“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.
Instead, she laughed.
Uproariously.
King blinked. Well. That was unexpected.
He did not care for the edge of disdain in the laughter, and cared for it even less when she said, “The only thing I have ever wished from you was transport to Mayfair,” she said, slowly, as though she were speaking to a child. “But since you refused me that, I had to take matters into my own hands, which I appreciate”—she raised her voice slightly to stop him from interjecting—“did not work in my favor for much of the day. But things are looking up now, no thanks to you. I’ve a plan now. A plan that does not include you, your assistance, or your kindness. Thankfully, as you haven’t offered assistance and I have seen no evidence of your kindness.”
He opened his mouth to reply, and she stayed him again. “Let me be very clear. I am headed north to escape everything you are, and everything you represent. You are all I loathe about the aristocracy—arrogant, vapid, without purpose, and altogether too reliant on your title and your fortune, which you have come by without any effort of your own. You haven’t a thought in your head worth thinking—as all of your intelligence is used up in planning seductions and winning silly carriage races. In case you have not noticed, I was perfectly fine in the stables until you came along and revealed me to be a woman. And when I left, with every intention of finding my own way north, it was you who followed me! And somehow I am looking to trap you into marriage?” She paused. “I do not know how I can put it more plainly. Go away.”
He knew his reputation. He’d worked hard to cultivate it—the Royal Rogue, with altogether too much charm and not nearly enough ambition, a man who thrived on scandal and brought gossip with him wherever he went. It made it easier to keep his distance from women whom he could never promise more than a night, as he had no intention of ever marrying.
Even so, as he stood there, in the drive of a posting inn, and listened to Sophie Talbot rail against his carefully constructed legend, the words stung more than they should.
He should not care what this plain, unimportant girl thought of him.
He did not care.
Indeed, it was best if they went their separate ways, and never met again. He had a dying father to worry about. A future heaped with responsibilities he did not want. A past he’d hoped never to have to face. He should leave her here. Forget they’d ever met. And he would, just as soon as he had the last word. “You’re damn lucky I came after you, or you’d be walking south all night.”