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“We should be arriving soon,” he assured her.
Sophie reached up and brushed her hand against his cheek. “I’m not certain how I became the luckiest girl in the world, but I’m glad that I am.”
Gabe chuckled, then he turned his face to kiss her palm. “I was just thinking the same thing.”
“About how I’m the luckiest girl in the world?” Her brow lifted playfully.
Gabe shook his head. “You know what I meant.”
And the twinkling in her blue eyes told him that she knew very well what he meant and she was teasing him. Then Sophie sat up against the squabs and glanced out the coach window. “Is that it, do you think?”
Gabe turned his attention out the window and sure enough there was a nice looking cottage not far down the lane. “I think it is.” He breathed a sigh of relief. “It looks bigger than I expected.”
“And it’s not a pile of rubble,” Sophie added.
“I think,” Gabe began as he reached for her hand, “that you are my lucky charm.”
“I am?” She wrinkled her brow just so.
He agreed with a nod. “Ever since we married, things have been looking up. Your father …well, he didn’t exactly give us his blessing…but he also didn’t kill me, which I had expected him to do. And now, just looking at Fairhaven from here, if it’s as delightful on the inside as it is on the outside, we may just be able to sell it for a pretty penny.”
And if Oakcliffe turned out to be the perfect place for Clayton, then all would be well long enough, hopefully, for Gabe to be able to turn things around for the earldom.
Sophie turned her attention back out the window at the approaching cottage, and then she sat up straight. “Did you see that?”
The only thing Gabe had seen was the back of Sophie’s blonde head, blocking the window. “What is it?”
She glanced back at him, her brow creased in worry. “The draperies. They moved. Is there someone in there?”
“There shouldn’t be.” Gabe moved closer to his wife to peer out her side of the carriage as it rumbled to a stop. But he didn’t notice any of the drapes moving in the cottage. “Just a draft, perhaps?” he suggested.
But it wasn’t a draft. Before Lumley had even opened the carriage door, a young girl with dark hair stepped from the cottage, blinking in surprise at the coach.
“Who is that?” Sophie asked.
Gabe shook his head. “I’ve no idea.”
“Perhaps we’re not at Fairhaven and Lumley got lost.”
“Perhaps” Gabe agreed, but he didn’t believe that was the case. The worry churning in his stomach told him otherwise.
Lumley opened the carriage door, and Gabe descended from the coach. He glanced toward the girl, and when he did, her confused expression transformed to one of horror.
“Mama!” she screamed, racing back toward the cottage door. “It’s a soldier!” And the terror in her voice was nearly heart wrenching.
She stumbled in her haste to escape back into the cottage.
Good God. What the devil was that about?
“Gabe?” Sophie called from the coach at his back.
Damn it all. How had he forgotten Sophie? He turned on his heel and offered his wife his hand and then helped her find her feet. “Sorry, love.”
But Sophie simply shook her head. “There’s two more of them,” she whispered, looking past him toward the cottage.
Gabe glanced back over his shoulder and there were two more – a slightly older girl than the first, and a woman who sported an eye-patch. Who the devil were these people? Gabe heaved a sigh and turned back toward the cottage. “I wonder if I’m lost. I had thought this was Fairhaven Cottage.”
The woman with the eye-patch nodded, and she narrowed her good eye as though she was studying him. Then awareness seemed to dawn on her. “You’re Gabriel,” she said, her lip trembling all of a sudden. “You look so much like Clayton.”
