who, from her dress, appeared to be a housekeeper of sorts.
The duke turned on his heel and took the seat at the head of the table, his cool gaze falling to Sophie. “Talbot. I suppose I knew your father.”
“Many in Cumbria did,” she said.
The woman had made her way to the other side of the table, where she served King.
“Hello, Agnes,” he said to her.
She smiled warmly at him. “Welcome home, my lord.”
King matched the smile, the expression one of the few honest ones Sophie had seen in the last day. “You, at least, have the feel of home.”
She put her hand to his shoulder so quickly that Sophie wasn’t entirely certain the touch had happened.
“He has a knack for finding coal,” the duke said sharply, drawing Sophie’s attention. He spoke of her father still.
“I’m not certain it is a knack,” she said. “He simply works harder than most men I have known.”
Not that hard work was a worthy endeavor for aristocrats—something she’d witnessed again and again as a child. A memory flashed, of her father at a ball several years earlier, a group of aristocratic ladies tittering at his “crass hands,” weathered and calloused. “He should wear gloves when in London,” one woman had protested. “He shouldn’t be anywhere near London, with or without gloves,” someone had replied, and the whole group had laughed.
Sophie had hated them for the words. For their insult. For the way they valued appearance over work. For the way they valued snobbery over honor.
“He has a knack for coal,” the duke repeated. “And a knack for climbing.” He paused. “As do his daughters, apparently.” Sophie looked to King, finding his gaze on her as the duke added, “You could have sent word that you were not coming alone.”
King drank deep from his wineglass. “You could have sent word that you weren’t dying.”
The duke turned a cool gaze on him. “And disappoint you?”
Sophie looked from one man to the other, noting the resemblance in the stubborn set of their jaws as King gave a little huff of laughter. “I should have known, of course. Disappointment has ever been part and parcel of being heir to your throne.”
Sophie’s gaze widened at the stinging words.
The duke remained unmoved. “I imagined that if you were told I was near the end, you would return. We’ve things to discuss. It’s time for that, at least.”
King toasted his father. “Well, I have returned. Prodigal son.” He looked to Sophie. “And daughter.”
A gasp sounded in the darkness behind Sophie, and she looked back to find the housekeeper watching the meal wide-eyed.
The duke sat back in his chair. “So you are married.”
“Betrothed,” Sophie corrected immediately. There was no way she would allow these two men to send her farther down this garden path.
King turned a winning smile on Sophie. “For now.”
The duke drank, savoring the wine for a long moment. “So this is your plan, is it? To return home with a Soiled S in tow?”
Sophie set down her soup spoon. She should not have been surprised by the words, by the moniker, and still she was. This duke seemed not to stand on the same ceremony as the rest of the aristocracy. And despite her loathing the man’s words, and the man himself, she had to admit that there was something rather refreshing about them spoken aloud, in public, without shame.
Or, rather, with shame, but lacking in the secret pleasure that so often accompanied the name.
King stiffened on the other side of the table, no doubt surprised and irritated that his idiot plan was discovered within minutes of his return. Sophie would be lying if she were to say she did not find a modicum of pleasure in his failure, for certainly someone with as much arrogance as the Marquess of Eversley deserved to be taken down a notch now and then. If they were discovered, she’d no longer be beholden to their agreement, and she could go on her way. She’d happily bear the weight of her sisters and their reputation if it meant being able to witness the demise of King’s plan.
He slammed one hand onto the table, the force of it sending the plates rattling. Her attention flew to him, unprepared for him to redouble his efforts to present her as a woman for whom he cared. “Call her that again and I will not be responsible for what I do.” She certainly had not been prepared for that. “I won’t let you do it again,” he said.