CHAPTER 10
A s Sophie and her family arrived at Chatham House and were shown into the drawing room, it struck her, the blackness of it all. Until the last sennight, it had been some time since they’d lost anyone in the family, but there were all of her maternal relations – aunts, uncles, cousins – all shrouded in black while anxiety rolled off each of them in waves. They probably didn’t have any more of a clue than her family did about why they’d all been summoned for dinner. Well, except for the austere Count of Hellsburg. He was probably in the know.
In fact, Sophie’s more-than-intimidating Prussian cousin appeared rather bored with the entire affair. Of course, no one was talking to him, and he was all alone in the far corner. Everyone, it seemed, shared the same opinion of the man that Sophie did. Thank heavens neither her sisters nor her cousins would end up leg-shackled to him for all time and eternity. She could only hope that Hellsburg sailed with the morning tide and wouldn’t return to England in the foreseeable future.
Across the room, her cousin Lady Rosalie Ratcliffe caught her eye and sent Sophie a tentative smile.
“Oh, there’s Lily,” Cassie said before she started for the shy girl by the window.
A moment later, Mama and Papa headed toward Aunt Eleanor; and Charlotte linked her arm with Prissa’s. “I see Hellsburg is as popular as always,” her sister muttered.
“I was just thinking the same thing,” Sophie admitted.
“Odious man,” Prissa agreed, and as she’d lived with him for a time, she knew even better than most the truth of that statement.
Rose quickly crossed the room, hugged Sophie to her and whispered in her ear, “Do you have any idea what this is about?”
Sophie pulled back from her cousin and shook her head. “Neither does Prissa,” she replied softly, gesturing to Charlotte and their cousin beside her.
Rose released a breath, but her expression of worry did not fade away. “All afternoon, Sarsden has been bemoaning the general state of affairs in London.”
“The general state of which affairs?” Sophie asked. After all, Rose’s brother-in-law was the sort that complained about nearly everything. He truly was a tiresome fellow, one who could only be taken in small doses.
“The criminal element.” Rose shook her head. “Did you know Gillingham was stabbed?”
Stabbed? Sophie’s eyes went wide and she shushed Rose to keep Prissa from overhearing their conversation. But she hadn’t known that awful fact. “I thought he drowned,” she whispered.
“He might have,” Rose continued, “but he also had a dagger in his back.”
Sophie couldn’t help but glance back toward Prissa and Charlotte once more. “The poor girl.”
“Mmm,” Rose agreed. “And Benedict had his pocket picked twice within the last month.”
Not that Rose’s brother’s pockets being somewhat lighter was anywhere close to Prissa’s brother having been stabbed and thrown into the Thames. But it was still a bit surprising. “Goodness!” Sophie touched a hand to her heart. London did seem more dangerous than it had been in the past. “What is the world coming to?”
Her cousin shook her head. “That is what Sarsden has been bemoaning all afternoon. He is quite determined to retire to Oxfordshire, but Zinnia is being rather stubborn about the whole thing.”
Rose’s oldest sister did adore Town life. London might have to burn to the ground again before Zinnia would agree to leave it. “As we’ll all be in mourning the next couple months, retiring to the country might be preferred. At least—”
Beside her, Charlotte suddenly grabbed Sophie’s hand, and Rose’s gaze was quite focused to the threshold. Sophie glanced in the same direction, and…
She was once again robbed of her breath. Why in the world was Gabriel Prideaux here of all the places he could be?
“Who is that with Chase?” Rose breathed out. “They are handsome, aren’t they?”
Sophie’s traitorous heart pounded in her chest in agreement. Blast him for that! Until yesterday, it had been four years since she’d laid eyes on Gabe, but now she’d seen him three times in the last twenty-four hours, which was deucedly inconvenient. She would be quite happy to retire to Oxfordshire herself if she could somehow keep from encountering the handsome major at every turn, not that she had a place in Oxfordshire to retire to, but that was beside the point. Anywhere had to be better than London, standing in her grandfather’s drawing room with Gabe’s dark gaze focused rather pointedly on her.
He’d been back a fortnight, an entire fortnight and hadn’t sought her out even once. Blast him for making her heart pound when it shouldn’t.
“Sophie?” Rose prodded.
But speaking would be nearly impossible, especially as her bodice felt tight all of a sudden and her knees were most assuredly weak.
Luckily, Charlotte had heard the question as well, and she leaned in close toward Rose.
“Lord Kelling and Major Prideaux,” she grumbled Gabe’s name, “And a wise girl would stay away from the pair of them.”
“Kelling?” Rose swallowed nervously. “Isn’t he mad?”
Goodness, was Kelling there too? Sophie had completely missed him as her entire focus had been captured by Gabe just as soon as she’d spotted him.
“That is what they say,” Charlotte replied, sounding the slightest bit waspish. “But as he’s Chase’s dear friend, I’m not certain if I’d readily believe those rumors. Our cousin might surround himself with fickle libertines, but I’ve never known him to associate with raving lunatics.”
Each time Gabe saw Sophie, he wasn’t sure how he’d ever had the strength to leave without her. He hadn’t had a choice in that, of course, but just being so close to her now, he couldn’t pull his gaze from her. She was so breathtakingly beautiful. The starkness of her gown only seemed to make her more alluring. Her eyes seemed bluer, and against the flickering chandelier light, her hair seemed to be the most magnificent spun gold he’d ever seen. He remembered the feel of her strands through his fingers and he’d have given everything he had to be alone with her in that moment, not that she wanted anything to do with him anymore. She’d made that more than clear at Pall Mall that afternoon, but that didn’t mean Gabe’s heart didn’t still ache for her.
Less than a moment later, however, an unfortunate face Gabe could have gone the rest of his life without ever seeing again, appeared directly in his line of vision. Viscount Beckbury’s cheeks were flushed red and his light eyes flamed with fury as he made a direct path toward Gabe, Chase and Christian.
“What the devil are you thinking?” Sophie’s father demanded, poking Chase in the middle of his chest. “Have you—”
“He’s here by Grandfather’s specific request, Uncle George.”
Beckbury paled slightly at that, then he refocused his furious attention on Gabe. “So long as you recall our previous conversation, Prideaux.”
“Do you think it’s possible I could have forgotten it?” Gabe nearly growled in response. But the suggestion that he could forget the single most devastating conversation he’d ever had in his life was more than insulting.
Viscount Beckbury had not mellowed in the least since Gabe had seen him last, no matter what Chase might think. The man was clearly just as formidable as ever, and his hatred for Gabe hadn’t waned even the tiniest bit. However, Gabe wasn’t the same green lad he’d once been, and the last thing in the world he was going to do was cower before the arrogant Lord Beckbury, and certainly not with the audience assembled around them. He wasn’t the naïve young man Beckbury had first encountered, not anymore. In the years since their last encounter, Gabe had led men into battle, he’d faced more than one line of oncoming French soldiers, he’d evaded more than his share of French bayonets, and somehow he’d survived French cannons all across Spain and the rest of the continent. And he would not be as easily dismissed now as his younger self had once been.
“George,” Lady Beckbury said softly from behind him.
Not that the man’s wife had ever excelled in managing him. Beckbury did not even glance in his wife’s direction as his angry gaze was still quite leveled on Gabe. And Gabe did not, for one moment take his eyes off Beckbury either. He’d be damned if he’d appear weak and glance away first. He was determined not even to blink.
“Ah!” an aged man with white hair stepped into the drawing room. The Duke of Chatham, he had to be. “I see everyone is here.” Then he heaved a slightly irritated sigh. “Beckbury, I would like a word before we all find our way into the dining room.”
Beckbury did look away then, and Gabe couldn’t help but glance across the room to find Sophie’s eyes wide and her delicate hand against her intricate décolletage. She stared quite pointedly at him, a question in her gaze; but her look was not one he could maintain.
“Your Grace?” the viscount said, his voice sounding more than strained.
“You know the way to my study.”
It wasn’t a question, but more of a command, and Viscount Beckbury glared once more in Gabe’s direction before he nodded to the duke. “Of course, Your Grace.”
As the two men departed the drawing room, Christian muttered under his breath, “So glad we’ve come. Are all Winslett family gatherings so entertaining?”
“Don’t make it worse,” Chase whispered.
But there was nothing Christian could do that could make it worse. Well, he could start throwing daggers at people, but short of that… “I should never have come,” Gabe said only loud enough for his two friends to hear.
“And defy my grandfather?” Chase scoffed. “No one does that, not even Uncle George.” And he gestured to the open doorway as though to prove that case in point.
What in the world was that about? Sophie could hardly breathe and her heart was racing like a thoroughbred in the final lap of a race. Gabe looked away from her and she didn’t know why, but some part of her was quite certain that what little bit of her heart hadn’t broken all those years ago had just done so now.
Charlotte squeezed her hand tighter, and Sophie turned her focus on her sister.
“What conversation did Papa mean?” Charlotte whispered.
Sophie wished she knew, as something had very clearly transpired between Gabe and Papa. But what? And when? “I have no idea, but I intend to find out.” Then she slid her hand from her sister’s and made a direct path to the major who still could not meet her gaze.
“…I think it’s a very good thing I’m headed north in the morning,” Gabe said to his friends just before she reached the three of them.
And his words halted Sophie in her tracks. He was leaving tomorrow? She’d just been ready to never see him again after three times in twenty-four hours, but now…
“Miss Hampton,” Lord Kelling began. He did look slightly haunted now that she was closer to him, didn’t he? Like a lifetime of misery had somehow taken its toll. “I hope you’re doing well this evening.”
“And you, my lord,” she muttered, though her gaze returned at once to Gabe, beside him. “Major Prideaux, might I tempt you to take a turn about the room with me?”
“Tempt?” Gabe’s hazel eyes lifted to meet hers and seemed to stare straight into her soul. “That is the perfect word for it, Miss Hampton,” he said as he offered her his arm.
Sophie slid her hand around his elbow and ignored the jolt of something that raced through her at their contact. Goodness, it had been so very long since she’d touched him, and he did seem much stronger now than he had been all those years ago. All that time with the 9th, most definitely. And yet, he felt so familiar as though he’d never been gone even as long as a day, as though he was still the very same boy she’d lost her heart to.
“I am surprised, Sophie,” Gabe began once they were out of earshot from his friends, the deep timbre of his voice making her insides melt. “I hadn’t thought you wanted anything to do with me.”
“I seem to remember it was the other way around,” she said and wished she could call the words back as soon as they left her mouth, but it was most definitely too late for that. Blast her quick tongue. Was she incapable of keeping certain thoughts to herself, or would everything she wanted to keep hidden from him spill right out of her mouth?
“On the contrary,” he said. “Nothing could be further from the truth.”
Honestly! Did he think her memory was so poor he could say something so ridiculous? “Well, then you certainly chose an interesting way of proving your devotion to me.” After all, he was the one who’d left her when she’d begged him not to. It hadn’t been her finest hour, but that was what she’d done. And now he was the one who’d returned to Town after many years away and hadn’t thought to seek her out even once. Though, none of that was neither here nor there at the moment, and she really shouldn’t let him distract her from her purpose. “What was that about? With Papa just now?”
Gabe cast her a sidelong glance and heaved a sigh as the two of them navigated past Sarsden and Zinnia near the windows, but he said nothing in response, not even after they were far enough away from her cousins to not be overheard.
Truly, he was the most frustrating man on Earth. “I would very much like an answer to my question, Major. What conversation did you and Papa mean?” she tried again.
Gabe’s lips thinned to a straight line and a muscle ticked in his jaw. “That conversation was between your father and me, Sophie. It’s not your concern.”
It certainly was her concern. Something had happened, something very important in that conversation, apparently. “Since neither of you seem to care for the other, but you’ve both meant a great deal to me, I am concerned whether you think it’s my concern or not.”
“And do you still care for me, Sophie?” he asked, pinning her with a look of such earnestness that her heart ached anew for all the years he’d been away.
But how was she supposed to answer him? Earnest looks aside, he had not done one thing to declare himself or put his heart on the line while she had made quite the fool out of herself over him once upon a time. She certainly was not going to do that again. Once was painful enough. “I—”
“Ahem!” Someone cleared their throat, and Sophie turned toward the sound to find her grandfather’s butler glancing in her direction. “Major Prideaux, His Grace has requested your presence in his study.”
“I imagine your feelings one way or the other are immaterial at this point.” Gabe slid his arm from Sophie’s grasp and then started across the drawing room to the ducal butler without even a glance back over his shoulder at her.
Her feelings were immaterial? She didn’t even know what her feelings were, but whatever they happened to be, they were not immaterial.
A moment later, Charlotte filled the space where Gabe had once been, a look of concern flashing in her light eyes. “What did he say?” she whispered.
“Nothing,” Sophie replied, because he hadn’t said one blasted thing that meant anything.
“Nothing?” her sister echoed. “He had to have said something. And now Grandfather wants to speak to him? And Papa?”
And that was a conversation Sophie was going to overhear, one way or another.
“Sophia,” her mother called. “Charlotte,” she added. “Eleanor was just asking after the two of you.”
Sophie and Charlotte shared a look, neither of them believing for one moment that their Aunt Eleanor had done anything of the like. Their mother was simply trying to manage them. Poorly. Mama was not terribly good at that. She never had been.
“Stay for a minute or two,” Charlotte whispered. “Then excuse yourself to the privy. She can’t deny you that.”