The Rogue Not Taken

SOPHIE’S SOCIETY SPLASH

London

June 1833

If only the Countess of Liverpool hadn’t been such an admirer of aquatic creatures, perhaps things would have turned out differently.

Perhaps no one would have witnessed the events of the thirteenth of June, the final, legendary garden party of the 1833 season. Perhaps London would have happily packed itself into myriad coaches that would have spread like beetles across the British countryside into summer idyll.

Perhaps.

But one year earlier, the Countess of Liverpool had received a gift of a half-dozen pretty orange-and-white fish that were said to be direct descendants of those beloved of the Shogun of Japan. Sophie thought the tale wholly unbelievable—Japan being notoriously insulated from the rest of the world—but Lady Liverpool was exceedingly proud of her pets, caring for the things with near-fanatical passion. Six had turned into two dozen, and the overlarge bowl in which the creatures were delivered had been traded for a container that could only be described as pondlike.

The fish had sparked the countess’s imagination however, and the Liverpool Summer Soiree was oddly China-themed, despite the Countess of Liverpool knowing even less about China than she did of Japan. Indeed, when Lady Liverpool had greeted them in an elaborate white and orange diaphanous silk clearly intended to evoke her prized fish, she’d explained the disconnect. “No one knows a thing about Japan, you see. It’s terribly private, which makes for no fun when it comes to a theme. And China is so very close . . . it’s practically the same.”

When Sophie had told the Countess that it was, in fact, not the same at all, the Countess had tittered with laughter and waved one arm replete with silk fins. “Don’t fret, Lady Sophie, China has fish as well, I’m sure.”

Sophie had cut her mother a look at the ignorant words, but received no acknowledgement. For weeks, she’d insisted that China and Japan were not one in the same but no one had been inclined to listen—her mother far too grateful for the invitation to such an elaborate affair. The Talbot sisters, after all, were exceptional at being elaborate.

They, along with the rest of the aristocracy, had turned out in an array of reds and golds, brocades each more intricate than the last, and topped with outrageous hats that had no doubt kept the milliners of London working night and day since the invitations had arrived.

Sophie, however, had resisted her mother’s insistence that she participate in the farce and, to her family’s dismay, arrived in ordinary pale yellow.

And so it was that on that lovely day in the middle of June, Lady Liverpool took pity on poor, uninteresting Sophie—the Talbot daughter who was neither the prettiest, nor the most diverting, nor the one who played the best pianoforte—and suggested that the young fish-out-of-water might like to visit with fish in their proper environment.

Sophie happily accepted the offer, grateful to exit the party of tittering aristocrats and their combined gaze—one that carefully avoided her and her family. There was, after all, never a stare so blatant as the one that carefully evaded its object. This was particularly true when the objects in question were so impossible to ignore.

The stares had followed the young ladies Talbot since they’d had their comings out—five in four years—each less welcome in Society than the last, the invitations growing fewer and fewer as the years progressed.

Sophie had always rather wished that her mother would give up on the dream of making her daughters Society darlings, but that would never happen. As a consequence, Sophie was here, alternately hiding in the topiary of the Liverpool estate and pretending not to hear the insults so regularly whispered about her sisters that they were barely whispered anymore.

So it was with no small amount of relief that Sophie followed her hostess’s directions into the legendary Liverpool greenhouse, enormous and glass-enclosed, filled with a stunning array of flora and promising no gossip.

She searched for the fishpond, weaving her way between potted lemon trees and impressive ferns, until she heard the sound—a cry of sorts, rhythmic and unsettling, as though some poor creature was being tortured among the rhododendrons.

As she was not without conscience, and the creature in question clearly required assistance, Sophie investigated. Unfortunately, when she found the source of the noise, it became very clear that the woman did not require assistance.

She was already receiving assistance.

From Sophie’s brother-in-law.

It bears noting that the woman was not Sophie’s sister.

Which was why, upon recovering from her initial shock, Sophie felt perfectly within her rights to interrupt. “Your Grace,” she said, not at all quietly, the words filled with her contempt for this moment, this man, and this world that had given him so much power.

The pair stilled. A pretty blond head popped out from behind his arm, topped with a towering red silk pagoda, gold tassels hanging from its multitude of corners, swinging at her ears. Large blue eyes blinked.

The Duke of Haven did not deign to look at Sophie. “Leave us.”

There was nothing in the world Sophie hated more than the aristocracy.

“Sophie? Mother is looking for you . . . She’s waylaid Captain Culberth on the croquet field, poor man, and she’s swatting him with that enormous fan she insisted on bringing. You should rescue the poor man.”

Sophie closed her eyes at the words, willing them away. Willing their speaker away with them. She whirled around to stop her sister’s advance. “No, Sera—”

“Oh.” Seraphina, Duchess of Haven, née Talbot, came up short as she turned the corner into the copse of potted plants, taking in the scene, her hands flying to her ever-so-slightly-protruding stomach, where the future Duke of Haven grew. “Oh.” Sophie saw shock flash in her sister’s eyes as she took in the scene, followed quickly by sadness, and then cool calm. “Oh,” the Duchess of Haven repeated.

The duke did not move. Did not look at his wife, the mother of his future child. Instead, he pushed one hand into those blond curls and spoke to the crook of his paramour’s neck. “I said, leave us.”

Sophie looked to Seraphina, tall and strong and hiding all the emotions that she must have been feeling. That Sophie couldn’t help but feel with her. She willed her sister to speak. To stand for herself. For her unborn child.

Seraphina turned away.

Sophie couldn’t help herself. “Sera! Will you not say something?” The eldest Talbot sister shook her head, and the resignation in the movement sent anger and indignation rioting through Sophie. She turned on her brother-in-law. “If she won’t, I certainly will. You are disgusting. Pompous, hateful, and loathsome.”

The duke turned a disdainful gaze on her.

“Shall I go on?” Sophie prompted.

The blond in his arms gasped. “Really! Speaking to a duke that way. It’s terribly disrespectful.”

Sophie resisted the urge to tear the stupid hat from the woman’s head and club them both with it. “You’re right. I am the disrespectful one in this situation.”

“Sophie,” Seraphina said softly, and Sophie heard the urgency in the word, the way it urged her away from the scene.

The duke heaved a long-suffering sigh, extricating himself from the lady in question, lowering her skirts and lifting her down from the table where she was perched. “Run along.”

“But—”

“I said, go.”

The woman knew when she was forgotten and she did as she was told, straightening her tassels and smoothing her skirts before taking her leave.

The duke turned, still buttoning the falls of his trousers. His duchess looked away. Sophie did not, moving in front of her sister, as though she could protect Seraphina from this horrible man she’d married. “If you think to frighten us off with your crassness, it won’t work.”

He raised a brow. “Of course it won’t. Your family thrives on crassness.”

The words were meant to sting, and they did.

The Talbot family was the scandal of the aristocracy. Sophie’s father was a newly minted earl, having received his title a decade earlier from the then King. Though her father had never confirmed the gossip, it was generally accepted that Jack Talbot’s fortune—made in coal—had purchased his title. Some said it was won in a round of faro; some said it was payment for the earl assuming a particularly embarrassing debt belonging to the King.

Sophie did not know, and she did not much care. After all, her father’s title had nothing to do with her, and this aristocratic world was not one she would have chosen for herself.

Indeed, she would have chosen any world but this one, where people so misjudged and mistreated her sisters. She lifted her chin and faced her brother-in-law. “You don’t seem to mind spending our money.”

“Sophie,” her sister said again, and this time, she heard the censure in the word.

She turned on Seraphina. “You cannot mean to protect him. It’s true, isn’t it? Before you, he was impoverished. What good is a dukedom if it’s in shambles? He should be on his knees in gratitude that you came along and saved his name.”

“Saved my name, did she?” The duke straightened one coat sleeve. “You’re addled if you think that’s how it happened. I landed your father every aristocratic investor he has. He exists because of my goodwill. And I spend the money with pleasure,” he spat, “because being trapped into marriage by your whore of a sister has made me a laughingstock.”

Sophie bit back her gasp at the insult. She knew the stories about her sister landing the duke, knew that her mother had crowed far and wide when her eldest had become a duchess. But it did not make his insults fair. “She’s to bear your child.”

“So she says.” He pushed past them, making for the exit of the greenhouse.

“You doubt she increases?” she called after him, shocked, turning wide eyes on Seraphina, looking down at her hands clasped over the swell of her growing body. As though she could keep her child from the knowledge that his father was a monster of a man.

And then Sophie realized what he really meant. She chased after the duke. “You cannot doubt that it is your child?”

He swung around, gaze cold and filled with disdain. He did not look at Sophie, though. Instead, he looked at his wife. “I doubt every word that drips from her lying lips.” He turned away, and Sophie looked to her sister, tall and proud and filled with cool reserve. Except for the single tear that spilled down her cheek as she watched her husband leave.

And in that moment, Sophie could no longer bear it, this world of rules and hierarchy and disdain. This world into which she had not been born. This world she had never chosen.

This world she hated.

She followed her brother-in-law, wanting nothing more than to avenge her sister.

He turned, possibly because he heard the desperation with which her sister called her name, or possibly because the sound of a woman running toward him was strange enough to surprise, or possibly because Sophie couldn’t help but voice her frustration, the sound echoing loud and nearly feral in the glass enclosure.

She pushed him as hard as she could.

If he hadn’t been turning, already off balance . . .

If she hadn’t had momentum on her side . . .

If the ground beneath him hadn’t been slick from the gardeners’ thorough attention to their duties earlier in the day . . .

If the Countess of Liverpool hadn’t had such a fondness for her fish . . .

“You little shrew!” the duke cried from the spot where he landed, at the center of the fishpond, knees drawn up, dark hair plastered to his head, eyes full of fury, making a promise he did not have to voice, but did nonetheless. “I shall destroy you!”

Sophie took a deep breath—knowing with utter certainty that, in this case, in for a penny was most definitely in for a pound—and stood, arms akimbo, at the edge of the pool, staring down on her usually imposing brother-in-law.

Not so imposing, now.

She grinned, unable to help herself. “I should like to see you try.”

“Sophie,” her sister said, and she heard the dismay and regret and sorrow in her name.

“Oh, Sera,” she said, turning her smile on her sister, ignoring the dulcet tones of her brother-in-law’s sputtering. “Tell me you didn’t thoroughly enjoy that.”

Sophie hadn’t had such a pleasing moment in all her time in London.

“I did,” her sister allowed quietly, “But I am, unfortunately, not the only one.”

The duchess pointed over Sophie’s shoulder, and she turned, dread pooling, to find the entirety of London staring at her through the enormous glass wall of the greenhouse.

The shaming came almost immediately.

It did not matter that her brother-in-law had deserved every bit of wet clothing, ruined boots, and embarrassment. It did not matter that any man who flaunted his sexual escapades before his increasing wife and her unmarried sister was the worst kind of beast. It did not matter that the scandal should have belonged wholly and exclusively to him.

Scandal did not stick to dukes.

To the young ladies Talbot, however, it stuck like honey on horsehair.

Once Jack Talbot had become the Earl of Wight and all of London had directed its attention and its disdain at the coarse, unrefined, supremely unaristocratic family, it had stuck, and it had stayed. That the newly minted earl’s fortune had come from coal made the jests easy—the sisters were called the Soiled S’s, which Sophie assumed was considered clever because the Talbot sisters were named, in order, Seraphina, Sesily, Seleste, Seline, and Sophie.

Though Sophie would prefer the Soiled S’s to the other, less flattering moniker—whispered in ballrooms and tearooms and especially gentlemen’s clubs, she had no doubt. A warning, ever since Seraphina had famously trapped her perfect duke into marriage. The meaning was clear; money might have purchased the earldom, the home in Mayfair, the beautiful—if extravagant—clothes, the perfect horseflesh, the overly gilded carriages, but it could never purchase a proper bloodline, and the girls might do anything necessary to marry into long-standing aristocratic circles.

The Dangerous Daughters.

The label was borne out by her three unmarried older sisters, each of whom was in the midst of an extravagant courtship with an equally extravagant suitor—courtships that bordered on the scandalous, and were at constant risk of remaining unfulfilled. Sesily was widely known to be the muse of Derek Hawkins, renowned artist and proprietor and star of the Hawkins Theater. Hawkins did not boast a title, but he boasted in every other imaginable way, and that was enough to win Sesily’s heart—though Sophie couldn’t for the life of her understand what her sister, or anyone else in Society, saw in the insufferable man.

Seleste was in a deeply emotional, exceedingly public back-and-forth with the wickedly handsome and unfortunately impoverished Earl of Clare. They were the most dramatic pair Sophie could imagine, arguing in front of entire ballrooms as often as they swooned into each other’s arms. Seline, the second youngest sister, was courted by Mark Landry, owner of Landry’s Bloodstock, which was giving Tattersall’s a run for its money. Landry was crass and loud and hadn’t a drop of blue blood, but if he married Seline—and Sophie thought he might—she would be the wealthiest of the sisters by far.

The courtships drew constant public attention and commentary, and the young ladies Talbot adored the scrutiny, each doing her best to tempt the scandal sheets—much to their mother’s dismay. The sisters flourished under Society’s censure, every tut behind a doyenne’s fan driving them to more outrageous behavior.

All the sisters but Sophie, that was. At twenty-one, Sophie had always been the daughter whom scandal had avoided. She’d always assumed it was because she cared little for Society and their dictates and opinions, and somehow, Society seemed to understand that.

But now that the Duke of Haven was doused in water from the fishpond, with several pieces of freshwater flora stuck to his previously impeccably turned out trousers, it seemed that Society was no longer interested in leaving Sophie Talbot—widely considered to be “the quiet one” of the Dangerous Daughters—alone.

Sophie’s cheeks blazed as she held her head high and exited the greenhouse, pausing in the doorway, eyes scanning the crowd. They were all there. Duchesses and marchionesses and countesses, staring from behind fluttering fans, their whispers like cicadas in the suddenly cloying summer air. It was not the ladies’ response to her actions that was shocking, however. She had witnessed ladies gossip and feed upon scandal for years.

It was the men.

In her experience, the gentlemen of London cared little for gossip—leaving it in the purview of their wives as they turned their thoughts to other, more manly diversions. But apparently that was not the case when one of their own was maligned. They stared as well—the earls and marquesses and dukes—each title more venerable than the last. And in their eyes, in the force of their multitude, Sophie saw more than censure.

Loathing was so often described as cold; today, it felt hot as the sun. She lifted her hand without thinking, as though she could block the glowering heat.

“Sophie!” Her mother came rushing forward, her smile broad, her voice loud enough to carry through the throngs of whispering partygoers. The countess wore a gown of deep scarlet, which would have been scandalous enough if it were not topped with a ridiculous construction in the same hue that towered above her petite face, dwarfing her beauty in what she had been assured was “the height of Chinese fashion.”

Right now, however, Lady Wight was not interested in her hat. Instead, she bore down on her youngest daughter, eyes filled with what could only be described as panic, Sophie’s three middle sisters following like extravagantly dressed ducklings.

“Sophie!” the countess said. “What a scene you’ve made!”

“One might even think you were one of us,” Sesily said dryly, her impressive décolletage threatening to burst from the seams of her outrageous gown—exceedingly tight and bordering on garish. Of course, Sesily had the temperament to wear such a thing and appear temptation herself. “Haven looked as though he wished to murder you.”

I shall destroy you.

“I think he would have if we weren’t so very public,” Sophie replied.

“So unfortunately public,” her mother hissed.

Sesily raised a brow and brushed an invisible speck from her bosom. “And if he weren’t so very wet.”

“You needn’t point out your breasts, Sesily. We all have them,” Seleste said dryly through a gossamer veil of gold thread, cascading down her face and neck from a crownlike contraption.

Seline snickered.

“Girls!” the countess hissed.

“It really was magnificent, Sophie,” Seline said. “Whoever thought you had it in you?”

Sophie turned a scathing gaze on her next oldest sister. “What does that mean?”

“This is not the time, girls,” their mother interjected. “Do you not see that this might ruin us all?”

“Nonsense,” Sesily said. “How many threats of ruination must we face before you see we’re like cats?”

“Even cats have a limit on their lives. We must repair this damage. Immediately,” the Countess of Wight said before remembering where they were, on full view in front of all of London, and said, loud enough for all of London to hear, “We all saw what happened! His Poor Grace!”

Sophie stilled, the words surprising her. “Poor?”

“Yes of course!” Impossibly, the countess’s voice rose an octave.

Sophie blinked.

“You’d better go along with it,” Seline said casually as they crowded around her like great, gilded cormorants, all flapping fans and swinging tassels, “Or Mother will go mad with fear of exile.”

“I wouldn’t worry,” Seleste said. “It’s not as though any of them would really exile us. They can barely keep up with us.”

Sesily nodded. “Precisely. They adore our wicked scenes. What would they do with themselves if they did not have us?”

It was not untrue.

“And we shall rise farther than any of them. Look at Seraphina.”

“Except Seraphina is married to a proper ass,” Sophie pointed out.

“Sophie! Language!” Her mother sounded as though she might faint from panic.

Her sisters nodded.

“We shall have to avoid that bit,” Sesily said.

“It’s clear that he slipped and toppled into the pond!” the countess shouted quite desperately, her wide blue eyes growing wide enough for Sophie to wonder if it were possible for them to pop right out of their sockets. A vision flashed, of her mother groping around on the perfectly manicured grass for her eyeballs, odd hat toppling from her head, unable to bear its own weight.

What a scene.

It was her turn to snicker.

“Sophie!” the countess hissed through her teeth. “Don’t you dare!”

The snicker turned into a snort.

The Countess of Wight continued, hand to her chest. “Poor, poor Haven!”

It was all Sophie could take. The laugh never came, because it was so stifled by anger. Her family hadn’t been the same since the title had arrived, making her mother a countess and her sisters not simply exceedingly wealthy, but exceedingly wealthy ladies, giving Society no choice but to acknowledge their presence. And suddenly, these women, whom she’d never thought cared much for the trappings of name and money, had cared very much.

They had never seen the truth—that the Talbot family could marry into royalty, and they’d never be welcome in Society. That Society suffered their presence because they couldn’t risk losing the advice and intelligence of the new earl, or the funds that came with each of the daughters. Marriage was, after all, the most critical business in Britain.

Sophie’s family knew it better than anyone.

And they adored the game. Its machinations.

But Sophie wanted none of it. She never had. For the first decade of her young life, she’d lived in the idyll that came from money without title. She’d played in the green hills of Mossband. She’d learned to make pasties from her grandmother in the kitchens of the Talbot family home, because they were her father’s favorite luncheon treat. She’d ridden her horse to town to fetch beef from the butcher and cheese from the cheesemonger. She’d never dreamed of a titled husband. She’d planned for a sound, reasonable future, married to the baker’s son.

And then her father was made an earl. And everything changed. She hadn’t been to Mossband in ten years, when her mother had closed up the house and happily taken up residence in Mayfair. Her grandmother was gone, died not a year after they’d left the house. Pasties had been deemed too common for earls. The butcher and the cheesemonger now delivered their wares to the back entrance of their impressive Mayfair town house. And the baker’s son . . . he was a distant, foggy memory.

No one else in the family seemed to have any trouble at all adjusting to this world that Sophie had never wanted. For which she’d never asked.

No one else in the family seemed to care that Sophie hated it.

And so it was that there, in the gardens of the Liverpool estate, with all of London looking on, Sophie grew tired of pretending that she was one of these people. That she belonged in this place. That she needed its acceptance.

She had money. And she had legs to carry her.

She looked to her sisters, each beautifully appointed, each certain that she would one day rule this world. And Sophie knew she’d never be them. She’d never enjoy the scandal. She’d never want this world and its trappings.

So why defer to it?

It wasn’t as though the ton would welcome her after today; why not take her scandal and speak the truth for once?

In for a penny, in for a pound, as her father always said.

She turned her gaze on the group of them. “Of course. It is a travesty that poor His Grace so degraded our sister that I had no choice but to play the hero and avenge her honor, as none of the rest of these so-called gentlemen have been willing to do so,” she said, loud enough for all of London to hear. “Poor His Grace, indeed, that he was raised in this world that has deluded both itself and him into thinking that a title makes anything close to a gentleman, when he—along with most of his brethren, if one is honest—is a boor. And something much worse. That rhymes with boor.”

Her mother’s eyes went wide. “Sophie! Ladies do not say such things!”

How many times had she been admonished for not being ladylike enough? How many times had she been molded into the perfect image of this aristocratic world that would never accept her? That would never accept any of them, if not for its need of their money? “I wouldn’t worry,” she replied in front of all of London. “It’s not as though they think us ladies as it is.”

Her sisters stilled.

“Sophie,” Seline said, the word filled with disbelief and not a small amount of respect.

“Well. That was unexpected,” Sesily said.

The countess lowered her voice to a barely-there whisper. “What have I told you about having opinions? You’ll destroy yourself! And your sisters with you! Do not do something that you will regret!”

Sophie did not lower her voice when she said, “My only regret is that the pool was not deeper. And filled with sharks.”

Sophie did not know what it was that she’d expected from the moment. Gasps, perhaps. Or whispers. Or high-pitched ladies’ cries. Or even loud, masculine harrumphs.

She wouldn’t have minded a swoon or two.

But she didn’t expect silence.

She didn’t expect cool, exacting disinterest, or the way the entire garden party simply turned from her and began again, as though she’d never spoken. As though she wasn’t there.

As though she’d never been there to begin with.

Which made it fairly easy to turn her own back, and walk away.