While he was finishing the last dish, a wet sensation on the back of his neck made him spin around, slinging water in a wide arc. Sophie squealed and laughed as the water droplets sprayed her face, and he realized she’d put a wet cloth down his shirt. He wriggled until he was able to extricate the cloth from his shirt.
His hands were dripping water onto the floor. Instead of drying them on a towel, he held them up threateningly and backed her against the wall. She was still laughing, her blue eyes dancing in the rays of light coming through the kitchen window. He placed his wet hands on her face and she giggled hysterically, holding her hands up in an ineffectual attempt to keep him away.
Staring her in the eyes, he lifted the apron and wiped her cheeks. Her radiant blue eyes focused on his lips. Dropping the apron, he pulled her close. She came willingly, pressing her lips to his.
Cleaning up after meals was his new favorite activity.
She ended the kiss and she pressed her face into his shoulder.
“How is your wound?” she whispered.
“It’s getting better. I can lift my arm without pain.”
“Does that mean you’ll be leaving soon?”
“Yes.”
“Tomorrow?”
“Unfortunately.”
“Won’t you tell me where you’re going?”
He shook his head. “I won’t be away from you a moment longer than I have to. I can promise you that.”
Her brows came together, forming a slight crease of worry above the bridge of her nose. He reached up and smoothed it with his finger. She wanted to know more, but if she would just be patient, he was sure it would all work out. The only problem was, he couldn’t tell her how it was going to work out yet. Because he didn’t know.
Bartel came to the back door, and Gabe and Sophie broke apart and pretended to be cleaning.
Tomorrow he’d be gone. But Sophie would be safe, and God would help him discover the truth about Sophie’s identity.
Please, God, help me work things out for Sophie and me to be together. He hadn’t wanted to seek God’s will, had been afraid that God truly didn’t intend for them to be together. But now he knew he needed God’s favor. You said all things work together for the good of those who love you. I wasn’t listening to you before, but I know I need you now. Please let it work out, God, for me to marry Sophie. God, I will follow you, no matter what you ask me to do.
Chapter 22
Sophie went about her work, and though she had been happier last night than she had ever been, a heaviness filled her today — worry, even fear, that things would not turn out as wonderfully as Gabe believed they would. There were so many things that could go wrong. And the fact that Gabe wouldn’t tell her where he was going hovered over her like a black cloud.
Was he going to see Brittola? She couldn’t think where else he could be going. What if he arrived and decided he wanted to marry Brittola after all? What if he couldn’t break their betrothal without angering the girl’s father and placing himself in danger? When he saw Brittola, the privileged daughter of a count who had been raised knowing how to handle herself in Gabe’s privledged world, he wouldn’t be able to help comparing her to Sophie. After all, she was little more than a scullery maid. Her skills were limited to making meat pies and fruit custards and knowing how to scrub wood tables and stone floors. The duchess had always told her she would never marry, that all she was good for was scrubbing floors.
Perhaps her romance with Gabe had been doomed from the start.
The thought of Gabe leaving her to go to Brittola, even if he intended only to tell her he wanted to break their betrothal, filled her with pain so intense she had to stop chopping leeks and wrap her arm around her middle. “God, please help me.” Help me to bear whatever pain is in my future.
Don’t borrow trouble, Petra had once told her. Sophie rarely had to borrow trouble, because it was always with her, but Jesus had also said in the book of Luke, “Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to your life?” And Gabe had told her that Jesus had also said, “Don’t worry about tomorrow, for each day has enough trouble of its own.” Still, Sophie couldn’t seem to shake this feeling of foreboding, that a wonderful future of love and marriage to Gabe was too good to be true.
Sophie had told herself she didn’t believe what the duchess said about her being unlovable, but the words were like burrs, stuck in the corners of her mind, so embedded that she didn’t know how to get them out. How could Gabe, who was so handsome and desirable and kind, who had grown up with loving parents, ever love someone like her? Of course he would choose Brittola over her.
Tears sprang to her eyes. She tried to blink them away, but one fell on her arm, and soon they were dripping down her face.
Gabe walked through the door at that moment and the air rushed out of her. How could she let him see her like this? How could she explain these tears? She tried to turn away from him.
“Liebling,” he said, using a term of endearment she’d rarely ever heard.