His broad shoulders tightened the expert cut of his sapphire coat sleeves. “No.” The usual smoothness of his tone was now gravelly and harsh.
He too had fears. She dropped her gaze to her lap. What fears would a powerful nobleman such as he know? Then, she lifted her gaze back to him and his white-knuckled grip upon his glass. Suffering and pain were not reserved to a single station.
Suddenly, the intimacy of this moment, the view of him as more than a marquess and merely a man hammered home the folly in her being here, alone with her already weakening defenses. She made to rise.
“Did you enjoy yourself today?”
His words froze her. He doesn’t want to be alone. For his cool nonchalance and his veneer of icy strength, he craved company. She knew, as only one who’d lived a solitary life could, that need in another. Retreat was wise and yet compassion kept her at his side. Jane settled back in her seat. “Which part of the day did you refer to?” The stolen moment when you captured my curl? “Our trip to Bond Street?”
Some of the tension seeped from his shoulders. Relief that, even as she should have taken her leave, she’d, in fact, stayed.
Jane studied him, this stoic stranger who would have tossed her out after their first meeting, but now spoke to her in the privacy of his library. What did he think of, even now?
And more…what was this hungering for her to know his unspoken thoughts?
*
Tonight, the demons of his past haunted him. They came at the most unexpected moments, triggered by a scent, a sound, and a memory. He’d prided himself on effectively squashing the memories of his father’s abuse and yet he’d never truly be free of them. None of them would.
This evening it had been Waterson’s unassuming statement about Gabriel’s role as brother that had plunged him into the turbulent horrors of his youth. It was what had driven Gabriel to abandon his clubs and seek out the solitude of his office. Except, as he’d wandered down the silent corridors, the faint flicker of candlelight from under the doorframe had beckoned and with it a need to see the occupant of that room, knowing intuitively the woman who’d be on the other side of the door.
After years of striving to be different than the foul, rotted bastard his father had been, Gabriel, staring at Jane Munroe, came to the unpleasant realization that he was more like that monster than he’d ever dared believe.
For in the faintly lit library with just he and Jane for company, he hungered to know the soft, bow-shaped contours of her lips once more. He clenched the glass between his hands and burying his disgust, Gabriel downed a long sip. The familiar burn of the fine French spirits did little to dull his senses.
He wanted her still; this woman with her frowning lips and proudly held frame. Curiosity struck once more—a desire to know just who this angry one moment, smiling and teasing the next young woman was? He swirled the contents of his glass and eyed her over the rim. How did she come to find herself a companion? As it was safer to feed the desire to know more than the need to lay her gently curved frame upon the leather button sofa and take her as he longed to, Gabriel fixed on the need to fill in the pieces of Mrs. Munroe’s story, for the unknown bits of her were far safer than the detailed pieces of his own that could never be forgotten.
As though unnerved by his scrutiny, Jane shifted back and forth. With a slight tremble to her fingers, she fanned the pages of the book in her hand.
“How did you come to be a companion?”
She stilled and her fingers ceased their distracted little movement. The book fluttered closed with a soft thump. “My lord?”
As a young boy, his safety had become dependent on an ability to gauge his father’s actions and reactions. He’d become adept at detecting the subtle nuances of a person’s every movement. Jane frowned and “my-lorded” him when unnerved. He frowned. What secrets did she keep? He shifted and hooked his opposite ankle across his knee. “Surely mine it is not a question that should merit surprise?”
She wrung her hands together. “Do you find me an inadequate companion to Lady Chloe? Do you intend to send me away?”
Send me away. He paused. Not back to Mrs. Belden’s. Rather away. She preferred being here. Why should such a fact matter? And yet, it did. An inexplicable lightness filled his chest. “I assure you, I’m pleased with your services, Jane.” Even if she infuriated him with her insolent words and tone. He admired her spirit. “I do not intend to send you back.” And had admired those of brazen courage, since his own failed childhood as the scared, cowering boy beat for his father’s cruel enjoyments.
The tension left Jane’s shoulders and her expression softened. By the lady’s reaction, he may as well have handed her a star. “Thank you,” she responded. She dropped her gaze to the book in her lap and, for a long moment, he believed she would ignore the question he’d previously put to her. “There is a remarkable lack of options for a young, unwed woman.”
He’d have to be deafer than a doorpost to fail to hear the thick resentment underscoring her response. Regret filled him, as well as a heavy dose of shame. He’d dedicated his life to seeing his siblings contented and yet he’d never given thought to the precariousness of others—such as Jane. “What of Mr. Munroe?” It was an improper question he had no right to ask and certainly no right to an answer.
She picked her head up. “Mr. Munroe?” she asked, brow furrowed. Then belatedly appeared to recall her mistake. “O-oh,” she cleared her throat. “I t-take it you refer to my husband?”
He took another sip of brandy. She’d been no more wedded than Gabriel himself. “Yes. Was there another?” Yet, the lady was a companion and Mrs. Belden, one of the most revered, feared, and stern headmistresses in the entire kingdom, would never hire into her employ a woman who was not widow or spinster.
Jane shook her head so hard she dislodged several of those blonde tresses. “Of course not.” She caught her lower lip between her teeth. “Mr. Munroe’s father, I suppose, could have been the other Mr. Munroe you referred to.”
Poor Jane and her rather deplorable attempt at smoothing her lie. From the previous bitterness in her tone when she’d spoken of the remarkable lack of options for young women, the lady had carefully built a world as Mrs. Munroe, as opposed to Miss Munroe as a means of protection. He took pity and turned his questioning to truths about the lady and not these weakly constructed lies. “How did you come to be at Mrs. Belden’s?”
“Much the way most instructors come to be at Mrs. Belden’s.”
Which was how? “And will you return to Mrs. Belden’s employ after you complete the terms of your service here?” His gut tightened at the prospect of her gone. He’d had too many spirits this night. There was no other accounting for this irrational response.
“Where do you believe I might go?” Ah, her question with a question.
At her deliberate evasiveness, annoyance blended with amusement. Gabriel finished his drink in one, long, slow swallow and then set his snifter on the mahogany side table. He unfolded his leg and leaned close. “Who are you, Miss Munroe?”
She stilled at that deliberately emphasized word. He expected her to look away. Then, he was fast learning Jane never did or said the expected. She tipped her chin up and held his gaze with an unflinching directness. “I’m just a—”
“Do not say you are just a companion,” he said with a growl of annoyance. Suddenly, her repeated words coupled with Waterson’s disparaging remarks snapped his patience. The lady, through her work, demonstrated character and strength. How many women would or could take on the employment? “What if I say my questions have nothing to do with my role as your employer?” Jane stared unblinking at him. He angled closer. “What if I say I want to know about you?”
“Why?”
Why, indeed? Why when he’d committed himself to never worrying after the cares and desires of anyone outside the knit of his family’s fold? Because, after an evening of burying the memories in a bottle, he’d confronted the truth—he was lonely. In the light of a new
day, such a fact would not matter. It would even bring him solace and comfort and the assurance that he’d not be indebted to another soul. Yet now, with just him and the guarded Jane Munroe, he craved this momentary connection, one that he’d comfortably sever come morning.
“I enjoy reading.”
That brought his attention up and he started at her unexpected admission.
She held the book in her hand aloft. He tried to make out the title, but Jane swiftly lowered the leather volume to her lap. It did not escape his notice the manner in which she hurriedly flipped it over, shielding the title from his scrutiny. His intrigue redoubled. “What do you read, Jane?”
“Anything,” she said quickly. “Everything.”
“As a companion do you have much time for reading?”
She gave her head a shake. “I do not.”
“Do you have any family?” With his question, he craved an answer that set her apart from his own tortured childhood. It was a desire to know that when he’d been subjected to hell, she’d known the comfort of a predictable familial life.
“You have a good deal of questions, my lord.” He gave her a long look. She sighed. “As a child, there was only my mother and me. I knew no siblings and my mother,” she slid her gaze off to a point beyond his shoulder. “My mother was whimsical and fanciful while I craved practicality.”
Even as a child? A familiar pang tugged at his heart. Then with the sobering reality of his own childhood, had he been at all different than Jane in that regard? There was bitterness in her tone that steered him away from questions of her family, a confirmation that hers was not the easy childhood he had hoped. “What did you read?”
“I used to read fairytales.” Another one of those wistful smiles played about her lips. “Not all fairytales. Only those silly ones of love and happily ever afters.” An image flickered to life. A small, bespectacled young Jane with her nose buried in a book about princes and princesses and unending love. The idea pulled at him with an inexplicable appeal that fought the decade’s worth of disavowing those tiny beings, susceptible to hurt, who’d only bring him greater responsibility and ultimately failure.
Then two of her words registered, driving back the musing. Used to. Some hard, indefinable emotion twisted in his stomach. “At what point did you cease believing in the dream of love?” She was entirely too young to also have given up on happiness.
She clasped her hands in front of her. “It is not that I do not believe in love, my lord.” Ah, it was to be my lord, again, was it? So the lady was uncomfortable discussing matters of the heart with him. “I do believe in love. I’ve witnessed the power of that emotion.” Witnessed. But not experienced? Her lips turned up in a wry smile. “I’ve no desire to turn myself over to its hold.”
He passed his gaze over Jane’s heart-shaped face. Gabriel did not speak on matters of intimacy with anyone. Not his kin and not his lone friend in the world. However, he suspected the end of Chloe’s naiveté had come very early on at the brutal hands of their sire. But what of Jane? The bitter young woman who’d only known a mother? She shifted under his focus. “When did you stop believing in fairytales?” Again, a terribly bold question given life by too many spirits and the early morn hours.
“When I realized—” Jane closed her lips tight, ending whatever that revealing piece of herself she kept close. She jumped to her feet. “I should seek my chambers,” she confessed, eying him as though he were the wolf mingling with the unsuspecting sheep.
“Yes,” he concurred. He remained frozen, with his stillness conveying her safety.
Jane lingered. She met his gaze with her own. “You needn’t worry that I will encourage flights of fancy in your sister. I will not fill her head with fairytales and romantic hopes.”
“Because you do not believe in them?” he shot back.
“Because I am practical and logical enough to know the perils in entrusting one’s heart to someone unworthy of that precious gift.”
She’d had her heart broken. Why did a wave of jealousy roll through him at that revelation? In their earlier discussions, he’d surmised that Mr. Munroe had been nothing more than a fictional figure. Now, he was presented with the ugly possibility of some bounder who’d forced Jane to adopt a false married title. Gabriel swiped his empty snifter from the side table. With glass in hand, he rose in one fluid motion and carried it over to the sideboard. He poured himself another drink and turning back, held it up in salute. “For all we’ve disagreed on, Jane, we are of a remarkably like opinion in this regard.” After years of protecting himself, there was nothing left of his heart to give anyone.
“Yes,” she said softly. “It does appear that way.” She took a step toward him. “I venture someone has hurt you, Gabriel.” There had been. The someone who sired him.
Something passed between them. A bond unwittingly forged by two people who’d both learned at some point to be wary of love and leery of all sentiments that involved in anyway caring.
He recoiled as panic, potent and powerful clamored in his chest. This unfamiliar connection he had with no one. Not his brother who’d despised him through the years. Not his sister, Philippa, who was polite and soft spoken to all, not Chloe who saw him as more bother than brother. Jane took another step toward him and his feet twitched in an involuntary need to take flight. He did not want a connection to Jane or anyone. Those bonds only brought responsibility. Responsibility brought disappointment and that disappointment brought pain. His heart pounded hard as he tried to reclaim control from the stranger who’d stolen into his sanity. He schooled his features into a hard mask. “Jane?” he said quietly when she continued her advance.
She came to a slow stop. “Yes?”
Jane Munroe was dangerous to his ordered world. “Regardless of your beliefs on love, hope, and happiness, I still wish for my sister to aspire to more. As such, I’ll ask that you do not impress your own cynical thoughts upon my sister.” And he could not afford to be weak. Not again.
Jane stiffened. “My lord?”
How was it possible to both mourn and embrace the shattered bond between them? “Chloe requires a husband and I’ll not have you fill her head with your own bitterness.” Inwardly, he flinched at that charge he’d stolen from his meeting with Waterson at White’s.
If looks could burn, he’d be a pile of charred ash at her feet. “With my bitterness?” she gritted out between clenched teeth. In this barely suppressed rage she bore no hint to the cowering young woman who’d first stood before him. Jane closed the space between them and in an entirely un-companion-like manner, jabbed him in the chest, hard with her finger. “I am not bitter. I am realistic.” As was he. They made a sorry, dreary pair, the two of them. “Furthermore,” he winced at another sharp jab. “I’ll have you know you do your sister a disservice if you believe I, you, or the king himself could control, manipulate, or override her opinions.” With a toss of her head, she marched from the room.
Why did he feel all the worse with her gone?
Chapter 12
The following morning, bleary eyed with exhaustion, her mind dulled with fatigue, Jane sat in contemplation of her meeting with Gabriel. How could she have been so very foolish as to believe there was anything warm, good, or kind about Gabriel, the Marquess of Waverly? The memory of that blasted kiss had thrown her logic into disarray. It had forced her to see past the curt, condescending lord to the man. In that, she’d seen warmth and pain and a gentleman who would not force his attentions upon her—a man who saw her as a person that mattered, regardless of her station.
What a fool.
And yet for the restored order of her thoughts about him, why could she only focus on one particular truth of that meeting in the early morn hours? He’d had his heart broken. There was no other explanation for his cynical grin and his emotionally flat words on the matter of love. Jane plucked at the pages of her book—the same poor, forgotten volume she’d muddled her way unsuccessfully through the prior evening. Lords and ladies didn’t
know broken hearts and pained regrets. Their station protected them from hurts and uncertainties. Only, that is what she’d naively and foolishly believed.
Seeing Gabriel as he’d been last evening, a man haunted by his past and demons he’d likely never share with anyone, had torn asunder that erroneously drawn conclusion. It had also shaken her enough to see his icy indifference as a façade to protect himself. As one who adopted a disguise every day of her life, she easily detected it in another. In this case, it was Gabriel. Even as she wanted to hate him and consign him into the same detested category as every other lord. She could not.
“You are quiet, Jane.”
Jane glanced up and flushed. Gabriel’s sister occupied the chair opposite her. The young lady peered at her over the top of the book in her hands. “Forgive me. I was r—” She ended the lie. The closed volume on her lap was testament to that.
Chloe gave her a gentle look. A kind warmth filled the young woman’s eyes and all but begged Jane to share that which troubled her. To do so, however, would be both folly and scandalous. There was no place for Jane to know anything more about Gabriel, the Marquess of Waverly, her employer. Soon, her time here would be at an end. Perhaps sooner should her deception be uncovered. Her belly twisted in knots.
“What is it?” Chloe rested her book on her lap and leaned closer. The young woman was nothing if not persistent. Then her lips tightened on a moue of displeasure. “Is it my brother? Has he been rude to you? He’s ever so stodgy and commanding.”
“No.” The denial burst from her lips. Her cheeks warmed at that emphatic reply. “No. Your brother has been nothing but polite and proper.” The memory of his kiss burned across her mind.
Chloe snorted. “That is an apt description of my eldest brother.”
Jane shifted her gaze to the closed parlor door and then back to Chloe. She’d not inquired about the marquess. Why, Gabriel’s sister herself had ventured forth details about the powerful nobleman. Surely, there was no harm in politely asking a question about the young lady’s question? “Has he always been so very—?”
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