CHAPTER 1

 

Sussex, England Summer 1808

The problem with secrets, Clara Whitfield had discovered at the tender age of ten, was that they were only fun if you had someone to share them with. Fortunately, she had Gabriel Hale, who was excellent at keeping secrets, terrible at climbing walls, and currently stuck halfway up the garden gate In a state of total confusion.

“You’re doing it wrong,” she informed him, hands on her hips in unconscious imitation of her governess. “You’ve got to use the crossbar as a foothold, not a chin rest.”

“I’m not using it as a…” Gabriel’s protest was cut short as his foot slipped, sending him tumbling backward into the herbaceous border with a crash that likely alerted half of Sussex to their whereabouts. A shower of lavender petals erupted around him like purple snowflakes.

“Graceful,” Clara observed. “Very duke-like.”

“Be silent!” Gabriel muttered, extracting himself from what had once been a perfectly decent herb garden. His dark hair now stuck up at odd angles, decorated with bits of rosemary and what appeared to be an entire spider web. “And I’m not going to be duke for ages and ages. Father’s only two and forty.”

“Two and forty is ancient,” Clara said with the confidence of someone for whom twenty seemed impossibly far away. “My grandmother’s five and forty and she can barely remember where she puts her spectacles.”

“That’s because she refuses to wear them, not because she’s ancient.”

“It amounts to the same thing.” Clara plucked a sprig of lavender from his hair. “You smell like my mother’s linen closet now.”

“Brilliant…Precisely what a young gentleman destined for the dukedom requires, to carry the sweet, fresh scent of fine linens.” He made a face that caused Clara to giggle. “Come along, I wish to show you something brilliant I learned from the gardener.”

This was how their Tuesdays and Thursdays went or better yet, for the past two years, ever since Gabriel had discovered Clara reading in the abandoned garden that sat between their estates, and instead of running off to tell the adults like any proper heir should have done, had sat down and asked what the book she was reading contained.

“It concerns a gentlewoman who was responsible for her husband’s untimely demise, administered by a noxious draught.” 

“That’s clever. I’d use pudding. No one suspects pudding.”  From that point on, they met there at the very same place they had met, religiously, weather permitting and sometimes weather not permitting, because as Gabriel said, “What is the use of childhood, pray tell, if we are to be forever mindful of the mud?” 

He led her to the far corner of the garden where the sun filtered through in lazy patterns, past the fountain they’d tried to fix the month before, which still leaked, around the apple tree with their initials carved with great care into the trunk, to stand before a withered rose bush. 

“This is what you wished show me?” Clara wrinkled her nose. “The poor thing has quite faded,” 

 “It is quite alive, but it is dormant, there is a difference.”

“Indeed!”

Gabriel dropped to his knees beside the plant, producing various implements from his pockets like a magician with a very specific interest in horticulture. “Mr. Morton showed me this yesterday. It’s called grafting. You take a piece from one plant and attach it to another, and if you do it correctly, they grow together into something new.”

“What, pray tell, if you fail to execute the task correctly?”

“Then, I will be guilty of sending this poor specimen to an untimely grave and the rites of burial must be observed. I’ve already composed a eulogy should there be need.” 

Clara knelt beside him, immediately acquiring grass stains on her second-best dress which had been destroyed in what they referred to as The Blackberry Incident and never spoke of “What words of praise and remembrance are to be spoken?” 

“Here lies Rose Bush. It spent its last dying breath in the name of science, a most commendable quality, when one considers the matter fully. 

“Very moving. I am quite sure its family will be comforted.”

Gabriel handed her a cutting from another rose, this one healthy and green with promising buds. “You do it. You’ve got steadier hands.”

“That’s because I don’t spend my all my morning’s sword fighting with the fire irons.”

“That was one time!”

“Three times. I’ve been counting.”

She took the knife he offered, their fingers brushing in a way that made her feel oddly warm, though she attributed it to the sunshine. Following his instructions, she made a careful diagonal cut in the rootstock, then fitted the new cutting against it.

“Now we wrap it,” Gabriel said, producing twine. “In the fashion of a dressing for a wound.” 

“Such as when you fell out of the pear tree and scraped your entire face?”

“I didn’t fall. I performed a tactical descent.”

“You screamed louder than Mrs. Henderson’s parrot.”

“That was a war cry.”

They engaged in dispute companionably as they worked, shoulders bumping, hands occasionally tangling as they secured the graft. It was comfortable, easy, the kind of friendship that adults would later call “sweet” while completely missing its depth.

“We should name it,” Clara announced once they’d finished. “If it lives, I mean.”

Gabriel studied their handiwork with the seriousness of someone who’d once spent an entire afternoon naming all the frogs in the pond, Herald, Gregory, Swamp Duke, and Mrs. Figglesworth. “What about… Secret Rose?”

 “I fear I find it rather uninteresting.”

“The Rose of Destiny?”

“Too dramatic.”

 “Very well then, what about just… ours? Our rose?”

Clara considered this. “Our Secret Bloom,” she decided. “Because it’s secret and it’s going to bloom and it’s ours.”

“That’s just combining all the rejected suggestions.”

“Yes, but when you combine them, they become better. Like the grafting!”

Gabriel couldn’t argue with this logic, possibly because there wasn’t any actual logic to argue with. This was another thing he liked about Clara, she made proclamations with such confidence that they seemed true just by force of will.

They spent the rest of the afternoon the way they always did with Clara reading aloud from whatever inappropriate book she’d stolen from her father’s library, currently something about explorers being eaten by crocodiles, Gabriel interrupting with helpful commentary. “I am inclined to believe I could contend successfully with any ferocious beast, and both of them pretending they didn’t have lessons to attend or responsibilities to consider.

“My tutor says I’m incorrigible,” Gabriel announced proudly, lying on his back in the grass, watching clouds drift by.

“What’s that mean?”

“Haven’t got a clue, but he seemed very passionate about it.”

“My governess says I’m willful,” Clara offered, lying down beside him, maintaining a careful foot of propriety between them because even at ten, she knew there were Rules. “I believe it means I don’t do what she says.”

“Why would you? She’s boring.”

“Exactly! Yesterday she wanted me to practice sitting. Just sitting! For an hour!”

“What’s to practice? You just… sit.”

“Apparently there are seventeen wrong ways to do it. I’ve discovered them all.”

Gabriel turned his head to look at her, grass tickling his cheek. “You’re brilliant at sitting. Pay no mind to any differing opinion.”

“You’re a terrible judge of sitting. You can’t even sit through church without fidgeting.”

“That’s because Reverend Blackwood talks for approximately seven years every Sunday.”

“He does not!”

“He does! I’ve timed it. Seven years, minimum.”

They argued about this happily, the way they argued about everything, not with warmth, but with the contentment of engaging in a lively nature, one who would both argue and amuse, yet remain entirely inoffensive. 

The summer weeks passed in a blur of stolen afternoons. Their rose, against all predictions, survived. More than survived as it showed signs of new growth, with tiny leaves unfurling like green promises.

“I told you,” Gabriel said smugly one afternoon, eating pilfered strawberries while Clara attempted to sketch the garden she was terrible at it, but refused to admit defeat.

“You said there was a fifty percent chance we’d bring about its demise.”

“No, I said there was a fifty percent chance it would live. That’s completely different. I’m an optimist.”

 “You speak falsely.”

“I’m optimistically truthful.”

 “There’s no such thing as that.”

“It is now. I’ve decided.”

This was how they were together, easy, teasing, completely unaware that what they had was rare and precious, but…doomed, and this was because Gabriel’s father had other plans for him.

Because Gabriel’s father had plans. Eton, he announced one evening at dinner. Starting September.

Gabriel’s first thought wasn’t about leaving home or facing the unknown. It was: Clara’s going to be furious I’m leaving her with all the garden work.

When he told her the next day, she was indeed furious, but not about the garden.

“Eton’s ages away!” she protested. “It’s practically in Scotland!”

“It’s in Berkshire.”

“It amounts to much the same thing!” Anywhere that’s not here might as well be the moon.”

“I’ll write letters,” Gabriel promised. “Every week. I’ll tell you everything.”

“Even the boring bits?”

“Especially the boring bits. They’ll probably all be boring bits.”

Clara was quiet for a moment, picking at the grass. “It won’t be the same.”

“No,” Gabriel agreed, because even at such a young age, he knew better than to lie about the important things. “But I’ll come back for holidays. Christmas and summers. And you can take care of our rose.”

“It will surely become an absolute fright, quite without form or beauty, if left to my humble care. I possess not the slightest acquaintance with the proper tending of a rose.”

“You know everything about everything.”

“That’s true,” she said, but her smile was shaky. “You have to promise to write. Properly. Not just ‘Dear Clara, school is fine, sincerely Gabriel.’ Real letters.”

“I promise. Long, incredibly boring letters about Latin and porridge and how much I miss…” He stopped, flushing.

“Miss what?”

“This,” he said, gesturing at the garden. “All of this. You as you can understand.”

She did. That was what made their friendship strong as their thoughts were ever known to each other.

The month of September presented itself with the certainty of an unfortunate tempest spoiling an afternoon outing. 

Gabriel’s departure was marked by a melancholic, leaden sky and a light, incessant rain which caused the flowers in the garden to appear quite dejected and heavy with wetness. 

They sat in the greenhouse, watching rain streak the glass, neither saying much.

“I made you something,” Clara said finally, producing a small package wrapped in brown paper.

Inside was a pressed flower from their rose, the first bloom it had produced, pink edged with gold, carefully preserved between glass plates.

“Clara,” Gabriel breathed. “This is…this is brilliant.”

“It’s just a flower,” she said, but she was pleased. “For your room at school. So you don’t forget about the garden.”

“As if such a thing could ever escape my recollection!” He reached into his own pocket. “I too have something for you.” 

It was a small leather journal, the kind sold at the stationer’s in the village. Nothing fancy, but on the first page, he’d written: “Clara’s Book of Extraordinary Occurrences and Suspicious Behaviors.”

“For all your stories about the neighbors,” he explained. “The concoctions of your imagination.”

“They’re are not concoctions! Mrs. Weatherby is definitely hiding something in her cellar.”

“Bodies?”

“Cheese. Illegal French cheese.”

“Even more scandalous.”

They laughed, but it had a hollow sound to it, echoing in the greenhouse with all the words they weren’t saying.

“I should go,” Gabriel said finally. “We’re leaving at dawn.”

“I’ll be here,” Clara said. “Tomorrow. To wave goodbye.”

“You don’t have to…”

“I’ll be here,” she repeated firmly.

He stood to leave, then suddenly turned back and hugged her, quick and fierce and slightly awkward, the kind of hug young awkward boys give when they don’t know how else to say goodbye.

“Take care of our rose,” he said into her hair.

“Take care of yourself,” she replied into his shoulder.

And then he was gone, running through the rain, leaving Clara alone in the greenhouse with the sound of rain and the weight of change pressing against the glass.

True to her word, she was there the next morning, standing by the garden gate in her nightgown and shawl, hair still mussed from sleep. Gabriel saw her from the carriage window and pressed his hand to the glass. She waved with both arms, as if she were signaling a meaning from afar, with every motion of her person

Don’t forget, her waves seemed to say. Don’t forget us.

Never, he thought back, watching until the garden disappeared around the bend. Never.

The first letter arrived two weeks later.

 

Dear Clara,

 

School is horrible. The food tastes like sadness and the older boys are tyrants. My roommate plays his violin at dawn. Quite badly, I might add. I may perish from lack of sleep and decent pudding.

But I’ve made a friend! His name is Edmund and he’s from London and he’s never seen a cow. Can you imagine? Never seen a cow! I told him about our garden and he didn’t believe me that we grafted a rose. He says girls don’t do gardening. I told him you do everything. He wants to meet you to see if you’re real or if I’ve invented you. I told him no one could invent someone as odd as you.

How’s our rose? Have a care, and let it not perish, I beseech you!” 

Your friend, Gabriel

P.S. – Latin is still dead. More dead than before, if possible.

Clara wrote back immediately:

Dear Gabriel,

Of course your friend doesn’t believe I exist. I’m far too extraordinary to be real. Tell him I’m actually three feet tall with green hair and six fingers on each hand. That should be a lesson well taught. 

Our rose is thriving WITHOUT YOU. I’ve been reading to it from that book about pirates you left behind and it seems to enjoy the violence. I am under the impression that we are raising a bloodthirsty plant.

The garden misses you. The apple tree looks droopy. Even the fountain seems to leak more sadly.

But I’m managing PERFECTLY WELL. Yesterday I fixed the bench you broke last month. It only wobbled a little bit afterward.

 

Your extraordinarily real friend, Clara

 

P.S.  Mrs. Weatherby was seen purchasing an unusual amount of rennet. Cheese conspiracy confirmed.

 

The letters flew back and forth those first months, abounding in jest, narrative, and small complaints. Gabriel wrote about the boring cricket, his tyrannical teachers and Edmund’s continuing education about rural life he’d finally seen a cow and been appropriately terrified. Clara wrote about the village scandals, her ongoing war with her governess, and detailed reports on their rose’s progress.

But then, gradually, things changed.

The letters grew and less frequent. Gabriel’s handwriting changed, as it became more formal and proper. He stopped mentioning Edmund or cricket or anything specific, really.

Dear Clara, School continues well. Studies are progressing. Weather is fine. Trust you are well. G. Hale

No jests. No stories. No mention of their garden or rose or anything that mattered.

Clara kept writing her long, newsy letters for a while, but when the responses stayed short and distant, she began to match his tone.

Dear Gabriel, All is well here. Garden remains satisfactory. C. Whitfield

By Christmas, she was dizzy with anticipation. Surely when he came home, things would return to normal. Surely it was just the distance, the pressure of school, the difficulty of writing letters.

She waited in the garden on the day he was due to return. Waited until her fingers turned blue with cold. Waited until dark.

He never came.

She learned later, from kitchen gossip, that the young master had returned home but was “much changed.” Taller, yes, but also different in manner. Proper. Distant. He attended formal dinners with his parents, visited appropriate neighboring families and acted every inch the future duke.

He did not visit the garden.

Clara went every day for a week, sure he would come. Their rose bloomed despite the winter cold, as if trying to summon him. But Gabriel never appeared.

Finally, pride and hurt taking over, she stopped going.

She saw him once, at church on Christmas Eve. He was indeed taller, his face already losing its boyish roundness, his clothes immaculate and clearly expensive. He sat with his family in their box pew, back straight, eyes forward.

When their eyes met briefly during the processional, Clara smiled, tentative, hopeful.

Gabriel nodded. The kind of nod you’d give a distant acquaintance. Polite. Proper. Empty.

Then he looked away.

Clara felt something crack in her chest, sharp and definite as breaking glass.

She didn’t try again.

The letters stopped entirely. The garden grew wild without them. Their rose, surprisingly, thrived on neglect, growing in enthusiastic tangles as if making up for their absence.

At Easter, Gabriel returned again but attended a house party at Lord Pemberton’s estate the entire time. At summer, he went to London with his father.

Clara heard about it all second-hand, through servant gossip and village talk. How handsome the young master was becoming. How refined. How he was sure to be a credit to the dukedom.

How he never once asked about the physician’s daughter.

Clara’s mother was taken suddenly of a fever when she was in her tender years. Her father, broken by grief, sent Clara to live with her aunt in Bath, unable to bear the reminder of his wife in his daughter’s face.

The morning she left, Clara walked through the garden one last time. Their rose had grown into a magnificent tangle, wild and beautiful and abandoned. She picked a single bloom, pink edged with gold, exactly like that first flower and pressed it between the pages of the journal Gabriel had given her. The journal that was still mostly empty, because what was the point of recording extraordinary occurrences when the most extraordinary thing in her life had already ended?

The carriage pulled away from her childhood home, from the garden, from all those memories of a boy who’d promised to write and never held onto to his promise. 

Clara didn’t look back.

She couldn’t know that Gabriel stood at his window in Ashbourne Hall, watching her carriage disappear down the road. That he had the pressed flower she’d given him on his desk, carefully preserved all these years despite himself. That he’d walked to the garden gate a dozen times over the holidays, only to turn back, convinced by his father’s words: “You’re too old for such childish friendships. It’s beneath your station. The physician’s daughter must learn her place, as must you.”

He couldn’t know that she’d waited for him until hope turned to hurt, hurt to anger, and anger to a kind of hollow acceptance.

They were just children who’d played at grafting roses. Who would have believed that two different things could grow together into something beautiful?

But gardening, they’d both learned, was more complicated than they’d had ever imagined. Sometimes grafts didn’t succeed. Sometimes they grew apart despite the most careful tending.

Sometimes they broke your heart.

The garden kept its secrets with their initials in the tree, slowly being covered by new bark. The bench where they’d sat together, weathering in the rain. And their rose, growing wild and magnificent and alone, proof that some things survived even when the gardeners walked away.

But the children who’d planted it? They were gone. In their place, a proper future duke and a physician’s daughter learning to be alone, both carrying pressed flowers they’d never admit to keeping, both changed by a friendship that had bloomed too brief and beautiful to last.

The boy in the garden and the girl who’d waited for him they were just a memory now, sweet and distant as the scent of roses on the wind.

And neither of them would speak of it again.

At least, not for eight more years.

 

CHAPTER 2

 

Sussex, England January 1816

There were, Clara Whitfield reflected as she trudged through her fourth mile of sleet, more dignified ways to die than freezing to death while wearing one’s former landlady’s stolen boots. But dignity, much like food, warmth, and basic human kindness, had become something of a luxury she could no longer afford.

A truly appalling pair of brown leather boots that had perhaps been deemed stylish when His Majesty King George still enjoyed the full measure of his faculties. They were also two sizes too large, which meant Clara’s feet slid about inside them like fish in a bucket, acquiring new blisters with admirable efficiency. But they were boots nonetheless, and when one was choosing between inappropriate footwear and frostbitten toes, fashion seemed rather beside the point.

She could not afford the liberty of creating a fuss for her footwear as she had borrowed them…without asking… from Mrs. Grimstead whilst she was sleeping off the third bottle of Gin.

The sleet had started as snow with pretty, delicate flakes that had made the world look like one of those sugar-work confections in the bakery windows she could no longer afford to look at. But the attractive snow soon changed into ugly sleet, which had turned to whatever this was, a vicious combination of ice and rain that seemed personally offended by her continued existence.

Only another mile, she told herself, the same lie she’d been telling herself for the past three miles. Only another mile to Ashbourne.

Ashbourne Hall.

The name sat in her throat like a stone, heavy with memories she’d spent eight years trying to forget everything that it was before, the garden with its roses…and the boy….the one who had shared his friendship with her. The boy who’d taught her about grafting and then grafted himself so thoroughly onto her heart that even now, even after everything, she could still feel the scar tissue where he’d been torn away.

No! I shall not ponder on that. Such gloomy observation led inevitably to an indulgence of feeling an urge to shed tears.

Shedding tears in the bitter cold air would only invite further calamity as they would only congeal upon her very countenance. 

She soldiered on, defying the cold as she left Bath behind her.

Gabriel Hale, was now the Duke of Ashbourne, according to those very gazettes she had used to warm herself at the posting-houses. His Grace’s father had been called to his final rest three years prior, a circumstance that rendered Gabriel one of the youngest Dukes in all England.

The papers had been brimming with the matter of his distinguished military service, his celebrated bravery at the battle of Waterloo, and the terrible wound that had so nearly claimed his life.

This wound which now adorned his countenance had brought the end to his military career causing him to now become a recluse at Ashbourne, refusing all visitors whilst dismissing most of his staff.

Clara’s foot caught on a hidden stone, sending her sprawling onto the icy ground. The impact knocked what little breath she had left from her lungs, and for a moment she just lay there, cheek pressed to the frozen mud, wondering if this was the end for her. If this was how she’d be found, face down on the road to Ashbourne, wearing stolen boots and a dress that had been mended so many times it was more thread than fabric.

Rouse yourself! Commanded a voice in her mind, a tone suspiciously similar to her younger self, the spirited girl who once mended fallen benches and coaxed the wild rose to bloom. 

“Pray, rise, you most pitiful creature! You have progressed to this point…you shall not expire within sight of the gates to Ashbourne Hall. You have survived so much and now at the ripe age of 20 you cannot…you will not give in to cruel fate….Rise!”

The very same formidable iron gates were exactly as she remembered them…except for one difference…they were secured with heavy chains.

Clara dragged herself upright, using a combination of determination and words her aunt would have fainted to hear, and stumbled toward the gates. A thick chain had been wrapped around the bars, secured with a padlock the size of her fist. 

A sign, weather-beaten but still legible, proclaimed: “The Grounds are Private Property.” 

“Private property?” Clara muttered, testing the chain with hands that could barely feel the metal. “How terribly ducal of you, Gabriel.”

The heavy chain could not be undone. The gates were unmovable too….However, the wall…

The wall was exactly as she remembered it. Eight feet of worn stone, with convenient footholds where the mortar had crumbled, and…yes, there it was, the same apple tree, older and larger now, with branches that reached over the wall like helping hands.

Clara looked at the tree. The tree looked back, or seemed to, in that way inanimate objects had of judging one’s life choices.

“Please refrain from commenting as I am fully aware this is undignified.”

Climbing a tree in stolen boots, a sodden dress, and petticoats that had given up any pretense of propriety somewhere around mile two was exactly as difficult as it sounded. Possibly more so. Clara’s first attempt resulted in her hanging upside down from a branch while her skirts tried to suffocate her. Her second attempt was more successful if one defined successful as surviving an untimely demise amidst her undergarments.

By the third attempt, she’d managed to reach the top of the wall, though her dress had caught on approximately every available surface and was now more suggestion than garment. She perched there, straddling the stone like the world’s least graceful gargoyle, and looked down at Ashbourne Hall.

It was… different.

The grand house still stood, all golden limestone and elegant windows, but there was something amiss. Half the windows were in complete darkness, and the once immaculate grounds had grown wild and were in complete disarray. The grounds, once immaculate, had grown wild. As for the gardens….. 

Oh, the gardens.

Even from here, even in the dying light, she could see they had long been abandoned. Dead. The once neatly trimmed hedges had burst forth into ruinous confusion whilst the roses were nothing but skeletal thickets with their stems tangled and bare.

On further inspection she could barely discern the fountain that they had both tried to mend was now a shadow hidden in the overgrowth. The once neatly trimmed hedges had burst forth into ruinous confusion whilst the roses were nothing but skeletal thickets with their stems tangled and bare.

On further inspection she could barely discern the fountain that they had both tried to mend was now a shadow hidden in the overgrowth. The fountain she and Gabriel had tried to fix was just a shadow in the overgrowth.

Something twisted in Clara’s chest, sharp and unexpected. She’d prepared herself for seeing Gabriel again but again, she hadn’t prepared herself for seeing their childhood haven in total ruin.

No time for sentiment, she told herself firmly, and attempted to descend the wall with some degree of grace and thus failed spectacularly.

The branch that had seemed so sturdy on the way up proved to have opinions about supporting her weight on the way down. It expressed these opinions by breaking with a crack louder than thunder, sending Clara tumbling into what had once been  a herbaceous border and was now mostly mud.

She came down with a dreadful shock, the wind entirely knocked from her, and leaving her vision beset by exploding, fiery constellations. As she lay there face first in the mud, Clara tried to gather her thoughts wondering with genuine distress by what unfortunate turn of fortune she had been brought to such an appalling plight. 

At this point death seemed to be a preferable option but her traitorous body refused to admit defeat as her stomach he emitted a low, formidable roar which could have awoken the dearly departed.

“Very well then,” Clara announced to the mud.

“Upon the bench we shall go, yet again.”

She dragged herself upright, a process that involved several brazen words that would have made a seafaring man to colour, and oriented herself toward the house. Her dress was now more mud than fabric. Her hair, which she’d so carefully pinned that morning, hung around her face in wet strings. Her appearance, she strongly suspected, was quite akin to some wretched creature that had crept forth from a dismal swamp that had been roused only to inflict dire retribution upon mankind. 

Pure beauty. This is exactly how one wanted to appear when seeing one’s former best friend who’d grown up to be a duke. A scarred, reclusive duke who’d forgotten she existed to be exact.

The distance to the front door seemed to increase with every uncertain step. The magnificent flight of steps, though perfectly proportioned, presented a terrifying ascent before Clara. Upon reaching the threshold, she paused, and forced a composure she did not feel.

She raised her hand to knock, then paused in midair.

What was this folly that had overtaken her? What indeed was the purpose of this desperate measure?

She had travelled six exhausting hours through the unrelenting sleet merely to present herself at the door of a man who had not acknowledged her existence the past eight years. He had merely cast off their friendship without the slightest pretext or explanation as he transformed himself into precisely the heir his father had intended him to become, cold, proper, and altogether unapproachable.

But where else could she go?

Her aunt had been claimed by the same fever that had taken half of Bath last winter. Her situation as a governess was lost immediately once she declined to accept the improper advances of the master of the house.

Soon she was forced t forfeit her lodgings as she could no longer afford to pay.

Soon all her possessions had been sold bit by bit until all she had left in her person were the clothes she was wearing and a journal she could not bear to part with…a journal with a pressed rose hidden in its pages.

She had nothing, nobody, and nowhere to go…except here, except him…except the fragile foolish ray of hope

Clara knocked.

The sound reverberated through the house like a peal of thunder, or, perhaps more accurately, like the very moment a young lady’s reputation was utterly and irrevocably lost. For a long moment, nothing happened. Then the sound of slow, unsteady footsteps could be heard coming towards the door. 

Clara had prepared herself. She’d spent the past six hours preparing herself. She’d imagined this moment in every conceivable manner, scripted clever things to say, practiced the kind of smile that said I’m perfectly quite well, even when one was decidedly not fine.

All of that preparation evaporated the moment she saw him.

He was taller than she remembered, and much broader with a body of a man who’d seen war rather than a boy who’d fallen out of trees. His dark hair was longer, unfashionably so as if the simple task of attending to his person were quite beneath his notice. His clothes were expensive but worn carelessly, his shirt open at the throat, no cravat and waistcoat unbuttoned. He was the picture of a gentleman who’d given up on being gentle which was too soon for a young man at the age of five and twenty.

And the scar.

It was exactly as the papers had described and nothing like she’d imagined. A savage line that ran from his left temple down through his cheek to his jaw, pulling the skin tight, distorting what had once been a face that made debutantes write romantic poetry. It should have given his countenance a beastly and grotesque aspect, yet one found a haunting beauty in his features. 

His eyes were the same. Dark, intense, currently widening in shock as they took in the muddy disaster on his doorstep.

“Clara?” Her name on his lips after eight years of silence. It sounded rusty, uncertain, as if he’d forgotten how to pronounce it.

She tried to smile. Tried to speak. She attempted to retain her composure, lest she appear entirely unsettled before the company.

 “Hello, Gabriel. I’m sorry to… I didn’t… I wouldn’t have come, but…”

The world tilted. Or perhaps she tilted. Either way, the last thing she saw before darkness claimed her was Gabriel lunging forward, his arms reaching for her, his voice saying her name again with something that sounded almost like the boy she’d once known.

She fell, and he caught her, because that’s what they’d always done…fallen and caught each other in turns.

 

Gabriel had been having a perfectly unexceptionable evening, which is to say, entirely odious.

He’d dismissed the staff at four on the hour, as was his custom, preferring to brood in privacy. Though he took up a book, he was soon obliged to lay it aside, for his thoughts were regrettably indisposed to concentrate on what he had been trying to read. He’d considered eating but decided against it; food had lost its appeal somewhere between Waterloo and the field hospital where they’d stitched his face back together. He’d definitely not been thinking about the date, January twentieth, the anniversary of nothing important, certainly not the last time he’d seen a particular physician’s daughter before she’d disappeared to Bath and he’d gone to war.

He’d been not thinking about this so successfully that when the knock came, his first thought was that he’d finally lost his senses and was hallucinating. Nobody ever knocked at Ashbourne Hall. The gates were chained. The signs were clear. The locals had learned to leave him alone after he’d threatened to prosecute the vicar for trespassing, who had come to offer him spiritual comfort. 

 Nevertheless, the knock was real, and it spoke of an indiscretion that could not be simply ignored.

Gabriel contemplated to allow the incessant knocking on his door to go unheeded, but alas, curiosity would not allow him to settle back to his reading.

He opened the door with a great force, ready to unleash his anger upon the trespasser, when he saw her…

Clara Whitfield, though his mind couldn’t quite reconcile the girl he’d known with this creature before him. She looked as if he’d been dragged through several hedges backward, then drowned for good measure. Mud covered her from head to toe. Her dress, if it could still be called that hung off her frame, which was far too thin. Her hair, which he remembered as honey-gold, was plastered to her head in dark, wet strings.

But her eyes. Mercy! Her eyes were exactly the same shade of blue-green that had haunted him through muddy trenches and morphine dreams. Looking at him as she saw through all his ducal pretensions to the boy who’d once grafted roses with her.

“Clara?” Her name sprang from his lips before he could prevent it. Eight years of practiced indifference crumbled at the sight of her swaying on his doorstep.

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 icy dampness 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 he could 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.

 Just as he was.

His scar ached, as it always did in the cold. She hadn’t reacted to it, he realised. Hadn’t flinched or stared or reacted the way people usually did when faced with his ruined face. But then, she’d been too busy collapsing to be properly horrified.

That would come later, no doubt. When she woke. When she realised where she was, who he’d become. She’d look at him with pity or disgust or that careful politeness that was worse than either, and he’d have to watch the last person who’d known him before turn away.

But for now, she was here. Breathing. Warming slowly in his arms. Alive.

“Clara,” he said quietly, not expecting a response. “What happened to you?”

She stirred slightly, burrowing deeper into the warmth he offered. Her fingers, poking out from the blankets, twitched toward his hand. Without thinking, he took them, wrapping her small, cold fingers in his larger, warmer ones.

They stayed like that as the fire burned lower, as the storm raged outside, as eight years of silence stretched between them like scar tissue. Gabriel held her and tried not to think about how familiar this felt, how fitting it was and how absolutely catastrophic for his carefully maintained isolation.

She’d come back. After everything ,after his letters had grown cold, after he’d ignored her, after he’d allowed is father to convince him she was beneath him, after he’d gone to war and come back less than whole…she’d come back.

The first, unavoidable question was simply, why? Then a weightier question followed… what course of action was he to pursue?

It was not proper that she should remain under his roof. He was not fit company for anyone, let alone someone he’d once… cared for. He was scarred, bitter, and half-mad with guilt and nightmares. The boy she’d known was long gone, killed somewhere between Eton and Waterloo, and all that was left was this shadow that bore his name and title.

Clara’s consciousness returned in pieces, like fragments of a broken mirror reflecting increasingly unpleasant truths. First, warmth, blessed and unexpected after so many nights of cold. Then there was pain, everywhere, a symphony of aches from her frozen feet to her empty stomach. Finally, the deeply unsettling realization that she was being held by someone who smelled of brandy and bitter herbs and…

“Finally awake, or are you going to continue pretending?”

The voice cut through her foggy mind like ice water. Cold. Harsh. Unmistakably Gabriel, but not the Gabriel she remembered. This voice had edges that could draw blood.

Clara kept her eyes closed, needing a moment to gather herself before facing whatever he’d become. She could feel him behind her, around her as they were wrapped together in blankets, his arms encircling her with a possessiveness that would have been tender if not for the rigidity of his body, it was as if he was holding a venomous snake he couldn’t quite bring himself to drop.

“I know you’re conscious,” he continued, his breath against her ear making her shiver despite herself. “Your breathing changed. Rather dramatically, actually. Never could lie properly, could you?”

She opened her eyes, finding herself in what appeared to be a library, firelight flickering over leather spines. “Gabriel?”

“Your Grace,” he corrected sharply. “We’re not children anymore, Miss Whitfield. Or is it Mrs. Something-or-other now? Wedded some merchant in Bath to save yourself from governessing?”

The cruelty of it stung more than the cold had. Clara tried to turn to face him, but his arms tightened, holding her in place.

“Don’t,” he said. “Unless you want to discover just how thoroughly your dignity has already been compromised. Your dress, what remained of it, is currently drying by the fire. You’ve been pressed against me for hours wearing nothing but your undergarments and my apparent lack of judgment.”

Heat flooded her face. “You…”

“Divested you of your garments? Yes. Fascinating how circumstances force one to abandon propriety. You were on the brink of expiring. I was the only one here to attend to you.” His tone was conversational, almost bored, but she could feel the tension in his body, wound tight as a clock spring. “Though I suppose I should thank you for the entertainment. It’s been rather dull here. Nothing quite like a poor, undone creature falling through one’s door to liven up an evening.”

“The door was locked,” Clara managed through gritted teeth. “As was the gate. One might almost believe you didn’t want visitors.”

“One would be correct. Yet here you are, like a particularly persistent weed that refuses to wither no matter how many times it’s plucked out.”

She flinched, and she felt him notice, a slight shift in his breathing, a fractional loosening of his grip.

“Why?” he asked, and for a moment, just a moment, she heard something else beneath the cruelty. “Eight years of silence, and you appear on my doorstep looking like death’s rejected mistress. Why?”

Clara closed her eyes. She’d known this would be humiliating. She hadn’t expected it to hurt quite so much. “Because I had nowhere else to go.”

“Ah.” The word was soft, satisfied, like a cat finding a wounded bird. “How the mighty have fallen. The physician’s educated daughter, reduced to begging at the door of someone she couldn’t be bothered to…” He stopped abruptly.

“To what?” Clara asked quietly. “To write to? You ceased writing first, if you recall. Your letters grew shorter and shorter until they were nothing but your initials on paper. Then nothing at all.”

“Ancient history,” he said dismissively. “And irrelevant. The question is what to do with you now.”

“I can leave,” Clara said immediately, pride flaring despite everything. “Just return my dress, such as it is, and I’ll…”

His laugh was ugly, bitter. “Leave? You can barely breathe without wheezing. Your feet are so damaged you won’t walk for days. You have no money, yes, I checked your pockets, don’t look so shocked, no family, no position. Where exactly would you go? Back over my wall to die in my garden like some tragic heroine?”

“If necessary.”

“How dramatically foolish of you.” But his arms tightened around her again, and she realised with a start that he was shaking. No, they both were. “You always were too proud for your own well-being.”

“And you always were too cruel when you were frightened,” The sharp retort flew from her lips before she could check herself. 

The silence that followed was deafening. His body went completely still behind her, hardly daring to breathe. When he finally spoke, his voice was soft and infinitely more dangerous.

“Frightened?  “Do you truly believe that I am frightened?”

Of what exactly? Pray tell.”

“My aunt passed.” Clara she stated without any expression. “The fever took her and half of Bath. I got a position as a governess. The master had wandering hands and a wife who blamed me for it. I was dismissed without reference. I tried to find work, seamstress, shop girl, anything. But without references, without connections…” She trailed off. “So yes, I stole boots. I walked for three days through sleet to get here. Because even your cruelty seemed better than freezing to death in a ditch. However, I do believe that I was gravely mistaken.”

She felt him swallow, his throat moving against her hair.

“The rose,” she said suddenly, desperately needing to change the subject. “You said it survived.”

“It’s a weed,” he said after a moment. “Grows wild all over the west wall. Impossible to kill. Rather like its gardeners, apparently.”

“We grafted it well.”

“We were children playing at being clever. It was luck, nothing more.”

“It was…” Clara started to argue, then stopped. What was the point? This wasn’t the boy who’d delighted in their creation. This was someone else, someone harder and meaner and absolutely determined to hurt her as much as possible.

“You’re crying,” he observed clinically.

She hadn’t realised she was. “No, I’m not.”

“Terrible liar, as always.” His thumb brushed across her cheek, catching a tear, and for a moment his touch was almost gentle. Then he seemed to catch himself, his hand dropping away. “This is why you shouldn’t have come. I’m not… I’m not who you remember.”

 “That much is clear.”

“The boy you knew no longer exists.”

“Very well,” Clara said with feeling. “He was a coward who chose his father’s approval over keeping his word. At least you’re honest about being horrid.”

She felt him flinch as if she’d slapped him.

“Leave” he said quietly.

“By all means, my dress?”

“In the morning. When you can walk without collapsing. Until then, you’ll stay here, you’ll eat what I give you, and you’ll be grateful for it. Then you’ll leave and never come back.”

 “It would afford me the greatest satisfaction.”

They sat in furious silence, still wrapped together, both too proud to be the first to move, and despite everything, the anger, the hurt, the years between them, Clara became aware of his every move. The way his heartbeat had accelerated when she’d called him a coward. The way his hands, for all his cruel words, held her carefully, avoiding her bruises. The way he’d said “the boy you knew No longer exists.” As if he was trying to convince himself.

“Your scar,” she said suddenly.

Every muscle in his body went rigid. “What of it?”

“I just… I wanted you to know. It did not escape my notice.” 

“Fear not. Revulsion will come after you have recovered fully to observe it properly.”

Clara wanted to argue, but exhaustion was pulling at her again, making her eyelids heavy. “Gabriel?”

“Your Grace,” he corrected again, but with less venom.

“Your Grace, then. Why didn’t you send me away immediately? Why bother saving someone you clearly despise?”

He was quiet for so long she thought he wouldn’t answer. When he finally spoke, his voice was barely a whisper…I may be an unfeeling beast, but I am no common murderer.”

“There’s a difference?”

“One implies a choice.”

She wanted to ask what he meant, but sleep was claiming her again, pulling her under despite her best efforts to stay awake and angry.

“Sleep,” he commanded, and this time it sounded less like concern and more like an order from a duke used to being obeyed. “You’re no use to anyone so weakened.” 

“I am not tenderly concerned as you say…it is merely the circumstances that have forced my hand here to attend to you.”

“I thank you, Your Grace,” she said with as much sarcasm as she could muster, “For the mere appearance of humanity.” 

“You are welcome Miss Whitefield.” He retorted in the same tone as herself.

Despite everything, the pain, the humiliation, the bizarre horror of their reunion, Clara found herself almost smiling. This was awful, yes. He was cruel, yes. But underneath the venom and the scar and the years of silence, she could still hear the boy who’d argued with her about everything just for the pure pleasure of arguing.

He was still in there, somewhere, buried under all that cold ducal armor.

The question was whether she’d survive long enough to find him.

As she drifted back to sleep, she felt his arms adjust around her, pulling her closer despite his harsh words. His chin came to rest on top of her head, a gesture so familiar from their childhood that her heart ached.

“I’m sorry,” she thought she heard him whisper, but she was already falling into dreams of roses and bitter boys and the space between what was said and what was meant.

When she woke again, hours or days later, the first thing she heard was his voice, low and vicious: “If you are here merely to satisfy your idle curiosity, Edmund, I’ll throw you out myself, friendship be damned.”

A second voice, responded in an amused tone. “I came because the entire village is in a stir concerning lights in Ashbourne Hall and the Duke actually answering his door. I had to see if you’d finally gone completely mad or merely partially so.”

“Leave now.”

“Is that… Gabriel, is that a woman?”

Clara kept her eyes closed, feigning sleep, intensely aware that she was still pressed against Gabriel in nothing but her undergarments and blankets.

“Your powers of observation astound me,” Gabriel said dryly.

“You have a woman in your library, in your arms.” The very air was brimming with such a remarkable sense of delight. “Gabriel Hale, you are the most dissembling of men All this time playing the beast in the castle, and you’ve had a…”

“Finish that sentence and I’ll finish you.”

“She’s rather pretty, from what I can see. Bit thin. Familiar looking, actually. Is she… oh have mercy, is that the Whitfield girl? The one you used to write about at school?”

“Her name is Miss Whitfield, and she’s leaving as soon as she is quite steady upon her feet, she shall leave.””

“Leave? Gabriel, the woman is clearly…”

“Leave she shall,” Gabriel repeated with finality. “Just as you are leaving this very instant.”

“You can’t just…”

“Edmund.” Gabriel’s voice had gone deadly quiet. “Go. Now.”

There was a long pause, then footsteps retreating. At the door, Edmund’s voice drifted back: “You know, Gabriel, playing the beast only works if you don’t care about the beauty dying in your arms.”

The door closed with a decisive click.

Gabriel’s body was vibrating with tension. Clara could feel his rage in every rigid line of him.

“You can stop pretending now,” he said coldly. “I know you’re awake.”

Clara opened her eyes.  “Edmund seems quite amiable.”

 “Edmund is deficient in sense.”

“He’s your friend.”

“I don’t have friends.”

 “That is quite evident.”

They glared at each other, or rather, Clara glared at the wall while feeling his glare boring into the back of her head.

“This changes nothing,” he said finally. “You leave tomorrow.”

“Today,” Clara corrected. “I leave today.”

“You can’t even stand.”

“Watch me.”

She tried to pull away from him, to stand, to do anything other than remain in his arms like some pathetic dependent. Her body had other ideas. The moment she tried to move, pain shot through her feet, her legs, everything. She made an undignified sound and fell back against him.

“You willful, unreasoning simpleton,” he muttered, but his arms came around her again, steadying her.

“Let me go.”

“So you can collapse and crack your head open on my floor? I think not. I’ve had enough blood on these carpets.”

The casualness with which he said it made her stomach turn. “Gabriel…”

“Don’t.” The word was sharp, final. “Don’t you dare pity me.”

“I wasn’t…”

“You were. You are. Poor scarred Gabriel, hiding in his castle, probably mad from the war, definitely drinking too much. That’s what you’re thinking, isn’t it?”

 “I find you possess a most detestable nature, I confess.”

He made a sound that might have been a laugh if it hadn’t been so bitter. “I will grant it is plain truth.” 

They sat in miserable silence, two people who’d once been everything to each other now trapped in the roles of reluctant savior and unwanted burden.

“I shall repay you,” Clara said suddenly. “For the food, the shelter. Once I find work, I’ll…”

“With what references? What connections? Who’s going to hire a woman who came to a duke’s estate in a state of profound prostration? With nothing but a pair of stolen boots on her person?”

 “I will find a solution.”

“No,” he said slowly, as if an idea was forming. “No, you won’t.”

Something in his tone made her skin prickle. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, Miss Whitfield, that you’re right. You will pay me back. With labor.”

“I’m not going to be your mistress.”

“Good Heavens, woman, I’m scarred, not desperate.” The insult stung more than she cared to admit. “Look at this place. Take a long look.”

For the first time, Clara properly observed the library. Dust covered every surface. Books were stacked haphazardly. The windows were grimy. It looked like a mausoleum for literature.

“The whole house is in this condition?” Gabriel continued. “I dismissed the staff, as I could not bear their incessant stares nor their whispers, even though this all needs immediate attention.”

“I strongly suggest you make additions to your staff.”

“Patience, you say? I was nearly driven to madness by the last housekeeper, merely for humming while she went about her duties.

 No, that simply will not do. What I truly require is a servant who already understands my intolerable disposition. Someone who will not give in their notice at the first word of my unpardonable temper. 

Someone whose circumstances are too dire to permit their departure.

“Your Grace, Your testimonial is so charming.”

“I’m not trying to flatter you. I merely wish to make my suit of you, just as you are making your claim upon my roof for shelter. At least, in this manner, we are entirely candid in our dealings.” 

Clara Took a moment to ponder over his proposal, even though it was humiliating, but it was also practical, and she was considered above all things now, a practical woman.

 “And what precisely are the conditions of this arrangement?”

“Room, board, and a small wage. In exchange, you’ll clean, organise, and generally make this place livable. You’ll do it quietly, without complaint, and without trying to fix me or befriend me or whatever sentimental nonsense you might be considering.”

“How long?”

“Until spring. When the roads clear and positions open up elsewhere. I’ll even give you a reference, claim you worked for some fictional cousin. Respectable enough to get you hired somewhere far from here.”

“And should I refuse?”

“Then you leave today, as you said. I’ll have Edmund drive you to the village inn. You can explain to them how you’ll pay with no money and no belongings except a ruined dress and stolen boots.”

He had her cornered and they both knew it. However, Clara held one last advantage to use.”

“The gardens,” she said.

“What about them?”

“They’re part of the estate, aren’t they? Part of what needs tending?”

“The gardens are utterly withered.”

“Our rose isn’t.”

He went very still. “That’s not…”

“Those are my terms,” Clara interrupted. “I’ll clean your dusty mausoleum, I’ll organize your life, and I’ll tolerate your moods. But I will also tend the gardens. Or I leave now and take my chances at the inn.”

 “I assure you, your present circumstances do not permit you to dictate terms.”

“Neither are you. You are in need of assistance, whether you admit it or not. And despite your beastly behaviour, you would never actually allow me to freeze to death. Your conscience, whatever’s left of it, won’t allow it.”

 “You are wagering your very existence.”

“I’m wagering my life on the boy who once spent three hours helping me bandage a bird’s broken wing.”

“That boy is…”

“No longer here, yes, you have mentioned. Several times, actually. The lady doth protest too much, methinks.”

His breath hissed out between his teeth. “You’re insufferable.”

“You’re cruel.”

“Then we’re well matched.”

“For a business arrangement,” Clara added firmly. “Nothing more.”

“Goodness gracious, spare us that affliction!” He said with such vehemence that it hurt. “Fine. The gardens too. But you work alone. You shall not receive any assistance, and I shall not hear of any complaints should you find any encumbrance.” No complaints when you can’t manage it.”

 “It is agreed.”

 “And you are to remain entirely away from the east wing.”

“Why…”

“Those are my terms.”

Clara nodded. “Agreed.”

They sat there, terms and agreements completed, still wrapped in each other like lovers while negotiating like enemies. The irony wasn’t lost on either of them.

“There’s one more thing,” Gabriel said quietly.

“What?”

“My scar. You’ll have to look at it every day. It gets worse in daylight. People have literally run from me in the street. Children cry. If it is too much for you…”

“Gabriel.” She used his name deliberately and felt him tense. “Your face is the least ugly thing about you at this moment.”

He made a sound that could have been a laugh or a sob. “You were ever too candid for your own advantage.” 

“And you always were too convinced your worth was tied to your appearance. Your father’s doing, I assume?”

 “Do not continue.”

“Very well. “ Your imperfection is of no concern to me. My only regard is to secure a roof above my head and sustenance for my table. Your very countenance might be entirely effaced, and so long as my wages are forthcoming, I shall remain to tend to your library.”

“How mercenary of you.”

“You taught me well, Your Grace.”

They fell silent again. Outside, dawn was properly breaking, painting the frozen world in shades of pearl and gold. Inside, two people who’d once cared deeply for each other sat in bitter proximity, negotiating survival rather than affection.

“You’ll need clothes,” he said finally, practically. “I’ll have Edmund’s wife send some things.”

“Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me. It’s part of your wages. It will be highly improper for my housekeeper to wander around in her undergarments. The rumors would be insufferable.”

“Heaven forbid the Duke of Ashbourne suffer rumors.”

“I don’t suffer them. I ignore them. There’s a difference.”

“Of course there is.”

More silence. Then, because Clara couldn’t help herself: “Do you ever go there? To the garden?”

“No.”

“But you said the rose…”

“I can see it from my window. It’s everywhere now. It has completely overtaken that section of wall.”

“You could have had it removed.”

“I tried. It grew back. Rather like yourself, actually. It is quite impossible to be rid of it entirely.”

Clara didn’t know whether to be insulted or oddly touched. “I’m going to make it beautiful again.”

“It’s withered, Clara. Everything in that garden is withered except that cursed rose.”

“Then I’ll bring it back to life.”

“You can’t resurrect the past.”

 “I have no wish to do so I’m trying to survive the present.”

He sighed, and she felt it through her whole body. “Aren’t we all?”

The clock struck seven on the hour. Morning had properly arrived, and with it, the harsh reality of what they’d agreed to. Master and servant. Employer and employee. Two strangers who happened to share a history neither could acknowledge.

“Edmund will return with clothes and food,” Gabriel said, shifting slightly. “Until then, you should rest.”

“I’ve been resting.”

“You’ve been unconscious. There’s a difference.”

“You’re full of differences today.”

“I’m full of differences every day. You’ll learn.”

It sounded like a threat and a promise all at once. Clara closed her eyes, overwhelmed by everything, the pain, the humiliation, the bizarre twist of fate that had brought her back to the one person she’d sworn never to need again.

“I won’t make this easy for you,” Gabriel said quietly.

“I wouldn’t expect you to.”

“I’m difficult, demanding, and deliberately cruel.”

“I observed.”

“I shall ensure you rue the day you ever set foot in this house.”

“You have already.”

He made that sound again, not quite laugh, and not quite sob. “Why did you really come here, Clara? The truth this time.”

She thought about lying, about protecting herself with whatever fiction might make this bearable. But she was too tired, too broken, and too empty for anything but honesty.

“Because even your cruelty felt safer than being alone,” she whispered.

His arms tightened around her, just for a moment, before he forced them to relax. “You’re a nothing but a simpleton.”

“Yes.”

“You should have stayed away.”

“Yes.”

“This won’t end well.”

“Nothing ever does.”

They sat there as the sun rose higher, filling the dusty library with light that revealed everything, the decay, the neglect, the two damaged people clinging to each other while pretending they weren’t.

Clara thought about their rose, growing wild somewhere beyond these walls. About grafts that took against all odds. About things that survived even when they shouldn’t.

She’d survive this too. She’d survive him, his cruelty, and his coldness. She’d survive because she had no other choice, and because somewhere under all that ice was still the boy who’d taught her that two different things could grow together into something new.

Even if that something was twisted and thorny and nothing like what they’d planned.

“Welcome to Ashbourne Hall, Miss Whitfield,” Gabriel said with mock formality. “May your employment be brief and forgettable.”

“Thank you, Your Grace,” she replied with equal mockery. “May your temper be manageable and your cruelty limited to verbal rather than physical.”

“I don’t beat women.”

“How wonderfully comforting. You merely destroy their consequence with your discourse.”

“Indeed. Diligence ever leads to a proficiency of the tongue.”

Despite everything, Clara found herself almost smiling. This was terrible. He was terrible. The whole situation was a disaster of pride and desperation and unspoken history.

But she was alive. She was warm. She had a position, however strange and abnormal, and a roof over her head.

And somewhere in this ruined house, beneath all his scars, the visible one and the invisible ones, was still Gabriel. Changed, damaged, cruel, but still him.

That would have to be enough.

Her situation was very much improved since she had come here with her stolen boots.

And infinitely more dangerous to her heart.