Chapter Twenty
She is truly an angel.
Gabriel had not intended to linger outside the corridor, yet he had remained unseen in the shadowed archway longer than he cared to admit. From there, he had watched Amelia sitting beside David on the bench, her hand resting lightly on the boy’s shoulder as she spoke in a voice so gentle it unsettled him.
David leaned into her without hesitation, something Gabriel had spent months trying and failing to achieve. The sight should have satisfied him, yet instead, it tightened something uncomfortably sharp in his chest. He had not meant to hear her words, but the manor was quiet enough that every syllable carried.
“He would move mountains for you,” Amelia had said softly, brushing David’s hair from his brow.
Gabriel had gone still at that, the phrase lodging itself somewhere inconvenient and persistent. David had looked at her with absolute trust, as though the world had finally become safe in a way it had not been before.
Then Amelia had spoken again, quieter still, promising that she would protect him too. That promise had struck harder than it should have. Gabriel had felt it like a breach in something carefully constructed.
“Blasted,” he muttered quietly and turned away before either of them noticed him, his hand tightening briefly at his side.
The corridor suddenly felt too narrow, the air too warm, the house too loud with things he could not name.
He walked without direction for several minutes, ignoring servants who stepped quickly aside as they sensed his mood. The words replayed in his mind in a loop he could not interrupt.
She will protect them, but she is planning to leave.
Both truths collided in ways he did not want to examine. The problem, Gabriel realized with grim clarity, was not that Amelia was unsuitable. It was that she was too suitable in ways that made everything else dangerous. She saw the children clearly, understood them too easily, and gave them what he had never quite known how to offer without calculation. Worse still, she made it look effortless. If she stayed longer, he would stop thinking of her as temporary.
That is the real danger. Not the children. Not the household… but myself.
His steps slowed as he crossed the outer courtyard, the gravel biting sharply beneath his boots. He had already lost control once. The memory of that kiss in her room surfaced without permission, immediate and unwelcome. He had told himself it had been an error of proximity, nothing more than weakness born of exhaustion and too much silence. Yet even that explanation felt dishonest now. If she remained, he would fail again. He knew it with an unpleasant certainty.
Worse still, he could not allow himself to lead her on. Whatever he felt was irrelevant if it placed her in danger of expectation or disappointment. He had built his life on restraint, on rules, on distance that kept everything manageable.
Amelia Shirley dismantled those things without even trying.
That, more than anything, was what made her intolerable. He stopped near the stables and called sharply for a servant.
“Saddle my horse,” he ordered without slowing his pace. “Immediately.”
The young groom hesitated only a moment before nodding quickly and running off. Gabriel did not wait to watch him go. He turned instead toward the estate gates, already deciding where he would go. Anywhere was preferable to remaining here.
Within moments, Gabriel was riding hard across the estate fields. The wind cut against his face, cold and sharp, but it did nothing to quiet the thoughts pressing behind his eyes. The land blurred into shades of green and grey as he pushed the horse faster than necessary. Distance, he told himself, was the only solution to clarity. Yet even the rhythm of the gallop failed to settle him. Amelia’s voice followed him as stubbornly as memory.
He reined in at the edge of the village and turned toward Dr. John Hunt’s cottage. It was an unplanned destination, but no less inevitable for it. John was the only man who tolerated Gabriel’s moods without pretending to understand them. That alone made him useful. Gabriel dismounted sharply and left the horse with a passing stable boy, then strode up the short path to the door. He did not knock politely.
“Where’s the fire?” The door opened almost immediately. John Hunt stood there with the expression of a man interrupted mid-thought, sleeves rolled up and spectacles slightly askew.
Gabriel met his gaze without hesitation. “It’s inside of me,” he replied.
John sighed as if this confirmed something he had long suspected about his friend’s general temperament.
“I am with a patient,” he said, stepping back into the cottage. “Wait in the parlor. I will deal with you in a moment.”
Gabriel followed without comment because arguing would accomplish nothing, and patience was already in short supply.
The cottage was modest but orderly, the kind of place that reflected its owner’s profession more than his personality. Upstairs, John lived in rooms filled with books, medical notes, and the faint scent of herbs. Downstairs served as his treatment space with a sturdy examination table, shelves of instruments, and neatly labeled jars that always made visitors slightly uneasy. The parlor, by contrast, was unexpectedly comfortable, with a worn leather chair, a small hearth, and a sideboard stocked with spirits.
Gabriel, without waiting for permission, poured himself a measure of whiskey. The glass clinked softly as he set the bottle down again. He drank in one steady swallow, the burn grounding him more effectively than any attempt at rational thought. John’s voice drifted faintly from the adjoining room as he finished with his patient, calm and professional in contrast to Gabriel’s current state.
“Now,” John returned a few minutes later, closing the door behind him with quiet finality, “tell me what has you galloping across the countryside like a man possessed.”
Gabriel did not look up immediately. When he did, his expression was composed but tight.
