The Rogue Not Taken (17 page)

“Did it seem reckless?”

“You tipped onto one wheel. The whole thing could have toppled over.”

He looked away. “It’s happened before. I survived.”

She imagined him tossed on the side of the road, broken and bleeding. She did not like it. Her brow furrowed. “You could have died.”

“I didn’t.” There was something in the words, something darker than she would like. She wished his eyes were open, so she could make more sense of him.

“But you could have.”

“That’s part of the fun.”

“The threat of death is fun?”

“You can’t imagine that?”

“Considering I nearly died of a gunshot wound several days ago, I do not.”

He did look at her then, and there was no humor in his gaze. “That’s not the same.”

“Because it was not at my own hand?”

“There are many who would say that, yes.” The carriage bounced over a rough patch of road and he gritted his teeth.

“Are you afraid you might die? Now? Is that why you dislike carriages?”

He paused. “This is a very small carriage.”

It was a perfectly ordinary-sized carriage. “Why?”

For a moment, his gaze darkened, and she lost him to thought—something that seemed unpleasant. Haunting. She resisted the urge to put her hand on him. To soothe whatever that memory was. She didn’t expect him to answer. And he didn’t, despite shaking his head and saying, “I don’t care for them.” He paused. “And I do not wish to discuss it further.”

She nodded. “All right, what do you wish to discuss instead?”

“I suppose that I cannot say that I wish to sleep instead?”

“You look as though you might leap from this carriage at any moment,” she said. “You are no more going to sleep than I am going to fly.”

He narrowed his gaze on her. “If you were a man, I would not care much for you.”

Her brows rose. “You do not care much for me, anyway.”

He watched her for a long moment. “I was warming to you.”

The words sent a thread of excitement through her that came on a wave of memory, the dark hallway behind the Warbling Wren pub, his hands and mouth upon her. The feel of his hair in her fingers.

She had been warming to him, as well.

She cleared her throat. “We can discuss anything you like.” He did not reply, and the minutes ticked by in silence, until, finally, she gave up. “You are tremendously antisocial, my lord. Has anyone ever told you that?”

“No,” he said.

Obstinate man. Sophie reached into the satchel on the floor of the coach and extracted a book. She opened it, pretending that he was not there, hoping that it was something diverting.

He leaned forward, and she could smell him, clean and with a spice she could not identify. It was lovely.

She cleared her throat and looked down at the book.
A Popular and Practical Treatise on Masonry and Stone-cutting
. Oh, dear. It was not diverting.

Could nothing in the world go her way?

She began to read. Vaguely. She was distracted by the stretch of his trousers over his thighs, which were larger than she could have imagined. Of course, she should have guessed they would be, what with all the curricle racing he did.

Her fingers itched to touch the thigh closest to her. The one touching her. The one that she’d had a leg wrapped around earlier in the day.

It was very warm in the carriage.

“Where did you get a book?”

She started at the words, cheeks flaming. She did not look up. “I thought you did not wish to talk.”

“I don’t. But that does not mean I do not wish an answer.”

“It was at the back of the drawer in the table in my bedchamber.” She turned a page with force, as though doing so would make him smaller. Less formidable.

Less intriguing.

It did not.

Of course, anything would be more intriguing than a treatise on masonry and stone-cutting. But one made do. She soldiered on.

The silence stretched between them as the carriage careened up the Great North Road, away from Sprotbrough and toward their futures, and Sophie read, slowly, distracted by every sway of the conveyance and the way it pressed her to him.

King, however, remained unmoved.

On several occasions, she nearly spoke, desperate for conversation, but she refused to break first and, after an age, she was rewarded.

“Is it any good?” he asked.

“Quite,” she lied. “I had no idea that masonry was so fascinating.”

“Really,” he said, voice dry as sand. “Well, I suppose I should not be so surprised that you find it so. What with you being the unfun sister.”

She cut him a look, took in the small smirk on his lips, and decided that if he wasn’t going to be a decent companion, neither was she. “There’s nothing unfun about it, my lord.” She took a deep breath and waged her war.

“This book has a comprehensive explanation of hemispheric niches, hemispheric domes, and cylindric groins. There is a great deal to learn.”

The smirk grew. “About groins particularly I would imagine.”

She ignored the words, punishing him far better than she could ever imagine by reading aloud. “
This is the first and only work in English on the art of stone-cutting, and such a publication has been long and eagerly sought after
.”

“No doubt”—he reached across her to close the book and consider its cover—“Peter Nicholson, Esquire, has convinced himself of such a thing.”

She ignored the sliver of pleasure that coursed through her as his hand brushed hers, instead reopening the book. “I think he might be right. There are several full chapters explaining the basic and complex geometry necessary to properly stonework. Isn’t that fascinating? Did you know that,” she read, “
In preparing stones for walls, nothing more is necessary than to reduce the stone to its dimensions so that each of its eight solid angles may be contained by three right angles
?”

His smirk became a grimace, and Sophie was now quite happy that this was the only book to be found at the
Warbling Wren. She gave herself over to the moment, enjoying how much he hated it. “And listen to this next bit, about Druids and standing stone structures.”

“I don’t think I will.”

“Everyone thinks Druids are interesting.”

“Not everyone, I assure you.”

“Everyone with taste, of course. This structure is called Tinkinswood.”

“It sounds lovely.”

The words indicated that the Marquess of Eversley thought Tinkinswood might be nothing short of Hades. Sophie was beginning to enjoy herself. “Doesn’t it? Quite quaint. Listen to this fascinating description.
This Welsh dry stone masonry boasts a horned forecourt weighing more than thirty tonnes, and the structure would have required some ten score Druids to lift it into position.
Imagine that!”

“All those white robes in one place,” he replied, sounding as though he might perish from boredom.

She turned the page. “Ooh! Henges! Shall we learn about those?”

The henges broke him. “Stop. For God’s sake. Stop before I leap from this conveyance not from my own demons but from your eagerness over horned groins.”

“Horned forecourts.”

“I honestly don’t care. Anything but more of the damn masonry.”

She closed the book and looked at him, willing herself to seem displeased with his insistence. “Is there something else you’d prefer to discuss?”

Understanding dawned in his green eyes, followed by irritation, and then what Sophie could only define as respect. “You sneaking minx.”

She blinked. “I beg your pardon?”

“You did it on purpose.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“To get me to choose a topic of discussion.”

She widened her eyes until they felt as though they might pop out. “Certainly, if you’d like to choose a topic, my lord . . . I wouldn’t deign to eschew conversation.”

He gave a little laugh and stretched his legs, propping his feet up on the bench across from them. “I shall choose a topic, then.”

She did the same, placing her feet on the bench next to his. She clutched the closed book on her lap. “I imagine it won’t be stonework.”

“It will not be.” His attention moved to their feet. “Are the boots comfortable?”

She followed his gaze, considering his great black Hessians next to her smaller grey shoes, ankle height and designed for function rather than fashion. She should dislike the previously owned footwear, but he’d procured it, and somehow that made the boots rather perfect. “Quite,” she replied.

He nodded. “I should have had the doctor look at your feet.”

“They’re perfectly fine.”

“You should have been wearing better shoes.”

“I was not planning for an adventure.”

He looked down at her then. “So you decided to head for your future husband on a whim?”

Oh, dear.

She did not wish to speak of that. She’d never really meant to lie to him. But now, she would seem ridiculous if she confessed the truth—that Robbie wasn’t the purpose of this journey. That the journey had been without purpose until it had begun to seem as though it might be for freedom.

But the Marquess of Eversley would not take well to knowing that he’d rescued her from highwaymen and bounty hunters for the whisper of freedom. So she nodded and lied. “Yes. Sometimes when an idea strikes, you must follow it.”

He raised a brow. “You are headed to, what, propose? Woo him?”

She looked down at her lap, toying at the edges of the pages. “What makes you think he has not already been wooed?”

He crossed one black boot over the other, brushing his foot against hers. “Because you aren’t headed to Mossband in a beautifully appointed carriage, your mother and sisters in tow.”

She couldn’t help but chuckle at that image.

“That is amusing?”

“The idea of my mother and sisters choosing to leave London for little Mossband, even if it were for my wedding.” She shook her head. “We haven’t been back since we left a decade ago.”

He watched her for a long while. “You haven’t seen Robbie in ten years?”

“No,” she said, feeling quite trapped.

“Have you exchanged a lifetime of letters?”

She ignored the question, rather than lie.

He pressed on, his tone softer, knowing. “Why don’t you go home?”

And still, she could not bring herself to tell him the truth. “I am going home.”

“I mean your London home. The massive town house in Mayfair.”

She shook her head. “That’s not home.”

“But a dusty town filled with farmers is?”

She thought for a long minute about that, about the
quaint honesty of Mossband. About the people who lived and worked there. About the life she had before Father had become an earl. The life she could have again.

Maybe it was the rocking of the carriage, or the way King waited, with the patience of Job, or the close quarters. Whatever it was, she told the truth. “It is the only place I have ever felt free.”

Until now.

“What does that mean?”

She did not reply.

He lifted his boots off the bench and let them fall to the floor before moving to sit across from her, to get a better look, knees spread wide, fingers laced between them. “Look at me, Sophie.” She looked up to find his gaze on her, glittering in the carriage’s fading light. “What does that mean?”

She dropped her own feet to the floor and fiddled with the deckled edge of the book, uncertain of where to begin. “I was ten when my father earned his earldom. He burst through the door of our house, where I had never dreamed of more than I had, and announced, ‘My ladies!’ with a great, booming laugh. It was such a lark! My mother cried and my sisters screamed and I . . .” She paused. Thought. “They were infectious. Their happiness was infectious. So we packed our things and moved to London. I said good-bye to my life. To my home. To my friends. To my cat.”

His brow furrowed. “You couldn’t take your cat?”

She shook her head. “She did not travel well.”

“Like your sister?”

“She howled.”

“Sesily?”

Sophie smiled at the teasing. “Asparagus. Would cling to the back of the seat in the coach and howl. My moth
er’s nerves could not bear it.” She grew serious. “I had to leave her.”

“You had a cat named Asparagus.”

“I know. It’s silly. What’s asparagus to do with the price of wheat?”

He smiled at that. “That’s the second time you’ve used that phrase.”

She smiled, too. “My father,” she said simply.

“I’ve always liked him, you know.”

Her brows rose. “Really?”

“You’re surprised?”

“He’s crass compared to the rest of London.”

“He’s
honest
compared to the rest of London. The first time we ever met, he told me that he didn’t like my father.”