She took a deep breath, inhaling the light and the air and the early morning.
“Is it all you remembered?” The words were quiet in the predawn silence. She turned to find him close to her, leaning against the coach, closer than she expected. Close enough to smell him, to see the dark stubble that shadowed his chin. They’d been traveling without quarter, and he hadn’t shaved. Her fingers itched to touch it.
It’s not yours to touch.
Not by the light of day. Not here, at the end of their journey, when they were about to end their acquaintance. An acquaintance that had become far too close than any acquaintance should be.
She cleared her throat and found speech. “It is exactly the same.” She looked down the row of buildings, drinking in this place she’d dreamed of for years; there was a tea room now where there hadn’t been when she was younger, just on the crest of the little slope that curved round behind the pub. “Except for the tea shop.”
He was looking at the pub. “The Weasel and the Woodpecker? Really?”
She laughed at his surprise. “I think it’s creative.”
“I think it’s ridiculous.”
She shook her head, pointing to the rock at the center of the greensward. “Seleste climbed that once.” She noticed the question in his gaze. “My sister.”
“The one we haven’t discussed.”
He did not mention her suitor, and Sophie noticed. She nodded. “She climbed up—couldn’t have been older than eight or ten—and once up there, she became terrified. She couldn’t get herself down.”
“What happened?”
“My father came to save her,” she said, the long-forgotten memory returned with utter clarity. “He told her to jump into his arms.”
“Did she?”
Sophie couldn’t hold back the laugh. “She toppled them both to the ground.”
He laughed with her, the sound deep and soft in the early-morning light. “Did she learn her lesson?”
Sophie shook her head. “No. In fact, we all wanted to climb the rock and play with Papa after that.”
The words came on a thread of sadness, something she didn’t entirely understand, and she shook her head, willing the emotion away. Turning, she found King staring at her. “Did you climb the rock?”
She pushed past him, rounding the corner of the carriage. “Yes.”
He followed. “And did you jump?”
She stopped. Looked down at her feet. “No.”
“Why not?”
“Because . . .” She paused, not wanting to say the words out loud. Not wanting him to hear them. Not that it mattered what he thought of her. They were through today. After this, they’d never see each other again.
“Sophie?”
She turned, loving the sound of her name on his lips. The way it wrapped around her in the cool, grey morning air. The way it made her remember the night before. The way he’d sounded in the dark.
She shouldn’t think of that. Of course, she would, but she shouldn’t think of it here in public. In daylight. In the presence of him, and all of Mossband.
“Sophie.”
She shook her head, staring over his shoulder at the rock in question. “I was too afraid to jump.”
Silence fell and she imagined him judging her. She wasn’t much different now, was she? Still afraid. Still uninteresting. Still unfun. She braced herself for his retort.
“Until now.”
She blinked, returning her gaze to his, beautiful and green and unwavering. “I beg your pardon?”
“You’re not afraid to jump now. Isn’t that why we’re here? Why you stowed away in my carriage? Why you stole my wheels and got yourself shot? Isn’t that why we escaped your father’s men? All so that you could be here, now? So you could jump?”
She didn’t know what to say, his words so pointed they almost goaded. And then they did goad. “So you could win your wager? With happiness?”
She looked to the bakery, its chimney spouting happy smoke, keenly aware of the fact that the wager was ridiculous. She’d never win it. But he was driving her to its logical conclusion. She would enter the bakery, see Robbie, and return to Mossband. She would be free of London.
Everything would change.
It would begin again.
She would be free.
“Or do you forfeit?”
She was grateful for the teasing in the words. The way they brought her back to the moment. The way they reminded her of the woman she had promised herself she would become. The life she had promised herself she would have.
Without titles or pretension.
Without London.
Without him.
Not that she wanted him. She didn’t even like him. And he certainly didn’t like her.
Now was the time. She was here, in this place where she knew no one, had nothing. She’d found her way here. She’d made her wager and she would follow it through. Yes, she might fail, but she could not return to London. And she could not rely on King’s help forever.
He wasn’t for her.
I was too afraid to jump.
Until now.
It was not the seeing of Robbie that mattered, but the proving to herself that she was brave enough to do this. Alone. The proving to King. Because he would leave her, and she wanted him to think her brave.
To value her.
To see her. One final time.
She pasted a bright smile on her face. “Why would I forfeit when I am so very close to my bookshop?” Triumph flared at his surprise. He didn’t think she would do it, and so she returned to the open door of the carriage, reaching in to collect her paltry things.