Clara wanted to argue, but exhaustion was pulling at her again, making her eyelids heavy. "Gabriel?"
"Your Grace," he corrected again, but with less venom.
"Your Grace, then. Why didn't you send me away immediately? Why bother saving someone you clearly despise?"
He was quiet for so long she thought he wouldn't answer. When he finally spoke, his voice was barely a whisper…I may be an unfeeling beast, but I am no common murderer.”
"There's a difference?"
"One implies a choice."
She wanted to ask what he meant, but sleep was claiming her again, pulling her under despite her best efforts to stay awake and angry.
"Sleep," he commanded, and this time it sounded less like concern and more like an order from a duke used to being obeyed. "You're no use to anyone so weakened.”
“I am not tenderly concerned as you say…it is merely the circumstances that have forced my hand here to attend to you.”
"I thank you, Your Grace," she said with as much sarcasm as she could muster, “For the mere appearance of humanity.”
“You are welcome Miss Whitefield.” He retorted in the same tone as herself.
Despite everything, the pain, the humiliation, the bizarre horror of their reunion, Clara found herself almost smiling. This was awful, yes. He was cruel, yes. But underneath the venom and the scar and the years of silence, she could still hear the boy who'd argued with her about everything just for the pure pleasure of arguing.
He was still in there, somewhere, buried under all that cold ducal armor.
The question was whether she'd survive long enough to find him.
As she drifted back to sleep, she felt his arms adjust around her, pulling her closer despite his harsh words. His chin came to rest on top of her head, a gesture so familiar from their childhood that her heart ached.
"I'm sorry," she thought she heard him whisper, but she was already falling into dreams of roses and bitter boys and the space between what was said and what was meant.
When she woke again, hours or days later, the first thing she heard was his voice, low and vicious: “If you are here merely to satisfy your idle curiosity, Edmund, I'll throw you out myself, friendship be damned."
A second voice, responded in an amused tone. "I came because the entire village is in a stir concerning lights in Ashbourne Hall and the Duke actually answering his door. I had to see if you'd finally gone completely mad or merely partially so."
"Leave now."
"Is that... Gabriel, is that a woman?"
Clara kept her eyes closed, feigning sleep, intensely aware that she was still pressed against Gabriel in nothing but her undergarments and blankets.
"Your powers of observation astound me," Gabriel said dryly.
"You have a woman in your library, in your arms." The very air was brimming with such a remarkable sense of delight. "Gabriel Hale, you are the most dissembling of men All this time playing the beast in the castle, and you've had a…"
"Finish that sentence and I'll finish you."
"She's rather pretty, from what I can see. Bit thin. Familiar looking, actually. Is she… oh have mercy, is that the Whitfield girl? The one you used to write about at school?"
"Her name is Miss Whitfield, and she's leaving as soon as she is quite steady upon her feet, she shall leave.”"
"Leave? Gabriel, the woman is clearly…"
“Leave she shall,” Gabriel repeated with finality. “Just as you are leaving this very instant.”
"You can't just…"
"Edmund." Gabriel's voice had gone deadly quiet. "Go. Now."
