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“Because you’re his favorite daughter and he wants the best for you.” A self-deprecating smile lit his lips as Gabe opened his eyes once more. “Needless to say, he found me wanting in that regard.”
“Butwhy?” That didn’t make any sense at all. Gabe was wonderful in every single way. He was honest and true and noble and brave. He was every single thing Sophie had ever wanted in her life. And she still loved him as much now as she had the day he’d left England. “What could he possibly find so objectionable about you?”
“I never thought I’d have to tell you any of this,” he replied, his deep voice sounding so tortured that Sophie’s heart nearly broke once more. “I’d hoped I’d never have to.” Therewasa reason Papa hated Gabe, and he knew what it was.
“Please tell me. Please, I need to know.”
Gabe couldn’t meet her eyes which only made panic swell within Sophie. “My father was a scoundrel… and a…bigamist.”
A bigamist? “I beg your pardon?”
“And the thing is, I didn’t know any of it untilyourfather told me.” He opened his eyes and finally met her gaze. “Clayton didn’t either. But we confronted our father and he did confess to all of it.”
The late Earl of Northwold had more than one wife? Sophie couldn’t even fathom such a thing. “How did Papa know it?”
Gabe scoffed as he rested his hands on the edge of the bed at his side. “They served together in the Colonies under General Howe. My father, apparently, ruined the daughter of a loyalist in New York and was forced to marry the girl.”
Papa had fought in the American War, but he never spoke about anything that happened there, at least not to Sophie. She’d certainly never heard that he’d known Gabe’s father back in those days. “I had no idea our fathers even knew each other.”
Gabe nodded. “Friends at one time, it seems. Your father stood up for mine at his forced wedding; but when Father abandoned his bride and returned to England without her, they had their falling out.”
He’d abandoned his bride in America? That poor girl, whoever she was. Sophie couldn’t even imagine such a thing.
“And when my father compromised another girl here in England, he was forced to wed once again. Though he never told my mother nor my grandfather that he still had a wife somewhere in New York. He had use for Mother’s dowry, after all. Insolvent as the earldom was even then.”
“That’s awful,” she breathed out. The late earl was a scoundrel and even less nice words than that were circling Sophie’s mind.
Gabe agreed with a nod. “I am relieved my mother did not live long enough to learn that her marriage was invalid.” He sighed once more. “Neither Clayton nor I have a legal claim on Northwold, not if the truth ever comes out.”
They were illegitimate, Gabe and his brother; and Papa knew it. That was why he’d refused Gabe’s offer. Sophie dropped onto the edge of the bed beside Gabe and rested her head against his arm. Even learning the truth, that awful truth did not change how she felt abouthim. He was honest and true and noble and brave; and nothing his father had done would change that fact. She would love him all of her days whether he had a third eye or whether his birth that was less than legitimate. But Papa was clearly another matter altogether.
“Do you still love me, Gabe?” she asked, tilting her head up to see his face. She thought he did. It seemed like he did. But she needed to hear the words.
“It would be impossible for me to ever stop.”
Then it was settled, at least to Sophie’s way of thinking. “You’re headed to Cumberland?”
“There’s a Northwold cottage there. Unentailed. I need to look it over and decide what to do with it.”
Northwold could look over his own cottage. “Let your brother do that, and we’ll—” but his sudden wince made Sophie change course “—What’s wrong?”
Gabe blew out a breath. “My brother is not capable of doing anything these days, Sophie. He’s dying.”
Dying! Sophie’s hand fluttered to her lips in surprise. “Gabe, I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”
His arm settled around her and warmed her to her toes. “That’s why I’m back in England, to oversee Clayton’s care, to oversee the earldom.”
The earldom that wasn’t legally his brother’s, but Sophie pushed that thought away. “Can anything be done for him? Has Doctor Watts seen to him?”
Gabe scoffed at that. “I’m afraid Clayton’s illness is beyond anything in Doctor Watts’ black bag.”
That was awful. Sophie didn’t remember Gabe being particularly close to his brother, but she couldn’t imagine losing Charlotte or even Cassie. Knowing you were going to lose a family member had to be worse than anything. “And that’s why you’re headed to Cumberland? To see to some cottage on your brother’s behalf?”
“Luckily, it’s not entailed. I’ll probably end up selling it, but I should look it over first.”
That made sense, Sophie supposed, and she nodded her head. “I’ll go with you.”
He pulled slightly away from her and his expression said quite loudly that he thought she was mad. “I am returning you to London.”
