The Rogue Not Taken (Scandal & Scoundrel 1)

He tangled his fingers in hers, his thumb stroking across her soft skin, his gaze on a collection of little brown freckles that marked the base of her hand. “I left when I was eighteen.”

She stilled in his lap, but did not speak. Did not rush him for fear that he would change his mind, and there was nothing in the world she wanted more in that moment than for him to continue.

He did. “I was home from school for the summer. Like any boy of my age, I hated being here in the quiet. I wanted to spend the summer drinking and—”

She smiled.

“You don’t need to hide what eighteen-year-old boys wish they were doing.”

The dimple in his right cheek flashed. “What do you know about eighteen-year-old boys?”

“Enough to know that drinking isn’t the worst thing you wished to do that summer.”

“I was too old to fish in the river and while away the days.”

She imagined him younger, leaner, his long body not quite what it was now, his face freer of the character it held now. Handsome, but nothing like he was now. The bones of the man he would become. Her smile widened as she settled into his arms. “I should like to have fished with you.”

He looked at her, surprised. “I’ll take you.”

“Aren’t you too old for it, now?” she teased.

He shook his head. “Now I’m old enough to know that whiling away the days is not such a horrible way to spend one’s time.” He paused. “Particularly with the right companion.”

Did he refer to her? She’d like to fish with him. She’d like him to build a fire on the banks of the river and spend the evening telling her about his life as it grew dark around them.

She warmed at the impossible thought.

“She was a milkmaid,” he said with a little disbelieving laugh, lost in thought. “A milkmaid. As though we all lived in a painting by a Dutch master. Her father ran the dairy on the estate to the east, and she worked with the cows.”

Sophie didn’t laugh. “How old was she?”

“Sixteen.”

“And how did you . . .”

She trailed off, but he knew her question. He brought her hand to his lips, kissing her knuckles, sending little shocking threads of pleasure through her. When he stopped, he held her hand to his mouth and answered, “One of the cows escaped. Ended up on Lyne land. She came looking for it.” He paused, then said, quietly, “It was Shakespearean. She was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.”

Sophie inhaled at the words. It was amazing how easy it was to believe them when it was so difficult to believe them when he spoke them about her. “What did she look like?”

“Blond, with perfect pink skin as smooth as cream,” he replied, and Sophie could see the woman, young and doe-eyed. “The moment she looked up at me, dirt on her face, skirts muddy from her search, I wanted to protect her.”

She believed that, as well, thinking back on his attacking the man who’d shot her, the way he immediately threw himself into the fray. “Did she require protecting?”

“It felt that way,” he said, lost in the memory. “There was something precious about her. Something that felt nearly breakable.” He met her gaze. “I wanted to marry her from the start.”

She wasn’t prepared for the hot thread of jealousy that wove through her at the words. Nor was she prepared for the flood of questions that came on their heels. “And?”

“We spent the summer together, meeting in secret, hiding everything from our respective fathers. We passed messages through the stable boys, one in particular, whom I paid handsomely for his trouble. She was terrified her father would discover us.” Sophie nodded, but did not speak. “Terrified enough that she began to beg me to marry her in secret. She wanted us to run, over the border, to find the nearest blacksmith and have an anvil marriage. Get it done.” He stopped. “I should have.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“Because I didn’t want it to be secret. When I took a wife, I wanted it to be in front of all the world. All of Britain. I’d make her a marchioness. She’d be a duchess. There was no shame in that, and I wouldn’t allow us to be a scandal. I loved her.”

“You’d make her your wife,” Sophie said softly. The titles were nothing of import compared to that. Compared to the idea of living with him, as his partner, forever.

Forever.

Sophie’s heart ached at the words, with sorrow for what she knew was to come, and with jealousy of this girl who had stolen his heart so long ago, making it impossible for Sophie to do it now.

Not that she had the skill to do it, anyway.

He laughed humorlessly. “Of course, I was young and stupid. And tilting at windmills.”

Sophie could feel the frustration in him, in the stiffness of his chest and the quickness of his breath, in the way the cords of his neck stood prominently, revealing a clenched jaw, a grim mouth. She did the only thing she could think of—she set her palm to his face, her thumb stroking over his high, angled cheekbone.

For a moment it seemed like he didn’t notice her touch, and then his eyes met hers, glittering green and so focused, and he lifted his hand to hold hers to him. He turned his face and pressed a kiss to her palm before he continued. “It was 1818 and the King was mad, and the Regent was drinking and gaming and throwing elaborate, scandalous parties, and the war was over, and it was time for my father to put away his stupid thoughts on title and blue blood, and accept that there was a place for love in the world.”

Sophie couldn’t help her little sad smile at the words, her heart in her throat. Of course there was a place for love in the world. But the aristocracy was a world far beyond normal, and there, milkmaids didn’t become duchesses.

It was as though he heard her thoughts. “I was young and I’d never in my life been told no.”

Her brows rose. “And the name to prove it.”

He did laugh then, a little chuckle that reminded her that, however tragic the tale became, he was here now. Hale and healthy and hers.

Not hers.

Hers for now, she qualified. Hers for this moment.

“No one tells a King no.”

Silence fell between them, and she grew cold, knowing instinctively that the tale was about to turn.

“I marched her in here, into that ridiculous dining room, my father at one end of that insanely massive table, Agnes serving her famed roast goose. I presented Lorna to my father like the petulant child I was. I can still feel the tremor in my voice. My heart beating in my chest.”

Sophie’s heart matched his. It had never occurred to her that he’d recreated the events tonight. That the entire experience had been designed to punish his father for not simply past sins, but past sins in that very room.

“I stood her in front of my father and I introduced her as my future bride.”

Good Lord.

At least when he’d done it to Sophie, she’d been prepared for it to turn sour. But poor Lorna. That poor young girl who knew nothing better. Who had no doubt been quaking in her slippers at meeting the imposing duke Sophie had met earlier.

Sophie’s hand flew to her chest, as though she could protect herself from the rest. “What happened?”

“He eviscerated her. I’ve never seen a man treat a woman so poorly, milkmaid or otherwise.” King shook his head, his eyes unfocused, staring into the past. “He drove her away, insisting that he’d never approve, that she would never be a duchess, that she was cheap and scraping and willing to do anything to climb.”

He has a knack for climbing, the duke had said earlier, about Sophie’s father.

“Climbing is his worst sin.”

“Unforgivable,” King agreed. “A special place in hell for those who do it.”

Sophie couldn’t stop herself from returning him to the story. “So you left.”

“I should have. I should have grabbed Lorna’s hand and run. Immediately. Should have taken her across the border and done just what she wished. Gretna Green is right there,” he said. “But I didn’t. I took her home. I left her to sleep in her bed. I wanted a night to gather funds and prepare for a journey that would keep us away from Lyne Castle until my father was dead and I was duke. I needed a plan, and I was going to return to her in the morning with one.”

She nodded. “That was sound logic.”

He looked to her at the words, and she saw the sadness in his gaze. The remorse. The regret. “It wasn’t, though. I didn’t think he’d go to her father.”

Sophie’s eyes went wide. “What happened?”

“The Duke of Lyne visit

ed his first dairy that night. Told Lorna’s father what had happened. Made it clear that if she set foot on Lyne land again, he’d see them both punished for trespassing.”

Her mouth fell open. “What did her father do?”

King shook his head. “She arrived, gown torn, lip bleeding. She came to me, terrified.” He paused. “Threw herself into my arms and begged me to save her. I can still feel her quaking. I packed her into a coach, her father on our heels. My father at his back, the greatest threat of all.”

Dread pooled in Sophie’s stomach as she began to see the way the story ended. She captured his hands in hers, clutching him tightly, wishing she could take away what he was about to say.

“I drove the coach. She was inside. It was dark and rainy and the roads . . .” He hesitated. “Well, after this week, you know the roads.”

“King,” she whispered, clutching his hand.

“I took a corner too fast.”

She shook her head. “It wasn’t your fault.”

“The horses were unmatched. I’d hitched them too quickly, without enough care.”

That was why he spent so much time checking the hitches on the carriage. “You were a child,” she said, holding his hands tighter and tighter, until her knuckles were white.

It was his turn to shake his head. “I wasn’t a child, though. I was eighteen, old enough to inherit an estate. To sit in Parliament. She relied on me. And I did the last thing in the world that would protect her.”

She lifted his hands to her lips, raining kisses down upon them. “No,” she whispered between the caresses. “No. No. No.”

“The coach toppled, bringing all of us down—the coach, the horses, me—into a ditch not a mile from here. I’m not even certain if we made it over the border.” He shook his head. “I don’t think we did.”

“Were you—”

He looked to her. “I was fine. A few bruises. Nothing to speak of.”

“And—” She couldn’t say the name.

“She screamed,” he said quietly, and she could tell that he was no longer here, in the library, but there, on the rainy road. “I could hear her as we flipped, but by the time we’d stopped, it was silent. She was silent. I climbed back, tore at the coach doors, but—” Sophie pressed a hand to her lips, tears coming as she imagined him screaming for the woman he loved. “—the way the coach fell, the doors were bent shut. There was no way in. She was stuck in there. I couldn’t hear her. I broke a window, finally.” He looked down at his knuckles, flexing his fingers, as though the wounds from the glass were still there.