From the moment he’d climbed down the Liverpool trellis, Sophie Talbot had led him on an adventure.
Sophie Talbot no longer.
Sophie, Marchioness of Eversley.
His wife.
His love.
Goddammit, would he never catch up to her?
The thought had barely formed when he came upon a sharp turn in the road and saw a coach several hundred yards ahead, exterior lanterns swinging in the dark. It was large enough to be the one he sought, and as he drew closer, he heard the thundering of hoofbeats, loud enough to be from six matched horses.
It was she.
He nudged his mount on, eager to reach her. To win her back.
To love her.
He’d get her a cat. Black. With white paws and a white nose. Perhaps then she’d forgive him.
Two hundred yards halved, and halved again, and again, and he could see that it was the right carriage as it approached the next turn in the road. Sophie’s carriage, emblazoned with the crest of Warnick’s clan on the back.
He couldn’t stop himself from calling out her name as the coach turned, “Sophie!” he called, pushing his horse harder, faster. He’d be alongside it in no time, and then he’d have her again.
If she’d have him.
The thought stung.
She would have him. He’d do whatever it took to win her back. He’d resort to any actions—he’d stop this carriage and hie her away on his horse, like a highwayman of yore. He’d take her somewhere beautiful and secluded, and right all his wrongs. He’d prove to her how well he could love her—better than anyone ever could.
He would spend the rest of his life proving it to her. “Lady Eversley!” he called this time, as though her married name could convince the universe that he deserved her.
He’d had enough of being away from her.
Now he wanted to be with her.
Forever.
The coach took the curve in the road, and King used the turn to draw closer. Close enough to hear the telltale pop as the inside front wheel strained. He’d heard that precise sound before, only that time, that night, he hadn’t understood what it heralded.
Fear overcame everything else.
“Stop!” he shouted, pushing his horse to its limits. Begging the steed to go faster even as he yelled, “Slow that carriage!”
It was too late.
The turn was too sharp and the carriage too large, and the wheel popped again. He screamed, “No!” desperate for the driver to hear him, but the word was lost in a mighty crack, followed by the screech of horses as the coach tipped, sending the coachman flying from the block before the vehicle toppled onto its side and was pulled along the road for a dozen yards before the terrified horses came to a stop.
“Sophie!” he screamed, leaping from his still-moving steed, desperate to get to her. “No! No no no,” he repeated again and again as he ran toward the carriage, unhooking a lantern and scaling it without pause, tearing open the door to find her.
Let her be alive.
Dear God, just let her live.
I’ll do anything for her to live.
“You must be alive, love. I’ve so much to tell you,” he said into the darkness, willing her to hear him. “I won’t lose you, Sophie. Not just as I found you. You’re not done with me, yet.”
It was dark inside, and he held the lantern high, searching for her.
“Live,” he said. “Live, please, God. Live.”
The words were a litany as he found the pile of silk—that beautiful purple gown she’d been wearing earlier in the day.
She wasn’t in it the dress.
She wasn’t in the carriage.
Relief slammed through him, blessed and welcome, his heart beating once more.
She was alive.
And on the heels of that realization came another, devastating one.
She’d left him.
Chapter 22
HAPPY NEVER AFTER?
Sophie spent the first few hours on the ride from Scotland in tears.
They’d flown freely as she recounted every minute they’d spent together, every conversation, every touch. The anger he hadn’t hidden from her the night her father had found them, as King had stood, naked and furious, the Minotaur betrayed.
Except she hadn’t betrayed him.
She would have done anything to stay with him there, at the center of that impossible maze. Forever.
But neither of them deserved forever.
He’d said it himself, before he’d packed her into Warnick’s coach, with those final, devastating words.
I would have given you forever if you hadn’t been so quick to steal it.
Her tears had eventually dried, and then she’d spent what seemed like an endless time staring at the countryside, sheep and cows and bales of hay over and over, until night had fallen, and she couldn’t stare at anything.
And all she could think was that he had ruined her, in the end. For all others.
Forever.
And in the darkness, she’d found strength. And made her decision.
He’d left her with a purse full of coin, bandages, and salve, and an unimpeachable understanding that he didn’t wish to see her ever again. And so he wouldn’t.
When her coach had stopped to change horses, the mail coach had blocked the drive, in the midst of its own change of horses and coachmen. And it had left with a new passenger, dressed as a stable boy.
After all, she couldn’t very well start a new life in one of her sister’s frivolous gowns. Warnick’s coachman hadn’t even noticed that she’d left.
Dawn crept into the mail coach, turning the inside of the vehicle silver grey, revealing the other travelers in various states of slumber. Sophie wondered at their destinations. Wondered at her own. Perhaps she’d return to Sprotbrough.
The thought of the town brought thoughts of King.
Of his lifting her from the bath.
Of his kissing her behind the taproom.
Of his hiding her from her father’s men.
Tears threatened, unbidden.
No. Sprotbrough would not do.
The coach began to slow, and Sophie closed her eyes, willing away the memories that consumed her, of his welcome touch, of his teasing laugh, of his deep, wonderful voice, whispering her name.
She would never be free of that voice.
“Sophie!”
She shot up at the words. It couldn’t be.
The other passengers in the coach began to wake, and the man closest to the window pushed back the curtain to find the source of the noise. He sat up. “We ain’t at an inn.”
She closed her eyes as the coach stopped.
“Is it highwaymen?” the woman next to her asked, panic in her voice.
“I don’t think so,” replied the first. “Looks like a madman.”
Sophie craned to look out the window.
Her heart began to pound.
He didn’t look like a madman. He looked rather perfect.
But he sounded rather furious. “Sophie Talbot, come out of that damn coach now before I come in and fetch you!”
The man by the window nudged the woman next to him. “You called Talbot?”
She shook her head.
He asked the other women in the coach one by one, ignoring Sophie altogether. When they’d received denials from all wearing frocks, the man lowered the window and shouted, “There ain’t no miss named Talbot in this coach.” He turned back and said to the now rapt audience, “He don’t believe me.”
Sophie shrank back against the seat and lowered her cap, willing herself invisible. The door burst open, heralding early-morning light and her husband, whose gaze immediately found her, then scanned her clothing. “Does no one in the goddamn country look at footwear?”
She looked down at her too-tight slippers. “There were no boots that fit.”
The man at the window started back. “He’s a girl!”
“He is, indeed,” King said dryly,
clearly unamused. “What have I said about mail coaches, Sophie?”
She scowled. “As you packed me off to London mere hours ago, with a promise never to see me again, I’m not terribly interested in what you have to say about my means of travel.”
“Ah. Lovers’ quarrel,” explained the woman next to her, sounding rather gleeful.
“We’re not lovers,” Sophie snapped.
“If he’s chasing after the mail coach to fetch you, you will be,” said the man by the window, lowering his cap over his eyes and leaning back in his seat.
Except they wouldn’t.
“Little do you know. He doesn’t even like me.”
“Get out of the coach, Sophie.”
“Go on, Sophie, we’ve all places to be,” said another passenger.
“As do I!” she insisted.
King raised a brow. “Oh? Where are you headed?”
She didn’t know that bit. Not yet. Still, she wasn’t about to say as much to him. “Sprotbrough. Perhaps you remember it. Handsome doctor?”
“I remember it, love. Every minute of it.”
“Don’t call me that.”
“Why not? I love you.”
She caught her breath at the words. He was a beast. “Get out,” she said softly, hating him for saying them. For making her wish they were true.
“In or out, my lord,” the coachman said from King’s shoulder. “I’ve a schedule to meet.”
He didn’t look away from her when he said, softly, “Shall I get in? Or will you come out?”
“I’ll go if she won’t,” said another woman in the carriage.
“Go, girlie,” said the man at the window.
She ignored him. “You sent me away.”
“I was an ass.”
“You were, rather.”
“That’s it, lass,” her neighbor said. “You stand for yourself.”
King reached in, one strong hand extended to her. “Please, Sophie. I’ve so much to say. Come out and hear me?”
To the immense gratitude of the driver, the mixed feelings of the passengers, and her own significant doubt, Sophie exited the coach. The coach was in motion in seconds, leaving her and King alone on the Great North Road, with none but his mount as witness.
She turned to him as the sound of the mail faded into the distance. “What—”
He stopped the question with a kiss, deep and long and with an urgency that unsettled even as it tempted, his hands cupping her face. She lost herself in the caress almost instantly, devastated by it, by the fact that she’d never imagined he’d kiss her again.
She shouldn’t let him kiss her.
It wasn’t fair that she so desperately wanted him to kiss her.
As he released her, leaving them both gasping for air, she realized his hands were trembling. She clasped them with her own. “King?”
“I thought you were dead,” he whispered before taking her lips again, equally as urgently.
She pulled away. “What? I wasn’t dead. I was on a mail coach.”
“The carriage crashed.”
Her eyes went wide as she remembered how he so carefully checked the horses’ harnesses whenever he was preparing for a journey—a vestige of the drive with Lorna. “How?”
“The wheel broke,” he said. “I watched it fall.” He shook his head. “I couldn’t stop it. You could have died.”
She took his hands in hers, holding them tightly, knowing he relived the moment—his worst nightmare. “The coachman?”
“Well. Miraculously well.”
“Thank God.”
“But you could have been killed,” he repeated.
She pressed his hands to her cheeks. “I am quite alive.”
“I nearly lost you,” he said, the words quiet and devastating. “And then, just as I discovered you weren’t in the coach—that you were alive, I lost you again.”
She released him and took a deep breath, stepping away from the words. From their truth. “You sent me away.”
He reached for her. “Sophie—”
She stepped back. “I told you that I loved you, and you sent me away.”
He cursed, running his hands through his hair, “I know. I was wrong. Christ.”
“I didn’t wish to marry you,” she said, hating the sadness in her words. The weakness there. “Not like that.”
“I know,” he said.
“I’m not sure you do,” she said, and she couldn’t bear to look at him any longer. She turned, looking down the road, where the mail coach had disappeared.
She was trapped.
Just as he was.
“I can’t be married to you, King. Not like this. That’s why I left the carriage.” She paused and looked back to him, meeting his beautiful green eyes. She loved him too much to be married to him without trust. Without love. “I told you everything. I bared myself. My love. And it wasn’t enough. You deserve better than to be trapped in a marriage you don’t want.” She shook her head and added, “And I deserve more.”
She turned her back to walk away, not knowing where she was going, but knowing she could not stay with him.
He called after her. “I want it.”
She closed her eyes but did not stop.
“God knows that you do deserve more, but I’m sorry, Sophie, you can’t have it. You’re my wife. And I want you. Every bit of you. I love you. More than you could possibly know. And I was a proper ass. I should have listened to you. I should have believed you.”
She turned back to face him, unable to stop herself. He was coming for her, the words pouring out of him.
“I should have proposed to you last night. Before I made love to you. But like an imbecile, I wanted to propose properly. I was going to take you to the labyrinth, love. With strawberry tarts. Would you have liked that?” He stopped in front of her. “Please, Sophie.”
“I would have liked that,” she said softly.
“I’ll do it,” he vowed. “As soon as we’re home. I’ll take you there. I’ll do it.”
“I don’t need it. We’re already married.”
“I do,” he said. “Christ. I do. Give me your hands.”
She did, marveling as he lowered himself to his knees in front of her. “No. King.”
He kissed her hands, first one, then the other. “We don’t have witnesses, but this will have to do. I love you, Sophie Talbot. I love your beauty and your brilliance and I swear here before you and God and the Great North Road that I wanted to marry you yesterday and I want to marry you today, and I fully intend to want to marry you for all the days for the rest of our lives.”
She stared down at the top of his head, marveling at those beautiful curls, unable to believe that he was here, and that he wanted her.
“You believe me? I did not wish to trap you.”
He stood, pressing his forehead to hers. “I was an ass. I was angry and shocked and I . . .” He paused. “I wanted to trap you, I think. And then, like a fool, I sent you away.” He closed his eyes. “I saw the carriage topple and—” He opened them. “Christ, Sophie. I died in that moment. I don’t know what I would have—”
“I am alive.” She pressed his hand to her breast, where her heart beat strong and true. “King. I am alive.” She smiled. “You seem to have made a career of rescuing me.”
He slid that hand up to her jaw, tilting her face to his, staring deeply into her eyes. “I will always rescue you.” He kissed her again before continuing, “I sent you away because I was terrified of you. Terrified of how you made me feel. Terrified of the life you made me want to live. I sent you away because I was afraid I would never be the kind of man who deserved you.
“I want to be that man, Sophie. I need to love you. I need you to love me again. I need you to teach our children how to love.” Children. “I hope you don’t mind, but I’d quite like a collection of brown-haired, blue-eyed, book-loving daughters.”
“You love me?”
He threaded his fingers through hers, bringing her hand t
o his lips. “Quite desperately.”
She shook her head. “I never thought I would have it,” she said softly. “I never thought I was interesting enough. I never thought anyone would love me. To be honest, I never really worried about it. I had my family, and I was happy. And then I met you.” She paused. “And you turned my life upside down.”
“I believe it was you who turned my life upside down.”
She smiled. “All I wanted was a lift to Mayfair.”
“Do you regret that Mayfair wasn’t in my plans?”
She shook her head. “Not a bit. Though I could have done without all the excitement on the road.”
“Too much excitement.” He stole another kiss. “You are never traveling by coach again.”
“I was never exciting before I met you,” she said.
“I don’t believe it,” he said.
“It’s true.” Her fingers stole into his hair, pulling him to her. “I never once stole a footman before you.” She kissed him then, long and lingering.
When the caress broke, he nipped at her lip. “Thief.” Another kiss. “This ends happily,” he vowed softly. And she believed him. “Say it again,” he said, “I want to be certain that I haven’t lost you.”
“I love you. My husband. My King.” She paused, then whispered, “Now you say it again.”
And he did, again and again, until she couldn’t remember a time when it wasn’t true.
Epilogue
SOPHIE’S ST. JAMES SURPRISE
November 1833
“This is deeply embarrassing,” Sophie said from her place high atop her husband’s curricle. “Are we able to be seen by a great deal of people?”
“As it is midday on a Tuesday,” he replied, the words deep and dry and lovely, “Yes. We are.”
She blushed. “This is absurd.”
“Shall I tell you some news that I think will take your mind from it?”
She turned to him, loving the way he laughed. She smiled. “Do I look ridiculous?”
“You look perfect.” He took one of her gloved hands and lifted it for a kiss. “I received news from the idyllic Sprotbrough this morning.”
She straightened. Mary, John, and Bess had ultimately chosen to settle in Sprotbrough. “And?”
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