“If you knew my father—”
“I don’t,” she said, all casualness, reaching into the basket on the seat next to her and extracting a book. “But frankly, my lord, I am not feeling very kind toward you at this particular moment, so if you’re angling for my sympathy, perhaps save your stories for another time.”
She was the most infuriating woman he’d ever met. “I gave you everything you wished. I brought you to damn Mossband instead of packing you back to London, as I should have the moment I discovered you, like the baggage you are. I protected you from your father’s damn hunters. Oh, yes. And I saved your damn life.”
“It’s hard to believe that a Dangerous Daughter’s life was worth the trouble, honestly.” She opened the book calmly. “My apologies for your wasted time.”
He sat back on the seat, watching her. Shit. It wasn’t a waste. None of it. Indeed, he wouldn’t give up a moment of the last week for anything. Even though she was the most difficult woman in Christendom. “Sophie,” he said, trying to change tack.
She wasn’t having it. Turning a page, she said calmly, “Do not worry, my lord. Your ailing father will loathe me. I shall make him wish death would come sooner. And when you get your perfect revenge, we’ll be through with each other. Blessedly.”
King watched her for a long moment before he said, quietly, “I don’t think less of you, you know.”
She turned another page. “For being too common for your perfect life? For being so common the mind will boggle at the possibility that I might make a decent wife? For being so common that you can hardly deign to breath the same air I breathe?”
Damn. That wasn’t what he meant at all. “I don’t think you are common.”
She turned pages more quickly now. “It’s difficult to believe that, I must admit, as you have spent the entirety of our acquaintance reminding me of my common appearance.” Flip. “My common background.” Flip. “My common past.” Flip. “My common family.” Flip. “My most common character.” Flip. Flip. Flip. “Indeed, my lord, you have been very clear on the matter. Clear enough for me to think you’re something of an ass.”
He stilled. “What did you call me?”
“I feel confident that your hearing is in full working order.”
Flip.
He reached across and snatched the book from her hands.
She scowled at him, then sat back, crossed her arms over her chest, and spat, “I shall be very happy to see the end of this carriage.”
“I cannot imagine why,” he retorted. “As I rather adore it.”
The words weren’t as sarcastic as he wished. Indeed, when he thought of this carriage, it gave him a great deal of pleasure. More than any carriage he’d ridden in since the last time he was here, in Cumbria. More than any carriage he’d been in since he was a young man.
Except it wasn’t the carriage.
It was her.
The realization came with no small amount of discomfort—he did not wish for her to give him pleasure. This journey was not for pleasure, it was for pain. For his father’s pain. He came to watch the old man die. Came to ensure that, finally, he was punished for the way he had manipulated and machinated King’s life.
Sophie was a means to that end, and nothing else.
She couldn’t be anything more than that.
He didn’t have room for her in his life.
She wasn’t his problem.
Even if he wished her to be.
He sighed, leaning back against the seat, frustration and anger coursing through him. He had been an ass. He’d insulted her from the start. She didn’t deserve it. She deserved better than him. The thoughts echoed around him as the carriage began to move, and they drew closer and closer to Lyne Castle.
She deserved better than this.
He looked to her, sitting stick-straight on the opposite seat. Minutes crept by as he considered her, wearing that abomination of a gown. He’d summon a seamstress from somewhere. He’d buy her a wardrobe full of frocks.
Not that there was any kind of seamstress for miles.
He’d send to Edinburgh. To London if he had to.
And boots. He’d have a half-dozen pairs made for her. In leather and suede, in all the latest fashions. He’d have a pair made that laced high up her calf.
He’d like that.
He shifted in his seat, thinking of unlacing such a boot, and put the thought from his mind. He hadn’t seen her in anything but livery and ill-fitting dresses since they’d met. He imagined that she’d been wearing a legitimate gown when they’d first encountered each other at the Liverpool party, but he’d been so committed to descending the trellis and escaping the events of the afternoon that he hadn’t had a decent look.
His shifted his attention to the place where her breasts rose over the line of her dress, lifting to trace the long column of her neck, the curve of her jaw, the pink swell of her lips.
He’d been a fool.
And apparently more than once. They’d danced at a ball before that, one he could not remember. But it was difficult to imagine that he wouldn’t remember her. That he wouldn’t remember the feel of her, lush and tempting in his arms. That he wouldn’t remember the scent of her, soap and summer sunshine. That he wouldn’t remember her, all clever remarks and cutting retorts and a brave, bold way of facing the world.
Christ. He’d remember her after this.
Even after she’d long put him out of her mind and built a new life, all her own. Even after he gave her all the happiness she desired.
He’d never forget her.
I am sorry.
He wanted quite desperately to say the words to her. To begin again. To embrace this wild journey as not a man and a stowaway, a lady and her aide. But as King and Sophie, and whoever . . . whatever . . . they might be.
It was impossible, of course.
She hated everything he was, and he would never be good enough for her.
There was nothing common about her.
He should tell her that, here. Now. Before they turned down the drive to Lyne Castle and he lost the chance.
But she was so livid with him, he had no doubt she wouldn’t believe him. And perhaps that was best. Perhaps it was best that he so infuriated her. That she look forward to leaving him. That she desire to put him behind her.
The carriage turned off the main thoroughfare, and he looked up, keenly aware that they drew ever closer to Lyne Castle, where his past and future held sway.
Where his father might already be dead.
He returned his attention to Sophie, suddenly a port in a very turbulent storm. “We are nearly there.”
She smoothed her skirts. “I shall require a bath and a change of clothes before I meet your father. While I appreciate that this dress might well-suit your desire to infuriate him, I will not meet him in an ill-fitting frock looking like I’ve been driving for hours on end. Even a Talbot daughter knows how to behave around aging dukes.”
He nodded. “I hope you will sleep as well. You are past due for your herbs.” If he wasn’t so thoroughly transfixed by her, he might not have noticed the way her breath caught. He did, however, and would have offered a small fortune to know what she was thinking. Instead, she turned back to the window as though he wasn’t there.
The carriage turned once, twice, and Lyne Castle rose from the horizon, setting his heart beating faster and harder as the great grey stones loomed and the coach pulled to a stop in front of the home he’d known for his entire childhood.