Chapter 14
Chapter Fourteen
“Unstable variables created disorder,” Gabriel muttered to himself in his study, as though that explained everything.
Gabriel found himself making a deliberate habit of not being alone with Miss Amelia Shirley.
It was not fear in any conventional sense, he told himself, but prudence.
She was too honest for her own good, too quick to speak what others would conceal, and far too empathetic to be safely predictable within his household.
And yet the explanation did not fully satisfy him, which he found irritating. He disliked anything he could not neatly categorize.
He also disliked, more privately, the fact that his thoughts returned to her with irritating frequency.
It is simply because she disrupts structure, because she challenges authority, because she does not behave like someone who understands her place; that is the material truth of my attention to her and nothing more.
“A governess,” he said aloud, staring at a stack of correspondence, “should not be this… complicated.” The word itself felt inadequate. He leaned back in his chair, exhaling through his nose, trying to focus on accounts rather than the memory of her voice. It did not work for long.
As if summoned by his irritation, the kitten they had rescued entered the study without ceremony. Gabriel looked up just in time to see it leap onto his desk, then calmly onto his lap as though it had declared itself the master of the house.
“No,” he said, frowning down at it. “Absolutely not.”
The kitten blinked at him as though he were the unreasonable one in the situation then settled more comfortably against his waistcoat.
Gabriel tried to lift it away with two careful fingers, but the creature responded by digging its claws into the fabric with infuriating determination.
“That is entirely unacceptable behavior,” he informed it sternly, only for the absurdity of speaking to a cat to catch up with him.
To his surprise, something in the situation cracked his composure. The kitten refused to move, refusing even dignity in defeat, and Gabriel found himself exhaling something that might have been a laugh despite his better judgment.
“You are insufferable,” he told it, though his tone had lost some of its severity.
The kitten purred louder in response, as though taking this as approval rather than criticism. Gabriel leaned back slightly, studying it with reluctant interest, his earlier irritation fading into something closer to reluctant acceptance.
“You are not a dog,” he added, as though that explained its moral failing.
He attempted once more to remove it, only for it to cling stubbornly to his sleeve and refuse relocation with the confidence of something entirely unafraid of consequences. Gabriel paused, then sighed in defeat, rubbing a hand over his temple.
“Very well,” he muttered, “but you will behave.”
The kitten blinked slowly, entirely unimpressed, and curled into a tighter ball as though settling in for permanent residence.
After a moment of silence, Gabriel leaned back and said, almost reluctantly, “Shadow.” He tested the name once more, watching as the kitten responded only by purring louder.
“It suits you,” he added after a pause, though he was not entirely sure why he had chosen it beyond the simple fact that it lingered like a shadow.
Shadow remained firmly on his lap, refusing all suggestions of independence. Gabriel stared down at it and sighed again, though this time without genuine irritation.
“I am not keeping you,” he informed it, though he made no immediate effort to remove it either. The contradiction, he decided, was not worth analyzing. He returned to his papers, the kitten unmoved.
Later that afternoon, Dr. John Hunt arrived, bringing with him the familiar friendship conversation and medicinal practicality.
“You look like a man who has been overrun in his own household,” John teased mildly as he entered the study.
Gabriel did not look up at first. “Only overrun by one small creature,” he corrected.
John raised an eyebrow as he sat opposite him. “Ah,” he said, noticing Shadow, “so it seems. I must admit I’ve never seen anything so shocking. The Duke of Anderton… with a cat on his lap.”
“Do not try me. I shall call for tea,” Gabriel said as he finally stood up, and the cat jumped off.
Moments later, tea was served with the usual quiet efficiency, the kind Gabriel preferred because it required no unnecessary conversation.
John, however, rarely respected silence for long. “I heard something interesting in town. I thought you would want to hear it,” he said eventually, stirring his cup.
Gabriel’s gaze lifted slightly. “That depends on your definition of interesting.”
John smiled faintly. “It is about Miss Amelia Shirley.”
Gabriel’s hand paused fractionally on the edge of his desk before continuing its movement with controlled ease.
“What about her?” he asked evenly.
John clearly was unconcerned by the shift in tone.
“It seems she fled a betrothal while visiting the Duke of Mansfield,” he said, watching Gabriel carefully now, “and rather inconveniently, that Duke is now engaged to one of her sisters, Bethany.” The words settled in the room with an uncomfortable weight. Gabriel said nothing at first.
Gabriel’s mind, however, was already turning over implications, consequences, and timing.
“Does she know?” John asked after a moment.
Gabriel exhaled slowly. “I doubt it,” he said finally. The idea of Amelia learning such information from anyone other than him sat uncomfortably in his mind, though he could not have explained why without irritation.
John studied him with the expression of a man who had known him too long to miss subtle changes. “You intend to tell her,” he said, not a question.
Gabriel’s eyes narrowed slightly. “Yes,” he replied simply. There was a pause, during which the only sound in the room was the faint crackle of the fire and Shadow’s persistent purring.
John nodded once, then leaned forward slightly. “Careful how you do it,” he said quietly. Gabriel gave no reply.
Then, “I think you should see to David’s arm. He scraped it on the fence—a minor thing, but I want it looked at just the same.”
“Of course, I’ll go at once,” John said, setting down his cup.
“You will find him in the nursery. Mrs. Jacobs will take you,” Gabriel said.
John left the study, and Gabriel remained staring into the fire without seeing it. Shadow had fallen asleep, entirely unbothered by the shift in atmosphere.
Gabriel looked down at it and sighed faintly. “You are entirely unaware of the complications you have walked into,” he muttered.
The kitten did not respond. He found, somewhat to his irritation, that he was already thinking about how Amelia would react when she learned about her sister, and strangely found it concerning that he was thinking.
I hope this does not hurt her.
That evening, the dining room was unusually quiet, broken only by the soft clink of cutlery and the occasional rustle of linen. Gabriel sat at the head of the table as he always did, though tonight he found his attention refusing to remain on his plate.
Amelia sat further down with David and Valerie, deliberately avoiding his gaze, her posture composed yet slightly too careful to be natural.
David, in contrast, was behaving with suspicious decorum, as though determined to prove he could survive an entire meal without incident.
Even Grover lay unusually still beneath the sideboard, though the kitten Shadow was already plotting chaos from a chair.
Shadow chose that moment to announce himself with a loud, insistent meow and a reckless leap toward Gabriel’s lap. The movement was so sudden that even the servants paused, and Valerie’s lips twitched as though laughter was dangerously close to escaping.
Gabriel caught the kitten with a resigned hand, staring down at the small creature now clawing determinedly at his sleeve.
“This,” he said flatly, lifting the kitten slightly away from his waistcoat as it attempted to climb again, “was a terrible idea.”
Amelia looked up immediately, her eyes bright with amusement, which she was clearly trying to suppress. “He appears to disagree, Your Grace,” she replied lightly, folding her hands as if entirely innocent of the creature’s behavior.
Gabriel attempted to place Shadow back on the floor, but the kitten responded by extending its claws into his sleeve with remarkable conviction.
A faint hiss of fabric tearing made him pause; then, much to his own surprise, he let out a short, unwilling laugh. Valerie looked sharply at him as though she could not quite believe the sound had come from her uncle.
Amelia’s expression softened into something warmer, though he noticed that she quickly hid it behind a sip of water.
“He is not a dog,” Gabriel muttered, still holding the kitten at arm’s length as it continued to purr loudly, “and I am a dog person.”
Shadow responded by digging in more firmly, as though offended by the classification.
Amelia tilted her head slightly, watching him struggle with something so small and determined. “Then perhaps he is simply a very confident cat,” she said, as though offering a diplomatic compromise.
Gabriel finally gave up and set Shadow carefully onto his lap instead, where the kitten immediately curled up as if it had won a war.
“Confident is not the word I would use,” he replied dryly, brushing invisible fur from his coat.
“I have not yet decided whether I am keeping him or tolerating him,” he added as Shadow began purring like a small engine.
Valerie, unable to help herself any longer, let out a brief laugh before quickly composing her face again.
The conversation shifted as servants cleared plates, and Gabriel set his hands together with deliberate precision.
“Valerie,” he said, glancing toward his niece, “your debut will take place in London this season at the ball hosted by Aunt Provie.”
Valerie stiffened, her fingers tightening slightly around her napkin.
Amelia leaned forward gently. “It is quite normal to feel nervous,” she said reassuringly, her tone calm and steady. “Every debutante does, no matter how prepared she is.”
Valerie nodded once, though her anxiety remained visible in the set of her shoulders.
After a moment, Valerie’s curiosity overcame her composure. “How does a man propose,” she asked quietly, glancing between them, “when he genuinely wishes to marry a woman?”
The question landed suddenly and heavily in the room, and even David paused mid-bite to listen.
Amelia hesitated, her fork lowering slowly as she considered the question.
“I am not certain I am the best person to answer that,” she admitted carefully, offering a small, self-deprecating smile.
“Despite my many betrothals, none of them were ever… that,” she finished softly, her gaze dropping to her plate.
Gabriel studied her more closely than he intended, the words settling in his mind with unexpected weight.
“None of them was genuine?” he asked before he could stop himself, his tone quieter than usual.
Amelia shook her head slightly, her expression composed but not entirely unaffected. “No,” she replied simply, as if it were a fact long accepted, “they were arrangements. Not choices.”
There was a brief silence in which even Shadow seemed to settle more quietly in Gabriel’s lap.
How is it possible this woman was chosen without ever being wanted?
Amelia shifted slightly under his gaze, as though sensing the direction of his thoughts.
“I suppose I was always too shy,” she added lightly, though there was something faintly distant in her voice now. “My parents preferred to arrange things on my behalf because I never quite… drew attention.”
Gabriel frowned faintly at that, looking at her as though reassessing something he thought he already understood. “You do not seem shy to me,” he said at last, almost as if testing the idea aloud.
Amelia gave a small, almost embarrassed laugh, entirely unaware of the effect it had on him.
Without thinking, Amelia continued, her voice softer now, “I feel more comfortable in this house than I ever did in my own.”
The words lingered in the air longer than they should have, settling somewhere between them in a way that made Gabriel’s grip on the table tighten slightly.
He did not respond right away, instead watching her as though trying to determine whether she realized what she had just admitted.
Shadow shifted on his lap, oblivious, stretching lazily as though the conversation concerned entirely different worlds.
Gabriel finally looked away first, his expression controlled once more, though something unsettled remained beneath it.
The rest of dinner continued in a quieter rhythm, but Gabriel found himself listening differently now, noticing small things he had previously ignored.
David laughed once at something Amelia said, and even Valerie’s posture had softened slightly, as though the earlier tension had eased without her noticing.
Gabriel’s thoughts, however, remained fixed on Amelia’s last remark, repeating itself with irritating persistence.
Comfortable here. Not at home.
The distinction, he realized, was not as simple as it sounded. And for reasons he did not care to examine too closely, it stayed with him long after the plates were cleared.