CHAPTER 10 #2
He didn’t let her finish. His mouth found hers, fierce and unrestrained, the kind of kiss that stripped language from the world. It was all breath and heat and ache, every unsaid word translated into touch. When they finally broke apart, both were breathing as though they’d run for miles.
“Stay,” he said, his voice hoarse.
“I am staying.”
“No,” he said, cupping her face. “I mean tonight. Stay with me.”
Her lashes fluttered. “Gabriel…”
“Not for... improper acts,” he managed, the words dragged out of him with visible effort. “Just stay. Sleep beside me. Let me hold you.”
“That’s dangerous.”
“Everything about this is dangerous.”
"The servants are certain to talk.”
“Let them amuse themselves. I am prepared to suffer their discourse.”
“Your aunt…”
“Can hang herself with her odious purple dress.”
Clara laughed, quiet and incredulous, the sound like something breaking. “One night.”
“Every night. For our month.”
“Gabriel…”
He swallowed, pride falling away. “I beseech you…”
The word landed between them with the weight of a confession. Gabriel Davenport did not plead. He did not ask. He commanded, demanded, endured. But now, his need was too raw to disguise.
Her eyes softened. “Every night,” she said quietly. “But only sleeping.”
“Only sleeping,” he echoed. It was mutually understood that the circumstance amounted to a sweet deception, utterly devoid of truth.
He led her down the corridor, the manor hushed around them, shadows spilling like secrets across the floor. His room smelled faintly of cedar and smoke, the air heavy with warmth. He handed her one of his shirts, the white linen soft and oversized.
“I’ll turn around,” he said, and did, every rustle of fabric behind him feeling like a test of will.
“Gabriel,” she said softly. “You can turn around.”
He did. And promptly forgot how to breathe.
She stood barefoot by the fire, drowning in his shirt, the hem brushing her thighs, her hair tumbling loose in a dark, unruly halo. The sight of her bare legs, bare face, utterly unguarded, undid something in him.
“This scheme is altogether devoid of sense!” she said.
“Completely.”
“We’re going to regret it.”
“Undoubtedly.”
But when she climbed into his bed and he slid in behind her, everything else ceased to matter. She fit against him perfectly, her back to his chest, his arm looping around her waist as if his body had been designed to keep her there. Her scent of soap, roses, and warmth filled his lungs.
"You're doing it again," she murmured without opening her eyes.
Clara woke to the sensation of being observed, which should have been alarming but had become rather commonplace in the three nights she'd been sharing Gabriel's bed.
He had a habit of waking before dawn and studying her in the pale pre-morning light, as if memorizing her features for some future solitude.
"I haven't the faintest idea what you're referring to, though I must say it's rather presumptuous of you to accuse me of anything when you're currently occupying three-quarters of my bed and have somehow managed to steal all the blankets despite being half my size."
Clara smiled into the pillow. "You gave me the blankets when I mentioned being cold, and as for the bed situation, you're the one who keeps pulling me closer in your sleep, so really, the territorial violations are entirely your doing."
“A wicked slander! When I sleep, I am perfectly still, like any properly interred gentleman should be.”
Clara finally opened her eyes and turned to face him, finding him propped on one elbow, his dark hair thoroughly disheveled and his scarred face soft with something that looked dangerously like contentment.
"Perfect composure? Is that what we're calling the way you practically attacked me against the library door last night? "
"That wasn't an attack, it was a carefully orchestrated romantic gesture that happened to involve some slight enthusiasm regarding the removal of your hairpins."
"Slight enthusiasm? Gabriel, you broke two of them and nearly set my hair on fire with that candle you knocked over."
“The candle was poorly placed,” Gabriel said, attempting a veneer of composure that fooled no one, “and those hairpins were clearly defective. I’ll buy you new ones, perhaps a set less inclined to sabotage my romantic endeavors.”
Clara arched a brow, her hair a glorious disarray around her shoulders. “Is that what we’re calling your attempts to undress me with your teeth?”
His eyes darkened, the faintest curl tugging at his mouth. “Would you prefer I use my hands?” he asked, voice low enough to make her pulse stumble. “I assure you, I’m perfectly capable of demonstrating alternative methods if you find my current technique unsatisfactory.”
She did, however, regain her equilibrium, though scarce escaping a most grievous outcome.
“Your current technique,” she said, smoothing a trembling hand over her hair, “You will be the utter ruin of us both if you do not instantly acquire some measure of prudent restraint, particularly with your aunt arriving in...” She glanced toward the window where dawn had begun to pale the edges of the curtains. “Approximately four hours.”
Gabriel followed her gaze, the early light tracing her collarbone, the faint mark his mouth had left there. “Then we have three hours and fifty-nine minutes,” he murmured, “to practice restraint very, very poorly.”
“Gabriel,” she warned, but it came out far softer than intended.
“Clara,” he returned, already leaning closer, his smile wicked and unrepentant. “I did promise honesty, didn’t I?”
“Honesty, yes,” she whispered, as his fingers brushed the back of her neck, “but not this sort of enthusiasm.”
“Too late for distinctions,” he said against her skin, and when she laughed, breathless and half-scandalized, it was the sound of surrender dressed as protest.
“Your aunt…
The mention of Lady Agatha had the same effect as a bucket of cold water.
Gabriel groaned and fell back against the pillows.
“Pray, do not put me in mind of that particular torment which lies before us. The formidable woman will cast but a single glance upon this house and instantly declare me fit for confinement.”
"The house looks perfectly respectable now, thanks to our efforts and the new staff who, I might add, have been working themselves to exhaustion trying to make this place presentable."
"It's not the house I'm worried about. It's my ability to maintain a facade of cold indifference when all I really want to do is lock the doors, send everyone away, and spend the next three weeks showing you exactly how thoroughly I plan to ruin you for all other men."
Clara's breath caught. "Gabriel, you can't say things like that when we have to pretend to be professionally distant in a few hours."
"I can say whatever I wish in my own bed, especially when you're wearing my shirt and looking at me like you're considering letting me follow through on that promise."
"I'm looking at you like someone who knows we need to get up and prepare for what's going to be an absolutely dreadful day of pretending we haven't been sharing a bed for three nights."
"Three nights of torture, you mean. Do you have any idea what it's like to have you pressed against me, wearing almost nothing, and not be able to do anything about it?"
Clara sat up, his shirt falling off one shoulder in a way that made Gabriel's hands clench in the sheets. "We should discuss our strategy for today. Your aunt is going to be looking for any excuse to declare you incompetent, and finding me in your bed would certainly provide that."
“Permit her to find you precisely where you are. I shall merely convey that I am undertaking a thorough evaluation of your housekeeping proficiency, a task which necessitates my constant presence and attention.”
“That, Gabriel, is altogether devoid of sense.”
"Your supervisory duties involve quite a lot of kissing for someone who claims to be maintaining professional boundaries."
"I'm examining your communication skills which are extremely important for giving direction to the other staff members."
Clara laughed, shoving him playfully. "You're impossible. We need an actual plan that doesn't involve you improvising ridiculous explanations for why your housekeeper is wearing your shirt."
"Fine. You'll sneak back to your room before the staff arrives, we'll maintain perfect propriety throughout the day, and tonight after Aunt Agatha leaves, I'm going to kiss you until you forget your own name."
"That's not a plan, that's a combination of common sense and wishful thinking."
"It's a perfectly viable strategy that accounts for both immediate necessities and long-term goals."
"Your long-term goal is to kiss me until I forget my name?"
"Among other things that would definitely scandalize you if I enumerated them in detail."
"I don't scandalise easily."
"Is that a challenge? Because I have an extensive imagination and three weeks to test your limits."
Clara stood, trying to ignore the way Gabriel's gaze tracked her bare legs. "I need to go to my room before Mary arrives to light the fires. The last circumstance we require is for unwelcome gossip to reach the critical ears of your aunt.”
Gabriel caught her hand as she passed, pulling her down for a kiss that was thorough enough to make her knees weak. "For courage," he said against her lips.
"Whose courage? Yours or mine?"
"Both. We're going to need all the courage we can muster to survive Hurricane Agatha."
"Hurricane Agatha? That's rather dramatic even for you."
"You haven't experienced the full force of her disapproval yet. The woman could wither roses with a glance and probably has on several occasions."
Clara extracted herself reluctantly. "Then we'd better make sure she has nothing to disapprove of, hadn't we?"
"She'll find something. She always does. Last time she visited, she spent twenty minutes lecturing me on the inappropriate length of my hair, and that was before the scar gave her additional ammunition."
"Your hair is perfectly appropriate."
"It's too long by her standards, which is apparently antiquated and overly severe unorthodox ordinance regarding masculine presentation that I've repeatedly failed to achieve."
"I quite have a liking for it at that length. It makes you look less like a military automaton and more like a romantic poet."
"A romantic poet? Good gracious. Next you'll be saying I should take up writing sonnets about your eyes."
"My eyes would hardly inspire sonnets."
Gabriel sat up, his expression suddenly serious.
"Your eyes are worth entire epic poems, Clara Whitfield, and if I had any poetic talent whatsoever, I'd spend the next three weeks composing verses about the way they change color depending on the light, or how they darken when you're aroused, or the way they flutter closed just before I kiss you. "
Clara felt heat flood her cheeks. "You can't say things like that and expect me to maintain composure in front of your aunt."
"Then I'll refrain from mentioning how your lips part slightly when you're concentrating, or how you bite the lower one when you're trying not to laugh at my jokes, or how thoroughly I plan to worship them tonight after…"
She pressed her hand over his mouth. "Gabriel Edmund Hale, if you don't stop this instant, I'm going to march downstairs and tell your aunt exactly what you've been doing with your supposed professional boundaries."
He kissed her palm, and she felt it all the way to her toes. "Edmund's not my middle name, though I appreciate the attempt at formal scolding."
"What is your middle name then?"
"Alexander, after my grandfather who was apparently even more dissolute than I am, though he had the good sense to conduct his affairs with more discretion."
"Affairs plural?"
"According to family legend, he kept three mistresses simultaneously, yet somehow contrived to persuade each individual that they alone were the object of his singular devotion.”
“How positively dreadful!”
"That's the Hale family tradition, terrible at love but excellent at self-destruction."
Clara pulled her hand away. "You're not terrible at love."
"Aren't I? I'm currently compromising my housekeeper while facing potential legal action from my aunt and somehow convincing myself this is all perfectly reasonable."
"It is perfectly reasonable, given the circumstances."
“The circumstances being that I am wholly deranged with devotion for you, and have been since the moment you appeared half-perished upon my threshold?”
“The circumstances being that we possess but three weeks to be perfectly candid with one another before my inevitable departure.”
Gabriel’s countenance changed ever so slightly at this.
"Don't," she said softly. "Don't retreat just because I mentioned leaving."
"How can I not? Every moment with you is borrowed time, and we're spending it playing house like children who don't understand consequences."
"We understand consequences perfectly well. We're choosing this despite them."
"Which makes us either very brave or incredibly foolish.”
"Why not both? They're not mutually exclusive, as you're so fond of pointing out."
That drew a small smile from him. "Go to your room, Clara, before I decide to bar the door and refuse to allow my aunt in at all."
"That would rather defeat the purpose of proving your competence."
"I'm perfectly competent at quite a number of things, none of which I can demonstrate with my aunt present."
She kissed him once more, quick and sweet, then fled to her room, her heart racing and her lips tingling. Three weeks, she reminded herself. Three weeks of this careful dance between public propriety and private passion.
It was going to be the longest and shortest three weeks of her life.