“Why do they call you King?”
He nearly leapt from his skin at the words.
He closed his eyes, clenched his fists, and somehow found words. “It’s my name.”
The water shifted. “Your parents christened you King?”
He exhaled, not wishing to prolong her bath. “Kingscote.”
“Ah,” she said, and was quiet for a long moment, still, too. “What an extravagant name.”
“My family prides itself on extravagance.”
“I was on the grounds of Lyne Castle once.” The reminder of his childhood home was unwelcome. He did not reply, but she spoke anyway. “The duke opened them to visitors for some reason. There was a labyrinth there.” He could hear the smile in her memory of the place he’d just been remembering himself. “My sisters and I spent half the day lost inside—I found the heart of it and spent an hour or two reading at the center. They never found me.”
“It’s considered one of the most difficult labyrinths in Britain,” he said. “I’m impressed you found your way through. You were how old?”
“Seven? Eight? It’s magical. You must have adored living with it as a child.”
It had been there for generations, perfectly groomed and rarely used, and King had spent countless afternoons exploring the twists and turns of the maze, losing his governesses and tutors and nurses without any difficulty. The only person who could ever find him there was his father.
He cleared his throat. “It was my favorite place on the estate.”
“I imagine that it was. It was magical.”
There was reverence in the words and, though he did not wish to, he was soon thinking of her there, at the fountain at the heart of the labyrinth, the marble statue of the Minotaur rising above her like fury. It occurred to him that if he had her at the center of that labyrinth right now, she wouldn’t be reading.
He shoved a hand through his hair at the thought. He’d never have her there.
Not ever.
Once she was well, he’d be rid of her.
Finally.
“Do you travel home often?”
Why did she have to make conversation? It made it very difficult to hear the lap of water against her.
He gritted his teeth. “No.”
“Oh,” she said, obviously hoping that he would have said more. “When was the last time you were home?”
“Fifteen years ago.”
“Oh,” she repeated, the word softer, more surprised. “Why now?”
“You really don’t read gossip columns, do you?” he asked. Wasn’t that what ladies in London did between embroidery and tea?
“A truth that makes my mother quite anxious,” she answered, and he could hear the smile in her voice. He wanted to look to see if she was, in fact, smiling. “But I don’t like the way they speak of my sisters.”
“You’re very loyal.”
She looked away. “It shouldn’t bother me so much. My sisters adore TALBOT TATTLING. They’re in constant competition for the most scandalous of tidbits.”
“Who is winning?”
There was a pause as the sloshing water indicated she shifted in the bath. “These days, it is Seline. The one betrothed to Mark Landry. Do you know him?”
“I do.”
“Well, The Scandal Sheet reported several weeks ago that Mr. Landry taught Seline to ride on a stunning black mare and then gifted her with the same horse, prompting my father to insist they marry.”
“Because of an extravagant gift?”
“Because the horse is named Godiva. The implication being that Seline allegedly learned in the nude in the private stables at Landry’s estate.”
“That sounds false.”
There was a smile in her words when she replied, “It sounds uncomfortable.”
He laughed.
“Needless to say,” she added, laughing herself, “Seline adored the ridiculous story. Mr. Landry, too.”
“Never let it be said that Mark Landry doesn’t have a taste for the brazen.”
“Likely why he and my sister are such a match,” she replied. “You’ve bought horses from him, I imagine.”
“That, and we share a club.”
“I find it difficult to believe that Landry is welcome in White’s,” she said dryly. “I’ve never heard him speak a sentence that didn’t include something shocking.”
“It’s not White’s,” King said. “We frequent the same gaming hell.”
“Oh,” she said quietly. “I’ve never thought much about gaming hells.”
“You’d like it there,” he said. “Filled with gossip and scandal and not entirely safe from gunfire.”
She laughed. “I wouldn’t be welcome, I’m sure. As we’ve established, I don’t know enough about gossip to hold my own.” There was a pause before she said, “Which returns us to, why do you return to Lyne Castle?”
Levity disappeared from the room with her question, and for a long moment he did not answer, not wishing to lose the moment. It was gone nonetheless. “My father is dying.”
She stopped moving in the bath. Silence stretched around them, heavy and deafening. “Oh,” she said again. “I am sorry.”
He straightened at the honesty in the words. “I’m not.”
Why was it so easy to tell her the truth?
She was silent for long minutes, the water quiet around her. “You’re not?”
“No. My father is a bastard.”
“And you return home anyway?”
He considered the words and the question in them, and then thought of his father, the man who had ruined his future all those years ago. Who had taken the one thing King had wanted and destroyed it. Who had made King’s entire life about reciprocating—destroying the only thing the duke had wanted.
Later, he would not understand why he told her. “He summoned me. And I have something to tell him.”
More silence. And finally a soft “I am through.”
Thank God.
He did not turn as she lifted herself up in the tub, not even as he heard the water slosh around her when she returned to the bath with a little squeak. Not when it happened a second time. He amassed tremendous amounts of credit for his gentlemanly decorum.
Instead, he asked, “Is there a problem?”
“No,” she said, and the sound repeated itself.
He risked a look over his shoulder.
Mistake.
He could see only her head over the lip of the deep copper tub, but if her cheeks were any indication, she was clean and pink and perfect.
“Don’t look!” she cried.
“What is the problem?”
“I . . .” She hesitated. “I can’t get out.”
What did that mean? “Why not?”
“It’s too slippery,” she said, the words despondent. “And my shoulder—I can’t put pressure on my arm.”
Of course. Surely he was being punished by the universe.
He turned, already shucking his coat.
“Don’t turn around!” she cried, sinking below the lip of the tub.
He ignored the words and walked toward her, frustration manifesting itself as irritation as he rolled up his shirtsleeves. “I assure you, my lady, I don’t wish to help any more than you wish to be helped.”
It was true, if slightly disingenuous.
She peeked over the rim of the bathtub. “Well. You needn’t be rude.”