“And how will that look?” Clara demanded, her voice trembling more from emotion than anger. “The Duke of Ashbourne providing for his former housekeeper? Everyone will assume I was your mistress.”
Gabriel’s gaze held hers, dark and steady. “Weren’t you?”
The words landed like a physical blow…low, deliberate, and far too intimate.
“No,” she said quietly, after a moment that felt like an eternity. “I’ve been your housekeeper who happens to share your bed for warmth and comfort. We’ve maintained that boundary, at least.”
He gave a bitter little laugh. “A mere detail.”
“An important one.” Her chin lifted slightly. “When I leave here, I want to be able to say honestly that I was never your mistress, whatever else I might have been.”
He studied her face as though trying to memorize every line of it. “And what have you been, then?”
Clara hesitated, fingers tightening around the stem of her glass. “Your friend, I hope. Your companion for a brief time. Someone who cared enough to guide you back to a proper course of conduct.”
He scoffed. “Is that all?”
Her eyes met his, steady but sad. “What else could there be?”
“You could be my wife.”
The silence that followed was absolute. The words seemed to hang in the air, vibrating with their own impossible weight. Even Gabriel looked startled by them, as if they’d escaped before he could stop them.
Clara’s fingers went slack. The brandy glass slipped from her hand and shattered against the floor, the sound sharp and final.
“You don’t mean that,” she whispered.
“Don’t I?”
“You’re upset about your aunt’s threats. You’re not thinking clearly.”
“I’m thinking more clearly than I have in years.”
She shook her head, stepping back, her voice rising with something dangerously close to panic. “Gabriel, you can’t enter into matrimony with me.”
“I’m a duke,” he said evenly. “I can wed whomever I choose.”
“No, you can’t. The scandal would be ruinous. Your aunt would see to it that you were declared unfit for anything but exile. You’d lose everything.”
His mouth curved into a grim smile. “I’ve already lost everything that mattered. My mother. My sister. My friends in the war. What’s left to lose?”
“Your home. Your legacy. Your future.”
“None of that matters,” he said, his voice breaking the calm veneer for the first time. “What value can any possession hold if it cannot be offered to a beloved companion?”
“Then share it with Miss Ashworth…or someoneappropriate.”
“Miss Ashworth is a child who deserves better than a scarred recluse twice her age in experience, if not years.”
“Then someone else,” she insisted. “London is full of pretty young women who would overlook your scars for your title.”
“I don’t want someone who overlooks them.” His voice dropped, raw and pleading. “I want someone who sees them and doesn’t flinch.”
“Gabriel…”
He crossed the room before she could retreat, took her by the waist, and pulled her to her feet. The movement was sudden, almost desperate, and when she found herself in his arms, she could feel the rapid beat of his heart against her chest.
“Tell me you don’t feel this too,” he said, his voice rough. “Tell me these three weeks haven’t meant everything to you.”
