The Rogue Not Taken (19 page)

“He could have married again,” she said.

“I suppose he could have.”

“But he didn’t. Perhaps he did love her.”

Memories overtook him. “No Duke of Lyne has ever married for love. They’ve married for duty and for offspring. It’s what we’re bred to want.”

“And you? What do you want?”

No one had ever asked him the question. It had been a long time since he’d thought on it. Since it had been possible. And then it hadn’t been possible any longer, because of his father’s arrogance and his own recklessness.

Because of the vow he’d made in the dead of night on a road much like this one.

Later, he would blame it on the darkness when he told her the truth. “I want to look my father in the eye and take away everything he ever wanted.”

The line ends with me.

How many times had he written the words to his father? How many times had he said them to himself? And somehow, now, they ached in a way they hadn’t for years.

“I’m sorry,” she said, softly.

He didn’t want her pity. He drank again. Offering her the bottle, he asked, “Do your parents love each other?”

“Oh, quite desperately,” she said, taking the wine. She looked to the basket on the floor. “Is there a glass?”
He shook his head and she wiped the top of the bottle with her skirts. For a moment, King considered reminding her that they’d done a great deal more than share a wine bottle, but he refrained when she resumed speaking. “My father is crass and disinterested in anything but coal, and my mother is—crass in her own way, I suppose—but very eager to be accepted by Society. One without the other, however—it would not be possible. That is why my sisters and I are unmarried. Because we know what we might have.”

Happiness.

He heard the word without her speaking it.

“Except Seraphina . . . she’s different.”

“She caught a duke,” he reminded her as she drank. “Love didn’t seem to be her goal.”

Sophie shook her head and passed the wine back. “I will never understand what happened. Sera, more than any of us . . . she was waiting for love.”

“And you?” He didn’t know why he asked. It didn’t matter.

She opened the book, then closed it. Again and again. “That’s part of the freedom, isn’t it?” He didn’t reply, so she added, “I’ve never imagined anything as freeing as love must be.” She smiled, and he saw the sadness in the fading light. “I hope to experience it, of course. All the bits and pieces.”

“With your baker.” He disliked the taste of the words.

She did not hesitate. “In our bookshop, gifted to us by a losing marquess, who was positively obsequious with his compliments.”

The words made him chuckle. “Do not count your books before they are shelved, my lady.” Silence fell for a long moment before he added, “It is not the stuff of poems and fairy tales.”

“Bookshop owning?”

“Love. Make no mistake. Love has nothing to do with freedom.” Her focus snapped to him as he told her the wicked truth, “It’s the most devastating trap there is.”

Surprise flashed in her eyes. He was surprised himself, he had to admit. What in hell had him saying such a thing?

“And you would know?” she asked.

“I would, as a matter of fact,” he said, wondering if the waning light was addling him to the point of confession.

“I thought the Dukes of Lyne did not marry for love.”

“I am not married, am I?”

“Are you in love?” she asked, the words coming on a shocked whisper. “With Marcella?”

“Who is Marcella?”

“Lady Marcella Latham.”

“Ah.” Memory returned. Lady Marcella from the Liverpool party. “No.”

She scowled at him then. “You really should remember the women you ruin, you know.”

He drank. “If anything worthy of ruination had happened between Lady Marcella and me, I would remember her.”

“You escaped her via rose trellis!”

“Precisely as she asked me to.”

“I highly doubt that’s the case.”

“It’s true. The lady and I had an arrangement.”

“All the more reason for you to remember her. It’s common courtesy.” She reached into the basket. “There are pasties in here!” Extracting a pasty, she tore it in half and offered it to him. “Pasties are a glorious food. One I never get in London.”

“Why not? You have a cook, don’t you?”

She nodded and spoke around her food. King resisted
the urge to smile. Her manners had fled as the sun had set. “But she’s French. And pasties aren’t good for the waistline.”

“There’s nothing wrong with your waistline,” he replied without thinking. She paused mid-chew. He likely should not have an opinion on her waistline. He shrugged a shoulder. “It’s perfectly ordinary.”

She began chewing again. Swallowed. “Thank you? I suppose?”

“You are welcome.”

She washed down her pasty with more wine. “So, you do not love Lady Marcella.”

She’d had enough wine to be nosy, and not nearly enough to forget the conversations they’d been having. “I do not.”

“But you are aware of the emotion. In a personal sense.”

Enough to know I never want it again.

“Yes.”

“Why don’t you marry the poor girl?”

He’d tried. He’d wanted to.

He remembered bringing her to meet his father. To show her off. To prove to the great Duke of Lyne that love was not an impossibility. He’d been young and stupid. And his father had ruined it.

I’d rather you never marry at all than marry some cheap trollop in it only for the title
, the duke had sneered. And Lorna had run.

He remembered the way his heart had pounded as he’d chased after her, to find her, to marry her. To love her enough to spit in his father’s face. And then he stopped remembering, before he could remember the rest. He looked up at Sophie, fairly invisible. Night had fully fallen. “I can’t marry her.”

“Why not?” It was strange, the way her voice curled around him in the darkness. Curious. Comforting.

“Because she is dead.”

She shot forward at the words, and though it was too dark to see, he could hear the movement of her skirts against her legs, feel the heat of her in the small space. “Dear God,” she whispered, and then her hands were on him, clumsily searching in the darkness. Landing on his thigh before she snatched them back, as though she’d been burned. He caught them, wishing he could see her face. Grateful that he could not see her face when she repeated the words. “Dear God. King. I am so sorry.”

She is dead, and my father killed her.

She is dead, and I killed her.

He shook his head, the darkness making the story easier to tell. “Don’t be. It was a long time ago. Truthfully, the only reason why I told you was because you asked why I’d never returned.”

“But you return now.”

“My father—” he started, then stopped. Instead, he laughed humorlessly. “Suffice to say, I want him to know that his precious line died with her.”

There was silence. “Did he—” She did not finish the question.

He answered it anyway. “As though he’d put a pistol to her head.”

She paused, considering the horrifying words. “And your happiness? You shall never take it?”

She was a fool, Sophie Talbot. A beautiful fool. A man could have money, a title, or happiness. Never all three. “There is no happiness for men like me,” he said.

“Were you ever happy?” she whispered.

Memory flashed, summoned from God knew where by
this woman who had a remarkable way of winning his secrets. “I remember a day when I was a child—I’d just been given my first mount, and my father and I rode out to visit the blacksmith.” He could have stopped there, but somehow, it was easy to tell the story in the darkness, and once it had begun, he couldn’t stop it. “He was hammering out horseshoes in his little workshop, which was hot as hell.

“My father talked to him for a long while—longer than any young man wants to listen—and I wandered out into the yard, to discover a metal stake in the ground and a half-dozen horseshoes wrapped around it.”

“It’s a game,” she said.

“I knew instinctively that whatever it was, it was not for future dukes.”

“I shall show you how it is done,” she said fervently in the darkness, making him want to pull her onto his lap and kiss her mad. “Hang rules for future dukes.”

“No need. I know how to play.”

A pause. “The blacksmith taught you?”

“My father did.” Silence followed the pronouncement, until King added, “I was happy that day.”

She shifted, and the sound of her skirts brought him out of the memory, back to this place, no longer the boy at the blacksmith’s. Now a man who had seen the truth of what his father could do if his expectations weren’t met.

Another image flashed, a carriage much like this one, on its side, in the road, and King wanted desperately to be on his curricle, careening up the road with wind whipping around him, drowning out the thoughts that seemed to grow louder as he drew north.

As though she heard the thoughts, Sophie moved again, leaning forward, her hand coming to his knee in a
thoroughly inappropriate gesture. Inappropriate, and desperately welcome, as it chased the thoughts away.

He wanted her to chase everything away.

Everything but this moment. Her. Them.

He moved, crossing the dark carriage, filling the bench next to her and threading his fingers through hers, something about the simple touch tempting him more than anything had ever tempted him.

Something about
her
tempting him.

Her breath caught in her throat at the touch, and pleasure shot through him. She wanted him as much as he wanted her. “Sophie,” he whispered, her name echoing around them.

“Yes?” she asked, so quietly he barely heard her.

“You said you wished to experience the bits and pieces of it.” He spoke close to her ear, where she smelled of honey and spice.

“The bits and pieces of love.”

One of his hands slid up to her jaw, his fingers threading into her hair. “Would you like me to show you this bit?” He nipped at the skin on her opposite jaw, scraping his teeth there until she gasped at the pleasure of it. “This piece?”

The darkness made it all better.

His lips found hers, stealing a heartbeat of a kiss before he moved to worship at her throat. “We aren’t supposed to like each other.” Her words came on a sigh.

“Don’t worry. We don’t.”

What a lie that was.

S
he shouldn’t allow it.

The man was a legendary scoundrel. An expert ruiner of young ladies. And he’d never once been punished for it. Perhaps because he was so very good at it. It seemed a shame to punish someone for what was clearly a remarkable skill.

But still, she shouldn’t allow it. She should tell him to stop . . . stop the way his fingers threaded through her hair . . . the way they played gently over her skin and the too-tight fabric of her dress . . . the way his lips pressed soft, lingering kisses along her neck as he made his wicked promises to show her the bits and pieces of love.

Of course, it wasn’t love he promised. It was the rest—the unsettling, carnal bit. The bit she’d been imagining since the night of her bath, when he’d stood mere feet away from her, his back turned, his shoulders wide, and she’d washed herself, wishing, strangely, that it had been he washing her.

The bit she’d wanted even more once he’d kissed her in false passion in the Warbling Wren. She’d wanted that kiss to last forever and ever.

But he’d never indicated that he desired such a thing—not until tonight, when darkness had fallen and their conversation had become somehow more honest and clandestine. And he’d told her his secrets and she’d accidentally touched him.

It hadn’t been an accident, though.

She’d wanted to touch him. She’d wanted him to touch her.

And then he had, and it was
glorious
.

She didn’t care that she shouldn’t allow it.

He lifted his lips from where they played at the place where her neck met her shoulder and placed them at her ear, speaking, the words low and dark and full of wicked intent. “Tell me.”

He sucked the lobe of her ear and made everything worse. Or better. She wasn’t sure. It was difficult to form thought. “Tell you?”

“Would you like me to show you this bit?”

Yes. Yes yes yes.

She swallowed, knowing instinctively that if she said no, he would stop. But she did not wish to say no. She wished to say yes. Most definitely. Without question. If ever there were a time when she wanted something, it was now. He scraped his teeth over her skin, sending a shiver of delight through her. She gasped her answer, “Please.”

She could hear the grin in his reply. “So polite.”

She pulled away from him. “I’m grateful for the offer.”

He laughed then, the sound a promise of something wonderful and wicked. “It is I who should be grateful, my lady.” And then his lips were on hers once more, and she was lost, the darkness making everything more illicit and somehow more acceptable, as though no one would ever discover their actions. As though this place, this night,
this journey was nothing more than a dream that would disappear with the light of day.

And it would. The Marquess of Eversley was not for girls like Sophie. Uninteresting, unbeautiful. But in the darkness, she could pretend otherwise. And this night would keep her in memories for an eternity.

“What bits, in particular, Sophie?” He was at her ear again, his fingers stroking at the edge of her bodice, where her breasts strained for release against the too-tight lacing. “What has you curious?”

Her cheeks should have been flaming at the question, but the darkness made her bold. “All of it,” she said.

He laughed at the words. “No,” he said, moving his hand away, teasing her. “That’s not enough. Tell me, specifically.”

“I don’t know,” she said, the words coming on a wave of frustration. “Touch me again.”

“Where?”

Everywhere.

“Sophie,” he beckoned, like the devil at the door to hell.

She fought for thought. “A few years ago, I saw . . .” She trailed off, shocked by what she was about to tell him.

He stilled against her. “Don’t stop there, darling. What did you see?”

“I stumbled upon a stable hand. And a maid.”

“Go on.”

She shook her head.

“Where were you?”

“Looking for a place to read.”

“Where?”

“It was raining, and cold. And my sisters were talking about balls and gowns and gossip . . . and the mews were warm and quiet.”

“What did you find there?” He kissed down her neck, long, lingering sucks that made it difficult to think.

“I was in the hayloft.”

“And the stable hand was there? With the maid?” There was something in his tone that she’d never heard in a man’s voice before. Something breathless. Like . . . excitement? The thought made her excited, as well.
More
excited. As though such a thing were possible.

“No,” she confessed. “They were in a stall.”

“And you looked?” His tongue swirled at the crest of her good shoulder.

“I didn’t mean to. I was only looking for a quiet place to read.”

“I do not judge you.” He licked—licked!—the skin between shoulder and dress, and she thought her breasts might break free of their bindings. “I simply want to imagine the full scenario. What did you see?”

“At first nothing,” she said. “I didn’t know they were there. If I had—”

“You never would have stayed. You’re too good a girl.”

“But once I heard them . . .”

He filled her silence. “Once you heard them, you couldn’t stop yourself.”

“Even girls get curious,” she defended herself.

“What did you see, Sophie?” His hand was moving now, over her thigh, toward her knee, the sound of it on the fabric of her skirts unsettling.

“I couldn’t see much at first. I was looking down over the edge of the hayloft. I saw the tops of their heads. They were kissing.”

His lips settled on hers, immediately lifting, leaving her quite desperate. “Like that?”

She shook her head in the darkness. “No.”

“How, then?”

“You know how.”

“I wasn’t there,” he said, and the teasing in his tone made her even more aware of him. “Show me.”

God knew how she had the courage to do as she was told, but she did, running her hand up his arm, over his shoulder, to the back of his neck, pulling him to her. “Like this.” And then she kissed him, letting her tongue slide over his lips and into his mouth, where he tasted like wine, hoping that she was doing it right.

He groaned and gathered her closer, careful of her shoulder, turning her so that her thighs draped over his lap, his hand finding the hem of her skirts and sliding to her ankle, the touch warm and wonderful.

She was doing it right.

After a moment, he broke the kiss. “Is that all you saw?”

No
. “It became more . . .” She trailed off, hoping he would fill in the descriptor so that she did not have to. He did not. “. . . erotic.”

The sound he made was best described as a growl. “There are few things I like more than that word on your lips.”

“Erotic?”

He kissed her quickly, his tongue stroking deep before releasing her and leaving her breathless. “What was so erotic, Sophie?”

She was lost in the memory again, in the hope that she might relive it now. Here. With him. “He opened her dress.”

“Christ,” King said. “I was hoping he would do that.”

And then the bodice of her dress loosened, the too-tight lacing coming easily undone, and her breasts were free. She gasped, the sensation welcome, but somehow not enough. For he did not touch her. His hands were around her hips for some unknown reason. She squirmed, aching for his touch. “King,” she whispered.

The growl came again, softer, more breath than sound. “Then what did he do?”

“He touched her.”

One finger found the curved underside of her breast, and it was so unexpected and so desired that she nearly leapt from her skin. He ran that single, remarkable finger in a long, slow circle around her breast, leaving fire and aching desire in its wake. “Here?”

“No.”

The circle became tighter. Closer to where she wanted him. Closer to where she’d only imagined anyone ever touching her in the dead of night, alone.

It was the dead of night, but she was no longer alone.

“Here?”

She shook her head. He might not have been able to see it, but he knew. The circle tightened, and she thought she might die from the wait. “Here?”

“No.”

He stopped moving. “Where? Show me.”

She barely believed it when she did as he asked, clasping his hand in hers and placing it where she wanted him. He immediately gave her what she asked for, stroking and plucking at the straining tip until she sighed her pleasure, pressing against him, aching for—

“What did he do next?” The words sounded like carriage wheels on stone.

“He kissed her,” she whispered. “There.”

“Smart man,” he said, and set his lips to where his fingers were, sucking gently, as though he had an eternity to explore her, and perhaps he did. Perhaps she would let him explore her for as long as he wished.

But he did not remain gentle, soon running his teeth across the hardened nipple in a wicked caress that had her crying out and sliding her fingers into his hair to hold him
there. But King did not give her what she wished, instead lifting his mouth at her touch and blowing cool air across her flushed skin before lavishing similar attention on her other breast.

It went on and on, back and forth, until she was straining for more of his touch, for more of his lovely mouth, for more of him. And he gave it to her, the hand at her ankle sliding farther beneath her skirts along the length of her leg, higher and higher, until it stilled, at the soft skin of her thigh, fingers stroking softly as he lifted his head and spoke in the sinful dark. “And what did you think of it?”

“I thought—” She stopped, embarrassed of the memory.

He kissed the soft skin of her neck in a long, lingering caress. “Did you wish it was you?”

“No . . .” she said, and it was true. “I wished . . .”

She wished his hand would move.

“I wished I could feel it, though. I wished someone would worship me like that. I wished I could command that kind of attention.”

He kissed her again, long and slow and deep. “This kind?”

She sighed. “Yes. And then he—”

In her silence, those fingers stroked and stroked, slow and deliberate, as though he had nothing more to do ever. She couldn’t tell him. Could she?

But it was dark, and they were cloaked in secrets anyway, and when they got to Mossband, they would part ways. Why not tell him?

“Then he lifted her skirts.”

The fingers stilled for barely any time. A tiny hiccup that she might not have noticed if she weren’t so busy noticing him. And suddenly, she felt very, very powerful. And the words broke free. The words she’d never imag
ined saying out loud. The memory she barely allowed herself to remember. “And then he got to his knees.”

His whispered curse came out part blasphemy, part benediction. “And what did he do?”

“I imagine you know,” she said, drunk on the way the moment consumed her.

“I know what I would like to do.”

And then he was dropping her feet to the floor of the carriage, and lowering himself to his knees, and Sophie was grateful for the darkness of the carriage, because she wasn’t certain she would ever be able to look at this man again. Cool air kissed her legs as he raised her skirts, folding them back onto her lap before pulling her to the edge of her seat and spreading her legs wide.

Her cheeks flamed; she wore no undergarments, as they had not fit beneath the livery she’d worn earlier. Belatedly, she tried to close her thighs, but he held her open. “Sophie?” he asked, and the world was wrapped up in her name.

“Yes?”

He pressed a kiss to the inside of her knee, and she jumped at the unexpected touch. He laughed, low and liquid in the space, then spoke to the sensitive skin there. “Do you want me to show you this bit?”

All the bits and pieces.

“I can smell you, and I want quite desperately to taste you. To show you just what that stable hand did to that maid.” His fingers moved, and she stiffened as they touched her, barely, a whisper of him over the hair at the apex of her thighs. “You’re so warm. And I’m betting wet, as well. But I won’t do it until you tell me yes. Until you give me permission.”

Yes. Yes.

“Do you . . .” She trailed off. Regrouped. “Do you wish to? Show me?”

He exhaled, hot and lovely against her. “I am not certain I have ever wanted to do anything in my life so much as I want to do this.” Her stomach clenched, along with somewhere lower, deeper, more secret.

“He made her scream,” Sophie whispered, the story helping to keep her wits about her.

That lovely laugh again. “I hope he did. And I would very much like to do the same to you. But you must stay quiet, love, lest we give the coachman a show.” He inhaled, long and deep, and exhaled before he said, “You are slowly torturing me. Tell me you want it, and I’ll give it to you. Everything you desire. More.”