she insisted, hissing the words so as not to draw attention to them. “I changed clothes in my family’s carriage. And I paid Matthew for his livery before sending him to my father for another position.”
He stilled. “You stole my footman.”
“It wasn’t stealing.”
“I had a footman this morning. And now I don’t have one. How is that not stealing?”
“It was not stealing,” she insisted. “It’s not as though you owned him.”
“I paid him!”
“It seems I paid him better.”
He went quiet, and she could see the frustration in his gaze before he offered a single, perfunctory nod and said, “Fair enough.”
He turned away.
Well. That was unexpected. And not at all ideal, as she had no money, and he was the only person in the place who might be inclined to help her get home, assuming it meant that she was gone from his life.
She ignored the fact that stowing away on his carriage might have worked against her.
Sophie sighed. He was insufferable, but she was intelligent enough to know when she needed someone. “Wait!” she called, drawing the attention of the coachman and several of his companions from earlier in the evening, but not the man in question.
He was ignoring her. Deliberately.
She scurried after him, ignoring the pain of the gravel on her slippered feet. “My lord,” she called, all nervousness. “There is one more thing.” He stopped and turned to face her. She drew close to him, suddenly keenly aware of his height, of the way her forehead aligned with his firm, straight, unyielding lips.
“It doesn’t fit you.”
She blinked. “I beg your pardon?”
“The livery. It’s too tight.”
First he described her as unfun and now as plump. She knew it of course, but he didn’t have to point out the fact that she wasn’t the most lithe of women. She swallowed around the tightness in her throat and brazened on. “Excuse me, Lord Perfection, I did not have time to visit a modiste on the way.” He did not apologize for his rudeness—not that she was surprised—but neither did he leave, so she pressed on. “I require conveyance home.”
“Yes, you said as much this afternoon.”
When he’d refused to help and landed her in this mess.
He wasn’t alone in landing you in this mess. She ignored the thought. “Yes, well, it remains the case.”
“And, as was the case this afternoon, it is not my problem.”
The words surprised her. “But . . .” She trailed off, not quite knowing what to say. “But I . . .”
He did not wait for her to find words. “You’ve stolen my boot and my footman in what I can only assume is a misguided attempt to gain my attention and my title, if the former actions of your family are any indication. I’m sure you’ll understand if I am less than amenable to providing you aid.” He paused, and when she did not speak, he added, “To put it plainly, you may be a colossal problem, Lady Sophie, but you are not my problem.”
The words stung quite harshly, and the way he turned his back on her, as though she were nothing, worth nothing—not even thought—delivered an unexpected blow, harsher than it might have been on another day, when all of Society and her family hadn’t turned their backs upon her in a similar fashion.
A memory flashed of the events of the afternoon, the aristocracy, en masse, disowning her, choosing their precious duke over the truth. Over the right.
Tears came, unbidden. Unwelcome.
She would not cry.
She sucked in a breath to keep them at bay.
Not in front of him.
They stung at the bridge of her nose, and she sniffed, all unladylike.
He turned back sharply. “If you are attempting to prey upon my kindness, don’t. I haven’t much of it.”
“Do not worry,” she replied. “I would never dream of thinking you kind.”
He watched her for a long, silent moment before the coachman spoke from above, where he was disconnecting the reins from the driving block. “My lord, is the boy bothering you?”
The marquess did not take his eyes from her. “He is, rather.”
The other man scowled at her. “Get to the stables and find the horses some food and water. That should be something you cannot muck up.”
“I—”
Eversley interrupted her. “I should do as John Coachman says,” he cut her off. “You don’t want to suffer his wrath.”
Her wide eyes flickered from one man to the other.
“After you’re done with that, find your bed, boy,” the coachman said. “Perhaps a good sleep will return the brain to your