Chapter 14
Chapter
Fourteen
The morning sunlight streamed through the tall windows of the breakfast room, glinting off silver and gold rimmed porcelain, filling the space with a deceptive warmth.
Ravenswood was never so bright as it was cruel — it showed every speck of dust, every shadow that lingered beneath the surface.
It showed the slight fading of the drapes, the chipped marble of the floor where something heavy had been dropped at one point.
It showed the every flaw. And try as he might to muster indifference, he knew that he was waiting, prolonging the meal in the hopes of seeing her. Eliza.
Gabriel sat at the far end of the long table, a cup of coffee cooling untouched before him. He had been there for some time, though he could not have said how long. The news sheets from London had arrived that morning. They lay neatly pressed on the table next to him, unread.
Across the table, the elder Miss. Ashcombe — Helena, he corrected silently — was speaking amiably enough about the house and its history, her voice as smooth and unhurried as ever. She seemed perfectly at ease in this setting, perfectly at ease in his house, which was curious in itself.
“I had forgotten how well the light strikes this room in the mornings,” she said, rising with slow grace. “It will be most pleasant for reading.”
“You’ve been here often?” He asked, somewhat surprised by the notion.
Her expression became slightly shuttered. “In my youth… I was quite close with the 5th Earl of Blackburn. We were… friends.”
They had been infinitely more than friends, Gabriel deduced. “What happened to him?”
“An accident,” she said. “Riding. He was thrown from his horse when it reared… spooked by something though no one has any notion what that was. He struck his head on one of the stone fences that litter the property. Afterward, he was unconscious for days. And when he did awaken he was…. Changed. Insensible. Much of the flaws you see in the house, broken bits of stone or poorly patched holes in the plaster—they are his doing. A product of his rages and temper.”
There was a deep and longstanding pain layered within her words and tone. She had loved him, he thought. She had loved him and watched him transform into someone she no longer recognized. “And his death?”
“Another accident… cleaning his pistols,” she replied softly.
Gabriel didn’t probe further. He didn’t need to. Both of them understood the truth of that. It had been no accident. That was simply a ruse to save face and to allow for a proper burial rather than some ignoble interment at a crossroads. Forgotten.
“The conservatory is the only portion of the house that my immediate predecessor improved upon. Everything else was left to moulder,” Gabriel said, offering the reprieve of a new and neutral topic. “With your love of plants and interest in herbs and remedies, it might be of interest to you.”
Helena, clearly grateful for the shift in conversation, sighed with relief. “I will look forward to exploring it with your permission.”
He waved his hand dismissively. “You do not need my permission. It’s a room that I have no notion what to do with. Explore at your whim, madame.”
Helena smiled warmly then. “No doubt my granddaughter will wish to see it as well… at some point.”
She glanced toward the doorway just as a shadow fell across it.
Eliza.
Helena’s expression softened, and she inclined her head toward Gabriel with the faint air of one who already knew more than she intended to say. “Then I shall leave you both to breakfast,” she murmured. “I find my curiosity about the conservatory is more voracious than my appetite for breakfast.”
Her departure was graceful, deliberate — and left a silence behind that seemed almost tangible.
Eliza lingered at the threshold for a moment, then stepped forward.
She wore the pale blue gown this morning.
The same one she’d worn on the first day they’d met.
He’d glimpsed it beneath her cloak. It was simple but elegant, the color softening the fatigue etched beneath her eyes.
She looked tired, yes — but beautiful in a way that unsettled him all over again.
“Good morning, Miss Ashcombe,” he said at last, rising slightly from his chair. His voice was steadier than he felt.
“Good morning to you, as well, my lord.” She inclined her head. Then she moved to the sideboard and served herself from the array of food prepared by the cook. When she turned to approach the table, she added, “I hope you are not finding our intrusion into your home to be an inconvenience.”
“Not at all.”
The footman moved forward to pull her chair out for her and she took her seat opposite him. The sound of poured tea, the faint clink of cutlery — all felt exaggerated in the stillness.
They began to eat, though neither seemed particularly inclined toward it. Every word exchanged was polite, measured, painfully ordinary.
“The weather appears to be turning,” she said at one point, her tone careful.
“So it does”
“I imagine it will make the roads quite treacherous.”
“Undoubtedly.”
Their conversation died as swiftly as it began.
He found himself watching her — the delicate movement of her hands as she lifted her cup, the faint tremor in the fingers that betrayed what her composed expression did not. Every detail of her face, of her presence, seemed burned into his mind from the night before.
He ought not to think of it. Ought not to remember the soft warmth of her mouth or the way she had leaned into him, however briefly. And yet he could think of nothing else.
When the footman stepped discreetly out to fetch more coffee from the adjoining pantry, Gabriel seized the chance that silence had denied him.
“Miss Ashcombe,” he began quietly.
She looked up, startled by the sudden change in his tone. “My lord?”
“I owe you an apology.”
Her brow furrowed, though she did not speak.
“For last night,” he continued, his voice low, steady. “I had no right to approach you as I did. It was inappropriate and inconsiderate, and I regret having made you uncomfortable.”
A flicker of something — disappointment, perhaps — crossed her expression. “You have not made me uncomfortable,” she said after a pause. “Merely… uncertain.”
He inclined his head slightly. “Then for that, too, I am sorry.”
Her gaze met his — wary, searching. “Are you?”
For a heartbeat, he said nothing. The truth hovered between them, impossible to ignore.
“For your discomfort and uncertainty, yes,” he said at last, his voice roughened by honesty. “I am sorry for that.”
She stilled. “My lord—”
He leaned forward, elbows braced against the table, his eyes locked on hers. “That kiss, Miss Ashcombe—Eliza—, may be the one thing I have done since my arrival in Dunrake-on-Swale that I do not doubt. Nor do I regret it.”
The words hung between them, weighted and dangerous.
Her breath caught audibly, her lashes lowering as if to shield herself from the intensity of his gaze. “You should not say such things,” she whispered.
“Perhaps not,” he agreed softly. “But I’ve spent the better part of the night reminding myself that I am a man of restraint. It seems I am failing rather miserably.”
Her lips parted, but no words came. He could see the pulse fluttering at her throat, could almost feel the warmth radiating from her across the short expanse of polished wood.
At that moment, the door opened, and the footman returned with the coffee. The spell broke instantly. Gabriel sat back, his expression once more composed, the perfect image of civility.
“Thank you,” he said coolly, and the servant resumed his post as if nothing had transpired.
But everything had.
Eliza kept her eyes fixed on her plate, though the tremor in her hand as she reached for her cup seemed far more pronounced. The silence stretched again, now charged with everything left unsaid.
When at last she rose, murmuring some excuse about joining her grandmother in the conservatory, he stood as she passed. The faint brush of her skirts against him as she passed felt like a brand. Close enough to touch but still out of his reach, he thought.
As the door closed behind her, he let out a slow, unsteady breath and pressed a hand to his temple.
He had no business wanting her.
And yet, want her he did — in defiance of reason, propriety, and whatever common sense remained to him.
He returned to his seat, brooding at the table as the remainder of his breakfast and the freshly poured coffee grew cold.