CHAPTER 16
Sophie wasn’t certain what she’d expected to find just over the border in Scotland, but Gretna Green was a quaint little village surrounded by lush greenery in every direction. The late afternoon sun was dipping low against the horizon as the ducal carriage stopped in front of a blacksmith shop.
The brawny Scot inside asked Gabe and Sophie to write their names in his book, then he summoned a couple of fellows to serve as witnesses. “Ye are both here of yer own accord?” he asked, glancing from Sophie and then to Gabe.
“We are,” Sophie replied as Gabe slid his arm around her shoulders.
The Scot smiled in response. “Ye have the look of it, but I do need to ask.” Then he turned his full attention on Gabe. “Have ye got a ring, Major?”
“I don’t.” Gabe blanched slightly. But how could he have a ring? He hadn’t left London with the intent of eloping. He hadn’t even known Sophie was with him when they’d left.
“We don’t need one, do we?” Sophie asked, a bit of panic, suddenly in her chest.
The blacksmith shook his head. “Most folks do, but it’s not necessary. We have some for purchase if—”
“It doesn’t matter,” Sophie began, “All that matters is that we’ll never be apart after today. I don’t need a ring to remind me of that.”
The look of devotion Gabe cast her was worth more than any metal trinket they’d acquire at the blacksmith’s shop. “Sophie,” he said softly. “I do have a ring of my mother’s. It’s at Northend. I’d intended it for you four years ago.”
“Perfect,” Sophie replied. “We’ll be at Northend soon enough, won’t we?”
Gabe nodded in agreement.
“Very well,” the blacksmith continued. “We’ll just proceed, then.” He took a deep breath and muttered something in Gaelic, “Mìle fàilte dhuit le d'bhréid, fad do ré gun robh thu slàn. Móran làithean dhuit is sìth, le d'mhaitheas is le d'nì bhi fàs.” Then he gestured to Gabe and added, “Ye may kiss yer wife, Major.”
At long last, this was it.
Gabe tipped her chin up with his hand. His warm eyes held the promise of a lifetime of love, and Sophie grasped onto the edge of his regimentals as he brushed his lips ever so softly against hers. It was the most chaste of kisses she’d received along their journey, but it was one she would treasure in her heart forever.
After Gabe paid the man his fee, he tucked Sophie’s hand in the crook of his arm and said, “Now then, Mrs. Prideaux, shall we?”
Mrs. Prideaux from that day forward. Sophie’s heart swelled at the thought. She was Gabe’s, and he was hers, no matter what. She nodded in response and let Gabe lead her across the way to the White Heather Inn where Lumley had already acquired a chamber for them.
“That wasn’t quite what I expected,” Sophie said as they crossed the lane.
“What did you expect?” Gabe asked, glancing down at her on his arm.
Sophie shrugged slightly. “I’m not sure. More pomp, I suppose. I wonder if he’s the same fellow who married Arabella and Lord Avery.”
Gabe laughed. “I just wish I knew what the gibberish was that he said. You think we’re actually married?”
“Oh!” Sophie gasped at the suggestion, and she drew him to a halt. “Do you think there’s a chance we’re not?”
The light-hearted twinkle in Gabe’s eye was one she hadn’t even realized she’d missed until that moment. Once upon a time, he’d teased her quite mercilessly, but he was so serious these days. “I’m joking, Sophie. We signed our names in his book. I don’t speak Gaelic, but he told me in perfectly clear English to kiss my wife. We are well and truly married. There’s no escape from me now.”
Relief washed over Sophie and she smiled up at him. “It took so long to catch you, the last thing in the world I’d ever want to do is escape from you.”
He gently urged her toward the inn. “That is good to hear,” he said. “Because you are quite trapped now, Mrs. Prideaux, and I have certain plans for you.”
“What sort of plans?” Sophie asked.
Gabe winked at her. “Plans that involve divesting you of that dress and kissing every inch of your skin.”
Oh, those plans did sound delightful. Giddiness rose up inside her.
“I’ve been a veritable saint the entire trip north, but now that you’re mine…”
“In that case, we should hurry,” she laughed and increased her step, urging him into the inn just as quickly as she could.
It didn’t take much urging, and as they entered the charming little inn lobby, Gabe was laughing right along with her. Sophie couldn’t remember a time when she was so joyful or so filled with hope for her future, but then…
Papa stood beside the innkeeper’s desk with his arms folded across his chest and the most murderous expression on his face. He looked Sophie up and down as though she was a stranger, one he didn’t particularly care for.
“Papa!” she breathed out. Goodness, he had caught up to them. They hadn’t really dawdled along the way. Of course, they had spent longer than they should have at that first inn outside of London. Even still, Papa must have been quite intent on catching them for him to already be in Scotland.
“I am beyond disappointed in you, Sophia.”
The innkeeper made a quick escape into a back room as Papa turned his scathing look to Gabe.
“And, you, I thought I’d been quite clear with you in our conversations, Prideaux. But you absconded with my daughter anyway.”
“Lord Beckbury—” Gabe began.
“Papa!” Sophie interrupted Gabe and released her hold on his arm to start toward her father. After all, things would just be better from here on out if she could prevent the two of them from coming to blows now. “He didn’t abscond with me. If anything, I absconded with him.”
Her father scoffed as he lifted his hand out to Sophie. “Come along. We’ll head home and figure out a way to extricate you from this situation.”
Sophie quickly backed away from her father. “I’m not going to London. My husband and I are headed to Fairhaven Cottage and then onto Northend to see to the Northwold holdings.”
His glare on her intensified, and Sophie gulped. No one ever contradicted him in such a way, not even her. But she couldn’t let Papa steal her back and return her to London. She just couldn’t let that happen.
“And I don’t want to extricate myself from the situation, Papa. I would do the same thing all over again if given half the chance.”
Her father’s gaze flicked back to Gabe. “As Charles Prideaux’s son, I’m certain you’ve already defiled my daughter a number of times along the way here.”
“Papa!” Sophie’s face burned at the suggestion. It was certainly not one she ever thought her father would say nor one she ever thought she’d have to respond to. “Major Prideaux was honorable and gentlemanly the entire trip to Scotland.”
“Is that so?” Papa’s cold eyes speared her where she stood. “You know I can have a doctor verify you’re still wholly intact, Sophia? And then we can have this regrettable marriage annulled just as quickly as possible.”
A doctor to make certain she was still intact? What an awful suggestion. She couldn’t even imagine suffering through such an examination.
“Now see here,” Gabe began, his deep voice sounding quite menacing all of a sudden.
“I cannot believe you would even think to subject me to such humiliation, Papa,” Sophie interrupted. “But it wouldn’t do you any good in any event.”
For a moment, he looked like he was about to be ill. “So you’re not as innocent as you claim, then?”
“My husband is not his father and I am just as innocent as I said.” Sophie shook her head in frustration. “What I meant is the state of my innocence one way or the other will not do you any good. I’m not having my marriage annulled, Papa. Not now, not ever. I love Gabriel Prideaux and I always have.”
Her father scoffed when she said the word love as though the idea was a completely foreign one to him. But love wasn’t a notion that poets made up to justify their existence, no matter what Papa and Grandfather thought about it.
“He isn’t who you think he is, Sophia,” Papa said, weariness invading his voice. She preferred the weariness to his anger. The weariness she could navigate much easier.
“I know exactly who he is,” Sophie replied softly. “He told me all of it, Papa. He trusted me enough to do so. But the truth of the situation doesn’t change the way I feel about him.”
“Then either you’re a fool or he hasn’t told you all of it.”
Sophie smarted at his words. Perhaps she was a fool. Perhaps she was the biggest one ever, but it wouldn’t change the fact that she loved Gabe and she was never going to give him up.
Gabe came up behind Sophie and placed his hand at the small of her back, a small gesture of solidarity. He cleared his throat. “Beckbury, I appreciate that you’re unhappy with the situation, but I can assure you that I’ve been completely honest with Sophie about the entirety of my circumstances and I’ve pressed upon her the ruin that might face us in the future, but—”
“But I can’t image that you would say anything publicly that would risk hurting me, Papa.”
Her father winced slightly. “You think I’m the only one who might be aware of certain matters, Sophia?” He shook his head. “This is not the future I wanted for you, not the future you were meant to face. And he shouldn’t have forced his circumstances—” he sneered the word “—on you.”
Sophie chanced a glance up toward her new husband. “I’ll face whatever may come with Gabe, that’s the only future I’ve ever wanted.”
Papa frowned as he raked a hand through his hair, silently saying nothing for what felt like a millennia. Then he pinned Gabe with another stare. “Learn to manage your wife, Prideaux, or she’ll be managing you the rest of your days.”
“My lord?” Gabe frowned in return.
“You haven’t finished one sentence. She talks over you and is accustomed to getting whatever she wants whenever she wants it. Learn to manage her early or you’ll suffer the consequences from here on out.”
He’d acquiesced. He wasn’t going to force the issue of an annulment or make a scene worse than they’d already made, not that there was anyone in the vicinity to witness it. Relief washed over Sophie even if her father wasn’t saying flattering things about her.
“I’ll take that under advisement,” Gabe said. Then the slightest of smiles settled on his face. “Though I fear it may already be too late for that.”
Of all the obnoxious…
Sophie folded her arms across her chest. “You are both aware that I’m not deaf and can hear this entire conversation.”
“One of the few you don’t have to listen to through closed doors,” her father returned. Then he frowned slightly at Gabe once more. Papa was not happy about this situation in the least, but at least he wasn’t insisting upon having her marriage annulled any longer. “You will be in my study at Hampton Hall within three weeks, Prideaux.”
“We are traveling to Fairhaven and then Northend, Papa.”
“I was not speaking to you.” He heaved a sigh. “Three weeks and not one day longer, am I understood, Major?”
Gabe frowned in response. “Sophie is right, Beckbury. I don’t know what I will find at either Fairhaven or Northend and my obligations are to my brother’s esta—”
“And mine is to my daughters and to their reputations!” Papa bellowed, shaking the nearby windows in their frames. His face was red from the tips of his ears all the way down to his neck, disappearing beneath his cravat; and Sophie had never seen him look so frightening.
“Sophia is ill,” Papa continued. “That’s what her mother is telling everyone, and in a few days the entire family will retire to Shropshire. That was the plan before I headed here and we will not alter it nor will anyone ever hear about your trip north. The banns will be read in both sets of parishes starting this Sunday and in three weeks’ time you will be properly married by Vicar Lewis at The Hall.” Then he scowled in Sophie’s direction. “I will not have your recklessness cast aspersions on your sisters’ names or on their futures. Three weeks’ time, am I clear?”
“We’ll be there,” Gabe said.
Papa tipped his hat in farewell. “I’ll see you then.” And he started for the exit.
But it was nearly evening. Certainly he didn’t mean to start back home now. It wasn’t safe to travel in the dark. “Papa, you’re not staying here this evening?”
He glanced once more from Sophie to Gabe and then back. “This is the very last place in all of Britain that I would stay tonight.” And then he hastened his step from the inn.
A sob from nowhere lodged in Sophie’s throat. Her father didn’t want to have anything to do with her. And she’d always loved him so dearly.
Gabe’s hand slid to her waist and he squeezed her just a bit. “Are you all right?”
She nodded, afraid that if she tried to speak it would come out in one giant sob.
Gabe turned her to face him and tipped her chin up with his fingers. “We were going to have to face him at some point.”
She agreed with another nod. “But now he hates me,” she choked out.
Gabe pulled her into his arms and held her. “No one could ever hate you,” he soothed. “He isn’t happy, but he’ll come around. He could have made things much worse for us, but he didn’t.”
And Sophie knew that was true, but it still didn’t make her heart hurt any less.
“In three weeks, we’ll do all of this all over again, but with your family surrounding you.”
She held onto him tightly. “But then there won’t be a blacksmith muttering Gaelic we don’t understand.”
He laughed, like she’d hoped he would. Then he pulled back to look down at her. “I know a few Scots from the army. You want me to ask one of them to come speak gibberish to us?”
Sophie shook her head. “All I require is you, Gabe. I don’t care who else is there.”
“You are in luck.” He kissed the tip of her nose. “I’ll be right beside you from here on out.”
Someone cleared their throat near the innkeeper’s desk, and Sophie and Gabe glanced in that direction. An older woman in a mop cap hefted a traveling valise onto the desk with a thud. The innkeeper’s wife, no doubt.
“Mrs. Prideaux,” the Scottish woman began. “His lordship left this with me in the event ye remained with us this evenin’.”
Goodness. A traveling valise? Sophie disentangled herself from Gabe’s hold and approached the desk. It certainly was one of Papa’s. It had a very tiny Beckbury crest in the leather near the very top. Sophie’s heart began to pound as she opened the latch.
Looking into the open valise, Sophie thought she might cry. Papa had done this kindness for her even as angry as he was. She ran her fingers over one of her favorite dresses, a soft lilac with a darker bodice and sleeves. A comfortable pair of kid slippers, a silky chemise and a soft cotton nightrail were even lower in the bag along with a brush, two more dresses, and her favorite hair pins.
“See,” Gabe said, the deep timbre of his voice making Sophie’s belly flip. From behind her he placed his hand on her waist, warming her all the way through. “He does love you.” Then he chuckled lightly. “It’s just me he hates.”
Sophie smiled and blinked her tears away. “No one could ever hate you,” she parroted his own words back to him as she spun around to face him. Goodness she loved him, the adoration in his hazel eyes, the strong line of his jaw, the breadth of his shoulders, and the self-deprecating smile he sported. She could live to be a hundred and she’d never tire of gazing at this man. Her husband. He well and truly was her husband.
“So long as you love me.”
“I’ve never stopped,” she replied.
“Then, Mrs. Prideaux, I would very much like for us to continue on to our chambers.”