He’d struck an interesting chord, it seemed. He plucked at it again, unable to resist. “Someone has to take responsibility for you. You can’t be trusted not to cause a scene.”
She stopped at that. Turned to him. “I don’t cause scenes.”
His brows shot up. “All you do is cause scenes, love.”
“I’m not your love,” she said, her hands fisted at her sides.
“You most certainly are not,” he agreed without thinking. “I am drawn to more feminine specimens.”
Her shoulders drooped for a moment—barely long enough to be called such—and King wanted to take the words back. They weren’t accurate. She was perfectly feminine. Indeed, as she accepted the blow of his words, there was something exceedingly feminine about her, something that one did not immediately notice.
Not that he cared. He wasn’t interested in her femininity.
She was obstinate as hell and more trouble than she was worth. And if there was one thing he did not care for, it was women who were troublesome.
But he’d hurt her feelings. And it was unsettling, as she didn’t seem the type whose feelings were easily hurt. Indeed, she was walking again, all straight spine and stiff shoulders, guard up.
It was a ruse. Designed to keep him from seeing the truth.
He knew it, because he’d used a similar one himself.
There was nothing at all uninteresting about her.
He called after her. “You can’t walk all the way back to London.”
“That shows what you know,” she said without breaking her stride. “I’m not going back to London. I’m headed north.”
“Not if you’re walking in this direction, you’re not,” he said, before the full meaning of her words sank in. “Wait. North? Why?”
She stopped. “This is north.”
“No,” he said. “It’s south.”
She peered down the dark road. “You’re certain?”
“Quite. Why are you heading north?”
She pivoted and began her march in the opposite direction. “Because I’m going home.”
She was perhaps the most frustrating woman he’d ever met. “London is south.”
“Yes. I do have a general knowledge of geography.”
“Well, you lack a knowledge of direction, it appears, so one does wonder.” She did not waver from her purpose. They walked for several minutes in silence, until they were once more in the lights of the Fox and Falcon.
King couldn’t help himself. “If not London, where is home?”
“Cumbria.”
He stilled. What was she playing at? He was headed to Cumbria. To his home.
The Dangerous Daughters.
The nickname whispered through him with a keen awareness of the rumors about the Talbot daughters—rich, but not nearly quality. They’d need to purchase their aristocratic marriages or steal them, and the fastest way to steal a title was to ruin oneself in the arms of a peer.
A carriage ride to Cumbria would easily result in ruination.
Dangerous, indeed.
Christ. He’d been right earlier that evening. The girl was after him. The guilt he’d felt at leaving her to the men in the stables disappeared, replaced by hot anger. “So it was a plan. To trap me.”
Her brows snapped together. “I beg your pardon?”
“How did you know I was headed to Cumbria? Did the footman give up that information as well?”
“You’re headed to Cumbria?” she asked, all surprise.
He narrowed his gaze on her. “Coy isn’t attractive on you, Sophie.” He deliberately left the title she was due off her name.
“And I am so very desperate for you to find me attractive.”
He raised a brow. “Tell me the truth.”
“It’s quite simple. I’m headed to Cumbria. I spent the first ten years of my life in Mossband.”
He laughed without humor. “I’ve never in my life heard such a terrible lie.”
“It’s true. Not that I can understand why you would care.”
“Fine. I shall play,” he spat. “Because I spent my childhood in Longwood. But you knew that.”
She shook her head. “There’s no Eversley estate there.”
He smirked. “No. But there is Lyne Castle.”
She was doing an excellent job of looking surprised. “What’s that to do with the price of wheat?”
“A pity you’re leaving London. You should try the theater.” He paused, then said, “Is this the bit where I tell you my father is the Duke of Lyne?”
“What?” She really was excellent at feigned ignorance.
“Yes. What a surprise,” he drawled. He’d had enough of her. “You think I’m stupid enough to believe that a Dangerous Daughter doesn’t know that the Marquess of Eversley is a courtesy title?”
“Stupid or no, it’s the truth. I had no idea that you were to be a duke.”
“Every unmarried lady in London knows I’m to be a duke.”
“I guarantee that’s only true of the unmarried ladies who give a fig.”
He ignored her sharp retort. “I’m widely believed to be the ton’s best catch.”
She snorted a laugh. “No doubt, what with your minuscule sense of self-importance. Let me assure you, my lord, you’re a horrid catch.”
“And you’re a horrid liar. I assume your pronouncement of your North Country destination was intended to spur me to offer you passage, as we are both headed in that direction?
“Your assumption is incorrect.”
“Don’t play the innocent with me,” he said, waving a finger in her face. “I see right through your outlandish plans. You were fully intending for us to play.”
She blinked. “Play? At what?”
He smirked. “I’m sure you can put it together. The women in your family seem more than willing.”
Understanding dawned. “As though I would let you near me. I don’t even like you.”
“Who said anything about liking one another?” He stayed the vision of how they might pass the time on the journey north. “No matter. I don’t care for the destination you have in mind. You shan’t trap me into marriage. I’m smarter than the rest of the men in London, darling. And you’re not nearly as tempting as your sisters.”
The words hung in the late-night air, the only indication that she’d heard them a slight straightening of her spine.
He exhaled harshly and resisted the urge to curse roundly. The last bit was cruel. He knew it the moment the words were out of his mouth. She was the plainest of the Talbot sisters, yes. And that made her the least marriageable. She had fortune, and nothing else.
And the surprise of it was . . . she didn’t seem at all plain right now, dressed in ill-fitting livery and ridiculous footwear, standing on the Great North Road, moonlight in her hair.
There was a long silence, during which King grew more and more uncomfortable, the words echoing through his head. He should apologize before she did something horrible, like cry.
He should have known better. Because Lady Sophie Talbot did not cry there, on the Great North Road in the dead of night, miles from anywhere or anyone who would help her, faced with a man who disliked her and an insult she did not deserve.