CHAPTER 5
He led her through the ruins of what had once been magnificent. The herb garden, now a tangle of woody stems and invasive weeds. The rose garden, where hips hung like drops of dried blood on thorny skeletons. The kitchen garden, its neat rows lost under a carpet of dead grass.
"My mother designed most of this," Gabriel said, stopping at what had once been a knot garden, its intricate patterns now an incomprehensible maze of overgrowth. "She passed when I was seventeen."
"I remember."
He glanced at her sharply. "You were already gone."
"I heard. Through letters from acquaintances."
"What friends?"
"People who weren't you."
It came out sharper than she'd intended. Gabriel's jaw tightened, but he didn't respond. They walked in silence to the orchard, where gnarled apple trees reached skeletal branches toward the gray sky.
"That one," Gabriel said, pointing to a particularly large tree. "That's where we…"
"Carved our initials. Yes."
They approached the tree together. The carving with their initials engraved in the bark was still there, grown over but still visible.
"We were foolish." Gabriel said softly.
"We were children."
“There is no difference.”
Clara traced the letters with one finger. "Do you ever wonder what would have happened if…"
"No."
“You disregard the truth.”
"Constantly."
The admission hung between them, dangerous and electric. Clara pulled her hand back, but Gabriel caught it, his fingers wrapping around hers.
"Your hands are freezing," he said.
"It's winter."
"And you're not wearing gloves because you're too proud to ask for them."
"I'm wearing a borrowed dress, living on charity, and cleaning your house for wages we haven't actually discussed. It is evident that any semblance of proper dignity has long since left.”
"No," he said, studying her hand with an intensity that made her stomach flip. "Your pride is intact. Battered, maybe. But intact. It's quite annoying, actually."
"Everything about me annoys you."
"Yes."
"Then why are you holding my hand?"
He seemed to realise what he was doing and dropped her hand immediately, stepping back. “That is enough for now. You've seen the gardens. Which, as I have said, are beyond resurrection. Go back inside before you freeze."
“I have not yet satisfied my curiosity in viewing it.”
"Yes, you have."
"You don't get to decide when I have finished."
"I'm your employer. I get to decide everything."
"You get to decide what I clean and when. You don't get to decide what I think or feel or hope for."
"Hope." He said it like it was a foreign word. "What could you possibly hope for here?"
"Spring," Clara said simply.
"Spring?"
"Things grow in spring. Even withered and worn things sometimes surprise you." She looked directly at him. "Even boys who turned into beasts sometimes remember they were once capable of kindness."
He flinched as if she'd slapped him. "I was never kind."
"You were. You were kind and funny and clever and…"
"Stop."
"…my best friend in the entire world until you decided I wasn't worth…"
"Stop."
"…even a proper goodbye…"
"I said stop!" The words tore out of him, raw and ragged. He turned away, hands fisted at his sides. "You don't understand."
"Then explain it to me."
"My father…" He stopped, shook his head. "It doesn't matter."
"It does to me."
"Why? Why does any of it matter now? We're different people. You're my employee. I'm your employer. That's all we are."
"If that's all we are, then why are you out here? Why did you follow me? Why do you watch me when you think I'm not looking?"
"I don't…"
"You do. You watch me as if you're trying to solve a puzzle or as if you are waiting for me to disappoint you. Or ..." She trailed off, unable to voice what else his looks might mean.
"Such as…" His voice was dangerously low, with the smooth, unnerving quietude that precedes a great storm.
“Pray, dismiss it from your thoughts.”
“No. You shall conclude your statement. Like what, precisely?”
Clara lifted her chin, meeting his gaze directly despite every instinct screaming at her to run. "Like you're trying to remember what we used to be to each other."
The silence stretched between them, strained to the utmost. Gabriel's scar stood out white against his flushed face, and Clara had the absurd urge to touch it, to smooth away the pain she could see etched in every line of him.
"We were friends," he said finally, flatly. "Children who didn't know better."
"We were more than that."
"No. We weren't. We couldn't be."
"Because of class? Because your father decided a physician's daughter wasn't suitable company for a future duke?"
"Because it was killing me!" The words exploded out of him. "Every letter, every thought of you, every memory of this damned garden was killing me slowly, and I had to stop. I had to become someone else, someone who didn't need…" He cut himself off, breathing hard.
"Need what?"
"You," he said, so quietly she almost missed it. "Someone who didn't need you."
Clara's heart stuttered in her chest. "Gabriel…"
"Don't." He backed away from her. "Don't look at me in that manner.”
“In what manner?”
"As if I'm still him. Like I'm still the boy you knew. I'm not. That boy perished somewhere between Eton and Waterloo, and what's left isn't worth your time or your hope or your…" He stopped again.
"My what?"
"Nothing. Go inside, Clara. That's an order."
"I don't take orders."
"You do now. You work for me."
“Then I shall tender my resignation.”
“Impossible. You have nowhere else to go."
“I shall contrive a solution.”
"No, you won't." He moved closer, crowding her against the tree. "You'll stay here, you'll take my money, you'll clean my house, and you will cease to regard me as though I were something I am not.”
“I look upon you as a man utterly devoid of sense.”
“Very well. Pray, do not cease.”
"It won't be difficult."
They glared at each other, both breathing hard, the space between them charged with eight years of silence and something else, something neither wanted to name.
"I should have written," Gabriel said suddenly. "Real letters. Explaining."
"Yes."
"I should have visited. That Christmas."
"Yes."
“I should have possessed the courage to defy my father's command entirely.”
"Yes."
"But I did not. I was a coward who chose the easy path, and now we're here."
"Yes."
"Do you ever say anything besides yes?"
"Yes." Clara paused. "Wait, no. I mean…"
Despite everything, Gabriel's mouth twitched. "Still can't lie properly."
“It appears you have not yet learned to offer a satisfactory apology.”
"I just did."
"No, you listed your failures and that most definitely does not constitute an apology”
Clara took a moment to ponder.
“I desire you to utter the words, I am sorry…. simply that, no justifications, no further explanations, and certainly no indulgence in self-pity.”
Gabriel looked at her for a long moment, his dark eyes unreadable. Then, quietly: "I'm sorry."
The words hit her harder than she'd expected. Her knees actually wobbled, and she had to lean against the tree for support.
"Clara?" Gabriel's voice was concerned now. "Are you…?"
"I'm well," she lied, badly. "Just cold."
"Come inside."
"In a moment."
"Now."
"Gabriel…"
"Please."
The 'please' did it. Clara allowed him to guide her back toward the house, his hand at her elbow, taking care so as not to touch her anywhere else. They walked in silence through the cold and dark gardens, past their wild rose, through the conservatory graveyard.
"Tea," Gabriel said once they were inside. "You need tea."
"I need answers."
"Tea first. Then questions."
"I have so many questions."
"I have so few answers."
"That's not reassuring."
"I'm not trying to be reassuring. I'm trying to be honest."
He led her to the kitchen, where he proceeded to demonstrate a complete inability to make tea. Clara watched him fumble with the kettle for approximately thirty seconds before taking pity.
"Sit," she ordered. "You're hopeless."
"I've been making my own tea for three years."
"And it shows. This water has been boiled at least four times. These leaves, I observe, are quite beyond their prime… Is that white substance indeed sugar, or is it salt?
Gabriel tasted it. His expression was answer enough.
“How is it you have managed to preserve your existence?” Clara asked, bustling around the kitchen with the efficiency of someone who'd been taking care of herself for years.
"Spite, mostly."
“That perfectly accounts for the matter.”
She made proper tea, finding fresh leaves in a tin behind something that might once have been bread but had evolved into its own ecosystem.
Gabriel watched her work with an intensity that should have been uncomfortable but instead felt familiar, like being ten years old and aware that your best friend was memorizing your movements for reasons neither of you could articulate.
"Here," she said, setting a cup in front of him.
He sipped, his eyes widening slightly. “I find this remarkably palatable.”
They drank their tea in companionable silence, the kitchen warming around them as the ancient range finally remembered its purpose.
"My father," Gabriel said suddenly, "…believed you were a distraction."
Clara waited, sensing this was important.
"He said I spent too much time in the gardens. Too much time writing letters. Too much time thinking about things that didn't matter to my future."
"I didn't matter?"
"You mattered too much." Gabriel stared into his tea. "He could see it, even if I couldn't. Or wouldn't. He said if I didn't cut ties with you, he'd make sure your father lost his position. He had that power as he owned half the mortgages in the county, including your father's house."
Clara's cup rattled as she set it down. "He threatened my family?"