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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 byGrandfather’sspecific 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 hecouldforget the single most devastating conversation he’d ever had in his life was more than insulting.
Viscount Beckbury hadnotmellowed 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.”
Beckburydidlook 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; butherlook 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 defymygrandfather?” 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 wasthatabout? 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 ofsomethingthat 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.”
