?”

King caught her hands before she could achieve her goal. “You’re not being a very good Soiled S, you know.”

“Not even my sisters would allow themselves to be blindfolded in full view of all of London.”

“Not even Sesily?”

“Perhaps Sesily,” she allowed.

Once Eversley and the Duke of Lyne had combined forces to restore Jack Talbot to the ranks of the aristocratically worthy, Sophie’s sisters had returned triumphantly to London. While the Earl of Clare and Mark Landry had been received happily by their respective Dangerous Daughters, Derek Hawkins had not been so lucky.

Sesily had fairly pushed the footman out of the way when Derek had arrived at the front door of the Talbot house and, in front of all Mayfair, given him the thorough set-down that the pompous, arrogant man deserved.

Since then, Sesily had become the most talked-about Talbot in London.

Until now. “This will be in the gossip columns tomorrow,” she said. “I can see the headlines now.”

“Sophie Sans Sight?”

She laughed. “That’s not really salacious enough.”

“Blindfolded Beyond Bedroom?”

She blushed again, the image delightfully scandalous. “That’s too salacious.”

He lowered his voice. “I am happy to show you how perfectly salacious it is this evening.”

She turned toward him, and matched his tone. “Now I really do wish that we were not in public.”

He growled, and she was suddenly quite warm beneath the traveling blanket. “You shan’t distract me from my surprise,” he said, bringing the carriage to a stop. “We’re here.”

She reached for the blindfold. “May I—”

“Not yet,” he said, and the curricle moved as he descended.

“King!” she squeaked, “Don’t you dare leave me here in front of the whole world!”

And then the vehicle moved again, and he was leaning over her, whispering low and dark, “Never. I shall never leave you.”

She turned toward the words as he untied the blindfold, and she found him close enough to touch. To kiss. Her gaze fell to his lips and he smiled, then promised, “When we get inside, love.”

She raised her eyes to his. “You are a rogue.”

“And you aren’t?”

Before she could answer, he backed away and helped her down onto the street where a collection of bystanders watched her, no doubt calculating the speed with which they could deliver this tale to the scandal sheets. The Marchioness of Eversley, delivered blindfolded and by curricle to a perfectly ordinary location in St. James by her possibly mad and most definitely madly-in-love husband.

But Sophie didn’t care a bit about them now that she could see the excitement in his gaze. She shook her head. “I don’t understand. Where are we?” She looked away to the storefront. “A bookshop?”

“Not just any bookshop,” he said, and the look he gave her was full of arrogant pride.

She looked up to the shingle, hanging above. “Matthew and Sons Bookshop.” She stilled, then turned to him, surprise and glee overwhelming her. “Matthew?”

He grinned. “The first name we ever shared.”

She raised a brow. “The name we shared with my footman.”

“I think you mean my footman, but yes.”

Matthew was
their
footman now, happily employed in their Mayfair home.

Sophie laughed. “A bookshop.”

That smile again. The one that made her love him more every day. “Would you like to go inside?”

She was at the door before the question was finished.

He slipped a key from his pocket and put a hand to the door. “You should know it’s empty. I thought you would like to stock it yourself.” He opened the door, letting it swing open into the dark, quiet room that she was already planning to fill with books from all corners of the world.

She didn’t enter, instead stepping into the jamb and turning to face him in full view of all of St. James. “It’s perfect.”

Happy confusion flooded his face. “You haven’t seen it.”

She shook her head. “I don’t have to. It’s perfect.”

He leaned in close. “You’re perfect.”

She lifted her hand to his face, not caring that ladies did not touch their lords in public. Not caring for anything but him. “Matthew and Sons.” She tilted her head. “It might not be the right name.”

“We can change it,” he said quickly. “If you don’t like it. Matthew doesn’t mind—I think he’s rather chuffed to call it his namesake—but it could certainly be something else.”

“It’s not that.”

He shook his head, and she could see that he was becoming frustrated with her. “Sophie, it doesn’t matter. Don’t you wish to see inside?”

She did, quite desperately, but the moment was too perfect. “I do,” she said, feigning doubt, “But I think it’s important to note that we won’t know for sure what the name of the shop is for a few months.”

“Who cares about the damn—” He stopped. “Months?”

It was her turn to grin.

He stepped closer, and if she were more of a lady, she would have put distance between them. There were benefits, however, to being a Soiled S.

“What might the name be, Sophie?”

She did love that growl.

“Well,” she said, “I cannot be certain, but do you have an aversion to the possibility of Matthew and Daughters?”

When the scandal sheets reported the events of that afternoon, it was not the blindfolded marchioness that dominated the headlines. Indeed, it was the deeply in love marquess, who, in a fit of unbridled adoration, eschewed propriety and kissed his wife in broad daylight, in the doorway of a new bookshop in front of all St. James.

All that before he lifted her in his arms, carried her over the threshold, and slammed the door with one great black boot.

T
he inspiration for this and all Scandal & Scoundrel books is modern celebrity gossip, something that readers who—like me—have a secret love for
US Weekly
, Defamer.com, and the
Tattler
will notice right away. Indeed, it’s hard to imagine a more similar time to ours than the early 1800s, when gossip rags were as plentiful and as powerful as they are today. While
Scandal & Scoundrel
is my creation, there were dozens of scandal sheets during Sophie and King’s time, many of which were just as scintillating then as they are now. I’m indebted to the vast, fascinating collections of the New York Public Library and the British Library. In less scintillating reading, Peter Nicholson, Esq. was real and did publish
A Popular and Practical Treatise on Masonry and Stone-cutting
in 1828—the perfect text with which Sophie could tease King on their travels.

When I began this book, I had no intention of anyone being shot. But Sophie is, after all, a Dangerous Daughter. I’m indebted to Dr. Daniel Medel for many reasons this year, not the least of which is his willingness to answer my panicked calls about nineteenth-century medicine and only sometimes tell me that Sophie was going to die. As always, errors are entirely my own.

This book is nothing without my tremendous editor, Carrie Feron, the wonderful Nicole Fischer, and the remarkable team at Avon Books, including Liate Stehlik, Shawn Nicholls, Pam Jaffee, Caroline Perny, Tobly McSmith, Carla Parker, Brian Grogan, Frank Albanese, Eileen DeWald, and Eleanor Mikucki. I’m so grateful to this team, and to my agent, Steven Axelrod, for making Sophie and King happen.

Thanks to Ally Carter for a long-ago bequeathal of the title
The Rogue Not Taken
, and to Lily Everett, Carrie Ryan, Sophie Jordan, and Linda Francis Lee for faith and cheerleading on this one. You’ll never know how much it meant, or how much I treasure your friendship.

And, as ever, thank you to Eric—the finest tart thief I know.

A life-long romance reader,
SARAH M
AC
LEAN
wrote her first romance novel on a dare, and never looked back. She is the
New York Times
and
USA Today
bestselling author of historical romances, and the author of a monthly column at
The Washington Post
celebrating the best of the romance genre. She lives in New York City with her husband, daughter, dog and a ridiculously large collection of romance novels. She loves to hear from readers. Visit her at
www.sarahmaclean.net
.

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Scandal & Scoundrel

T
HE
R
OGUE
N
OT
T
AKEN

Rules of Scoundrels

N
EVER
J
UDGE A
L
ADY BY
H
ER
C
OVER

N
O
G
OOD
D
UKE
G
OES
U
NPUNISHED

O
NE
G
OOD
E
ARL
D
ESERVES A
L
OVER

A
R
OGUE BY
A
NY
O
THER
N
AME

Love by Numbers

E
LEVEN
S
CANDALS TO
S
TART TO
W
IN A
D
UKE’S
H
EART

T
EN
W
AYS TO
B
E
A
DORED
W
HEN
L
ANDING A
L
ORD

N
INE
R
ULES TO
B
REAK
W
HEN
R
OMANCING A
R
AKE

T
HE
S
EASON