Chapter 12
Chapter
Twelve
The cottage was dark.
The man stood at its edge—just beyond the low, stone fence.
He was motionless among the trees, the smell of damp earth surrounding him.
But there was no smoke rising from the chimney.
No dim candlelight from within. It was still.
Still in a way that revealed the emptiness of the place.
Leaves scattered by the wind had swept against the door—something that Helena Ashcombe would never permit.
Will it as he might, the door itself did not open. No one came or went.
They were gone. They were gone and he was fairly certain where.
He had suspected as much when he found the gate unlatched and the small path leading from it marked with tracks not of one but several pairs of boots.
Still, he had hoped — foolishly, perhaps — that one of them might have remained behind.
But the cottage was empty, silent, the very air inside stale with disuse.
He lingered in spite of that, his gloved hand resting against the frame. Not out of hope, but because he was planning—pivoting. Changing his plans to accommodate this most recent shift.
He’d meant to end it tonight. To walk out of the woods, knock once upon the door, and when she answered — as she always did — to finish it cleanly. No struggle. No spectacle. Just the sound of it, sharp and final, echoing through the trees.
It wasn’t what he wanted.
He had no appetite for killing, especially not someone he’d known since her girlhood. But he’d learned long ago that wanting and necessity were rarely the same thing. And if Eliza Ashcombe remained alive, the danger to him — to everything he’d built and everything he was owed — would only grow.
She was too much like the others before her. Too curious. Too fearless. Too indomitable. It was an Ashcombe trait.
Moving from his shadowed hiding space, he opened the gate and approached the cottage.
Trying the door, it opened easily and he stepped inside.
The floorboards creaked beneath his weight as dust drifted in the moonlight as he looked about the small room.
It still smelled of her — lavender and crushed rosemary, the faint sweetness of herbs hung from the rafters to dry.
A shawl lay draped across the back of a chair, and a book sat open on the table beside the cold hearth.
He closed it without reading the title.
They hadn’t been forced to leave. They’d packed some of their belongings. There were voids where certain items had been removed. That much was clear. There were also heavier boot prints outside — a man’s stride. Someone had come for them. Taken them to safety.
He ground his teeth, the muscle in his jaw tightening. The Earl. Blackburn had come for them just as he suspected. The confirmation of his earlier suspicions filled him with something dangerously close to fury.
So be it. If the game had moved to Ravenswood Hall, then he would move with it. It would not be the first time he’d had to bide his time, nor the first time he’d stalked his prey from shadows. The Hall could not shelter her forever.
He knew Eliza too well.
The woods called to her — always had. They were her home, her solace, her inheritance. Sooner or later, she would return to them.
And when she did, he would be waiting.
He stepped out once more into the night and turned toward the dark horizon where Ravenswood loomed beyond the hills, its chimneys faint against the pale shimmer of the moon. The cold wind rustled through the trees, whispering her name like a promise.
“Eliza,” he murmured. “You cannot hide from me forever.”
The forest seemed to sigh in answer.
The night was still and quiet, the silence broken only by the ticking of the clock.
The household had long since gone to sleep, but Gabriel found himself wide awake, staring into the dim glow of the dying fire.
The steady tick tick tick of the that infernal clock only seemed to amplify his restlessness.
He’d gone to bed early, exhausted from the day’s demands and from the sleeplessness of the previous night— yet sleep refused him.
He had thought that bringing the Ashcombe women under his roof would grant him peace of mind. Instead, it had done precisely the opposite. While the notion of her safety was one that gave him relief, her presence brought him anything but.
Gabriel rose, dragging a hand through his hair.
The air was cool against his skin as he crossed to the window, pulling the drapery aside.
Below, the grounds lay silvered in moonlight.
Somewhere beyond them lay the woods — dark, ancient, and alive in a way he could not quite explain.
He imagined that Eliza was already feeling their distance. She seemed so very at home there.
It was strange how her presence seemed to fill not only his mind but the house itself, though she had said little since their arrival.
He could feel it like a low hum in the air, a vibration beneath the calm.
A magnetic pull that he could not comprehend any more than he could resist it.
And he wondered, not for the first time, if she felt it too.
Unable to bear the confinement of the room any longer, he reached for his discarded shirt and breeches, donning them quickly before stepping out into the corridor.
He meant only to fetch a book and perhaps a measure of brandy — something to occupy his mind and perhaps send him into the dark abyss of sleep.
The house was hushed, save for the occasional groan of settling timber and the sigh of wind beneath the eaves.
The corridor stretched before him in shadows and pale bands of moonlight from the high windows.
His bare feet made no sound against the carpet as he passed the portraits of his ancestors, their painted eyes watching as though they disapproved of his wandering.
He reached the end of the hall — and stopped.
There, just beyond the turn that led to the library, stood Eliza.
She was barefoot, her hair loose down her back in soft, untamed waves.
In the dim light it appeared a dozen colors at once — blue, brown, gold, all shifting with the shadow.
Her night-rail was simple, modest even, but the old velvet wrapper she wore over it had long since lost its sheen, the fabric frayed at the cuffs and hem.
For a moment, he could not move. It was as though the dream had taken shape before him, solid and breathing.
“Miss Ashcombe,” he said softly. It felt foreign on his tongue to address her so formally when in his mind he had long since dispensed with such formality.
She started, turning toward him, one hand rising instinctively to her throat. “My lord. I… I did not hear you.”
“No one does,” he said, his voice low. “Old habits.”
Her lips curved faintly. “From the army, you mean?”
“From survival. One learns to be quiet when slipping behind enemy lines.”
They stood facing one another in the narrow corridor, the silence stretching taut between them. He could see the rapid flutter of her pulse at the base of her throat, the faint gleam of candlelight in her eyes.
“I could not sleep,” she admitted at last. “The air in this place feels… heavy.”
“It does,” he agreed. “This house--so full of grandeur and expectations—can be quite oppressive. I thought to fetch a book. And perhaps a drink.”
“Ah,” she said. “Then we are alike in that, for I thought perhaps a book might lull me as well.”
He took a slow step toward her. “Do you often wander the halls at night in your nightdress, Miss Ashcombe?”
Her chin lifted a fraction. “Only in houses where I do not feel entirely welcome.”
That stung more than he cared to show. “You are safe here. You have my word on that. And you are more than welcome.”
“I wonder,” she said quietly, her gaze meeting his. “You speak as though the danger were outside these walls, but I think it may be within them.”
He drew closer still, close enough that he could see the fine tremor of her breath, the rise and fall of her chest. “And do you count me among the dangers, Miss Ashcombe?”
“I have not yet decided.”
The admission, soft as it was, struck him with an odd, visceral force. He reached out then — slowly, giving her time to retreat if she wished — and brushed his fingers along her cheek. Her skin was warm, impossibly soft.
Her breath caught, but she did not step back.
“Your hair,” he said, his voice scarcely more than a whisper, as he lifted an errant curl and tested the silken texture between his fingers. “It changes with the light. I cannot decide if it’s brown, or gold, or red.”
“Perhaps it’s all three,” she said, her tone equally low. “Or none. I’ve long since given up trying to categorize it.”
His hand slid deeper into the fall of it, the soft strands catching against his fingers. He leaned closer, drawn not by intent but by something older and deeper — the same inexorable pull that had haunted his sleep. And she did not pull away.
When his lips found hers, it was not a surprise. It was inevitability.
The kiss was soft at first, questioning, then deepened as she yielded to it — or perhaps he did. The world around them seemed to fall away, leaving only the sound of their breathing and the faint crackle of the fire in some distant room.
And then, as her hand rose hesitantly to his chest, he knew.
He had kissed her before.
Not here, not now, but in that strange half-world between waking and sleep. The taste of her was the same — wild honey and something earthbound, like the air after rain. The dream had not lied.
He drew back slowly, his forehead resting against hers. “You,” he murmured, his voice unsteady. “It was you.”
Her breath trembled against his lips. “What do you mean?”
He searched her face, the confusion there mingling with something that looked very much like wonder.
“Nothing,” he said finally, though his voice was rough with it. “Nothing at all.”
But in the silence that followed, neither of them believed it.