CHAPTER 12 #2
Clara took a sip of brandy, letting it burn down her throat. "She knows about us. About our past, I mean. Mrs. Potter told her about the garden."
Gabriel's expression darkened. "Of course she did. Mrs. Potter has many wonderful qualities, but discretion isn't among them."
"She also knows about... the present situation."
"What present situation?"
"Gabriel, don't dissemble. She knows I've been sharing your bed."
"How could she possibly…"
"Because she's no fool, and we're not as discrete as we believe we are."
Gabriel set down his glass and moved to where Clara sat, kneeling before her chair in a gesture that would have been romantic if it weren't so fraught. "What did she say to you?"
"She offered to help me find employment elsewhere if I leave quietly without causing trouble."
"And if you don't leave?"
"Then she'll make sure I never find respectable employment again."
"She threatened you?"
"She presented options. There's a difference, though admittedly a subtle one."
Gabriel's hands clenched. “I shall bring about her social downfall.”
"No, you won't. She's your aunt, and despite her methods, she genuinely believes she's helping you."
"Helping me by threatening the one person who's made me feel human again?"
"Helping you by trying to secure your future with an appropriate wife who can give you legitimate heirs and restore your place in society."
"I don't want an appropriate wife. I want…" He stopped, but his eyes said everything.
"You can't have what you want. We both know that."
"Why not? Why can't I have you?"
"Because I'm nobody, Gabriel. I'm a physician's daughter who's fallen into service, who arrived at your door in stolen boots, who has no dowry, no connections, nothing to offer except…"
"Everything," he interrupted. "You offer everything. Your intelligence, your strength, your refusal to be intimidated by my moods or my scar or my reputation."
"Those aren't the things that matter in your world."
"Then maybe I need to change worlds."
"You can't. You're the Duke of Ashbourne. You have responsibilities, duties, a legacy to maintain."
"I have a title I never wanted and a life that feels like a prison."
"A gilded prison is still better than actual poverty, which is what I face if your aunt follows through on her threats."
Gabriel stood abruptly, pacing to the fireplace. "I won't allow her to hurt you."
"You can't protect me from the reality of our situation. I'm leaving in three weeks. Perhaps it's better if I go sooner."
"Don't." He turned to face her, and the raw pain in his expression took her breath away. "Please don't. Not yet."
"Gabriel…"
"Three weeks. You promised three weeks."
"That was before your aunt made it clear that staying could ruin any chance I have at a future."
"I'll give you a reference. I'll make sure you're provided for."
“And how will that look?” Clara demanded, her voice trembling more from emotion than anger. “The Duke of Ashbourne providing for his former housekeeper? Everyone will assume I was your mistress.”
Gabriel’s gaze held hers, dark and steady. “Weren’t you?”
The words landed like a physical blow…low, deliberate, and far too intimate.
“No,” she said quietly, after a moment that felt like an eternity. “I’ve been your housekeeper who happens to share your bed for warmth and comfort. We’ve maintained that boundary, at least.”
He gave a bitter little laugh. “A mere detail.”
“An important one.” Her chin lifted slightly. “When I leave here, I want to be able to say honestly that I was never your mistress, whatever else I might have been.”
He studied her face as though trying to memorize every line of it. “And what have you been, then?”
Clara hesitated, fingers tightening around the stem of her glass. “Your friend, I hope. Your companion for a brief time. Someone who cared enough to guide you back to a proper course of conduct.”
He scoffed. “Is that all?”
Her eyes met his, steady but sad. “What else could there be?”
“You could be my wife.”
The silence that followed was absolute. The words seemed to hang in the air, vibrating with their own impossible weight. Even Gabriel looked startled by them, as if they’d escaped before he could stop them.
Clara’s fingers went slack. The brandy glass slipped from her hand and shattered against the floor, the sound sharp and final.
“You don’t mean that,” she whispered.
“Don’t I?”
“You’re upset about your aunt’s threats. You’re not thinking clearly.”
“I’m thinking more clearly than I have in years.”
She shook her head, stepping back, her voice rising with something dangerously close to panic. “Gabriel, you can’t enter into matrimony with me.”
“I’m a duke,” he said evenly. “I can wed whomever I choose.”
“No, you can’t. The scandal would be ruinous. Your aunt would see to it that you were declared unfit for anything but exile. You’d lose everything.”
His mouth curved into a grim smile. “I’ve already lost everything that mattered. My mother. My sister. My friends in the war. What’s left to lose?”
“Your home. Your legacy. Your future.”
“None of that matters,” he said, his voice breaking the calm veneer for the first time. “What value can any possession hold if it cannot be offered to a beloved companion?”
“Then share it with Miss Ashworth…or someone appropriate.”
“Miss Ashworth is a child who deserves better than a scarred recluse twice her age in experience, if not years.”
“Then someone else,” she insisted. “London is full of pretty young women who would overlook your scars for your title.”
“I don’t want someone who overlooks them.” His voice dropped, raw and pleading. “I want someone who sees them and doesn’t flinch.”
“Gabriel…”
He crossed the room before she could retreat, took her by the waist, and pulled her to her feet. The movement was sudden, almost desperate, and when she found herself in his arms, she could feel the rapid beat of his heart against her chest.
“Tell me you don’t feel this too,” he said, his voice rough. “Tell me these three weeks haven’t meant everything to you.”
Her throat worked. “Of course they have,” she breathed. “But that doesn’t change reality.”
His hand came up to cradle her face, thumb tracing the faint curve of her jaw as if he were memorizing the feel of her. “Reality,” he said softly, “has done nothing but stand in my way since the day I met you. Reality is negotiable."
"Not this reality. Gabriel, I care for you too much to let you destroy your life for me."
"And I care for you too much to let you walk away without fighting for you."
"There's no fight to win. This isn't a battlefield where courage and determination can carry the day. This is society. Where the laws of decorum are quite unyielding.”
“Conventions are made only to be defied by those with spirit.”
"Not these rules. Not without consequences that would destroy us both."
He kissed her then, desperate and passionate, as if he could convince her through touch what words couldn't achieve.
Clara kissed him back, allowing herself to feel everything she'd been suppressing all day, the jealousy of watching him with Miss Ashworth, the fear of Lady Agatha's threats, the devastating knowledge that their time was running out.
When they finally broke apart, both were breathing hard.
"Stay tonight," Gabriel said. "Just tonight. Let me hold you."
"That's what you said last night, and the night before."
"And I'll keep saying it every night until you leave."
"Gabriel…"
"Please, Clara. Give me these three weeks. After that, if you want to go, I won't stop you."
“Do you give me your word?”
“I shall allow you to make your own choice when the time comes, upon my word.”
"That's not the same as promising not to stop me."
"It's the best I can offer."
Clara knew she should refuse, should pack her things and leave that very night before the situation grew worse. But the thought of three more weeks in his arms was too tempting to resist.
"Three weeks," she agreed. "But we maintain boundaries."
"The boundaries have already been destroyed.”
"The important one isn't."
"Is it so important?"
"Yes. Because when I leave, I need to know that what we had was more than just physical desire."
"It's already more than that."
"Then prove it by respecting this one limit."
Gabriel pulled her closer, resting his forehead against hers. "You're asking me to be a saint when every instinct is telling me to be a sinner."
"I'm asking you to be the gentleman you pretend not to be."
"That's even harder than being a saint."
"I have faith in your ability to surprise yourself."
He laughed softly. "Your faith is misplaced, but I'll try. For you, I'll try."
They went upstairs together, and Clara changed into his shirt while he turned his back, maintaining the illusion of propriety even as they prepared to share a bed.
When they lay down together, Gabriel pulled her against him, her back to his chest, his arms wrapped around her as if he could keep her there through sheer will.
"Tell me something true," he said into the darkness.
"I'm terrified," Clara admitted.
"Of Aunt Agatha?"
"Of leaving you. Of staying. Of wanting things I can't have."
“What do you want?”
“Things that don’t exist,” Clara said softly. “A world where class doesn’t matter. Where scars are only marks on skin, not definitions of worth. Where a physician’s daughter could love a duke without the whole world demanding penance.”
“Is that what this is? Love?”
She was quiet for a long time, the silence full of her breathing, her heartbeat. “What else would make us both so utterly foolish?”
“Lust?”
“That too,” she said with a faint smile, “but lust alone wouldn’t make me risk everything just to spend three more weeks in your arms.”
“And love would?”
“Love makes people do impossible things.”
“Like proposing matrimony to a woman you’re not supposed to even speak to?”
“Like accepting comfort from a man you should never have allowed near you.”
Gabriel bent his head and pressed a kiss to her shoulder, his lips lingering against her skin as though he could taste the shape of the moment. “We’re a disaster.”
“A complete catastrophe.”
“A slow-burning wreckage.”
She gave a tremulous little laugh. “And yet here we are.”
They lay in silence then, listening to the old house creak and settle around them, the wind rattling the windowpanes like some impatient messenger of winter.
“Clara?”
“Mmm?”
“What if I fought for you? Really fought? Made it possible somehow?”
“How would you do that?”
“I am not privy to the answer. But I’m a duke. I ought to be able to find a way.”
“Being a duke is part of the problem, not the solution.”
“Then I’ll give it up.”
Clara rolled in his arms to look at him properly, her expression torn between disbelief and longing. “You can’t give up a dukedom.”
“Can’t I?” he asked, almost reckless. “I’ll name a cousin my heir, disappear to the continent, live in happy obscurity with the woman I…” He stopped.
“With the woman you what?” she prompted, voice breaking.
“You know what.”
“Say it.”
“Why?”
“Because in three weeks I’ll be gone, and I want to hear it at least once.”
Gabriel cupped her face as though she were something rare and breakable.
“I love you, Clara Whitfield,” he said hoarsely.
“I’ve loved you since we were children grafting roses.
I loved you through eight years of silence.
I loved you when you appeared at my door half-dead.
And I will love you when you leave, even if it kills me. ”
Tears slid down her cheeks. “You can’t love me.”
“Too late.”
“Gabriel…”
“Say it back. Even if it doesn’t change anything, say it back.”
“I love you,” she whispered. ““Oh sweet mercy, I love you too.”
He kissed her then, not with desperation but with reverence, soft and deep and full of everything they could not have. When exhaustion finally claimed them, they slept tangled together, holding one another against the inevitable world outside their small, stolen sanctuary.