Gabriel
Everything was different. Different faces, different names, different house, different friends. Sometimes Rachel questioned if it had been such a good decision to come back here, before remembering three very young faces that needed her just a bit more than she needed to be selfish. Their family might have been pieced together, but seeing Amissa with Gabriel, how Michael was with her—really, everything about Benjamin, told her if they'd done one thing, it was raise them well. Even lovingly, one might say, which just about struck her dumb. Rachel knew she had to be here, but it still felt like she was some kind of intruder, and it was not a feeling she cared for. It was a feeling she was reminded of every time she made to pass by the master wing, as she was doing just now. The double-doors at the end of the hallway at once beckoned to her and repelled her. Since leaving St. Mungo's, Rachel had been in the room once, to collect her clothes. But the idea of staying there, in a place of such
intimacy, physical and otherwise, was unpalatable? Macabre. Nerve-wracking. Certainly nothing that would appease Rachel.
But she found herself walking toward them, regardless. As far as she knew, it had been empty since…
before, and the urge to look at this setting of an unremembered life was irrepressible. A glance at the grandfather clock told her she had time before anyone else was due home. Unable to deny the tug toward the room any longer, she slipped through the ominous double doors.
She started with the wardrobe, tapping on the back, digging through pockets, checking compartments on the sides and bottom. Every object on the vanity was thoroughly examined. Curtains peered behind, the mattress of the bed she was trying hard to ignore the existence of lifted, the pillows patted down, under the frame checked. What was Rachel looking for? She didn't know. Would she remember something if she physically touched every aspect of this gaping hole in her memory that she could? Nothing jogged her mind, yet everything somehow seemed familiar. With a shout of frustration, she slapped the top of the bureau and braced herself against it, closing her eyes. There were gaps everywhere. But the only one she wanted filled was the one that showed her how this was where her life ended up. Wearily, she rubbed her temples and opened her eyes, her gaze falling squarely on the bureau opposite her.
Was this wrong, and an intrusion of privacy? Absolutely. But Rachel's sense of propriety and shame had often taken a place of lesser precedence in her life, and there was no reason to change that now… The aggravation and burning curiosity to learn something, anything about Rachel Moira Corner was too strong to deny, and perhaps a little more about the mysterious man she shared a life with. So she rooted through everything she thought was his. Wardrobe, nightstand, bookshelf, before turning on that bureau. Drawer after drawer, she pawed through the contents, finding Gabriel Corner was neat, but not anally so. His taste was of high quality, which she'd previously discerned. And none of the belongings she was digging through was an ounce helpful.
Her fingers stumbled over a small object stuffed in the back of the top drawer. Rachel pulled it out with only mild interest, until she saw it was unmistakably a jewelry box. Pausing only for a moment, she hastily opened it, just barely stifling a gasp. "
What in the…" Rachel breathed, thinking her eyes must be falling out of her head. Stunned, she hesitantly raised a finger to ghost over the shining stones, unable to take her eyes off the ring sitting prettily on a little bed of satin. Was this the sort of thing men casually kept in sock drawers?
