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“Thank you,” she replied, smiling at Gabe’s niece. She glanced back at Lady Augusta and said, “How have you found Cumberland in general and Fairhaven in particular?”
“Isolated,” the woman replied. “Which I daresay we needed when we first arrived.”
There was very little in the area, and Gabe had hoped to sell the cottage. She couldn’t see him displacing his sister or nieces, however. “Are you hoping to remain at Fairhaven, or…”
Her sister-in-law sighed. “I do not crave society’s attention,” she said. “The isolation suits me, it suited all of us at first; but now I’m not so certain that hiding away is in the best interest for my daughters.”
Her daughters who had every right to be introduced to society at some point. They were the legitimate granddaughters of the late Earl of Northwold. She looked toward the oldest girl and asked, “How old are you, Aurelie?”
“Fourteen, Aunt Sophia.”
“Just a couple years younger than my sister Cassandra. Perhaps I can introduce the two of you at some point.”
The girl had survived a massacre and imprisonment. Any influence she might have over Cassie could do wonders in regard to her sister finally growing a spine. Sophie took a sip of her tea.
“Does she like to hunt?”
Sophie choked on her drink. “I beg your pardon?” she asked after she finished coughing.
“I’m a good hunter. Papa always said I was.”
And perhaps young girls had to be in the wilds of America. But the only real hunting proper English ladies did was for husbands on the marriage mart. “She enjoys riding,” Sophie said.
“What about rocks?” Ismérie asked, her warm eyes, so much like Gabe’s twinkled as she dropped onto the settee beside Sophie.
“Rocks?”
And then the young girl tugged a handful of various rocks from a pocket in her frock and started placing them one by one on the cushion between her and Sophie. “I like this dark green one the best.” Ismérie lifted a strangely shaped rock out for Sophie to inspect it.
“Very nice,” she said.
“Oh and this one.” The girl plucked a black and white speckled rock from the cushion. “See the design in it?”
Sophie didn’t, not really. But Ismérie’s love of rocks was perhaps an opportunity for the girl to not be so terrified of Gabe. “Do you know who knows quite a bit about rocks?”
“Your sister?” Ismérie guessed.
Sophie managed not to laugh at the suggestion of Cassie knowing anything of the like. She did shake her head. “Your Uncle Gabriel.” And then she smiled at one particular memory. “When we first met, he had a grand time pointing out all the different formations at Hampton Hall, where I lived.” Normally, the topic would bore Sophie to tears, but she could listen to anything Gabe said, anything at all to hear the deep rumble of his voice, even then.
A look of disbelief flashed in the little girl’s eyes and Sophie’s heart ached for the child. She had to have been so young when they’d been marched to Fort Macon. It was no wonder she was terrified of Gabe. He had to look like all of her captors. Still, she wasn’t in America any longer, and if she was going to live in England, Gabe would not be the only fellow she’d encounter in regimentals.
“He’s a wonderful man, your Uncle Gabriel,” she added. “You can’t let that uniform worry you.”
“Clayton said he was the most honorable of the two of them,” Lady Augusta said. “He spoke so glowingly of his brother.”
“He’s the most honorable man I know,” Sophie agreed. She only wished he hadn’t abandoned her that afternoon. Shouldn’t she be by his side to help him face their problems together? He didn’t have to shoulder everything alone anymore. They were husband and wife now even if they hadn’t understood all the Gaelic gibberish the day before.
When Gabe returned to Fairhaven, he was no closer to an answer to his solution than he was before he left. He had a wife, and now a sister and two nieces that he needed to provide for. One way or another. Was the devil on the market for buying souls? Otherwise, he had no idea how he was going to accomplish the task that Clayton thought him capable of doing.
He heaved a sigh as he pushed the door open to the cottage and stepped into the foyer. Girlish laughter hit his ears, and despite his concerns and weariness, he couldn’t help but smile at the sound. Clayton had thought those two girls were his treasure. If only his brother had stumbled upon one worth monetary value in the process, all would be well.
He followed the sound down the small corridor and found himself in the threshold of a cozy kitchen. Sophie was helping Augusta cut triangles out of some dough, and Ismérie sat at a table playing a game of jackstraws with Lumley of all people. When the coachman retrieved a small stick from the pile that made the others move, the little girl laughed again. “You’re not supposed to move them, Mr. Lumley.”
“Yes, well, my job is usually to make things move as quickly as possible, Miss Ismérie.”
At that moment, Sophie noticed him in the threshold, and that smile of hers that he adored lit up the room. “You’re back.”
“I had no idea you were so domestic, Sophie.”
