The Rogue Not Taken (Scandal & Scoundrel 1)

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.

“You must be alive, love. I’ve so much to tell you,” he said into the darkness, willing her to hear him. “I won’t lose you, Sophie. Not just as I found you. You’re not done with me, yet.”

It was dark inside, and he held the lantern high, searching for her.

“Live,” he said. “Live, please, God. Live.”

The words were a litany as he found the pile of silk—that beautiful purple gown she’d been wearing earlier in the day.

She wasn’t in it the dress.

She wasn’t in the carriage.

Relief slammed through him, blessed and welcome, his heart beating once more.

She was alive.

And on the heels of that realization came another, devastating one.

She’d left him.

Chapter 22

HAPPY NEVER AFTER?

Sophie spent the first few hours on the ride from Scotland in tears.

They’d flown freely as she recounted every minute they’d spent together, every conversation, every touch. The anger he hadn’t hidden from her the night her father had found them, as King had stood, naked and furious, the Minotaur betrayed.

Except she hadn’t betrayed him.

She would have done anything to stay with him there, at the center of that impossible maze. Forever.

But neither of them deserved forever.

He’d said it himself, before he’d packed her into Warnick’s coach, with those final, devastating words.

I would have given you forever if you hadn’t been so quick to steal it.

Her tears had eventually dried, and then she’d spent what seemed like an endless time staring at the countryside, sheep and cows and bales of hay over and over, until night had fallen, and she couldn’t stare at anything.

And all she could think was that he had ruined her, in the end. For all others.

Forever.

And in the darkness, she’d found strength. And made her decision.

He’d left her with a purse full of coin, bandages, and salve, and an unimpeachable understanding that he didn’t wish to see her ever again. And so he wouldn’t.

When her coach had stopped to change horses, the mail coach had blocked the drive, in the midst of its own change of horses and coachmen. And it had left with a new passenger, dressed as a stable boy.

After all, she couldn’t very well start a new life in one of her sister’s frivolous gowns. Warnick’s coachman hadn’t even noticed that she’d left.

Dawn crept into the mail coach, turning the inside of the vehicle silver grey, revealing the other travelers in various states of slumber. Sophie wondered at their destinations. Wondered at her own. Perhaps she’d return to Sprotbrough.

The thought of the town brought thoughts of King.

Of his lifting her from the bath.

Of his kissing her behind the taproom.

Of his hiding her from her father’s men.

Tears threatened, unbidden.

No. Sprotbrough would not do.

The coach began to slow, and Sophie closed her eyes, willing away the memories that consumed her, of his welcome touch, of his teasing laugh, of his deep, wonderful voice, whispering her name.

She would never be free of that voice.

“Sophie!”

She shot up at the words. It couldn’t be.

The other passengers in the coach began to wake, and the man closest to the window pushed back the curtain to find the source of the noise. He sat up. “We ain’t at an inn.”

She closed her eyes as the coach stopped.

“Is it highwaymen?” the woman next to her asked, panic in her voice.

“I don’t think so,” replied the first. “Looks like a madman.”

Sophie craned to look out the window.

Her heart began to pound.

He didn’t look like a madman. He looked rather perfect.

But he sounded rather furious. “Sophie Talbot, come out of that damn coach now before I come in and fetch you!”

The man by the window nudged the woman next to him. “You called Talbot?”

She shook her head.

He asked the other women in the coach one by one, ignoring Sophie altogether. When they’d received denials from all wearing frocks, the man lowered the window and shouted, “There ain’t no miss named Talbot in this coach.” He turned back and said to the now rapt audience, “He don’t believe me.”

Sophie shrank back against the seat and lowered her cap, willing herself invisible. The door burst open, heralding early-morning light and her husband, whose gaze immediately found her, then scanned her clothing. “Does no one in the goddamn country look at footwear?”

She looked down at her too-tight slippers. “There were no boots that fit.”

The man at the window started back. “He’s a girl!”

“He is, indeed,” King said dryly, clearly unamused. “What have I said about mail coaches, Sophie?”