Chapter 9
Chapter
Nine
The morning broke pale and cool. A light frost crunched beneath her feet as she walked the path, the mist curling low about her ankles.
Eliza crossed the edge of the wood, her basket swinging lightly from her arm.
It was early to be out, she thought, with the sun not even fully in risen.
It was just streaks of pink and lavender above the tree line.
The air was damp, carrying that familiar scent of moss and turned earth, and for the first time in days, she felt something close to peace.
The forest was quiet, but not oppressively so. The birds had begun their morning calls; a wren darted past her shoulder, vanishing into the undergrowth. Light streamed through the branches in shifting golden beams. It was beautiful, tranquil — the sort of morning she had loved since childhood.
She did not hear him approach.
“Miss Ashcombe.”
The sound of her name startled her. She turned, breath catching, and there he was — Gabriel Hawthorne, standing not a dozen paces away, his dark coat stark against the mist.
“My lord,” she said, recovering herself as best she could. “You are forever more sneaking up on me. Must you move so silently?”
He inclined his head, the faintest hint of a smile touching his mouth. “A habit from the army, I suppose. Old instincts die hard.”
Something in his tone softened the space between them. He looked tired, though not from lack of sleep — it was something older, deeper. And yet there was warmth in his eyes when they met hers, a light that unsettled her more than any hint of danger ever could.
“This is a dangerous activity, Miss Ashcombe. I trust you are not in the habit of walking alone in these woods before sunrise,” he said.
“Not usually,” she admitted. “But solitude has always suited me better than company.”
“Then I am intruding.”
“No,” she said quickly, surprising even herself. “Not entirely.”
They stood in silence for a moment, the mist swirling around them. His gaze lingered on her face — not boldly, not with impropriety, but with quiet intent, as though he were trying to understand something he could not quite name.
“Why do you walk here in these woods alone?”
Eliza gestures around her. “Because the forest provides… We have a small garden, but we could never grow herbs in the quantity that we require them for all the remedies and cures my grandmother…”
“Conconts? Brews? Conjures in her cauldron?” He asked, with a teasing smirk.
“You jest, but she is powerful. More so than you can know and more so than I could ever hope to be,” she admonished softly. “I will, sadly, always be completely ordinary, whatever people whisper of me.”
“I meant no offense, Miss Ashcombe… Eliza. And you are not ordinary. Not in the least.”
There was something in his voice — some hint of warmth or something perhaps even more appealing— that drew her nearer.
She could see now that a lock of hair had fallen across his forehead, that his cravat was slightly askew, as though he had dressed in haste.
She wanted to say something, to lighten the moment, but words deserted her.
He took a single step closer, the damp earth soft beneath his boots. The air between them seemed to grow thinner, charged with something she could not define. When he reached out, his fingers brushed hers — a brief, searching touch — and she did not pull away.
She did not know who moved first. One heartbeat she was looking up at him, and the next his mouth was upon hers — tentative at first, then surer, the heat of it stealing her breath.
Her hand rose of its own accord, resting against the fine fabric of his coat, feeling the rapid thrum of his heart beneath.
The world contracted to that single point of contact. The forest, the mist, the sunlight — all of it faded until there was nothing but the warmth of him and the strange, dizzying certainty that this had been fated from the beginning.
And then the shot rang out.
It split the air with shocking violence.
Gabriel jerked against her, then stepped back.
No. He staggered back. For an instant she thought he had only been startled, or perhaps he’d recognized the folly of what they had just done.
But then she saw the blood — bright, impossibly red — blooming across his shirt.
And his sun bronzed skin began to turn pale before her eyes, taking on the gray and sickly pallor of impending death.
“Gabriel!”
There was no answer. He simply sank to his knees, leaning against the thick stump of an oak.
She dropped to her knees beside him, hands shaking as she pressed them to the wound, trying to stem the flow. The blood was warm beneath her fingers, soaking into her skin. “No, no, you must not—”
But his eyes were already dimming, the light fading from them like the last trace of day.
“Do not leave me,” she whispered, but her voice broke, and the world tilted, the forest blurring into shadows and smoke.
“Eliza…” Her name was carried on the wind, a soft and insidious whisper that chilled her. She turned to look back, to look into the trees at whomever it was that had taken the shot that had ended the life of a vital and virile man in his prime.
But her eyes never locked on anyone. A pair of strong hands seized her, closing about her throat with brutal force…
Then she woke with a strangled cry. Her hands were clawing at her throat as if to pry away those of her nightmare attacker.
As she moved, the chair creaked beneath her, and the fire had burned down to embers.
Her book lay open upon her lap, her hand still resting upon it as though she had never moved.
For a long moment she could not breathe, could not think.
The scent of gunpowder and the terrible coppery smell of blood still clung to the air — or perhaps it only lived in her mind.
Her fingers touched her lips, finding them trembling. They felt warm, though whether from fear or something far stranger, she could not tell.
Gabriel’s last memory was of his study.
He had been at his desk, reading by the faint light of a candle guttering low in its holder. A restless wind stirred the curtains, bringing with it the scent of rain. He thought he heard a sound outside — a voice, a laugh perhaps — and when he lifted his head, he was no longer in his study at all.
He stood in the forest.
The air was damp, heavy, frost crunching under his boots as mist curled around the trees. Somewhere nearby, water dripped through a hollowed tree, the sound echoing in the stillness. He turned — and saw her.
Eliza.
She was walking toward him through the mist, her skirts brushing against the ferns, her basket forgotten in one hand. The pale light caught the gold in her hair. When she smiled, it was small and uncertain, but it struck him like sunlight breaking through clouds.
He went to her without thinking.
“You should not be here,” he said quietly. “It is not safe.”
“You are here,” she answered.
Her voice was soft — softer than he had ever heard it — and it unsettled him in ways he could not have explained.
The space between them narrowed, until only a breath separated them.
He could see the quick rise and fall of her chest, could feel the warmth of her skin in the cool morning air.
And in that moment, he wanted nothing more than to taste the sweetness of her normally tart mouth.
When he reached for her, she did not flinch.
Their lips met, and the world seemed to still. Everything he had kept buried — the loneliness, the restraint, the careful armor of duty and pride, the regimented existence that he had permitted himself — fell away in that single, unguarded instant.
Then came the shot.
The sound tore through the silence like the crack of the world splitting open.
He saw her jerk, her eyes widening as a red bloom spread across the bodice of her gown. She swayed, and before he could catch her, she was falling. He dropped to his knees, gathering her against him, the fabric of her gown damp beneath his hands.
“Eliza!” His voice broke on her name.
But she did not answer. Her head lolled against his shoulder, her hair spilling over his arm like dark silk. The forest was silent again — cruelly, impossibly silent.
He woke with a start, his heart hammering and his throat tight with a scream he hadn’t given voice to.
The study was gone; he was in his bedchamber, drenched in sweat, the dawn light just beginning to seep through the curtains.
For several moments he sat motionless, staring into the dimness, listening to the pounding of his own pulse.
He had no memory of coming to bed. No memory of leaving the library and seeking the solace of his own chamber.
He certainly didn’t remember stripping down before climbing between the sheets.
Yet, he sat there, nude, sweat cooling on his skin in the chilled morning air as the remnants of the nightmare slowly faded.
It had been a dream. Only a dream. Yet it had felt as real as any battle he had ever fought. He could still feel the weight of her in his arms, the heat of her blood against his hands.
No. He would not allow such a thing to come to pass.
He rose, his decision already forming even as he moved to dress.
He could no longer leave her unguarded in that isolated cottage—a place where her vulnerability was known to any who might mean her harm.
Until he learned who had fired that shot in the forest—the real one and not the dream one— and why, Eliza Ashcombe and her grandmother would make their home at Ravenswood Hall.
He would call it prudence, protection — duty if he must. But deep down, he knew it was something far less rational, far more perilous.
For all the blood he had seen spilled in his lifetime, the thought of hers mingling with it was something he could not endure.
By the time the sun had risen fully above the trees, Gabriel Hawthorne, Earl of Blackburn, knew what he must do.
He would bring her under his roof. And—by whatever means necessary— under his protection, she would remain.