Her gaze flickered to the leader, and the long curve of this thigh, hugged tightly by the attire. She had considered the line of that muscle for longer than was appropriate.
He was an exceedingly well-made man. Empirically so.
The second she had noticed in a single day.
She coughed at the thought, heat spreading across her cheeks, and the noise brought his attention, his head immediately turning to her. Though his eyes remained obscured, Sophie had never felt so well inspected, and she found herself immensely grateful for Matthew’s livery, hiding the truth of her—that she had never been in such a situation, that she did not belong here.
She dropped her gaze to his boots, eager to disappear.
That’s when she noticed that he was not wearing boots.
At least, he was not wearing two of them.
Bollocks.
The Marquess of Eversley had arrived.
And from the way he came toward her—the swagger she’d identified earlier likely due to his lacking one boot—he was about to discover that she had done the same. She did not look up at him, keeping her gaze firmly affixed on his feet, hoping he would ignore her.
It did not work. “Boy,” he drawled, coming entirely too close. Unsettlingly close.
She shifted from one foot to the other, willing him away.
That did not work, either.
“Did you hear me?” he prompted.
She moved, dropping a half inch before she stopped herself from curtsying. Even if she weren’t dressed as a man, he didn’t deserve politeness of any kind, this ruiner of women who represented everything she loathed about the Society that had so roundly turned its back upon her. This man who had turned his back upon her. If only he’d been willing to help her, she wouldn’t be in this ridiculous situation.
“Are you able to hear?” he fairly barked the last.
Straightening, she coughed and pressed her chin tighter to her chest, lowering her voice. “Yes, my lord.” The honorific was strangled in her throat.
She was saved from whatever he was about to say by the arrival of one of his comrades. “Goddammit, King, you’re fucking fearless. I thought you were going to kill yourself on the last turn.”
She inhaled, not because of the unexpected foul language—a childhood around coal miners made one immune to profanity—but because of the unexpected voice, thick with a Scottish brogue. Her gaze snapped up, and she found herself face-to-face with the Duke of Warnick, a legendary scoundrel in his own right—an uncultured Scotsman who unexpectedly ascended to a dukedom, sending all of London into a panic. The duke was rarely seen in London and even more rarely welcome in London, but here he stood, half a yard from her, laughing and clapping the Marquess of Eversley on the shoulder to congratulate him for what Sophie could only imagine was not killing himself in the process of arriving at the inn.
Eversley matched the duke’s wide grin, all arrogance and awfulness. “Broke two spokes on my right wheel,” he boasted, the words explaining why the man traveled with a carriage full of curricle wheels. “But fearlessness begets victory, it seems.”
Warnick laughed. “I had a half a mind to run you off the road in that last quarter mile.”
“Even if you could have caught me,” King boasted, “you’re too much a coward to have done it.”
Sophie rather thought that not killing a man was more honorable than cowardly, but she refrained from pointing it out, instead easing away from the duo, eager to escape discovery by the marquess in this open space, where he could thoroughly ruin her in front of what she now realized was a collection of men who might easily recognize a Talbot sister.
The duke stepped closer to Eversley, lowering his voice to a menacing pitch. “Did you just call me a coward?”
“I did, indeed. When was the last time you were in London?” Eversley asked pointedly before he noticed her moving. “Stay right there,” he said, one finger staying her even as he did not take his gaze from the duke, leaving her no choice but to freeze in place until they finished their conversation.
She had never quite realized how rude aristocrats could be to their servants. After all, she had work to do. She wasn’t certain what kind of work, specifically, but she was sure it had little to do with staring at these two cabbageheads.
The duke tilted his head. “You would know about avoiding unpleasant locales.”
Eversley grinned at that. “I am an expert at it.”
At that, Warnick reached into his open coat and extracted a coin. “Your winnings.”
He tossed the coin and Eversley snatched it from the air, pocketing it. “I do enjoy taking your money.”
“Money,” the duke scoffed. “You don’t care about the ha’penny. You care about the win.”
Sophie resisted the urge to roll her eyes. Of course he only cared about the win. She had no doubt that the Marquess of Eversley cared for nothing but winning.
She should like to ensure that this man lost, and roundly.
Before she could enjoy her private fantasy of the marquess’s loss, however, the duke lobbed his final barb. “Not that it will get you anywhere near the cost of your missing boot. Tell me you left it as a souvenir at the site of your latest assignation.”
Sophie’s heart began to pound at the words, at the reminder of Eversley’s reputation, at the reminder of her own idiocy in turning up here, wherever they were, far from home, and with no plan to speak of.
What came next?
She was going to have to rely upon the kindness of someone in the inn to get herself home. She was going to have to beg a journey to London, which would not be easy. She would have to promise someone the funds upon arrival, and she knew how difficult that would be.
“I think the boot will be easily recovered.”
The words pulled her from her thoughts, their meaning sending her gaze flying to find his, shrouded by the brim of his cap. Was it possible he recognized her?
“Perhaps I’ll send the boy to fetch it.”
She stilled, even her breath caught in her lungs.
He recognized her.
The duke laughed, unaware of what had happened before his eyes, and returned to his curricle, tossing back, “The boy might get an eyeful stealing into the lady’s boudoir.”
Sophie couldn’t help her little huff of indignation. Of course, Marcella was criticized for her actions as the marquess was lauded by his brawny, boorish brethren.
Eversley cut her a look at the sound. “I hope my boot is inside that carriage.”
She resisted the urge to tell him precisely what he could do with the boot in question, instead playing the perfect servant. “Unfortunately not, my lord.”
He raised a brow. “No?”
She wished she could meet his gaze. Granted, his brilliant green eyes were unsettling in the extreme, but at least if she could see them, she would be able to glean something of his thoughts on the situation. Instead, she soldiered on, lifting her chin, and he noted the defiance in the gesture. “No.”
He lowered his voice. “Where is it, then?”
She lowered her voice to match his. “I imagine it is where I left it. In the Liverpool hedge.”
She rather enjoyed the way his throat worked in the moment of silence following her announcement. “You left my Hessian in a hedge.”
“You left me in a hedge,” she pointed out.
“I had no use for you.”
“Well, I had no use for your boot.”
He considered her for a long moment, and changed the topic. “You look ridiculous.”
Of course she did. She lifted one shoulder, let it drop. “It’s your livery.”
“It’s for a footman! Not some spoiled girl looking for a lark.”
Anger flared at the words. “You know nothing about me. I am not spoiled. And it was not a lark.”
“Oh? I suppose you have a perfectly reasonable explanation for why you stole my footman’s livery and stowed away in my carriage.”
“I do, as a mat
ter of fact. And I was not in your carriage. I was on it.”
“Along with my blind coachman, it seems. Why were you up there?”
She smirked. “Footmen don’t ride inside carriages, my lord. And even if they did, the carriage in question is filled with wheels. Why is that?”
“In case I need a replacement,” he said without hesitation. “Where is my footman, anyway? Did you knock him unconscious and leave him naked in the hedge alongside my boot?”
“Of course I didn’t. Matthew is perfectly well.”
“Is he wearing your dress?”
She blushed. “No. He bought a set of clothes from one of the Liverpool stableboys.”
He did not pause in his questions. “And you? Did you strip in front of all London?”
“Of course not!” She was growing indignant. “I’m not mad.”
“Oh, no,” he said, “Of course not.”
“I’m not!” she insisted, hissing the words so as not to draw attention to them. “I changed clothes in my family’s carriage. And I paid Matthew for his livery before sending him to my father for another position.”
He stilled. “You stole my footman.”
“It wasn’t stealing.”
“I had a footman this morning. And now I don’t have one. How is that not stealing?”
“It was not stealing,” she insisted. “It’s not as though you owned him.”
“I paid him!”
“It seems I paid him better.”
He went quiet, and she could see the frustration in his gaze before he offered a single, perfunctory nod and said, “Fair enough.”
He turned away.
Well. That was unexpected. And not at all ideal, as she had no money, and he was the only person in the place who might be inclined to help her get home, assuming it meant that she was gone from his life.
She ignored the fact that stowing away on his carriage might have worked against her.
Sophie sighed. He was insufferable, but she was intelligent enough to know when she needed someone. “Wait!” she called, drawing the attention of the coachman and several of his companions from earlier in the evening, but not the man in question.
He was ignoring her. Deliberately.
She scurried after him, ignoring the pain of the gravel on her slippered feet. “My lord,” she called, all nervousness. “There is one more thing.” He stopped and turned to face her. She drew close to him, suddenly keenly aware of his height, of the way her forehead aligned with his firm, straight, unyielding lips.
“It doesn’t fit you.”
She blinked. “I beg your pardon?”
“The livery. It’s too tight.”
First he described her as unfun and now as plump. She knew it of course, but he didn’t have to point out the fact that she wasn’t the most lithe of women. She swallowed around the tightness in her throat and brazened on. “Excuse me, Lord Perfection, I did not have time to visit a modiste on the way.” He did not apologize for his rudeness—not that she was surprised—but neither did he leave, so she pressed on. “I require conveyance home.”
“Yes, you said as much this afternoon.”
When he’d refused to help and landed her in this mess.
He wasn’t alone in landing you in this mess. She ignored the thought. “Yes, well, it remains the case.”
“And, as was the case this afternoon, it is not my problem.”
The words surprised her. “But . . .” She trailed off, not quite knowing what to say. “But I . . .”
He did not wait for her to find words. “You’ve stolen my boot and my footman in what I can only assume is a misguided attempt to gain my attention and my title, if the former actions of your family are any indication. I’m sure you’ll understand if I am less than amenable to providing you aid.” He paused, and when she did not speak, he added, “To put it plainly, you may be a colossal problem, Lady Sophie, but you are not my problem.”
The words stung quite harshly, and the way he turned his back on her, as though she were nothing, worth nothing—not even thought—delivered an unexpected blow, harsher than it might have been on another day, when all of Society and her family hadn’t turned their backs upon her in a similar fashion.
A memory flashed of the events of the afternoon, the aristocracy, en masse, disowning her, choosing their precious duke over the truth. Over the right.
Tears came, unbidden. Unwelcome.
She would not cry.
She sucked in a breath to keep them at bay.
Not in front of him.
They stung at the bridge of her nose, and she sniffed, all unladylike.
He turned back sharply. “If you are attempting to prey upon my kindness, don’t. I haven’t much of it.”
“Do not worry,” she replied. “I would never dream of thinking you kind.”
He watched her for a long, silent moment before the coachman spoke from above, where he was disconnecting the reins from the driving block. “My lord, is the boy bothering you?”
The marquess did not take his eyes from her. “He is, rather.”
The other man scowled at her. “Get to the stables and find the horses some food and water. That should be something you cannot muck up.”
“I—”
Eversley interrupted her. “I should do as John Coachman says,” he cut her off. “You don’t want to suffer his wrath.”
Her wide eyes flickered from one man to the other.
“After you’re done with that, find your bed, boy,” the coachman said. “Perhaps a good sleep will return the brain to your head.”
“My bed,” she repeated, looking to the marquess, hating the way his lips twitched.
“They’ve space in the hayloft.” The coachman’s exasperation was unmistakable as he spoke to her—as though she were an imbecile—before returning to his four-legged charges, leaping down and unhitching them to bring them to the stables, leaving Sophie and Eversley in the center of the quickly emptying courtyard.
“The hayloft sounds quite cozy,” the marquess said.
Sophie wondered if the marquess would find a blow to the side of his head cozy, but she refrained from asking.
“So cozy,” he continued, “that I think I shall find my own bed. It seems that one of my feet is quite cold. I should like to go in and warm it up by the fire.”
Her feet were also cold and aching. Silk slippers were not designed for coach-top rides through Britain or the work of footmen, after all. She thought of the warm fire that was no doubt burning inside the inn.
She wasn’t certain what would be in the hayloft, but if she had to imagine, she’d say hay . . . and that meant there wouldn’t be a warm fire there.
She could reveal herself. Now was the time. She could take off her hat and point out her own ridiculous footwear. She could announce herself Lady Sophie Talbot, rely upon the kindness of one of the other men who had barreled into the Fox and Falcon atop their strange-looking curricles, and beg for conveyance home.
Eversley seemed to understand her intentions even before they were fully formed. “An excellent idea. Saddle yourself to another. Warnick is a duke.”
She did not pretend to misunderstand. “I wouldn’t marry you if you were the last man in Christendom.”
“You only say that because I’ve thwarted your idiot plan.”
“This was never my plan.”
“Of course not, why would I think it from a Dangerous Daughter?” he scoffed, and she hated him then. Hated him for invoking the ridiculous moniker. For being just like all the others. For believing that she wanted the life into which she’d been thrust.
For believing that life worth something. Worth more than the life she’d been born into. For refusing to see—just as the rest of London refused to see—that Sophie was different. And that she had been perfectly happy before. Before titles and town houses and teas and trappings of the ton.
Before those trappings had trapped her.
She swallowed back her frustration. “I
thought you were heading to Mayfair,” she said, hating the smallness in her voice.
He pointed to the road without hesitation. “Thirty miles to the south. Perhaps you’ll be lucky and a mail coach will happen by.”
The words reminded her of her current circumstances. “I haven’t any money for a mail coach.”
“It is unfortunate, then, that you gave it all to my footman.”
“Not unfortunate for the boy, I imagine,” she replied, unable to keep the tartness from her voice. “After all, I saved him from having to serve you for the rest of his days.”
He smirked. “It looks like you’ve quite a walk ahead of you, then. If you start now, you’ll be there by tomorrow evening.”
He was horrible. Not that she’d been the most genteel of characters, but still. He was worse. “What they say about you is right.”
“Which part?”
“You are no gentleman.”
His gaze raked down her body, taking in her ill-fitting, too-tight livery, reminding her with every lingering inch that she’d made a terrible mistake. “Forgive me, love, but you don’t seem much a lady tonight.”
And he disappeared into the inn, leaving her considering her next action—the stables, or the road.
The frying pan, or the fire.
Chapter 4
SOILED S STOLEN!
SCOUNDREL SUSPECTED!
Several hours later, after the inn had gone dark and quiet, Kingscote, Marquess of Eversley, future Duke of Lyne, notorious rogue who took great pride in his reputation as a scoundrel, lay in bed, awake.
Awake, and very, very irritated.
She’d ruined his win.
And of all the things in the world that King enjoyed, there was nothing he enjoyed so very much as winning. It did not matter what he won—women, fights, road races, cards. It mattered only that the win was his.
It was not a simple thing, King’s relationship with victory. It was not for mere pleasure, though many thought it such. It had little to do with diversion, or recreation. Where other men enjoyed winning, King required it. The thrill of victory was as essential as food and air to him. In victory, he was most free.