“Otherwise, I should have been a well-propertied spinster, residing in a picturesque cottage by the coast working on my pretty garden.”
“A mere fortune shall not alter my affections. I was prepared to join my hand to yours when you possessed nothing of consequence, and I am equally ready to do so now that providence has bestowed upon you such prosperity. I shall remain prepared to make you my wife, whether you face the complete loss of your wealth on the morrow, or should you acquire another vast inheritance by the week's end.”
"But it changes things for everyone else. Your aunt can't object on grounds of fortune hunting anymore."
"She'll find other grounds. My aunt has a remarkable capacity for objection."
"The ton might actually accept me now."
"The ton can still go hang themselves. I don't care about their acceptance."
"You should care. You're a duke."
"I'm a man in love with a woman who keeps trying to martyr herself for my own well-being, which is both admirable and incredibly frustrating."
Clara moved to sit on the old garden bench, the same one they'd shared as children. "I don't know who I am anymore, Gabriel. This morning I was a housekeeper planning to leave in two weeks to protect your reputation. Now I'm an heiress who's been betrayed by her father and proposed to by a duke in front of multiple witnesses. Pray, allow me a moment as it is a great weight of information.”
Gabriel sat beside her, taking care to maintain some distance.
"You're still the woman who climbed my wall in stolen boots during a snowstorm."
"Borrowed boots."
"You're still the person who looked at my scars and saw me, not the damage."
"Your scars are part of you."
"Exactly. They're part of me, but they're not all of me, and you're the only person who's ever understood that distinction."
They sat in silence for a moment, watching their impossible rose bloom in the winter air.
"What did you mean earlier, about having your solicitors draw up matrimonial settlements?" Clara asked.
"I meant that if you wed me, your money remains yours. I have enough wealth of my own, I don't need or want your inheritance. It should be yours to do with as you please."
"That's not how matrimony works."
"It's how ours would work."
"You're very confident I'm going to say yes."
"I'm very hopeful you're going to stop being noble and self-sacrificing long enough to realise we're meant to be together."
"Even with the scandal it would cause?"
"Especially with the scandal. My life has been utterly tedious for three years now. A spirited scandal, I dare say, is precisely the tonic I require to effect my proper re-entry into society.”
"Gabriel, be serious."
"I am being serious. I've never been more serious about anything in my life. I love you. You love me. We now have the means to live comfortably regardless of whether society accepts us or not. What other obstacles are you going to throw up to keep us apart?"
Clara turned to look at him fully. "What if I'm pregnant?"
The words hung in the air between them like a thunderbolt.
Gabriel's mouth opened, then closed, then opened again. "Are you?"
"I don't know. Maybe. We haven't exactly been careful about sharing a bed, even if we maintained that one boundary."
