Freedom was a wonderful thing.

She was half looking forward to the marquess’s shock when he discovered that she’d stowed away. He could do with a surprise now and then to offset his arrogant existence, and she was thrilled to be able to give it to him.

Right up until her legs gave way and she collapsed to the ground in an ungraceful, inglorious heap.

“Bollocks.” It was becoming her very favorite word.

The coachman’s eyes widened from high above, and she couldn’t blame him, as she felt certain that outriders had one, single responsibility—to refrain from falling off the carriage.

“On your feet, you clumsy git,” the coachman called, no doubt thinking he sounded charmingly teasing. “I haven’t all day to wait for you!”

Gone was her triumph.

Gone was her freedom.

She pushed up onto her hands and knees, muscles aching after the strain of hanging on to the carriage along the bumpy roads. She stood slowly, keeping her back to the carriage as she straightened her spine and rolled her shoulders back. “I’m afraid you shall have to wait,” she said, “as I require an audience with the marquess.”

There was a beat as the words settled with the driver, along with a fair amount of shock, no doubt, that a footman would deign to demand to speak with his master.

Wouldn’t he be surprised when he realized that the Marquess of Eversley was not her master after all. And that she was not his footman.

She felt a slight twinge of remorse when she considered that the coachman would have to retrace their path to London once she revealed herself—his body was no doubt protesting their travels as much as hers was.

“Are you mad?” he asked, all incredulity.

She looked up at him. “Not at all.” She approached the carriage and banged on the door. “Open, my lord.”

There was no movement from inside the vehicle. The door remained firmly shut.

“You are mad!” the coachman announced.

“I swear to you, I am not,” she said. “Eversley!” she called, ignoring the twinge of pain that came as she rapped smartly on the great black coach. He was probably asleep, as one would expect from a lazy aristocrat. “Open this door!”

He was going to be furious when he saw her, but she did not care. Indeed, Sophie had a keen, unyielding desire to teach the outrageous, unbearable aristocrat a lesson. She was certain that no one had ever done such a thing—no one had ever crossed the Marquess of Eversley, known in private conversations as King. As though he weren’t pompous enough, he assumed the highest title in Britain as his name.

And all of London simply accepted it. They called him by the ridiculous moniker. Or the other one—the Royal Rogue—as though it were a compliment and not complete blasphemy.

And she’d been exiled for telling the truth about a duke.

Anger flared, threaded with something else—something she did not enjoy and which she would not name.

Sophie scowled at the carriage, as though it were the manifestation of the man inside. Of the world that created him, empty and aristocratic, imperious and infuriating.

As though nothing ever defied him.

Until now. Until her.

“He’s not in there.”

She looked up to the coachman. “What did you say?”

He was exasperated—that much was clear—becoming less and less forgiving of her perceived madness. “The marquess isn’t inside and the ride has addled you. Get up on the block. We’re miles from anywhere, and you’re wasting the daylight, you mad git.”

She looked to the door, refusing to believe the words. “What do you mean, he isn’t inside?”

The coachman stared down at her, unamused. “He. Ain’t. Inside. Which part of it is confusing?”

“I saw him get in!”

The driver spoke as though she was a child. “We’re to meet him there.”

She blinked. “Where?”

Exasperation won the day, and the driver turned back to the road with a sigh. “I told them not to saddle me with a boy I didn’t know. Suit yourself. I haven’t the time to wait for your senses to return from wherever they’ve run off.”

With a flick of his wrists, the horses were moving, along with the carriage.

Leaving her stranded on the road.

Alone.

To be set upon by whomever happened by.

Bollocks.

She cried out, “No! Wait!”

The carriage stopped, barely long enough for her to scramble up onto the driver’s block before it moved again.

For a moment, she considered telling the coachman everything. Revealing herself. Throwing herself at his mercy and hoping that he would take her home.

Home. A vision flashed, lush green land that ran for miles, hills and dales and wild northern sunsets. Not London. Certainly not Mayfair, where the only thing lush were the silk skirts she was forced to wear every day, in case someone came for tea.

And her father had enough money that someone always came for tea.

London wasn’t home. It never had been—not for a decade. Not in all the time that she’d lived in that perfect Mayfair town house that her mother and sisters adored, as though they didn’t miss the past. As though they’d hated the life they’d lived all those years ago. As though they would forget it if they needed to. As though they had forgotten it.

Tears came, surprising and unbidden, and she blinked them away, blaming the summer wind and the speed of the carriage.

She was alone on the driving block of a carriage, dressed as a footman, headed God knew where.

And somehow, it was the thought of returning to London that made her sad.