CHAPTER 2
A fortnight later…
Albany Bachelor Lodgings
Mayfair, London – May 1816
Wearing trousers was an odd sensation. More freeing in one way, to be sure, but Miss Sophia Hampton felt rather naked in them as well, as though she was exposed to the world. Sophie tugged her borrowed cap a bit lower over her brow to keep anyone from recognizing her as she hurried through the courtyard and straight into the fashionable, subdivided mansion that was the Albany. After all, if anyone caught her dressed as a pageboy and sneaking into her cousin’s set of rooms, she wouldn’t get the chance to die of embarrassment. Papa would strangle her well before remorse could even set in, and she didn’t even want to think about what her grandfather would do. She shuddered at the very thought of incurring his wrath.
However, Sophie didn’t really have another choice, not really, not after the conversation she’d overheard that evening. Sending Chase a note would never do. After all, her cousin was not particularly timely in his correspondence; and at the moment, time was completely of the essence.
Once inside the mansion that had been converted to individual bachelor lodgings, Sophie glanced around the entrance and a pit formed in her stomach. How in the world was she to find Chase’s set of rooms? She had no idea where he was as she’d never dared step foot in the place before tonight. After all, only men were allowed entrance at the Albany. Which was deucedly annoying at the moment. If she had any idea where to go…
Blast it!
Of all the rotten luck in the world! Why was Matthew Greywood descending the grand staircase? After all, if anyone might recognize Sophie it would be Mr. Greywood as he was currently in the process of courting her.
Steeling her nerves, she dropped her chin a bit lower and said in the deepest voice she could muster, “Chase Winslett’s lodgings?”
Luckily, Mr. Greywood did not blink an eye as he brushed past her and said, “Up the first flight of stairs. Third door on the right.”
She could have kissed him. Mr. Greywood was quite wonderful in every way, even if he didn’t have the keenest set of eyes, apparently. She had no idea how he hadn’t recognized her, but Sophie didn’t dare speak again for fear that he might notice something if she opened her mouth a second time. So she simply nodded a thanks and quickly started up the steps, her heart pounding the whole way.
But just as she reached the landing, Mr. Greywood called up to her. “I say. You there, stop—”
Blast it! He did recognize her. She could hear it in his voice. Sophie quickened her pace and made a direct path for the third door on the right. If Mr. Greywood stumbled upon her like this…Well, she was fairly certain their courtship would come to a rather hasty end, and if he told anyone else about her foray into the Albany...
Sophie shivered at the thought. She rapped quickly on her cousin’s door, and when Chase’s servant answered her knock, she pushed her way inside without even speaking to the man.
“Chase!” she called out.
“What the devil?” Her cousin strode into his main set of rooms, an apple in his hand, and gaped at her. “Sophie! What are you doing here?”
But Sophie could barely think. She could barely breathe. Because standing right behind her cousin stood Major Gabriel Prideaux, and he quite simply stole her breath and every thought she had in her head.
Oh! Good heavens. She hadn’t thought she’d ever lay eyes on him again, not after he’d said goodbye all those years ago and had gone off to join the rest of Wellington’s army without even a passing thought to how he’d broken Sophie’s heart in the process.
Blast him for looking even more dashing in his regimentals now than he had four years ago. And blast him for distracting her! She did not have time to be distracted by Gabe Prideaux.
“Winslett!” Mr. Greywood’s voice came from the other side of the door and made Sophie’s heart nearly beat right out of her chest.
She touched a hand to heart, hoping to calm it just a bit as she whispered to her cousin, “You can’t tell him I’m here!”
Chase’s face took on a rather murderous expression all of a sudden. “Did he do something to you?”
“No, no!” What an absurd thing to suggest. Mr. Greywood was nothing if not gentlemanly. “But I’d hate for him to find me here.”
“I’d hate for anyone to find you here,” her cousin grumbled. Then he gestured to the door behind him as he started for his settee. “Hide in there. I’ll get rid of him.”
Sophie bolted toward the room Chase had indicated and ignored the once-familiar fluttering in her belly as she brushed past Gabe in her haste to hide from Mr. Greywood. She closed the door behind her and sank against it. How in the world had everything turned upside down so quickly? She should have been able to sneak into the Albany, secure Chase’s promise to manage things with Grandfather, and return home without anyone being the wiser. But now Matthew Greywood was there and Gabriel…Goodness! What was Gabe doing in Chase’s set of rooms? What was he even doing in England? Shouldn’t he be in Canada with the rest of the 9th?
G abe stood directly in front of the door where Sophie had escaped, instinctively standing guard should the need to protect her arise. He heaved a sigh. He’d been completely unprepared to lay eyes on her again, and in a set of trousers that had very nicely outlined her legs and her bottom as she’d slipped past him. He’d never get the image out of his mind if he lived to be a hundred.
Winslett’s valet opened the front door and admitted a dark haired fellow whom Gabe had known rather well once upon a time. Why the devil was Matthew Greywood chasing after Sophie?
“Ah, Greywood,” Chase said from a spot on his settee. “How are you?”
Greywood glanced around Chase’s set of rooms and his brow furrowed slightly. “Did your cousin…” He shook his head. “That is, some fellow just asked me how to find your lodgings.”
“Oh?” Chase asked as he took a bite of his apple.
Greywood nodded in response. “Bore a striking resemblance to Miss Hampton, actually.”
“Yes, well.” Chase choked on his food. “My, uh, cousin, S…Sam. Samuel was just here.”
Gabe winced slightly. Was that the best Chase could do?
“Samuel? Your cousin Samuel is a pageboy?”
“Down on his luck.”
What a ridiculous thing to say.
“He did look quite a bit like Sophia.”
Sophia? Greywood was on a first name basis with Sophie? Something about that tightened Gabe’s gut.
“Uh, yes, well, a distant cousin.” He took another bite from his apple. “You know how prodigious in numbers we Winsletts are. Probably six or seven who look like me.”
Greywood had never been a fool and he narrowed his eyes slightly on Chase. “Indeed? Where is young Samuel Winslett the pageboy, then?”
“Gone.”
“Gone?”
Chase shrugged. “Just stopped by to say hello.”
Which was all Samuel would have had time to say between the time of Sophie’s and then Greywood’s arrivals. Amazing how Gabe’s two oldest friends could be so completely different from each other. Christian would have already dispensed with Greywood and left him smarting from the experience, but Chase would still be here in an hour, digging himself into a deeper and deeper hole with each new set of words. There was nothing for it, Gabe would have to intervene.
“Slightly reckless fellow,” Gabe began, because Sophie had always been slightly reckless. “Looking for gambling funds, but when Chase refused, he made a quick exit.”
A smile spread across Greywood’s face. “Prideaux! I just now realized you’re you. On my life, it’s been a million years.”
And it had been. Ever since Eton, in fact. Gabe agreed with a nod of his head. “You look well, Greywood.”
“And you! I thought you were in Canada.”
And Gabe would still be there if he hadn’t received that summons from Mr. Hill. “On leave.” At least until he sold his commission, which he still needed to do, he just hadn’t had the heart to do so yet. Being in the 9th had been such a part of him for so long, giving it up felt like he was losing a piece of his soul, and a piece that he’d never get back.
“Well, I am glad to hear it. I’d love to catch up while you’re in Town.”
“Tonight?” Chase asked, sounding a bit panicked at the suggestion. Honestly, his friend would be abysmal at espionage.
“Um, no.” Greywood frowned. “I promised my brother-in-law I would play a little vingt-et-un with him this evening. I was headed to his favorite hell when I bumped into…Samuel.”
No, Greywood was not a fool.
“I would hope,” the man continued, pitching his voice a little louder, “that if Miss Hampton was ever in any sort of trouble she would know that she could always count on me for assistance.”
Could she? Something about that annoyed the living devil out of Gabe, though there was no reason that it should. Greywood was a decent fellow. He could probably be counted on to assist any number of damsels in distress.
“Yes, well,” Chase continued, “when I see Sophia next, I’ll be certain to let her know that.”
Sophie gasped when Chase opened the door to his bedchamber where she’d been hiding. Her cousin, after all, sported an uncharacteristic scowl.
“For God’s sake, Soph! Are you trying to ruin yourself?”
That was the last thing in the world she wanted. “How was I to know I’d happen upon Mr. Greywood?”
Chase shook his head in disapproval. “That is hardly the point. You shouldn’t be at Albany no matter whom you might bump into.”
Yes, that was becoming clearer and clearer by the moment. First Matthew Greywood and then Gabriel Prideaux. “If you ever read your correspondence—” she began.
Her cousin jabbed his finger in the direction of his receiving room. “Let’s go. We’ve got to figure out how to get you back to Beckbury House without anyone being the wiser.”
Sophie started for the main room, but stopped in the threshold when she spotted Gabe watching her from the far corner. Good heavens! She wasn’t any more prepared to see him now than she had been before she’d hid in Chase’s bedchamber. “Gabe…er…Major Prideaux, I hadn’t thought to find you here.”
“I think it’s safe to assume I could say the same, Miss Hampton.”
Oh! She had forgotten how the deep timber of his voice made her insides turn to mush. No one sounded like him. No one in the world. And once upon a time, she had wanted nothing else in life but to listen to him talk and hear the sound of her name on his lips. But that was forever ago, back when she thought he’d loved her as much as she’d loved him.
Chase nudged Sophie forward, and she stepped into his main set of rooms. Honestly, she had come with a purpose and she couldn’t let the fact that Gabe Prideaux was here dissuade her from that purpose any more than he had done so already. So she spun around to face her cousin. “We need your help.”
“We?” Chase frowned. “Tell me Charlotte and Cassandra aren’t gallivanting around here somewhere too.”
The idea of Sophie’s younger sisters doing any such thing was almost laughable. They were, the both of them, quite proper most of the time. Well, at least Charlotte was. Cassandra was too spineless to ever attempt such a thing. Sophie shook her head. “No, no. But we need you, and Rose, and Lily, and Violet too.” Then she heaved a sigh. “And I daresay Priscilla as well. She may be in the most peril of all of us.”
Her cousin’s frown deepened. “What in the world are you talking about?”
Sophie took a steadying breath and began to tell Chase what she and her sisters had overheard her parents discussing that evening. “Did you know Arabella has eloped?”
Chase did not know that. She could tell by the look of confusion on his face. “With whom?”
“Lord Avery, more than a sennight ago.”
Her cousin scrubbed a hand down his face as though that made no sense at all. “They were already betrothed.”
“Were,” Sophie stressed the word. “But when Uncle Aylesford died, Grandfather broke their betrothal, apparently.”
“Grandfather can be difficult,” Chase began, which was a vast understatement.
“He had decided she should marry Hellsburg instead, Chase.” And their horrid Prussian cousin was their grandfather’s most favorite grandchild. No one else compared in the Duke of Chatham’s eyes. “But with Arabella taking her future in her own hands, there is no telling which of the rest of us Grandfather will determine should receive that great honor in her stead.” She shook her head. “And it is not an honor any one of us would like, I can assure you of that.”
Chase swallowed a bit uncomfortably. “You’ve got Greywood on a string, so I hardly think you have anything to worry about.”
Matthew Greywood was quite wonderful, but while he was courting Sophie, he hadn’t offered for her, not that she wanted to say any of that with Gabriel Prideaux listening to her every word. “Do you think I’m only worried for myself?”
Her cousin sighed. “I can’t see your father agreeing to wed any of the three of you off to Hellsburg.” He shook his head. “And the same goes for Hayden and Benedict. They’d hardly marry any of their sisters off to the man, no matter what Grandfather says.”
And while that could very well be true, there was still one of their cousins who was in the most dire of situations. “And what about Priscilla, Chase?”
He winced slightly at hearing her name. “I know he isn’t optimal, Soph, but she does have a brother who needs to look out for her—”
Except Priscilla had no such thing, not anymore. Sophie gaped at her cousin. Was it possible Chase wasn’t aware of that fact? Had their grandfather truly not sent word? Of course, with as often as Chase paid attention to his correspondence, a note from Grandfather could be lost somewhere in the pile.
“—It isn’t my place to interfere with something Gillingham should—”
“Gillingham is dead,” she cut him off from whatever Chase thought Gillingham should do. “You are heir presumptive to the dukedom now.”
He hadn’t known that. It was very clear when Chase stumbled slightly backward at hearing the news. “I beg your pardon?”
“A sennight ago, the Thames River Police fished him out on the south bank. How do you not know this?”
Chase shook his head. “I have no idea. I would have thought Grandfather…”
“He has not been the same since Uncle Aylesford’s death,” Sophie said softly. “And I’m not certain if that is more terrifying than normal or less; but in any event, you are his heir and you may be the only one he might listen to in regard to Priscilla’s future.”
“I think you may be more confident in my abilities than I am,” Chase said, not sounding like himself in the least. Of course, it was hardly every day that a fellow learned that the entire course of his future had been changed in the blink of an eye.
She felt awful being the bearer of such news, but he had to see why his female relations needed his aid so desperately, especially Priscilla.
Chase raked a hand through his dark hair and heaved a sigh. “We need to get you back to Beckbury House, Soph.”