The Rogue Not Taken (37 page)

“Not the title, King. Not the marriage.” She paused. “I didn’t wish to marry you. I only wished to love you.”

He looked back at the harness, securing it carefully before coming around the horses to face her. “Never say
those words to me again. I’m tired of hearing them. I’m tired of believing them. Love is nothing but the worst kind of lie.”

“Not from me,” she said. “Never from me.”

“Your lie was the worst of them all,” he said, and she heard the pain in the words. “Even as I struggled with the truth of the past—with the knowledge that Lorna betrayed me, with the knowledge that she’d never cared for more than my title—you gave me a new truth. You tempted me with a future.”

Tears came at the words, at the confession that she had not expected. That she could not bear. “King—”

He stopped her from speaking. “You threatened to heal me,” he said. “You tempted me with your pretty vows.” He paused. “You made me think I could love again.”

She reached for him, but he backed away from her touch, opening the door to the coach. “Get in.”

She did, grateful for the privacy, eager for the journey back to Lyne Castle, for the chance to convince him that they could try again. Once seated, she looked to him, framed in the door. He did not join her, however.

He wasn’t coming with her. Uncertainty unfurled through her. “Where are you sending me?”

“To London,” he said, matter-of-factly. “Isn’t that what you wanted all along? To return to the aristocracy the conquering heroine? The next Duchess of Lyne?”

Her stomach dropped. It was nothing like what she wanted. “I never wanted any of that and you know it.”

“Well, Sophie, it seems that we all must make do with not getting what we want today.” He met her gaze, his eyes glittering green and furious. “The irony of it is this—I would have given you whatever you asked. I would have begged you for forever if you hadn’t been so quick to steal it.”

The words were more damaging than any blow.

Before she could recover, he closed the door, and the carriage began to move.

K
ing watched the coach trundle down the long drive, twisting and turning until it was out of sight. Until she was out of sight.

Until he was alone in Scotland, newly married, and filled with anger and something far, far more dangerous. Something like sorrow.

“Well. That was the strangest wedding I’ve ever witnessed.” Warnick leaned against the low stone wall that marked the long-ago filled-in moat of the castle, cheroot in hand, watching him.

“You don’t seem to have witnessed many weddings,” King said, “Considering what a hash you made of it.”

“I was trying to give you some pomp and circumstance. To remember the occasion.”

King did not think he’d ever forget this occasion.

What a fucking nightmare.

He’d married her. She was his wife.

Christ. What had he done?

“I’ll say this—” Warnick began.

“Please don’t,” King replied, unable to take his gaze from the crest where the carriage had finally disappeared. “I am not interested in what you wish to say.”

“I’m afraid you’re on my land, mate,” the Scot drawled. “At your own request, I arranged a wedding for you. I gave you a coach and six of my finest horses.”

“They weren’t hitched correctly,” King said, thinking of her in that carriage, careening down the Great North Road. Had he checked all six horses?

“They were hitched fine,” Warnick said. “You’re just mad.”

“Was there food in the carriage? And water?”

“Everything you asked,” the duke replied.

“Boiled water?” King asked. She’d need it for her tea, which she would find in the box he’d brought from Lyne Castle. “Clean bandages?”

She might need them.

“And honey, just as requested,” Warnick said. “A strange collection of items, but every one in there. She’s all the comforts of home.”

Home
.

The word brought an image of Sophie, leaning over the upper walkway of the library at Lyne Castle, laughing down at him. Of her in the kitchens, eating pasties with the staff. Of her at the edge of the labyrinth fountain, book in hand.

In his bed, pleasure in her eyes.

Pleasure, and her pretty lies.

He shoved a hand through his hair, hating the way she consumed his thoughts. She was gone. He looked to Warnick. “I’m ready for the next race.”

Warnick raised a black brow. “After your wife?”

King swore at him, low and wicked. “North. Let’s for Inverness.”

“That’s a long race. The roads are dangerous.”

Perfect. Something to keep him from thinking of her. “Are you not up for it?”

“I’m always up for it,” Warnick boasted. “And with you so distracted, I might actually win this one. I’ll send notice to the lads. When would you like to leave?”

“Tomorrow,” King said. As soon as he could be rid of this place and its memories.

Warnick looked to the curricle. “I see your darling is repaired.”

King followed his friend’s gaze, hating the look of the
carriage he’d once loved so dearly, now rife with memories of her. “No thanks to you.”

The duke smiled. “She was a clever girl, selling your wheels.”

“They weren’t hers to sell. She’s a thief.”

“You think I didn’t know that? She’s very convincing.”

I wished to say that I love you.

He’d never been so convinced of anything in his life.

He’d never wanted something to be more true.

The damn curricle was full of her. Of wagered carriage wheels and her glorious defiance earlier, when she lifted her skirts high and climbed up on the seat.

He’d been an ass, not helping her up.

And now as he faced a drive back to Lyne Castle, those memories marred the perfection of his curricle—no longer a place of safety, empty of all but thoughts of speed and competition. Instead, it was filled with thoughts of her. With her pretty lies.

I wanted you. Forever.

“I’ll sell it to you,” he said.

Warnick blinked. “The curricle?”

“Right now,” King said.

The duke watched him for a long moment. “How much?”

It was worth a fortune, the custom box, the high, special wheels, the perfectly balanced springs, designed to keep the seat as light and comfortable as possible on long races. It was several stones lighter than other curricles. Built to King’s exact specifications by the finest craftsmen in Britain.

But he couldn’t look at it any longer.

She’d ruined it.

He shook his head. “Nothing. I don’t want it any longer.” He considered the horses and turned back to the duke. “I require a saddle.”

“You are giving me your curricle,” Warnick said. “For a saddle.”

“If you don’t want it—” King said.

“Oh, no. I want it,” Warnick replied, shock in his Scots burr, moving to the door to send a servant for a saddle.

“Good,” King said, moving to unhitch one of the blacks. “You can return the other horse when you’ve time.”

The two men stood in silence for the long minutes it took for a saddle to arrive from Warnick’s stables, until the duke spoke. “If I may . . .”

“I thought I made it clear that I wish you wouldn’t.”

Warnick did not seem to care for King’s wishes. “I’ve never seen a man brought so low by love.”

“I don’t love her,” he snapped.

And what a lie that was.

“It’s too bad, that,” Warnick said, crushing the remainder of his cheroot beneath his boot. “As she seemed to love you quite a bit.”

She’d betrayed him. For his title. Which he would have given her freely. Without hesitation. Along with his love.

“Love is not everything.”

The saddle arrived then, and King made quick work of fitting it to his horse. Warnick was quiet for a long time, watching him work before replying. “That may be the case, but with the way you look, I wouldn’t believe it. And with the way you look, I’m damn grateful I’ve escaped it myself.”

“That, you should be,” King said, pulling himself into the saddle.

“She’ll want children, you know,” Warnick said. “They all want children.”

The words brought back the vision of those little, blue-eyed girls. The ones he’d been sure he’d never know.

He’d been right all along.

The line ended with him.

“She should have thought of that before she married me.”

H
e returned to Lyne Castle as darkness fell, the dwindling light having already seen the house and its residents to their chambers—sun set late during a North Country summer. He was happy for the quiet and the dark—the best conditions for getting drunk. He would leave on the morrow, to his house in Yorkshire.

The library was obviously out of the question, as it was filled with her memory, and so he took himself to the only place he knew there was decent scotch. His father’s study.

He did not expect to find his father in residence.

And he certainly did not expect to find Agnes in his father’s arms.

They broke apart the moment the door opened, Agnes immediately turning away from the door. Good Lord—she was relacing her bodice.

Good Lord.

King turned his back on the tableau as quickly as he could. “I— Christ. I beg your pardon.” And then he realized just what he’d seen. His father, in flagrante, with
Agnes
.

His father,
the duke
, in the arms of his housekeeper.

“You may look, Aloysius,” she said quietly.

He turned back to them both, standing at separate ends of the great window at the far end of the study. He considered the duo, his father silver-haired and distinguished, and Agnes, as beautiful as she’d ever been.

He glared at his father. “What in hell are you doing?”

The duke raised a black brow, a smirk on his lips. “I imagine you’re well able to divine it.”

Agnes blushed. “George,” she admonished.

King couldn’t believe he’d heard it correctly. He’d never heard anyone refer to his father as anything other than his title. In honesty, it would have taken King a moment to remember his father’s given name.

Agnes did not even hesitate over it.

His father turned and winked at her. “We aren’t children, Nessie. He needn’t be so shocked.”

“I am, indeed, shocked,” King said, “How long has this—” He shook his head and looked to Agnes. “How long has he been taking advantage of you?”

They both laughed at that, as though King had told a wonderful joke.

As though he did not want to kill someone.

As though this day were not the single worst of his life.

“I do not jest,” he said. “What in hell is going on?”

“What is going on is that we’ve a houseful of visitors, and Agnes insists on our skulking about rather than telling the truth.” His father moved to a sideboard and poured two tumblers of scotch. He looked up at King. “Drink?”

King nodded, watching, flabbergasted, as the duke poured a third glass and delivered it to Agnes with a warm, unfamiliar smile before crossing to offer the remaining scotch to him. “What is the truth, Father?”

The Duke of Lyne met King’s gaze. “I love Agnes.”

If his father had sprouted wings and flown about the
room, King could not have been more shocked. “Since when?”

“Since forever.”

Forever.

God, how he hated that word.

“How long is that?” King drank, hoping the spirits would bring reason.

Agnes replied. “Nearly fifteen years.” As though it were the most ordinary thing in the world.

He looked to his father. “Fifteen years.”

The duke met his gaze, all seriousness. “Since you left.”

Anger flared. And frustration. And not a small amount of jealousy. His father had had Agnes. He’d had no one. “You didn’t marry her.”

“I’ve asked her every day for the lion’s share of that time,” the duke said, looking to Agnes, and damned if King didn’t see the truth in that look. They loved each other. “She won’t say yes.”

King turned to Agnes. “Why in hell not?”

The duke put up his hands. “Perhaps you will understand it.”

Agnes ignored his father. “I’m a housekeeper.”

“Oh, yes. That’s much better than being a duchess,” King said.

“It is, rather,” she said.

And in her words, he heard Sophie, in her slippers, nose to nose with him on the Great North Road, lambasting the aristocracy and him with it.
Arrogant, vapid, without purpose, and altogether too reliant on your title and fortune, which you have come by without any effort of your own.
And somehow I am looking to trap you into marriage?

Agnes explained. “I don’t want the whole world think
ing I trapped him. Thinking he’s saddled with me for some idiotic reason. I don’t want the aristocracy in our business.”

“Hang the aristocracy, Nessie,” his father said, going to her.

“Easier said than done,” Agnes replied, lifting her hand to his face, stroking his cheek. “I don’t wish to marry you. I wish to love you. And that will just have to be enough.”

The words crashed over him. He stilled. “What did you say?”

I didn’t wish to marry you. I only wished to love you.

I don’t wish for you to be saddled with me.

“Aloysius?”

How many times had she said it? That she didn’t want the marriage. That she wouldn’t go through with it.

How many times had he told her she no longer had a choice?

He’d made a terrible mistake.

He looked to his father. “But Lorna. You drove her away. You didn’t wish me to marry for love.”

“I drove her away because she was after your money. Your title.” His father took a deep breath, and said, “I never expected it to go the way it did. I never intended the girl’s death. I never intended your desertion.” Lyne drank deep before looking into his glass. “You had the anger of youth and I had the imperfection of age. I let you go,” he said to the amber liquid. “I never imagined you’d be so . . .” He trailed off.

Agnes finished the sentence. “. . . so like him. The two of you, so proud, so obstinate, so unwilling to listen.”

King watched his father, finally seeing the cracks in the great Duke of Lyne. Recognizing them, the way they broke the cool, unmoved façade, and made a man.

The duke looked to him. “You brought Lady Sophie
to anger me. So I gave you what you wished. Because it is easier to be the man you wish me to be than the man I wish to attempt to be.” He looked to Agnes. “But I don’t think she’s after your title.”

Agnes smiled. “I’d wager all I have on her being after something much more valuable.”

I only wished to love you.

And he’d packed her in a carriage and sent her away.

He looked to his father. “I married her.”

His father nodded. “I spoke to the father today. He told me the girl had lost him quite a bit of investment. Something about Haven and a lake?”

“It was a fishpond.”

“Either way. He said he forced the marriage.”

Except he hadn’t. Not really. Sophie had said it herself; King could have refused. They were scandalous enough—
she
was scandalous enough—for no one to have questioned his decision.

But he’d wanted to marry her.

Even as he’d wanted to punish her, he’d wanted her for himself.

Forever
.

“She didn’t want it.”

“Smart girl,” Agnes said, looking to his father.

She was smart. He didn’t deserve her. And she deserved infinitely better. “I forced it.”

“Smart boy,” his father said, meeting her gaze. “Perhaps I should post banns without your approval. Then you’d have to marry me.”

King set his glass down. “Scotland is faster.”

The duke raised a brow. “Gretna Green?”

“Warnick’s drive.” He closed his eyes. “We didn’t even say vows.”

It wasn’t true. She’d said them. She’d looked him
straight in the eye, proud and strong and braver than he by half. And she’d said, loud enough for all to hear, “I do.”

And he’d never been so angry in all his life. What an ass he’d been.

His father grew serious. “Have you made a mess of it?”

She was alone in a carriage on her wedding night. When she should be with him. “I have.”

“Does she love you?”

“Yes.” He’d closed the door on the words, too busy pretending he could live a life without her now that he’d lived it with her. Pretending he could live a day without her. He looked to his father, and said the only thing that mattered. “I love her.”

The Duke of Lyne nodded to the door. “Then you’d best go repair what you’ve broken.”

King was already moving.

He tore through the empty night roads, stopping at inn after inn, finding no sign of Sophie. With each successive stop, he grew more frustrated, hope dwindling as he considered the mistakes he had made, desperate to find her and put them right.

How does it end?

I hope it ends happily.

It would. He’d make it end so. He’d find her. He’d sent her away, crying, and he would not stop until he found her, and made certain she never cried again. He’d ride straight to London without stopping if he had to. He’d meet her in Mayfair.

He’d do anything he could to make sure she never cried again.

He leaned into his steed and allowed himself, for the first time since he realized he loved her, to imagine what it would be to have her. Fully.

Forever.

He imagined her in his arms and in his bed and in his home, filling it with books and banter and babies.
With babies
. The line would not end with him any longer. He’d give her children—sweet-faced little girls with a penchant for adventure, just like their mother, who was the most adventurous woman he’d ever known.

From the moment he’d climbed down the Liverpool trellis, Sophie Talbot had led him on an adventure.

Sophie Talbot no longer.

Sophie, Marchioness of Eversley.

His wife.

His love.

Goddammit
,
would he never catch up to her?

The thought had barely formed when he came upon a sharp turn in the road and saw a coach several hundred yards ahead, exterior lanterns swinging in the dark. It was large enough to be the one he sought, and as he drew closer, he heard the thundering of hoofbeats, loud enough to be from six matched horses.

It was she
.

He nudged his mount on, eager to reach her. To win her back.

To love her.

He’d get her a cat. Black. With white paws and a white nose. Perhaps then she’d forgive him.

Two hundred yards halved, and halved again, and again, and he could see that it was the right carriage as it approached the next turn in the road. Sophie’s carriage, emblazoned with the crest of Warnick’s clan on the back.

He couldn’t stop himself from calling out her name as the coach turned, “Sophie!” he called, pushing his horse harder, faster. He’d be alongside it in no time, and then he’d have her again.

If she’d have him
.

The thought stung.

She would have him. He’d do whatever it took to win her back. He’d resort to any actions—he’d stop this carriage and hie her away on his horse, like a highwayman of yore. He’d take her somewhere beautiful and secluded, and right all his wrongs. He’d prove to her how well he could love her—better than anyone ever could.

He would spend the rest of his life proving it to her. “Lady Eversley!” he called this time, as though her married name could convince the universe that he deserved her.

He’d had enough of being away from her.

Now he wanted to be with her.

Forever.

The coach took the curve in the road, and King used the turn to draw closer. Close enough to hear the telltale pop as the inside front wheel strained. He’d heard that precise sound before, only that time, that night, he hadn’t understood what it heralded.

Fear overcame everything else.

“Stop!” he shouted, pushing his horse to its limits. Begging the steed to go faster even as he yelled, “Slow that carriage!”

It was too late.

The turn was too sharp and the carriage too large, and the wheel popped again. He screamed, “No!” desperate for the driver to hear him, but the word was lost in a mighty crack, followed by the screech of horses as the coach tipped, sending the coachman flying from the block before the vehicle toppled onto its side and was pulled along the road for a dozen yards before the terrified horses came to a stop.

“Sophie!” he screamed, leaping from his still-moving steed, desperate to get to her. “No! No no no,” he repeated
again and again as he ran toward the carriage, unhooking a lantern and scaling it without pause, tearing open the door to find her.

Let her be alive.

Dear God, just let her live.

I’ll do anything for her to live.