“We’re all in a state,” Sesily replied. “None more so than you. Or must we remind you that you and your child are currently without a home?”
“Of course that’s not true,” Sophie interjected.
“No?” Seline asked, “Then you’ve a plan to marry the marquess and rescue us all?”
The casual question reminded Sophie of earlier in the afternoon, when she’d faced the truth about King—that he’d never love her. That he was never to be hers. That she was going to leave him, and spend the rest of her life wishing that their future would be different.
She shook her head, swallowing around the knot in her throat. “I’m not marrying him.”
“Then why are you here?” Seleste asked. “Are you taking up residence as his mistress?”
“That won’t help at all,” Seline pointed out.
“We need discretion!” the countess cried.
Sophie ignored the willingness that flared at the suggestion. If he’d offered her the role of mistress, she would take it. She would take whatever she could get of him. Whatever time he might give her.
She’d take him here or in London, forever or for an afternoon.
She loved him.
Surely, of all the emotions the human heart could explore, love was the worst.
She looked away from her family. “I was returning to Mossband when you arrived. He was returning me to the inn.”
Sesily groaned. “We’re ruined!”
The countess collapsed to her settee once more, dramatic as ever. “I knew all those books would eventually do you in!”
None of the other Talbot girls appeared to mind the accusation in the countess’s words, so Sophie did not linger on it, either. “To be fair, our reputations weren’t the most welcome to begin with.”
“At least we received invitations!” the countess protested. “Your sisters were all being courted!”
Seline’s brow furrowed for the first time since they arrived. “Mark won’t have me, will he?”
Sophie’s frustration could not be kept at bay. “Oh, for heaven’s sake,” she said. “It’s not as though I did anything truly scandalous. The Duchess of Lamont faked her death and married the man thought to have killed her, and the ton can’t get enough of her.”
“She didn’t publicly malign the aristocracy!”
“Oh, yes. That’s quite worse than ruining a man’s life. Whatever will the rich and titled do now that I’ve insulted them?”
“They will ruin our lives!” Sesily said firmly, her trademark dry wit replaced with cool honesty. “Why do you think we’re here? Every one of us has lost our suitor! Because of you!”
“Every one of you has been mistreated by men who could not find their spine if they were kicked directly in it!”
“Those men were willing to have them!” her mother cried. “And they were willing to take you on, as well, Sophie, a welcome spinster!”
“That’s what I was? A future old aunt? Destined to rooms in the castle turret? Hidden away from life?”
“What kind of life could you have possibly planned on?” Sesily asked.
“Well. That was unkind,” Sophie replied.
The room grew quiet. “I apologize. But you must understand, Sophie, this is painful for everyone.”
“I didn’t mean for you all to suffer the residual effects of my . . .”
“Mistake.” Seleste again.
Except it wasn’t a mistake. For all the emotion since the Liverpool summer soiree, Sophie had lived more in the past ten days than ever before. She looked from one sister to the next. “I didn’t ever wish to be your burden. Not before this, and certainly not now.”
“You must have seen that it was a possibility, though,” said the countess, her tone softening the sting of the words. “You’re not the most . . .”
Sesily picked up where she left off. “Marketable.”
“Of us.” Seline finished.
Not beautiful. Not charming. Not exciting.
Unfun.
Except, in these recent days, she’d been all those things. And not because she’d been shot. Not because she’d dressed as a footman. Not because she’d sold away a carriage full of curricle wheels and run from her father’s henchmen. Not even because she’d nearly lost her virtue in a hedge maze.
Because she’d fallen in love with King.
Because he’d fed her strawberry tarts and kissed her senseless and tempted her with a glimpse of a life that was more than she’d ever imagined. Because he’d teased her with the idea that she was more than Sophie Talbot, the youngest and least interesting of the Soiled S’s.
And then her family had arrived, and reality threatened. But she would not return to it without telling them the truth. She looked from one sister to the next. “If they will not have you because of me, they were not worth having.”
“Oh?” Seline said, quick to defend her suitor, “And your Eversley—who will not have you—he’s worth nothing, I assume?”
It wasn’t the same thing at all. He wasn’t turning her out because she’d knocked the Duke of Haven into a fishpond. Indeed, he’d remained at her side after discovering what she’d done.
He was worth everything.
“You did this on purpose,” Sesily was saying. “You never wanted to be an aristocrat. And now you’ve dragged the rest of us back into the muck with you. Look at us, faded and wrinkled after days in a carriage. In Cumbria.”
“It’s beautiful here,” Sophie said.
“If you like sheep,” replied Sesily.
“And green,” added Seleste.
“It’s not London.” Seline sighed.
“Honestly, we should be called the Spoiled S’s.”
“None more than you, Sophie.” The retort was from Seraphina, and Sophie turned to her, shocked by the words. Her eldest sister spoke quietly, the words somehow firm and kind. “Do you know how we responded when we returned home after the Liverpool party to discover that you’d left with nothing more than the word of an alleged footman dressed in stableboy’s clothing? We were so proud of you. You’d turned your back on a world for which you’d never cared. I thought it was quite wonderful.” She tilted her chin toward the other Talbot sisters. “As did they, though they won’t admit it.”
“I’ll admit it,” Sesily said. “You’ve always been the first to defend us. I was very happy to defend you.”
“And I,” Seline said. “Mark thought you were damn fantastic.”
“Seline, language.”
“It was Mark’s language, Mother.”
“Well, I am unable to admonish him.”
Sophie smiled. She’d missed her sisters. Her mother. The whole wild family.
“But it wasn’t so easy to be proud of you when London turned on us. We didn’t expect the aristocracy to simply exile us,” Seline added. “Which I’m sure sounds like heaven to you, Sophie. But . . .”
“It’s not for us,” Seleste finished.
Of course, Sophie knew that. She didn’t wish them the life she wanted. She wished them all the life they wanted for themselves. Happiness in the shape of garden parties and titles and invitations to Windsor Castle.
She sighed. “I am sorry that I have caused such trouble,” she began. “But if the scandal sheets have taught us anything, it is this: when the summer is over and you’ve all returned to London—without me—Society will forget you ever had a youngest sister, and your gentlemen will return. And, if they do not, you’re all young, beautiful, and outrageously wealthy,” she pointed out. “The three most important qualities in a future bride. You’ll find other gentlemen. Who deserve you more.”
Silence fell.
“You deny it?” she said, looking from one to the next. “I assure you, you all remain beautiful, despite my scandalous behavior. I shall ask Papa for my dowry, and fade away. All will be well.” She turned to Seline. “It’s you who always says we’re like cats. You’ll survive this. Easily.”
“Even cats have a limit on their lives,” the Counte
ss said, the sad words strangely familiar. An echo of the Liverpool Summer Soiree.
When everything had changed.
“It’s not beauty that’s the problem,” Sera spoke quietly from her place on the edge of the tableau. “Sophie—”
“It’s the blunt.” The words came from the door, which Sophie hadn’t heard open. Her breath caught as she turned to her father, crop still in hand, trousers still covered in dust and horse sweat.
“Papa.” She paused. “You came.”
And that’s when she knew that something terrible must have happened. Jack Talbot did not hie across Britain with his wife and four daughters for a lark. A sense of wild foreboding threaded through Sophie, and she had the keen realization that this day would be the most important of her life. It was the day she said good-bye to King. And the day that her father changed everything.
Her father looked to the rest of the girls. “Find your rooms, girlies.”
They did as they were told, leaving in a squawking gaggle, along with the countess, to find rooms that were no doubt being aired for the first time in an age. If she weren’t so shocked by her father’s arrival, she would have been amused by the idea of the Duke of Lyne coming face-to-face with the Dangerous Daughters.
Once alone with her father, she asked, “Why are you here, Papa?”
“I came,” he said, “because I can’t take care of this.”
She blinked. “Papa, you know as well as I do, Society will find another thing to loathe in less than a week. It likely has already.”
“But Haven won’t.”
“Haven is an ass,” she said.
“That’s never been more true, kitten, but he’s a duke. He holds the purse strings.”
Her brows snapped together. “You’re Jack Talbot. You’re richer than all of them combined.”
Her father went silent. “Not without them, Sophie. That was the deal I struck for the title your mother wanted so badly. They invest, I mine. And you all become ladies. I can’t make money without the nobs. And you’ve done an excellent job of running them off. Calling Haven a whore did it better than I ever could’ve.”
Fear gripped her at the words. It made sense, of course. Titles weren’t simply doled out, not without requirements. “I thought it was a wager?”
He smiled. “It was. But Prinny made the terms. And I accepted them.”
“They’ve stopped investing?”
“Pulled their funds to a man. Haven took great glee in making it so. I received notice from thirteen of them by sundown after your excitement. The rest came in the morning.” He paused for a long moment before he approached her, and for the first time in her life, she saw Jack Talbot’s age. His worry. “You want your dowry? Your freedom?” He shook his head. “I want to give it to you. But there ain’t no dowry to be had, kitten. I can’t keep your mother and sisters in new clothes and gilded carriages and—” He looked to a nearby table. “Now why in hell do they need birdcages on their heads?”
She smiled, halfheartedly. “At least there’s no bird in it.”
“Don’t say that in front of Sesily, or I’ll have to find funds for birdfeed.”
She shook her head. “Papa. I thought we were—”
“You’d be surprised how quickly blunt flows out the door, kitten. Especially when the nobs want you gone.” He reached for her, and she went into the embrace. He smelled of leather and horseflesh, the scent wrapping her in memories of her childhood, when what was right was all that mattered. Jack Talbot had always been larger than life—a hero in every sense. He’d fostered Sophie’s love of books, embraced her desire for more than the aristocracy. And in all her life, he’d never once asked her for help. Perhaps she could have found a way to deny her sisters what they wished, but her father—he hadn’t an ounce of the dramatic in him. And if he was concerned for their future, so, too, was she.
He kissed the top of her head. “I was so proud of you for standing up for your sister. For yourself,” he whispered there. “But now . . . they have us by the bollocks.”
She pulled back, staring into his clear brown eyes. “Haven behaved abominably.”
“And I’d have beaten him blue, love. Don’t you doubt it. But the world was watching you. His world. You embarrassed him in front of it.”
I shall destroy you.
Her brother-in-law’s words, from the Liverpool greenhouse, echoed through her. And she’d taunted him for them.
I’d like to see you try.
He’d done it. Without hesitation. His name and title making him more powerful than they would ever be.
She shook her head. “I didn’t think.”
“You think now,” he said.
Jack Talbot might have been given the Earldom of Wight, but he’d never been given a son, and therefore, his five daughters had no future without marriage. They had no future. Not now that Sophie had ruined it.
She blinked up at her father. “What have I done?”
He offered her a little smile. “You acted rashly, my girl. You defended your sister in the moment without thinking of the long game. And we pay the price.”
She knew what came next before he suggested it. And later, when she faced the dark truth of what she had to do, she would admit her most private secret.
That she’d never in her life wanted anything more.
“How do we survive it?” she asked.
There was a long silence before her father answered. “Eversley.”
Chapter 19
BEYOND THE BEDPOST—CUMBRIA
CASTLE CONFESSIONS!
That night, long after the house quieted, Sophie waited for her thoughts to do the same.
She sat straight up on the edge of her bed, clad in one of Sesily’s dressing gowns, a beautiful grass green satin covered in pearls and feathers, with a matching silk nightdress and slippers.
It was a costume more than anything else—a uniform. She was to use it to do what countless other women had done in similar frocks. Land herself a husband.
Willing away the distaste that came at the thought, she stared at the door between her rooms and King’s. She’d done all she could to put off approaching him, bathed and changed the bandage on her shoulder, dried her hair by the fire, combed it until it gleamed. It was late enough that he was no doubt abed, no doubt asleep, without thought of her.
They’d barely spoken in the hours since her family had arrived. He’d taken his leave immediately, no doubt grateful that his responsibility to her was complete. They’d dined with him, his father nowhere to be found, her sisters more than willing to fill whatever awkward silences arose with their chatter about London and Society.
King had remained quiet, answering only those questions that came directly to him.
Her sisters had known better than to engage him.
There’d been a moment when her mother had inquired after their journey—why it had taken such a long time. King had looked to Sophie in the aftermath of the question, surprised that the countess seemed not to know that she’d been shot and convalesced in Sprotbrough.
There hadn’t been a time to tell her family what had happened, strangely, as a bullet wound had seemed trivial when compared to the wound her family suffered. The one she would cause for King.
She’d watched him throughout dinner, memorizing his face, his eyes, the way his lips curved around his words. She wanted to remember all the little moments she could amass before tonight. Before she knocked on that door and changed their lives forever.
If she could find the courage to do it.
If she could find the willingness to do it.
Perhaps he would refuse her.
Relief flared at the idea. If he refused her, her family would have to try another way. If he refused her, she could leave, and find another life. She’d never have to return to London. To Mossband. She could disappear, and they could live their lives without her.
He could live his life without her.
She would have to live her life without hi
m.
The thought ached in her chest, her heart somehow beating there, in spite of it, and she exhaled, standing and crossing to the adjoining door. She could end this now. She would knock; he would refuse her; she would leave.
Even though she desperately wanted him to accept her.
Not like this.
No, not like this. But the idea that she would never see him again, never touch him again, never be near him again . . .
It was torture.
She put her hand to the door, palm flat against the cool mahogany, and she lowered her forehead to the door. Breathing deep, imagining that she could smell him there, on the other side, soap and spice and King.
How much she wanted him, and how little she wanted this.
She straightened and lifted her hand, preparing to announce herself, when a knock sounded on the main door to her chamber.
She pulled her hand back from its task as though she’d been burned, immediately putting distance between her and the entrance to his rooms. She crossed to the door and opened it to reveal Seraphina, her hands at her stomach.
The eldest Talbot sister was out of breath. “I was afraid I had missed you.”
Sophie stood back and waved Sera into the room. “I have been . . . postponing.”
Sera crossed to the center of the bedchamber and turned to face Sophie as she closed the door, locking them both inside. “Do you love him?”
The question surprised Sophie, and it was a moment before she found her reply. “Does it matter?”
Sera sat on the edge of the bed, catching her breath. “It does, rather.”
Sophie crossed and poured her sister a glass of water, watching as she drank deep before saying, “Why?”
“If you don’t, you shouldn’t do this.”
Sophie shook her head. “You think I’ll find another who loves me?”
“I think you shouldn’t marry a man who doesn’t care for you.”
It was too late for that. “It is easy for you to say such a thing. Nothing about my actions will change your future.” Sophie sat next to Seraphina. “I’m so sorry, Sera. If I hadn’t—”
Sera reached over and took Sophie’s hand, clutching tight. “You defended me. No one else would have.” They were both lost in the memory before Sera chuckled. “And he deserved it.”