She tried to smile, that ghost of her old smile that used to mean trouble, and started to speak. Something about being sorry, about not wanting to come, but the words were lost as her eyes rolled back and she pitched forward.
Gabriel moved without thinking, catching her before she hit the stone steps .She was a mere feather in his arms, a wisp surviving by stubbornness alone. Her slight body was nothing but point and edge under her drenched garments, and the icydampness of her skin suggested she had been walking in the sleet for many hours past
"Clara. Clara!" He shook her gently, then less gently. She was unconscious, but breathing. Alive, if only just.
Gabriel looked around desperately, but of course there was no one. He'd made sure of that, hadn't he? Dismissed the servants, locked the gates, and transformed Ashbourne into a fortress against the world. And now the world had literally collapsed on his doorstep in the form of a poor creature near her end, who'd once been everything to him.
Move, you fool,commanded the part of his brain that had kept him alive through cavalry charges.Move now, think later.
He lifted her carefully and carried her inside, kicking the door shut behind him. The entrance hall was cold and dark as most of the candles were unlit because he rarely bothered anymore. He headed for the stairs, then reconsidered. His bedroom? Absolutely not. A guest room? They were all sealed close for many a years now.
The library. It had a fire he'd left burning and a sofa that had seen better days but was at least soft. He carried her there, trying not to dwell on how naturally she fit in his arms, how her head tucked against his shoulder as if it belonged there.
CHAPTER 3
Fortunately, the library was warm, for a fine fire blazed in the grate. Gabriel laid Clara on the sofa, then stood back, suddenly aware of the impropriety of the situation. He was alone in his house with an unconscious woman. An unconscious woman he had history with. An unconscious woman who was currently dripping mud all over his furniture.
Propriety, he decided, could hang itself.
He needed to get her warm. That meant getting her out of those wet clothes, which meant…
Put the matter from your mind. Her life is in peril; you have a duty to perform.
He started with the boots, which were not only soaked through but also clearly too large for her. When he pulled them off, he found her feet bloody with blisters, some fresh, and some days old. It was clear that she had been walking for days, in harsh weather conditions which could claim the life of a healthy person, let alone someone as weakened as herself.
What had happened to her? Where was her aunt, the one she'd gone to live with in Bath? Where was her father? Why was she here, in this condition after eight years of silence?
He stopped questioning as he needed to focus on saving her life.
Gabriel had seen enough death to recognise its approach. The blue tinge to her lips, the shallow breathing, the way her body had stopped shivering were all bad signs. He needed to warm her, and quickly.
He was on his own.
"Brilliant, Ashbourne," he muttered to himself. "Absolutely brilliant. Send everyone away and then have a half-dead woman literally fall into your arms."
There was no choice but to attend to her himself. First, blankets. He ransacked the linen cupboard, returning with an armload of whatever he could find. Then, the wet clothes had to go. At least the outer layers.
He started with her cloak, which was more holes than fabric and smelled distinctly of mildew. Underneath was a dress that might have once been blue but was now the color of despair. The buttons were already half undone from her climb over his wall, he realised, seeing the tears that corresponded to branch heights.
She'd climbed his wall amidst a tempest, wearing boots that obviously were far too ill-fitting as to impede her progress, in her desperate attempt to reach him.
Something twisted in his chest, sharp and painful, a feeling he'd he believed he had suppressed years ago.
“Remain with me,” he told her unconscious form as he worked the remaining buttons free.
“I beseech you not to leave this world now, after you have returned…I shall not tolerate you expiring on my sofa, not after all these years.”
Talking helped as it made his process of releasing this woman of her attire more official. He'd seen worse in the war, hadn't he? Had helped the field surgeons, had held men's intestines in place while they stitched them back together. This amounts to nothing significant. It is simply a matter of wet cloth and the necessity of the situation.
Except it wasn't nothing, because this was Clara, and every revealed inch of her told a story he had no wish to read. She was so thin he could count her ribs. Bruises in various stages of healing marked her arms. Her hands, those clever hands that had once grafted roses were raw and red, nails broken, the hands of someone who'd been doing hard labor.
What had happened to her?
He peeled away the wet dress, leaving her in her chemise and stays, which were thankfully mostly dry. Any more would be beyond improper, but then again, propriety had fled the moment she'd fallen into his arms. He wrapped her in blankets, layer after layer, until she resembled a bundle of layered cloth.
Then, because he remembered something from the war about body heat being the fastest way to warm someone, he sat on the sofa and pulled her against him, her back to his chest, his arms around her, pulling the blankets around them both.
She made a sound, not quite conscious, but closer than she'd been. Her head lolled back against his shoulder, and hecould see her face properly in the firelight. Still beautiful, despite everything. Or perhaps beautiful because of everything, the way survivors were beautiful, marked by what they'd endured.
