"We were friends," he said finally, flatly. "Children who didn't know better."
"We were more than that."
"No. We weren't. We couldn't be."
"Because of class? Because your father decided a physician's daughter wasn't suitable company for a future duke?"
"Because it was killing me!" The words exploded out of him. "Every letter, every thought of you, every memory of this damned garden was killing me slowly, and I had to stop. I had to become someone else, someone who didn't need…" He cut himself off, breathing hard.
"Need what?"
"You," he said, so quietly she almost missed it. "Someone who didn't need you."
Clara's heart stuttered in her chest. "Gabriel…"
"Don't." He backed away from her. "Don't look at me in that manner.”
“In what manner?”
"As if I'm still him. Like I'm still the boy you knew. I'm not. That boy perished somewhere between Eton and Waterloo, and what's left isn't worth your time or your hope or your…" He stopped again.
"My what?"
"Nothing. Go inside, Clara. That's an order."
"I don't take orders."
"You do now. You work for me."
“Then I shall tender my resignation.”
“Impossible. You have nowhere else to go."
“I shall contrive a solution.”
"No, you won't." He moved closer, crowding her against the tree. "You'll stay here, you'll take my money, you'll clean my house, and you will cease to regard me as though I were something I am not.”
“I look upon you as a man utterly devoid of sense.”
“Very well. Pray, do not cease.”
"It won't be difficult."
They glared at each other, both breathing hard, the space between them charged with eight years of silence and something else, something neither wanted to name.
"I should have written," Gabriel said suddenly. "Real letters. Explaining."
"Yes."
"I should have visited. That Christmas."
"Yes."
“I should have possessed the courage to defy my father's command entirely.”
"Yes."
"But I did not. I was a coward who chose the easy path, and now we're here."
