Chapter 20
Chapter Twenty
She is truly an angel.
Gabriel had not intended to linger outside the corridor, yet he had remained unseen in the shadowed archway longer than he cared to admit.
From there, he had watched Amelia sitting beside David on the bench, her hand resting lightly on the boy’s shoulder as she spoke in a voice so gentle it unsettled him.
David leaned into her without hesitation, something Gabriel had spent months trying and failing to achieve.
The sight should have satisfied him, yet instead, it tightened something uncomfortably sharp in his chest. He had not meant to hear her words, but the manor was quiet enough that every syllable carried.
“He would move mountains for you,” Amelia had said softly, brushing David’s hair from his brow.
Gabriel had gone still at that, the phrase lodging itself somewhere inconvenient and persistent. David had looked at her with absolute trust, as though the world had finally become safe in a way it had not been before.
Then Amelia had spoken again, quieter still, promising that she would protect him too. That promise had struck harder than it should have. Gabriel had felt it like a breach in something carefully constructed.
“Blasted,” he muttered quietly and turned away before either of them noticed him, his hand tightening briefly at his side.
The corridor suddenly felt too narrow, the air too warm, the house too loud with things he could not name.
He walked without direction for several minutes, ignoring servants who stepped quickly aside as they sensed his mood. The words replayed in his mind in a loop he could not interrupt.
She will protect them, but she is planning to leave.
Both truths collided in ways he did not want to examine.
The problem, Gabriel realized with grim clarity, was not that Amelia was unsuitable.
It was that she was too suitable in ways that made everything else dangerous.
She saw the children clearly, understood them too easily, and gave them what he had never quite known how to offer without calculation.
Worse still, she made it look effortless.
If she stayed longer, he would stop thinking of her as temporary.
That is the real danger. Not the children. Not the household… but myself.
His steps slowed as he crossed the outer courtyard, the gravel biting sharply beneath his boots.
He had already lost control once. The memory of that kiss in her room surfaced without permission, immediate and unwelcome.
He had told himself it had been an error of proximity, nothing more than weakness born of exhaustion and too much silence.
Yet even that explanation felt dishonest now.
If she remained, he would fail again. He knew it with an unpleasant certainty.
Worse still, he could not allow himself to lead her on. Whatever he felt was irrelevant if it placed her in danger of expectation or disappointment. He had built his life on restraint, on rules, on distance that kept everything manageable.
Amelia Shirley dismantled those things without even trying.
That, more than anything, was what made her intolerable. He stopped near the stables and called sharply for a servant.
“Saddle my horse,” he ordered without slowing his pace. “Immediately.”
The young groom hesitated only a moment before nodding quickly and running off. Gabriel did not wait to watch him go. He turned instead toward the estate gates, already deciding where he would go. Anywhere was preferable to remaining here.
Within moments, Gabriel was riding hard across the estate fields.
The wind cut against his face, cold and sharp, but it did nothing to quiet the thoughts pressing behind his eyes.
The land blurred into shades of green and grey as he pushed the horse faster than necessary.
Distance, he told himself, was the only solution to clarity.
Yet even the rhythm of the gallop failed to settle him.
Amelia’s voice followed him as stubbornly as memory.
He reined in at the edge of the village and turned toward Dr. John Hunt’s cottage.
It was an unplanned destination, but no less inevitable for it.
John was the only man who tolerated Gabriel’s moods without pretending to understand them.
That alone made him useful. Gabriel dismounted sharply and left the horse with a passing stable boy, then strode up the short path to the door. He did not knock politely.
“Where’s the fire?” The door opened almost immediately. John Hunt stood there with the expression of a man interrupted mid-thought, sleeves rolled up and spectacles slightly askew.
Gabriel met his gaze without hesitation. “It’s inside of me,” he replied.
John sighed as if this confirmed something he had long suspected about his friend’s general temperament.
“I am with a patient,” he said, stepping back into the cottage. “Wait in the parlor. I will deal with you in a moment.”
Gabriel followed without comment because arguing would accomplish nothing, and patience was already in short supply.
The cottage was modest but orderly, the kind of place that reflected its owner’s profession more than his personality.
Upstairs, John lived in rooms filled with books, medical notes, and the faint scent of herbs.
Downstairs served as his treatment space with a sturdy examination table, shelves of instruments, and neatly labeled jars that always made visitors slightly uneasy.
The parlor, by contrast, was unexpectedly comfortable, with a worn leather chair, a small hearth, and a sideboard stocked with spirits.
Gabriel, without waiting for permission, poured himself a measure of whiskey.
The glass clinked softly as he set the bottle down again.
He drank in one steady swallow, the burn grounding him more effectively than any attempt at rational thought.
John’s voice drifted faintly from the adjoining room as he finished with his patient, calm and professional in contrast to Gabriel’s current state.
“Now,” John returned a few minutes later, closing the door behind him with quiet finality, “tell me what has you galloping across the countryside like a man possessed.”
Gabriel did not look up immediately. When he did, his expression was composed but tight.
“That governess,” he said at last, “is becoming a problem I did not anticipate.”
John raised an eyebrow. “Is she, indeed?”
Gabriel ignored the tone. He stared into the remaining whiskey as though it might offer a simpler answer than the one forming in his mind. The truth was far less convenient. Amelia Shirley was not a problem. She was becoming something far worse. Something he could not neatly categorize or control.
And that, Gabriel thought grimly, was precisely why he had come here.
“And what do you mean to do about this… problem?” John asked.
“I will let her go after the ball,” Gabriel said at last, his voice controlled but distant as he stared into the fading amber in his glass. “She is a lady. She deserves a life befitting that.”
He said it as though it were a matter already settled, like an estate account or a legal obligation.
John lifted his gaze, studying him with mild skepticism. Gabriel did not look up. It was easier that way.
“And what exactly do you believe that life looks like for her?” John asked.
Gabriel frowned slightly at the question but did not answer immediately.
John leaned back in his chair and continued, “She disappears for a month, returns to society, and you think the world will simply welcome her back with open arms?” He gave a short, humorless laugh. “You are an optimist in disguise, Gabriel, and a poor one at that.”
Gabriel’s jaw tightened. The idea had not occurred to him in such blunt terms, though it should have. Society did not forgive disappearance, especially not for women who stepped outside its expectations. Yet instead of discouraging him, the thought curiously shifted something inside his chest.
If Amelia could not return easily to her former life, then she would have fewer options. Fewer doors. Fewer escapes… and then she would have to stay.
The conclusion was selfish, and he recognized it as such even as it formed.
“That may be so,” Gabriel said slowly, his tone measured as though he were testing the weight of the words, “but it still does not change the fact that she should not remain here.” He paused, rubbing a hand briefly across his mouth before continuing.
“She deserves more than being a governess in a household that is not her own.”
The admission felt uncomfortably honest. John raised an eyebrow at him, watching carefully.
“A noble sentiment,” John replied dryly, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, “and yet you sound remarkably unwilling to let her leave.”
Gabriel gave him a sharp look. “That is not what I said.”
John smiled faintly. “No,” he agreed, “but it is what you meant.”
Gabriel exhaled through his nose, irritation flickering briefly across his face before settling back into restraint.
“I do not know what else I could offer her. If not a governess, then what?” Gabriel said at last, the words quieter now. The honesty in them was unintentional but absolute.
John studied him for a long moment before responding. “That,” he said finally, “is the most foolish thing I have ever heard you say.”
Gabriel blinked once, slowly. John rarely insulted him directly. When he did, it was usually a playful tease.
“I beg your pardon?” Gabriel replied, though there was no real offense in his tone yet.
John stood from his chair and crossed the room, collecting a small stack of papers as if distance might improve his patience.
“You sit there talking as though this is a matter of employment,” he said, turning back to him.
“As though she is merely a governess you are obliged to release when convenient.” He shook his head.
“It is not complicated, Gabriel. It is just inconvenient for you because you fail to admit the truth to yourself.”
Gabriel’s expression hardened slightly. “You are suggesting I marry her,” he said flatly.
John did not deny it. The silence that followed was heavier than the fire’s crackle.
Gabriel stared down at his glass, turning it slowly in his hand as though the answer might be written in the reflection.
The idea had already crossed his mind more times than he cared to admit, and each time, he had dismissed it with increasing urgency.
“She is not suited to me,” Gabriel said eventually, though the conviction behind the words sounded thinner than he intended.
“And I am certainly not suited to her.” He leaned back in the chair, exhaling slowly.
“She is…” He hesitated, searching for the correct phrasing, though none felt adequate.
“She is too good, and what lurks inside of me is not.”
John gave him a look that suggested he had just spoken nonsense in a different language.
“That,” John said bluntly, “is not a reason to avoid her. It is the reason most men would pursue her.”
Gabriel gave a short, humorless laugh. “Most men are not me.” The words hung there, heavy and familiar.
John watched him for a long moment, then shook his head again, softer this time. “No,” he said quietly, “they are not. But you are not your father either, and I have heard enough of you saying that you are.”
Gabriel’s grip tightened slightly on the glass. The mention landed with precise accuracy as it always did. He did not respond immediately. Instead, he stared into the fire as though it might offer a version of himself that he could accept.
“I am aware,” he said finally, though the words lacked conviction.
John did not press further. He rarely did when Gabriel reached that particular edge.
After a moment, Gabriel spoke again, his tone shifting back into control.
“She has spent her life with no say in her own decisions,” Gabriel said, as though explaining a fact rather than confessing a concern.
“Her engagements, her expectations, her entire future dictated by others.” He set the glass down more firmly than necessary.
“I will not repeat that pattern here when it was the reason she fled to begin with.”
John nodded slowly, considering him carefully.
“Then perhaps,” John said, choosing his words with deliberate calm, “you should consider asking her what she wants so that she may be the decider of her own future.”
Gabriel frowned. “That is not how decisions are made in my household.”
John gave a faint, tired smile. “Your household, no. Her life, however, is not yours to decide.” The words landed cleanly, without malice but without softness either.
Gabriel leaned forward slightly as he stared at the floor. The fire cast moving shadows across the wood, restless and unsettled.
“I will ask her,” he said at last, his voice quieter now.
John raised an eyebrow. “When?”
Gabriel hesitated only briefly. “After the ball,” he replied. Then, almost as an afterthought, he added, “It is the most appropriate time.”
John did not look convinced but said nothing more. Gabriel stood, retrieving his coat as though the conversation had reached its natural end.
“She will have a choice,” he said, more to himself than to John. He paused at the door. “I’ll do it for the children, of course.”
John gave a soft, almost imperceptible sigh. “Of course,” he echoed, though his tone suggested he believed something entirely different.
Gabriel stepped out into the cold air, closing the door behind him with deliberate control.
The wind met him, sharp and grounding. He stood for a moment before mounting his horse, staring out at the fields ahead.
The thought remained with him, persistent and unwelcome.
After the ball, he would ask her what she wanted.
Not because he needed her. Not because he could imagine anything beyond her presence in his home.
He tightened his grip on the reins and rode forward into the night, refusing to name the part of him that already knew he was lying.