The Rogue Not Taken

“But?”

There was a long silence while the doctor dressed the wound. Once finished, he turned away to wash his hands in a nearby basin and said, “I can’t guarantee she won’t die of what comes next.”

Sophie opened her eyes and focused on the doctor, a small smile on her face. “He won’t like that.”

The doctor looked down at her with a smile. “I gather not.”

She blinked. “You’re very handsome for a surgeon.”

The man laughed. “Thank you, madam. Of course, I would have preferred that compliment without the ‘for a surgeon.’”

She inspected him for a long moment before she nodded. “Fair enough. You’re very handsome. Full stop.”

King wanted to break something when the doctor laughed. “Much better.”

It was nonsense, obviously. King didn’t care if she flirted with the damn doctor. She could live here forever if she wanted. It would make everything easier for him. He could leave her and head north and live a life without her troublesome—

The doctor put his hand to Sophie’s forehead, and King could not help but want to hurt someone. Someone specific. “Is it necessary that you touch her so much?”

Unruffled, the doctor said, “If I’m to judge if she has a fever, I’m afraid so.”

“Does she?”

“No.” The doctor turned and exited the room without further comment.

It was not every day that King was dismissed so easily, and he had half a mind to follow the young man and tell him precisely whom he was disrespecting. But then he looked down at Sophie. And everything changed.

She was watching him, her blue eyes seeing everything. Her lips twitched in a little half smile. “You see? The universe does not bend to your every whim after all. I might, in fact, die.”

“Of course you’re smug about that.”

“Better smug than the other.”

He shouldn’t ask. Later, he would wonder just what it was that made him ask. “The other?”

The emotion in her eyes was clear and unsettling. “Afraid.”

The word struck at his core, and he was reminded of another time. Another girl. Equally afraid, standing before him, begging him to save her. But he’d been a boy then, not a man. And while she had died, Sophie wouldn’t. “You won’t—”

She shook her head, interrupting the insistent assurance. “You don’t know that.”

“I—”

Her gaze found his again, full of certainty. “No. You don’t. I’ve seen fevers, my lord.”

He remained silent, his gaze flickering to the bandage on her shoulder, to the blood dried on her clothes, on her skin—that smooth, unsettlingly soft skin. It shouldn’t be bloodstained. She was young and wealthy, the daughter of an earl. She should be clean and unscathed. She should be laughing with her sisters somewhere far from here.

Far from him.

He turned his attention from her, hating the guilt that flared, dipping a long length of linen in the basin of water, now pink with her blood. Wringing it out, he began to tend to her stained skin.

At the first touch of the cloth, she started, and he imagined she would have pulled away at the sensation if she’d had the strength. Or the room. Instead she lifted her good arm and captured his wrist, her fingers cool and stronger than he would have imagined, considering the events of the last several hours. “What are you doing?”

“You’re covered in blood,” he pointed out. “I’m washing you.”

“I can wash myself.”

“Not without moving, you can’t.”

They stared at each other for a long moment, and he wondered if she would let him help her. He bit back the words that he was somehow desperate to speak. Let me take care of you.

She wouldn’t like them. Hell. He didn’t like them.

But damned if he didn’t want to say them.

Damned if he didn’t want to beg her to let him tend to her.

Thankfully, he didn’t have to. She let go. And he began to wash her in careful strokes, clearing her arm and chest of dried blood, wishing he could will it back into her. Wishing he could reverse time. Wishing he could change this course.

“You should go,” she said quietly.

His gaze snapped to hers. “What did you say?”

“You should leave me here. You have a life to lead. You were on a journey before I made a hash of it.”

“A journey that brought me here.”

“I’m simply saying that I can make my own way,” she argued. “I am not your problem.”

The words stung—how many times had he said them to himself? How many times had he said them to her? “I’m not leaving you alone.”

“The doctor seems kind,” she said. “I’m sure he will allow me to stay until—”

Over his rotting corpse. “You are not staying with the doctor.”

She took a deep breath, and he heard the exhaustion in it. “I don’t have your money.”

“What does that mean?”

“If that’s why you’re staying. It was in a bag. I left it in the coach. It’s gone now.”

He didn’t care about the money.

“That’s why you followed me, isn’t it? For the money.”

“No,” he corrected her. “I followed you on principle. You can’t simply sell a man’s curricle wheels. He might need them.”

“Why did you have so many?”

“In case I broke a wheel saving an unsuspecting female from highwaymen.”