“Well?” Gabriel asked.
“She…” Sophia clicked her tongue and scanned the letter again. “She asks that I join her today in London. Something to do with wanting to shop for new dresses.”
“Asks? Or is she telling you?”
Sophia put down the letter. “Where my mother is concerned, they are both the same.”
“What are you going to do?” He watched her closely for her answer.
Sophia hesitated. Despite this newfound desire to prove how free she was, she had not changed so much that she could simply dismiss her mother’s request without feeling as if she was doing the wrong thing. Change did not happen that quickly.
But she was trying, and that was what mattered most. That was why Gabriel felt more drawn to her with each passing day.
“I…” She bit into her lip, and her eyes flicked to the letter as if she was worried that it might bite her. “I think I will…” Further contemplation, and Gabriel was certain she was going to fold. Only then, he saw a shadow pass behind her eyes, and a sense of determination washed over her and she steeled herself. “It is as I said, I am going to do whatever I wish.”
“Meaning…”
She picked up the letter, scrunched it into a ball and tossed it to the floor. “Meaning I will not be joining my mother today.”
“No?” Gabriel gasped playfully.
She looked at him flatly. “Do not sound so surprised.”
“Is it my fault that you continue to surprise me?”
“It should not be.” She used her hands to once again pick up a piece of toast and take a bite from it. “And I would thank you to finally accept the truth.”
“And the truth is?”
She swallowed the toast and winked. “That I am not the same woman who you married.”
Truer words had never been spoken.And don’t I know it, as I admire it, as I love that about her.
It was a slow process, each day a step forward, few steps taken back. Gabriel was careful with his emotions, and he was not one who cared deeply or became attached – he had spent his life training that side out of himself. But if Sophia could change, why couldn’t he?
The key, he was starting to realize, was wanting to change. And where Sophia was concerned, he wanted it. Oh, how he did.
As promised, Sophia did not join her mother that day. In fact, she told Gabriel that she planned on spending the day takin an inventory of some of the rooms in the manor so that she might apply herself to refurbishing the house.
That’s right, she told him. It was not a request. She did not seem to care that she was still new in this home. It was her home as far as she was concerned, and she could do with it as she wished.
“Unless you have a problem with that?” she asked him.
“Not at all,” he said back, meaning every word.
The difference in how Sophia and Gabriel now acted toward one another was noticeable. It was no longer tense. It was no longer unsure. It was honest and open, both accepting that this marriage had started in a strange place but had changed much since that first day.
They still did not talk about the future. And the tension that lived between them, born from their obvious feelings for one another, followed everywhere they went. For now, Gabriel was fine with such things. In fact, it excited him.
He had spent his whole life revolted by the mere concept of marriage. It was a prison to him, and he would be a fool to ever find himself in such a situation. But Sophia changed that view in him, proving slowly and surely that marriage could be so much more than what he was raised to believe.
It brought out a better side in Gabriel. It made him a better person, no longer selfish and caring only about himself. Everything he did now, he did so with Sophia in mind because he wanted her to be comfortable and happy.
“What on earth…” Gabriel gasped as he walked into one of the spare bedrooms later that same day. He started in the doorway, utterly bereft of words because he could not believe what he was seeing.
“Oh!” Sophia balked when she saw him, and she grimaced when she realized what he was walking into. “It is far from done.”
“I would hope so.”
