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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 littlevingt-et-unwith 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 ifMiss Hamptonwas 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 weneedyou, 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 marryHellsburginstead, 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 greathonorin 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?”
