CHAPTER 3
She had to have bound her breasts under that livery. It was an inappropriate thought to be sure, but Gabe couldn’t quite help himself, sitting across the hack from her as he was. It had been some time since he’d laid eyes on Sophie Hampton, but he did remember admiring her breasts. At the ripe old age of eighteen, he’d been quite certain they were the most lovely things in the world. Unbound, they might still be. Not that Gabe had ever actually laid eyes on them completely bare, just a hint from a scooped bodice here and there, but he did still remember how they felt pressed against his chest as he’d kissed her the first time and the last.
Was Matthew Greywood kissing her these days? Gabe hated the thought of that, but Chase had said that Sophia had Greywood on a string, and the fellow had been quite intent on helping her if she had need of him. Did she? Did she have need of him? Gabe’s jaw tightened at the thought, not that he had any right to feel any sort of way about Sophie and Greywood. He knew, after all, that she was not for Gabe, no matter how he had wished otherwise and no matter that he had thought about her nearly every day those first few years he’d spent on the Continent. But he hadn’t been given any other choice in the matter. After all, it wasn’t only his lack of title or lands that made Beckbury deem him an unacceptable choice for his eldest daughter’s hand, but more importantly it was Gabe’s lineage, the fact that he was Charles Prideaux’s son. And that fact would never change.
“You should go through your correspondence, Chase,” Sophie said, casting a glance at her cousin beside her. “Grandfather may have sent you something, you know?”
Chase snorted. “Yes, my inattention to the post has been made rather clear by you this evening, sweetheart. You shan’t have to remind me in the future.”
The hack stopped beside the Beckbury mews on Park Street. “If your father sees you dressed like that…” Chase let his words trail off.
But Sophie, as always, didn’t seem concerned at all. Honestly, her carefree spirit was one of the things Gabe had always loved about her. “Charlotte is waiting for me. She can distract him if necessary.”
“We’re not leaving ‘til we see a candle in your window, Soph. So don’t dawdle.”
“I never dawdle,” she replied before her gaze flickered back to Gabe, and damn if he didn’t feel it deep in his soul. “Good evening, Major.”
Before Gabe could even utter a goodbye to her, Sophie opened the door of the hired coach and scrambled outside, disappearing into the darkness of the mews.
Only a damned fool would let her presence affect him in any sort of way. Which meant Gabe was, apparently, a damned fool. He kept his gaze trained on the mews, making certain no harm came from that direction, and he couldn’t help but ask, “So Greywood’s courting her?”
When Chase didn’t answer him, Gabe glanced briefly at his friend to find the man quite deep in his thoughts, which was more than understandable, considering the revelations of the evening. Chase’s whole life had just been turned upside down with no warning at all, and coming to terms with such news could take a while. After all, Gabe hadn’t yet come to terms with the fact that he’d someday inherit the Northwold earldom from his mad and syphilitic brother, and he’d already had a fortnight to ponder such a future. Of course, Christian had nearly a year head start on both of them. Perhaps he could be persuaded to give some sort of advice.
Gabe turned his attention back to Beckbury House, waiting to see a candle illuminate Sophie’s window. “You’re a decent, honorable fellow,” he said to his friend. “Your grandfather isn’t gone yet, but when he does go, you’ll be prepared, and the dukedom will be safe in your hands.”
Chase heaved a sigh as though the weight of his future was already settling upon his shoulders. “My grandfather made my uncle’s and cousin’s lives absolutely miserable, Gabe. He’ll do the same to me.”
But Gabe shook his head. “Gillingham was weak, a drunkard. He always was. You’ll handle Chatham better than he did.”
Candlelight flickered in one of the upper windows, and a bit of tension Gabe didn’t know he had began to dissipate. Sophie. His Sophie. She was safe. “She lit the candle.”
Chase nodded and then rapped on the roof of the hack. “Down Street. Weybourne House.”
The coach lurched forward slightly and then smoothly continued down Park Street.
“I should probably speak with Christian,” Chase said.
“I was thinking the same thing a moment ago,” Gabe agreed. “But considering his nocturnal activities, he won’t stumble back into Weybourne House until dawn at the earliest.” At least that had been the pattern since Gabe had been staying there.
“Well, I’m certainly not going to Covent Garden to search him out.” Chase snorted. “I’ll just wait with you for him to return, whenever that is.”
Sophie rested her brow against the cool glass pane of her window. She sighed as the hack that had conveyed her home continued down Park Street, carrying Chase and…Gabe. On her life, she never in a million years would have thought she’d have come face to face with Gabriel Prideaux when she’d slipped from home a few hours ago in search of her cousin. When had Gabe returned from Canada? Why hadn’t he called on her upon his arrival? Had he just arrived that evening? She supposed that might be the only answer that wouldn’t break her heart all over again. Gabe had arrived too late in the day to call upon anyone except Chase, except…Well, except she didn’t really believe that. When he’d left her all those years ago, there had been a finality in his voice, one she’d never forget.
“Did you find Chase?” Charlotte whispered from somewhere behind her.
Sophie spun away from her window and nodded at her sister. “No one noticed I was gone, did they?”
Charlotte shook her head. “Papa’s been reading and Mama went to bed shortly after you left.” She crossed the floor. “You should change clothes, though. No reason to tempt fate.”
Fate. Had it been fate that led her to Chase’s door? To Gabe? They’d barely said a handful of words between them that night, but all of the conversations they used to have came rushing back to her memory. That very first time they were alone and how he talked forever about the speckled pink rocks at Hampton Hall. And every conversation after that, how much he adored the ancient Greek philosophers. How the waltz wasn’t nearly as scandalous as London matrons decried it. That Mary Wollstonecraft was a woman ahead of her times and would be lauded for centuries to—
“Sophie!” Charlotte complained.
Sophie shook the memories of Gabe from her mind and focused on her sister. “Yes?”
“Change out of those clothes before someone sees you.”
Yes, that probably was a good idea. Charlotte was always more sensible than Sophie. “Hand me my nightrail, if you don’t mind,” she said as she unbuttoned the front of her livery.
As her sister retrieved the nightrail from the edge of the four-poster, Sophie shrugged out of the jacket and tugged at the strip of cloth that bound her breasts.
“What did Chase say?” Charlotte asked, draping the nightrail over her arm. “Is he going to help us? Is he going to help Priscilla?”
Chase hadn’t said that exactly, though Sophie suspected he didn’t want to make any promises until he knew what he was up against. He was also more sensible than she was. Careful and methodical. “I have no doubt that he will try.” She stepped from her calf-skin shoes and quickly undid the fastenings of her borrowed trousers.
Charlotte lifted her nightrail out to her. “No one saw you like that, did they?”
Sophie heaved a sigh. “Matthew Greywood and Gabriel Prideaux.” Then she slid the garment over her head to avoid seeing whatever expression her younger sister wore.
“Good heavens!” Charlotte breathed out. “Did they recognize you? Will they say anything?”
“Mr. Greywood suspects it was me.” Sophie smoothed her nightrail down her body. “I don’t think he’ll say anything.” In fact, he’d been very sweet making certain she knew he would help her if she had need of him. And Gabe… “Major Prideaux knows for certain it was me. He was with Chase when I arrived. But he won’t say anything.” She did straighten then to find a pitying expression alit in her sister’s eyes.
“I didn’t realize Major Prideaux was in Town.”
“Neither did I.”
Charlotte scowled then. “Well, he’d better not come here. It would be impossible for me not to give him the most severe dressing down of his life. Kissing you like he did and then running off to join the 9th like a coward.”
“I don’t think they have any cowards in the 9th.” Sophie picked up her discarded pageboy attire from the floor. “And you’re not supposed to know that he kissed me.” Or the number of times he’d done so.
Charlotte scoffed. “Well, I do know it. And I remember how you sobbed yourself to sleep every night for the longest time over him, villain that he is.”
Sophie smiled sadly at her younger sister’s loyalty. “My dear Charlotte, your devotion is more than I am owed, I’m certain.” After all, she’d kissed Gabe just as passionately as he’d kissed her. If she’d been slightly less reckless in those days, perhaps she could have prevented her own broken heart.
“Nonsense,” Charlotte declared. “I’m simply as devoted to you as you are to me. Now tell me—” she tugged Sophie toward the four-poster “—everything. What did Chase say? Is he going to confront Grandfather? Is—”
A laugh Sophie didn’t really feel bubbled up from inside her. “No one confronts Grandfather.”
“Lord Avery did,” Charlotte said. “Mama said as much this evening.”
“Yes, and we see how that turned out for Lord Avery.” Sophie settled in the middle of her bed. “Having to steal Arabella from her bedchamber and then race with her to Scotland before Grandfather could catch them.”
“She never seemed like the sort who would do such a thing.” Charlotte fell back against Sophie’s pillows.
“If Grandfather meant for me to marry Hellsburg, I’d run even further away than Scotland,” Sophie said.
“Yes,” Charlotte agreed with a laugh. “I’d expect that from you, but Arabella always seemed like she was afraid of her own shadow.”
“If we were raised in the same house as Grandfather, we might be the same way.” And the truth of that stung Sophie’s heart. She and her sisters were rather close with all of their cousins, all except for the one set that probably needed their support more than any of the others. Elliott, the now deceased Lord Gillingham, Lady Arabella and Lady Priscilla. The three of them had only ever had themselves all these years. Oh, it wasn’t a decision Sophie had made, none of her cousins had made any sort of decision in that regard. But Grandfather was the worst sort of bully and very early on, her parents and aunts and uncles had all decided, either together or separately, that keeping their distance from Grandfather’s favorite set of victims would keep the rest of them from incurring his wrath as well. It had been an act of cowardice, one Sophie hadn’t truly appreciated until recently. “And now Priscilla is the only one left, Charlotte. She’s lost everything in so short a period of time, her father, her brother, and her sister. We have to be there for her.”
Charlotte agreed with a nod. “She hasn’t really lost Arabella, though.”
No, Arabella was still alive, just not in England any longer. “I can’t imagine Grandfather will allow her sister to step one foot in Chatham House after taking her future in her own hands and eloping.”
Charlotte heaved a sigh. “We should head over there tomorrow. The poor girl. I can’t imagine being all alone in the same house with only Grandfather and Hellsburg for company.”
Sophie couldn’t either. “Right after breakfast,” she agreed. “No matter what Mama says about it.”