Letters poured in from London. Aunt Mildred had spread the tale of Gabriel's madness. The Duke of Alsbury was living among the workers. He had thrown out his own class. He was cohabitating with a disgraced spinster who was acting as his clerk.
Society was horrified. Norah burned the letters in the fireplace. Gabriel didn't even bother to open them. Their lives intersected in the quiet, bruised hours of the evening.
It was late one Thursday night. The rain was beating against the glass of the office window in a heavy rhythmic drum beat. Norah was sitting at the mahogany desk, a single lamp burning, cross-referencing a stack of grain receipts. Her neck ached, her eyes burned. The door opened.
Gabriel walked in. He was soaked to the bone. His dark hair was plastered to his skull and his heavy riding coat dripped water onto the floorboards. He smelled of rain, wet earth, and leather. He didn't speak.
He just walked over to the small iron stove in the corner of the office, stripped off his heavy coat, and threw it over a chair. He stood by the heat, his back to her, running a hand over his face. Norah put her pen down. Is the dam holding? Barely," Gabriel said, his voice raspy from shouting in the rain. "The lower pasture flooded, but we managed to brace the western wall of the reservoir. The crops are safe." He turned around. He looked exhausted. The shadows under his eyes were bruised and heavy. He walked over to the desk, braced his hands on the edge of the mahogany wood, and looked down at her. "You should be asleep," he said softly. “I found another three hundred pounds Croft hid in a London bank under a false name,” Norah replied, tapping the ledger.
It belongs to the estate. I've already drafted the letter to the solicitor to have it reclaimed. Gabriel looked at the ledger, then up at her face. He reached out. His hand was warm, his knuckles still scarred from the pickaxe.
He gently wiped a smudge of black ink from her cheekbone with his thumb. Norah's breath hitched. The touch was entirely casual, yet it carried the force of a physical blow. The air in the small office suddenly felt incredibly dense. She didn't pull away.
She looked up into his gray eyes. The cynicism that usually armored her felt terribly thin. "You are working yourself to death for a house that isn't yours, Norah," Gabriel murmured, his thumb trailing down to rest against her jaw. "It needed to be done." "Why?" "Because for the first time in my life, I am actually useful," she said, her voice barely a whisper, fiercely honest. "I am not an ornament. I am not a burden. I am fixing something." Gabriel stared at her. The intensity in his gaze was terrifying. It wasn't the polite, measured affection of a suitor in a ballroom.
It was a raw, unmistakable intensity. He saw exactly who she was. He saw the anger, the stubbornness, the brilliant, cynical mind that the rest of the world had ignored. "You were never a burden," Gabriel said, his voice thick. He leaned down, his face inches from hers. You were the only living thing in a world of ghosts.