The Rogue Not Taken (Scandal & Scoundrel 1)

Surprise flared. “As a matter of fact—”

King was in motion before the driver could finish his sentence. She had annoyed the hell out of him, that much was true, but he couldn’t leave her to the nefarious doings of highwaymen on the Great North Road. Dammit, she was a lady of breeding. Of questionable breeding, certainly, but ladies of any kind of breeding did not take well to highwaymen, he imagined. She had probably begun shrieking like a lunatic the moment the coach had been stopped. That was if she hadn’t fainted dead away from the shock of the situation.

With any luck, she’d fainted.

That would keep her out of trouble.

Criminals were less likely to murder unconscious females than they were to murder difficult, meddling ones.

But if any woman was skilled at being difficult and meddling . . .

King began to run faster.

He’d get to her, he promised himself. He’d get to her, and he’d get her to safety. And once he got her out of there, she’d be begging him to return her to London. He supposed that was the silver lining in this damn inconvenient cloud.

When he rounded the bend in the road to find the mail coach stopped dead in its center, however, it was to find that there were no silver linings whatsoever. Indeed, the cloud became a hurricane.

Lady Sophie Talbot was neither unconscious inside the northbound mail coach, nor a source of shrieking from within. She wasn’t inside the mail coach at all.

Lady Sophie Talbot stood at the center of a criminal tableau, wearing Eversley livery and her ridiculous yellow slippers, hands on her hips as though it was a perfectly ordinary afternoon.

As though a man was not calmly lifting a pistol and pointing it at her head.

Goddammit.

King increased his speed, no thought in his head save one—he had to get to her.

“No!” he shouted, hoping for nothing other than to distract the villain long enough for Sophie to escape, but before the man with the weapon could turn to face him, a small creature launched itself from under the coach toward Sophie.

King thought he heard a child’s “No!” echoing his own, but he would never be certain, as it was difficult to hear much over the pounding of his heart and the rushing of blood in his ears.

It was also possible that he heard Sophie’s “No!” as she immediately turned, ignoring the fact that there was a pistol pointed at her head, and captured the living projectile, turning to put herself between the little thing and the weapon, as though she were impermeable to bullets.

King’s exclamation became an incoherent roar as he pushed himself closer. Faster. But he couldn’t get there in time. He knew as much the moment the barrel of the gun tracked her to the ground. Things slowed, and he would imagine later that he could see the hammer on the weapon cock, move in slow motion over what would seem like minutes or hours before the pistol’s report sounded, tearing through the English countryside and taking the air with it.

And still, he could not reach her.

Someone screamed. Perhaps more than one person. He’d never know, as he arrived at the scene of the crime a heartbeat too late, tackling the large man to the ground with a mighty roar, coming down on top of him with several quick blows to the face before rendering him unconscious.

Standing up, he turned on his victim’s compatriots, making quick work of one before the other turned tail. King considered going after him, wanting nothing more than to brutalize each of the three men for what they had done. Threatening women and children. Shooting at them.

Dear God.

Shooting them.

Had she been shot? King turned back to the scene playing out at the foot of the carriage, ignoring the half-dozen faces peering out the door now that the immediate danger had passed. He raced toward the collection of bodies there—a prone female who appeared to be regaining consciousness and two additional figures fully entangled.

Sophie crouched low at the base of the conveyance, clutching what King now recognized as a young boy who could not be more than seven or eight. “Are you hurt?” he heard her ask as he closed in on them, and Sophie’s words—the fact that Sophie could speak words—was enough to send relief threading through him with staggering power. Relief was quickly replaced by fury.

He paused, attempting to control the irrational anger that coursed through him as she ran her hands along the boy’s arms and legs. “Are you certain? He did not shoot you?”

The boy shook his head.

“You aren’t hurt?” she repeated, and King understood why. He was repeating a similar litany in his own mind. She was worried for the boy, which meant she hadn’t been shot, either.

Breathing restored, King made quick work of instructing his coachman and the driver of the mail coach to tie up the two men he’d rendered unconscious before turning back to Sophie as her charge squirmed in her arms, embarrassed by the attention. “Stop!” the boy cried, pulling away from her touch. “I’m unharmed!”

“Don’t you dare take a tone, Jonathan Morton,” the woman on the ground said smartly, sitting up. “She saved your life.”

The boy blinked up at Sophie. “She?”

Sophie smiled. “You saved my life, too. Now that we are friends, I suppose it is only fair that you know my secret.”

The boy’s brow furrowed. “You’re a girl.”

She nodded. “I am, indeed.”

Respect chased away confusion. “You stood up to Bear,” he said, looking to the still unconscious man on the ground by King. “To protect us.”

She followed the direction of his attention, until she found King’s boots and looked up to meet his gaze. The skin around her right eye was swelling, already turning black and blue, already forcing her eye closed. She’d been struck. Fury came again, this time directed at another. He wanted to knock the blighter unconscious again.

He took a step toward her. She turned from him, returning her focus to the boy. “I suppose I did.”

“But you don’t even know us.”

“You didn’t know me, and you tried to save me, did you not?” Sophie looked at him for a long while. “We don’t need to know a person to know how to do right by them.”

That seemed to make sense to the boy, and after a pause, he nodded and rose, going to help the young woman who appeared to have received a terrible blow to the head.

King could no longer hold himself back. He stepped forward and said the first thing that came to mind, words fueled by panic and fury. “That was an incredibly stupid thing to do.”

Sophie pushed herself to her feet slowly. “I was feeling nostalgic for your insults.” He ignored the guilt that came unbidden at the words. After a long moment, she sighed. “I suppose you came for your money.”

I came to save you, you madwoman, he suddenly, irrationally wanted to say. I came to keep you safe.

But it wasn’t true. He’d come to get his money back. To exact his revenge for her childish behavior the night before.

He’d come thinking that she was not his problem.

And, thankfully, she was unharmed and remained not his problem. “Among other things.”

She shook her head. “I can’t give it all to you. I need some of it. To get me north. To keep me until my father can send more.” She paused. “I shall pay you back. With interest.”

He crossed his arms. “You shall pay me back right now. And I will pay your passage back to London. Today. No mail coaches. I want you safe in a carriage and I don’t want you setting foot on terra firma until you reach the city limits. Far from me.”

She lifted her chin. “No.”

He shook his head. “You don’t have a choice. You stole from me. We’re going to have to call the magistrate for these idiots,” he said, indicating the men tied up at his feet. “We’ll kill three birds with a single stone, if we need to.” He leaned forward and whispered, “I wonder what they do to thieves out here in the middle of nowhere?”

She stiffened. “You wouldn’t.”

He narro

wed his gaze. “Try me.”

“You’re ruining my plans.”

He spread his arms wide, enjoying the way she paled at his threat. “It’s what I do, darling.”

She stumbled then, and he noticed that she was not simply pale. She was white. Dread pooled as he stepped forward to catch her as her gaze lost focus for a long moment, then returned to him. “Sophie?”

She shook her head. “I haven’t given you . . . permission . . . to be so familiar.”