CHAPTER 8 #3
Oh Mercy…Gabriel thought, pulling the shirt on with movements that were definitely not hurried. She's going to be the death of me.
"Your list," he said, fastening buttons with fingers that were unquestionably steady, thank you very much. “You did mention a list did you not?”
"Indeed. Yes. List." Clara seemed to shake herself, straightening her spine and assuming what he'd come to think of as her 'managing' expression. "Staff interviews this afternoon. Three candidates for housemaid, two for footman, and one for cook."
"No."
"You already agreed."
"I agreed to temporary staff, not six people intruding upon my home."
"Six people is hardly an invasion. Most ducal households have dozens of staff."
"Most dukes aren't…" He gestured vaguely at himself.
"Ridiculously stubborn? Dramatically reclusive? Allergic to assistance?"
"Scarred."
"Oh, for goodness sake!" Clara stepped fully into the room, closing the door behind her with a decisive click that definitely didn't make Gabriel's pulse race.
“That imperfection upon your countenance is not, and shall never be, the defining feature of your life's accomplishments, nor the substance of your being.”
"Tell that to everyone who sees it."
"I see it."
"And?"
"And I'm still here, am I not?”
"You're here because I'm paying you."
"I'm here because…" She stopped, color flooding her cheeks.
"Because?"
"Because someone needs to save you from your own excessive sensibility.”
“I beg to differ.”
"You literally just stood there shirtless like a hero on a windswept moor, brooding about your scars."
“I was but completing my wardrobe.”
“You were posturing for effect.”
"I was not…" Gabriel stopped, because arguing would only prove her point.
“Very well then. However, I shall carry out the task of interviewing them myself.”
"Absolutely not."
“Let me be perfectly clear, I am the master of this estate.”
"And you'll terrify everyone with your glowering."
"I don't glower."
"You're glowering right now."
"This is my normal expression."
“My point exactly.”
She moved closer, and Gabriel had to focus very hard on not backing away. Or worse, moving toward her.
"Gabriel," she said, and the use of his name in this room, with him half-dressed and her looking up at him with those impossible eyes, was nearly his undoing. “Please place your confidence on me.”
How was this possible when my senses are heightened around her? I can barely trust myself not to press her against that door and…
“Very well, continue with whatever you are doing then and I shall return to my papers.”
Clara regarded him with that maddening calm of hers, the kind that made Gabriel feel as though she were peeling back his layers one by one until she found the inconvenient truth hiding beneath, the truth being his entirely inappropriate desire for her.
“Wear the burgundy waistcoat,” she said at last, as though delivering a royal decree.
He lifted a brow. “Why that one?”
“It softens your expression. Makes you appear marginally less inclined toward homicide.”
“I was under the impression it brought out my eyes.”
“Your eyes hardly need assistance,” she said before catching herself, color blooming high on her cheeks.
Gabriel’s lips curved. “No? And what, pray, do they need?”
“They’re already... present,” she managed, flustered. “Perfectly visible. On your face. Where eyes generally reside.”
“How astute of you.”
“I’m leaving now.”
“Splendid.”
Neither made the faintest move toward the door.
Her chin tilted. “Is there anything else you wish to add?”
“Only that you are incapable of following through on your threats of departure.”
“I am perfectly capable,” she said, but her voice lacked conviction.
He should have let her go. He didn’t.
Instead, Clara stepped closer, her hand rising hesitantly to his collar, fingers brushing the edge of his cravat as though she might steady herself by touching him. “There. Presentable.”
Gabriel caught her wrists before she could retreat, her palms flattening against his chest where his heart drummed with alarming insistence. “Clara.”
“This is a dreadful idea,” she whispered, her eyes darting to his.
“The very worst.”
“We have rules.”
“No touching.”
“We’re hopeless at rules.”
“Disastrously so.”
Her breath trembled between them. “We ought to stop.”
“Immediately,” he agreed, yet neither moved.
He felt the moment he surrendered to it, the quiet collapse of resistance, and the inevitable pull of her. His hands slid from her wrists to cradle her face, thumbs tracing the fragile curve of her jaw. Her lashes fluttered, her lips parted, and reason slipped quietly from the room.
One kiss, he told himself. Just one, if only to prove that it wouldn’t ruin him completely.
He lowered his head, their lips a breath apart…
"Gabriel! I forgot to mention…" Edmund burst through the door, took in the scene, and immediately about-faced. "I'll come back. In an hour. Or a year. Yes, a year seems good."
Clara jerked away as if burned, her face crimson. "I have to…interview…list…" She fled, nearly running over Edmund in her haste to escape.
Gabriel stood there, hands still raised as if holding her ghost, body tight with unfulfilled desire and pure frustration.
"So," Edmund said conversationally, still facing the wall. "Should I continue looking away, or have we returned to pretending that didn't almost happen?"
“Leave now.”
"As you wish” Edmund paused at the door. "Wear the green waistcoat. It matches her eyes."
Gabriel threw a boot at him.