“Nearly where?” she asked after the pain had passed enough to find words.
“Sprotbrough.”
She had no idea what Sprotbrough was, but it didn’t seem to matter. They fell silent again, and she searched for something to discuss, to keep her mind from her certain death. “Is it true you deflowered Lady Grace Masterston in a carriage?”
He cut her a look. “I thought you did not read the scandal sheets.”
“I have sisters,” she said. “They keep me apprised.”
“If I remember correctly, Lady Grace Masterson is now Lady Grace, Marchioness of Wile.”
“Yes,” she said. “But she was to be Lady Grace, Duchess of North.”
“The Duke of North is old enough to be the woman’s grandfather.”
“And the Marquess of Wile is poor as a church mouse.”
He tilted his head and considered her for a long moment. “She cared for him nonetheless.”
“I don’t think her father cared for his lack of funds.”
“I don’t think her father should have a say in the matter.”
Several seconds passed, and Sophie said, “You ruined her for the duke.”
“Isn’t it possible that I ruined her for the marquess?” There was something in the words that she should understand, but the pain in her shoulder kept her from it. She tried to sit up, putting a hand to his thigh, momentarily distracted by the leather that encased it.
She looked down at the slick fabric. “Your breeches.” His brows rose and she blushed. “I’m sorry. I’m not supposed to notice breeches.”
“No?”
“It’s not proper.”
He cut her a look. “You’re in my lap, bleeding from a gunshot wound. Let’s dispense with propriety for the moment.”
“They’re leather,” she said.
“Indeed they are.”
“That seems scandalous.”
“In all the best ways, darling,” he drawled, the words eliciting a blush as he continued. “You need boots.”
Her head spun with the change of topic. “I—”
He reached for her slippered feet, running his fingers over the ruined, threadbare silk. “You shouldn’t have left without boots. You should have taken the footman’s.”
She shook her head, looking down at the dirty yellow silk slippers. “I didn’t fit. My feet. They’re too big.”
He pulled her tighter to him. “We’ll find you a pair when we get there.”
“Did you find one for yourself?”
“Luckily, my valet is exceedingly conscientious.”
“Why isn’t he here?”
He looked out the window. “I don’t like traveling companions. He was to meet us at the next inn.”
“Oh.” She supposed he quite disliked this, then. “Where is Sprotbrough?”
He took her change of topic in stride. “The middle of nowhere.”
“It sounds just the place to find a team of qualified surgeons languishing.”
He looked down at her, and at another time, she might have been proud of herself at the surprise on his face. “Has anyone ever told you that you have a sharp tongue?”
She offered a little smile. “Not so boring after all, am I?”
He was all seriousness. “No. I wouldn’t call you boring. At all.”
Something flickered in her chest, something aside from the pain of the bullet lodged deep in her shoulder, something aside from the fear that—despite his brash assurances—she might, in fact, die. Something she did not understand.
“What would you call me?”
Time seemed to slow in the carriage, a path of red-gold sunlight casting his face into brightness and shadow, and suddenly, Sophie wanted desperately to hear his answer. His lips pressed into a straight line as he considered his reply. When he finally spoke, the word was firm and unyielding. “Stupid.”
She gasped. She hadn’t known what to expect, but it certainly hadn’t been that. “I beg your pardon. That horrible man was going to take that boy and do God knows what to him. I did what was right.”
“I did not say you were not also exceedingly brave,” he said.
The words warmed her as exhaustion came on an unexpected wave. She took a deep breath, finding it difficult to fill her lungs. She couldn’t stop herself from resting her head on his shoulder, where it had been before she’d regained consciousness. “Do I detect a note of respect?”
His chest rose and fell in a tempting rhythm before he said, softly. “A very, very soft note of it. Perhaps.”
Darkness had fallen before the carriage arrived in Sprotbrough, which could barely be called a town considering it consisted of a half-dozen clapboard buildings and a town square that was smaller than the kitchens in his Mayfair town house.
They would have a surgeon, though. If he had to summon the man from nothingness, this ridiculous, barely there town would have a damn surgeon.
He cursed, the word harsh and ragged in the blackness as he threw open the door and tossed the step out of the conveyance. John Coachman materialized in the space, lantern in hand, the yellow light revealing Sophie’s utterly still, unsettlingly pale figure.
“I still don’t believe she’s a girl.”
King had held her for more than an hour, staying the blood from her wound, staring down at her long lashes and full lips and the curves and valleys of her body. He couldn’t believe anyone wouldn’t see that she was a girl immediately. But he said nothing, rearranging her on his lap for the next leg of their journey.