Page 53 of The Fortune Hunter’s Gamble

“Did I upset you with what I said yesterday?”

His low voice lured her out of her reverie. Sophronia thought back to their day. The evening at the theater had been pleasant, the play stirring, and they’d enjoyed a lively debate about the characters and themes as they returned home and took a light supper. Aunt Dobbs, yawning, was glad the pernicious Inkle had repented after all. Lily was indignant that he had not stood by Yarico from the first and only returned to her when his betrothed ran away with another. Rowden had voiced the opinion that Inkle ought to have been of a stronger mind from the beginning than to care what society thought of him.

Giles objected that Rowden didn’t understand what it meant to grow up in the shadow of obligation to something larger than oneself. The Baron had blustered that it was all a lot of sentimental tripe and the Turkish ambassador was trying to stir up anti-abolitionist sentiment. And Sophronia could only think how Yarico must have felt. To sacrifice her land, her people, her customs, and her family to follow this man she loved, then to have him speculate about how much she would earn him as a commodity when he sold her. She wouldn’t have forgiven Inkle, herself.

Rowden’s expression brought her back to that moment in the Great Room of Somerset House when he’d spoken of her betrayal, of how it had wounded him. That was what he meant.

“I am glad you were honest with me at last,” she said quietly. Then, because she could not prevent her own woundedness from seeking voice, she added, “I never knew how you felt, because you would have nothing to do with me.”

“I was hurt,” he said.

“I was hurt, too.”

“Did you regret it? Marrying him?”

She glanced at the buildings lining the park, mostly mews and storerooms, the backside of gardens separated by the black iron fence. So many other lives going on about her, all with their private joys and unspoken hurts, with dreams and yearnings floating beneath the surface of thought.

Would she do anything differently now? She didn’t see how she could.

“I wished, sometimes, things could have been different between Henry and I,” she said finally. “I made my small attempts, but it was not in his nature to be congenial. I missed you. But when I saw my father safe in his home, puttering about with his plants and writing his papers, talking to me about the latest innovations in grinding lenses, I could not but feel I had done right. And Henry gave me much, in his own way. There is no use in regret when one cannot change time.”

“So you never knew how angry I was with you. How shocked I was that you threw me aside.” His voice came light and mocking, but when she stole a glance at his profile, the hard set to his mouth betrayed him. He stared straight ahead between the ears of the horse, his eyes on the tormented past.

How could she have known, when he never told her? “I thought you were annoyed with me for marrying and changing things between us, but you had your own interests, your own ambitions. Your own life to live, and I too had the path I must follow.”

She paused. “I always assumed you did not come to the wedding breakfast because you were annoyed with me.”

“I was furious,” he said. “Fat, smug, rich Henry Hinton had stolen my friend without a by-your-leave. I couldn’t bear to look you in the eye. I couldn’t trust myself not to plant a fist in his piggy, self-righteous face.”

“It wounded me just as much to lose you,” Sophronia said quietly. “Indeed, I lost more. But there truly was no other way, Rowden. It’s not as if we could have run away together.”

“You don’t know how that would have turned out, because you didn’t try me,” he answered. “I might have found resources. I had friends, powerful friends, and all my father’s acquaintances looking out for me. They are the reason I landed on my feet, despite my uncle’s best attempts to steer me to my own ruin.”

“He would not,” Sophronia demurred. “Would he?”

“He will do whatever he believes is necessary to protect Giles and what is his.”

Sophronia fell silent, absorbing this. She had known his uncle preferred Giles—that had always been manifest—and she had known Rowden did his best not to care that his uncle had no interest in supplying the parental affection or guidance that the boy had been deprived of by the early death of his parents. But when one added to that her own betrayal, in choosing another protector above him, when he had always been her playmate, ally, self-appointed guardian, and partner in all her pranks— She began to understand how deeply she had misjudged him.

She had assumed he had grown up, moved away, taken his degree and his tour and his mistresses, had his adventures and his experiments and his travels, gained and spent his fortunes at the Albion, all without a thought of her.

She had never suspected, seeing Rowden in his mature form, with his filled-out body and the features that had only taken on more of a sculpted look with maturity, that the attitude of sangfroid was a veneer of carelessness over his vulnerable heart.

She should have known. She should have been the first to know. She should have guessed all along that he had never gone on his way as easily and merrily as she, in her own hurt and sense of rejection, had supposed.

There was no way to bridge that gap now; too much water had passed under the bridge. But that ache for her lost friend was as poignant as the day she came in from making calls to find Aunt Edmons writing out wedding invitations and reporting that Rowden had come into the parlor, then left without a word.

And that was the last she had seen of him for years.

The ache grew, spreading into her chest and throat, as if she were coming down with a fever. Were there any grounds for a connection between them now? Or was it only to be this, these moments spent riding, discovering one another anew, and then parting when she returned to Hungerford with Lily and Giles and he remained in London to conduct his business.

But there was that kiss. She couldn’t stop thinking about it. She couldn’t deny that there was something more growing between them.

Well, she could deny it. But she didn’t know if she would want to.

They left the back ends of houses and gardens and neared the grounds of St. James Palace, stables and more storerooms, and then a long, blocky stretch of stone in the Palladian style with tall windows looking out onto the park.

Sophronia looked on with envy. “Is this the Queen’s Library?”