CHAPTER 3 #2
"Ancient history," he said dismissively. "And irrelevant. The question is what to do with you now."
"I can leave," Clara said immediately, pride flaring despite everything. "Just return my dress, such as it is, and I'll…"
His laugh was ugly, bitter. "Leave? You can barely breathe without wheezing.
Your feet are so damaged you won't walk for days.
You have no money, yes, I checked your pockets, don't look so shocked, no family, no position.
Where exactly would you go? Back over my wall to die in my garden like some tragic heroine? "
"If necessary."
"How dramatically foolish of you." But his arms tightened around her again, and she realised with a start that he was shaking. No, they both were. "You always were too proud for your own well-being.”
"And you always were too cruel when you were frightened," The sharp retort flew from her lips before she could check herself.
The silence that followed was deafening. His body went completely still behind her, hardly daring to breathe. When he finally spoke, his voice was soft and infinitely more dangerous.
“Frightened? “Do you truly believe that I am frightened?”
Of what exactly? Pray tell.”
"My aunt passed." Clara she stated without any expression.
"The fever took her and half of Bath. I got a position as a governess.
The master had wandering hands and a wife who blamed me for it.
I was dismissed without reference. I tried to find work, seamstress, shop girl, anything.
But without references, without connections.
.." She trailed off. "So yes, I stole boots. I walked for three days through sleet to get here. Because even your cruelty seemed better than freezing to death in a ditch. However, I do believe that I was gravely mistaken.”
She felt him swallow, his throat moving against her hair.
"The rose," she said suddenly, desperately needing to change the subject. "You said it survived."
"It's a weed," he said after a moment. "Grows wild all over the west wall. Impossible to kill. Rather like its gardeners, apparently."
"We grafted it well."
"We were children playing at being clever. It was luck, nothing more."
"It was…" Clara started to argue, then stopped. What was the point? This wasn't the boy who'd delighted in their creation. This was someone else, someone harder and meaner and absolutely determined to hurt her as much as possible.
"You're crying," he observed clinically.
She hadn't realised she was. "No, I'm not."
"Terrible liar, as always." His thumb brushed across her cheek, catching a tear, and for a moment his touch was almost gentle. Then he seemed to catch himself, his hand dropping away. "This is why you shouldn't have come. I'm not... I'm not who you remember."
“That much is clear.”
"The boy you knew no longer exists.”
“Very well,” Clara said with feeling. "He was a coward who chose his father's approval over keeping his word. At least you're honest about being horrid."
She felt him flinch as if she'd slapped him.
“Leave” he said quietly.
“By all means, my dress?"
"In the morning. When you can walk without collapsing. Until then, you'll stay here, you'll eat what I give you, and you'll be grateful for it. Then you'll leave and never come back."
“It would afford me the greatest satisfaction.”
They sat in furious silence, still wrapped together, both too proud to be the first to move, and despite everything, the anger, the hurt, the years between them, Clara became aware of his every move.
The way his heartbeat had accelerated when she'd called him a coward.
The way his hands, for all his cruel words, held her carefully, avoiding her bruises.
The way he'd said "the boy you knew No longer exists.
" As if he was trying to convince himself.
"Your scar," she said suddenly.
Every muscle in his body went rigid. "What of it?"
"I just... I wanted you to know. It did not escape my notice.”
“Fear not. Revulsion will come after you have recovered fully to observe it properly.”
Clara wanted to argue, but exhaustion was pulling at her again, making her eyelids heavy. "Gabriel?"
"Your Grace," he corrected again, but with less venom.
"Your Grace, then. Why didn't you send me away immediately? Why bother saving someone you clearly despise?"
He was quiet for so long she thought he wouldn't answer. When he finally spoke, his voice was barely a whisper…I may be an unfeeling beast, but I am no common murderer.”
"There's a difference?"
"One implies a choice."
She wanted to ask what he meant, but sleep was claiming her again, pulling her under despite her best efforts to stay awake and angry.
"Sleep," he commanded, and this time it sounded less like concern and more like an order from a duke used to being obeyed. "You're no use to anyone so weakened.”
“I am not tenderly concerned as you say…it is merely the circumstances that have forced my hand here to attend to you.”
"I thank you, Your Grace," she said with as much sarcasm as she could muster, “For the mere appearance of humanity.”
“You are welcome Miss Whitefield.” He retorted in the same tone as herself.
Despite everything, the pain, the humiliation, the bizarre horror of their reunion, Clara found herself almost smiling.
This was awful, yes. He was cruel, yes. But underneath the venom and the scar and the years of silence, she could still hear the boy who'd argued with her about everything just for the pure pleasure of arguing.
He was still in there, somewhere, buried under all that cold ducal armor.
The question was whether she'd survive long enough to find him.
As she drifted back to sleep, she felt his arms adjust around her, pulling her closer despite his harsh words. His chin came to rest on top of her head, a gesture so familiar from their childhood that her heart ached.
"I'm sorry," she thought she heard him whisper, but she was already falling into dreams of roses and bitter boys and the space between what was said and what was meant.
When she woke again, hours or days later, the first thing she heard was his voice, low and vicious: “If you are here merely to satisfy your idle curiosity, Edmund, I'll throw you out myself, friendship be damned."
A second voice, responded in an amused tone. "I came because the entire village is in a stir concerning lights in Ashbourne Hall and the Duke actually answering his door. I had to see if you'd finally gone completely mad or merely partially so."
"Leave now."
"Is that... Gabriel, is that a woman?"
Clara kept her eyes closed, feigning sleep, intensely aware that she was still pressed against Gabriel in nothing but her undergarments and blankets.
"Your powers of observation astound me," Gabriel said dryly.
"You have a woman in your library, in your arms." The very air was brimming with such a remarkable sense of delight. "Gabriel Hale, you are the most dissembling of men All this time playing the beast in the castle, and you've had a…"
"Finish that sentence and I'll finish you."
"She's rather pretty, from what I can see. Bit thin. Familiar looking, actually. Is she… oh have mercy, is that the Whitfield girl? The one you used to write about at school?"
"Her name is Miss Whitfield, and she's leaving as soon as she is quite steady upon her feet, she shall leave.”"
"Leave? Gabriel, the woman is clearly…"
“Leave she shall,” Gabriel repeated with finality. “Just as you are leaving this very instant.”
"You can't just…"
"Edmund." Gabriel's voice had gone deadly quiet. "Go. Now."
There was a long pause, then footsteps retreating. At the door, Edmund's voice drifted back: "You know, Gabriel, playing the beast only works if you don't care about the beauty dying in your arms."
The door closed with a decisive click.
Gabriel's body was vibrating with tension. Clara could feel his rage in every rigid line of him.
"You can stop pretending now," he said coldly. "I know you're awake."
Clara opened her eyes. “Edmund seems quite amiable.”
“Edmund is deficient in sense.”
"He's your friend."
"I don't have friends."
“That is quite evident.”
They glared at each other, or rather, Clara glared at the wall while feeling his glare boring into the back of her head.
"This changes nothing," he said finally. "You leave tomorrow."
"Today," Clara corrected. "I leave today."
"You can't even stand."
"Watch me."
She tried to pull away from him, to stand, to do anything other than remain in his arms like some pathetic dependent. Her body had other ideas. The moment she tried to move, pain shot through her feet, her legs, everything. She made an undignified sound and fell back against him.
“You willful, unreasoning simpleton,” he muttered, but his arms came around her again, steadying her.
"Let me go."
"So you can collapse and crack your head open on my floor? I think not. I've had enough blood on these carpets."
The casualness with which he said it made her stomach turn. "Gabriel…"
"Don't." The word was sharp, final. "Don't you dare pity me."
"I wasn't…"
"You were. You are. Poor scarred Gabriel, hiding in his castle, probably mad from the war, definitely drinking too much. That's what you're thinking, isn't it?"
“I find you possess a most detestable nature, I confess.”
He made a sound that might have been a laugh if it hadn't been so bitter. “I will grant it is plain truth.”
They sat in miserable silence, two people who'd once been everything to each other now trapped in the roles of reluctant savior and unwanted burden.
“I shall repay you,” Clara said suddenly. "For the food, the shelter. Once I find work, I'll…"
"With what references? What connections? Who's going to hire a woman who came to a duke’s estate in a state of profound prostration? With nothing but a pair of stolen boots on her person?”
“I will find a solution.”
"No," he said slowly, as if an idea was forming. "No, you won't."
Something in his tone made her skin prickle. "What do you mean?"