“He would never do that.” She shook her head more vehemently. Her wet hair slapped at her face, but she didn’t care.
The fierce determination Kendal had regarded her with faded into a look of tenderness. “Wouldn’t he?”
Pain punctured her heart.
How many times had she wondered why her father had chosen Mongerton, of all people, as her intended? It was not the first time she knew her father to be in a scrape due to debts to gaming hells.
Over the years, she had watched their possessions go missing, presumably sold off to support his vice. A pair of fine candlesticks no longer upon the mantle, a silver tea service the servants could not locate, even hair combs that had disappeared from her vanity. Wasn’t that the reason she had hidden away all the jewels her aunt had left her?
If she had not, they probably would have gone missing long before she was forced to sell them.
Her father had sunk low enough to steal her hair combs, but selling her into marriage…?
He was better than that, wasn’t he?
And yet, her stomach dropped with the acknowledgement that no, he was not. At least, not the man he was now.
The discomfort of the rain, which had been so easy for Sophia to ignore previously, had suddenly become quite unbearable. Chilled water seeped down her back in rivulets, and her toes squished in the puddles that had formed inside her boots.
“He wasn’t always like that.” She said it so softly, even she barely registered the meek protest.
Why was she defending him? Especially since he was the one who had destroyed their family with his inability to control his drinking and gambling?
But it was true. He hadn’t always been like that.
Lord Gullsville had been a good father once. A man who opened his arms with a hearty laugh as Sophia ran to him when she was a girl. He’d been the sort of father who planned afternoons in the country, complete with picnics of tart lemonade and sticky toffee puddings. When Mother and the twins were alive, he’d never gambled, and drank only the occasional brandy in his library. They had been happy.
Truly happy.
Emotion gathered as a cloying ache in her throat.
“You don’t have to explain.” Kendal picked up her valise. “May we please go to the inn before it grows dark?”
Sophia nodded, not trusting herself to speak. There was no perceivable sunset on such an evening, but the dimming light from the gray, overcast clouds told her night was soon upon them.
Offering her his sodden arm, Kendal hailed a hackney to deliver them the short distance back to the lodging house. Once there, he regarded the tired old building with a grimace. “I know you were saving your wealth for swift travel and bribery, but did you have to put yourself in such an abysmal lodging house?”
Her cheeks went hot with embarrassment, seeing it now through his eyes. But before she could explain it had been on her driver’s recommendation, Kendal was climbing from the carriage into the rain and bidding her to stay in place.
Moments later, he returned with a man carrying her two travel trunks and settled across from her once more. “We will be staying in more suitable accommodations. I trust you won’t mind.”
Rain slicked his dark hair to his head, but he didn’t resemble a drowned rat as she felt. Somehow, it made him appear somewhat debonaire. A little dangerous.
There was that word again. Dangerous.
How had she ever thought him boring?
All at once, the memory of that kiss near Gretna Green came roaring back to her thoughts. He had been so careful with how he’d hovered over her, his lips tender on hers. That brush of his tongue…
Chills prickled over her skin.
“You’re cold.” Kendal shrugged out of his coat, then paused with a slight shake of his head. “It is as wet as you are. This bloody weather.”
Sophia averted her gaze, lest he see what had actually caused her to shiver. “It’s fine.”
But no matter how hard she tried to put the moment with Kendal from her mind, it rushed back again on a wave of sensual heat.
If I were going to seduce you into marrying me, I would do it with more than a simple kiss.
Her pulse quickened, as it always did when she recalled those words. How would he seduce her?
“I should have you know before we arrive that we will be sharing lodging.” He said it airily and without concern as if he were merely mentioning that it was still raining.
And it was still raining.
“I beg your pardon?” Sophia squeaked.
A muscle worked in his jaw, and his gaze settled on her. “I have chased you and caught you twice. I would prefer not to have to do it a third time.”
“And if I promise not to run?”
He gave her a wearied look. “I won’t believe you.”
Well, that was fair.
The carriage ran over a pothole in the road and set the cabin rocking.
“It isn’t seemly,” she tried again.
He lifted a brow. “Care to explain how running off to Scotland on your own, to pursue whisky smuggling no less, is seemly?”
Her mouth fell open. “How did you know that’s what I intended?”
“Because some fool gave you an extraordinary amount of information on the topic and no doubt put the idea in your head.”
Some fool?
She tilted her head. “And why would some fool do that?”
Kendal glanced away from her, but his cheeks reddened somewhat. “Perhaps through a bit of hubris, he succumbed to his pride and did not wish to be perceived as dull, which made him all the more an oaf.”
The carriage drew to a stop in front of a white building covering the entire corner of a row of neat townhomes. While it was a far cry better than the dilapidated room she’d rented near Jeb’s, it was not as opulent as she had anticipated. No doubt Kendal intended to maintain their anonymity with a place that wouldn’t ask why a well-dressed man and a widow were rooming together.
The rain continued to patter at a steady pace as they rushed into the lobby, and Kendal secured their room. He offered her one arm and held her valise with the other. It didn’t matter that he had it now. Leaving would be impossible.
They didn’t speak as they climbed the stairs, but the thoughts in Sophia’s mind were buzzing like a hive of angry bees. She’d never been in a carriage alone with a man, save Henry. And now…
Her stomach clenched.
Now, she would be sharing a room with a man. One she’d only met on a handful of occasions.
One with the reputation of a rogue.
Her steps slowed without her commanding them to do so. Kendal matched his pace to hers. “I don’t intend to debauch you, Lady Sophia,” he whispered. “I am a gentleman.”
Debauch.
The word was so small for the enormity of what it held.
She shivered.
“Come, I’ve ordered a hot bath to be prepared for you.” He encouraged her up the stairs with a slight nod of his head. “Once we are both in dry clothes, I’m certain our dinner will have been delivered to our room.”
A hot bath. Dry clothes. Fine food.
After traveling hard for the last week and being soaked through with frigid rain, it did all sound quite heavenly.
She allowed him to lead her to a door, which he opened and indicated she step through first. Heart pounding in her ears, she did exactly that, putting on an air of nonchalance when, in reality, her nerves were practically vibrating. But not with fear.