To Love a Lord (18 page)

Gabriel entered the room and closed the door quietly behind him. Her gaze followed his every movement, as he turned the lock. He leaned against the frame and folded his arms at his chest. “I believe you have some explaining to do.”

*

Jane’s mind raced. Oh, she had some explaining to do, all right. The question was, which bit of explaining did Gabriel reference? Life had taught her patience. Inevitably, people revealed themselves and their inner-thoughts.

He shoved away from the door and made his way across the quiet library.

Alas, in this instance, life proved wholly incorrect. Gabriel, stoic and somber as always, gave no indication as to his thoughts. She wet her lips. “My lord?” she began tentatively.

Could one go to prison for stealing a missive and securing oneself employment? And would he have her thrown in Newgate if it was a punishable offense? With his love for his sister, she didn’t doubt he’d ruin Jane, if he believed she’d compromised Chloe’s well-being in any way.

He stopped before her and dipped his head close. His champagne-scented breath wafted about her senses and her lashes fluttered. How was it possible the scent of spirits upon this man’s lips should fill her with a heady desire that drove back the ugly thoughts of another’s brutal attack? Her heart beat an erratic rhythm and she leaned up to take Gabriel’s kiss. “Are you here meeting someone?” The crisply spoken question brought her eyes flying open.

Jane stared at him. “My lord?” What was he going on about?

His gaze darkened. “There is nothing honorable that would have a lady alone in her host’s library, when she should be attending her responsibilities as a companion.”

She choked. “Y-you think I am here on a liaison?” His silence stood as affirmation. Jane gave her head a frantic shake. “Oh, no. Never. Never.” She’d sooner dance through the flames of hell than meet any gentleman for a clandestine meeting. To do so would consign herself to the same ranks as her mother.

“And yet you are here,” he persisted, relentless.

“I needed…” To escape the memory of Montclair. “A moment of quiet,” she finished knowing even as the excuse left her mouth how lame her response sounded. “I grew overheated from the crush of the room.”

He narrowed his eyes. “I saw you conversing with Lord Montclair.”

Her heart dipped. Of course he did. A man who so closely attended to his family and responsibilities saw everything—particularly the actions of a stranger residing under his roof. She’d only hoped he had failed to note Montclair’s approach. Her mind raced and for the span of a heartbeat she considered telling him all. As soon as the thought entered, it fled her mind. What reason did he have to believe her, a stranger? So when presented with the bold demand of that statement, she did the only thing she’d done to him since she’d entered his house. “I dropped my spectacles.” She lied.

“Your spectacles?” he repeated, with heavy disbelief underscoring that question.

She nodded. “My spectacles.” She removed the wire-rimmed pair from her nose and showed him the frame. “He was so good as to rescue them.” Jane detested giving the loathsome letch even a hint of praise for imagined acts. The vile monster was deserving of nothing good.

Some of the fury receded from Gabriel’s taut frame and he reached for the pair. He eyed the delicate lenses bent at the rims with a wary caution. “They are bent,” she said needlessly. Ruined from the man’s attack more than a year past. They’d never been the same since and she’d never spared the funds to have the merely ornamental disguise replaced or repaired.

He handed them over to her slowly and she quickly snatched them from his hand. “You should return to the ballroom, Jane,” he said hesitantly.

Jane nodded. “Of course.” She placed her spectacles upon her face and started for the door.

“Jane,” he called out, staying her movements.

She stopped and turned back to face him.

“If I find you have lied to me and if you, in any way through your presence here, harm my sister,” he paused and lowered his voice. “I will see you ruined.” His words contained the satiny edge of steel, a lethal threat that drove the beat of her heart into an even more frenzied rhythm.

She managed to incline her head. “Is there anything else you require, my lord?”

He shook his head once and she, with forced calm, opened the door and took her leave of him. She did not doubt if he were to discover all the lies she kept, he’d attempt to see her destroyed. Alas, he didn’t realize, it was impossible to ruin someone who’d already been born ruined.

J
ane stood frozen before the bevel mirror. The young woman with some curls held in place with butterfly combs at the base of her neck and the other tresses hanging freely down her back, stared back, a stranger. She took in the pale pink of the satin creation selected by Chloe and with trembling fingers, ran her palms down the smooth, soft French fabric.

It was just a silly scrap of material. In the bearing of a woman’s worth and capabilities, it had neither here nor there to do with her value, as she’d maintained to Gabriel just two days earlier. Her throat worked. Yet, it was by far the loveliest garment she’d ever donned. Tears filled her eyes and she blinked back the useless weak droplets. God forgive her, but five days in the Marquess of Waverly’s household and she’d proven the ugly, sorry fact that she’d spent the better part of her life convincing herself otherwise of—she was her mother.

With her desire for the kiss of a man who saw her as a member of his staff and yet attired her in lavish gowns, she proved that blood held true. Jane closed her eyes, detesting the resemblance to the woman who’d given her life and chosen another. A woman who’d passed her weakness on to her daughter.

The door handle clicked and she stiffened at the soft tread of footsteps. “Jane, are you—?” Chloe’s words ended on a gasp. The mirror reflected the shock stamped on her face. She blinked like an owl in the night. “You are beautiful,” she whispered. Awe, shock, and wonder filled those three words.

And if Jane weren’t so blasted miserable and terrified and panicked she would have found humor in that shock. She gave a small smile. “Thank you.”

Chloe walked a small circle around her while assessing her in that contemplative manner of hers. She captured her jaw between her thumb and forefinger and continued to study her as though she were an exhibit at the Royal Museum. Then, she stopped suddenly and rocked back on her heels. “Why, you don’t require spectacles.” No, those clear, crystal frames however had detracted notice. She gestured to her hair. “And your hair is, why, it is gloriously curled.” Gloriously bothersome. Those loose tresses had been what had lured the lecherous Lord Montclair. He’d tangled his wandering hands in her hair until she’d vowed to never wear even a single strand free about her shoulders.

She thrust back the memory. “It is too much.”

“Do not be silly.” Chloe’s smile widened. “You are absolutely splendid.”

Jane gave her head a forceful shake. “I do not need to be absolutely splendid.” Quite the opposite. She fixed an accusatory stare on the young woman. “Your intention was to have me blend with Society.” A companion in satins with diamond encrusted hair combs woven throughout her hair would earn her all manner of inappropriate attention.

A beleaguered sigh escaped Gabriel’s sister. “Yes, yes I did. Unfortunately, Jane,” she moved her gaze from the top of Jane’s head to her toes. “You are incapable of blending in.”

Panic cloyed at her chest. “No, I’m not.” With her gaze, she desperately searched for her spectacles.

Chloe was across the room in four long strides and intercepted her efforts. “These,” she held them up, “do not make you blend in. They attract notice. Your dragon skirts,” she pointed to the offensive garments in question, “also earn you notice, for entirely different reasons.” With careful movements, she set the wire-rimmed spectacles down on the table beside Jane’s bed. “You spoke to me of not judging all dogs by the ones who snapped and snarled.” She held Jane’s gaze. “Do not hold all members of polite Society in judgment for those unscrupulous ones you knew in your past.”

Shock went through her. How could this woman she’d only just met see so easily through her? With a sound of impatience, she took a step back. “This is different.” The words exploded from her lungs.

“It isn’t,” Chloe said matter-of-factly.

A bitter laugh bubbled past Jane’s lips and she stalked over to the corner of the room. She peered out the floor-length window down into the streets below. For as good and intelligent and all things kind Chloe Edgerton was, she’d been born to an altogether different world than Jane. As the daughter, and now sister, of a marquess, she didn’t bear the shame Jane knew for her illegitimate beginnings. She pressed her forehead against the cool windowpane. Chloe was firmly settled in her world, whether she wished it or not. Jane, on the other hand, straddled two very different worlds—the glittering Society she’d never belong to courtesy of the fraction of blood given her by the Duke of Ravenscourt and also that shameful, scandalous world of an actress-turned mistress. There was no belonging for her. There was only the hope of leaving everything and reestablishing something that mattered.

Her school.

From the crystal windowpane, the harsh smile on her lips reflected back at Jane. A finishing school she’d not given proper thought to because she’d been so very consumed with Gabriel’s touch and the connection they shared.

She started as Chloe’s visage pulled into focus behind her. The young lady settled a soft hand on her shoulder. “I do not know your story.” Which story did the young woman refer to? The lies of her birth? Or the lies that brought her into this household? “Nor is it my place to know.” In the glass, she searched Jane’s face with her gaze. “Unless you wish to tell me.”

Gabriel’s lethal promise last evening snaked about her. She closed her eyes.
Tell her. Tell her, not in the hope she’d understand the desperation that brought forth this deception
. But tell her so she could be freed of attending this ball and any other…and Gabriel.

“It does not have to be now,” Chloe said softly with a slight squeeze of her shoulder. “Come along, we are off to your first performance.” She made to leave.

Jane could not do this. Not anymore. The ruse had been different when they were cold, calculated strangers. Now they were people; loyal brothers, loving sisters. These people she could not deceive. “I was not sent here by Mrs. Belden,” she said quietly. The words echoed damningly in the quiet room, and yet Chloe continued forward, as though they’d never been uttered.

At last her words registered. Chloe turned back, her brow furrowed in consternation.

With a painful breath, Jane dropped her gaze to the tips of her slippers. Slippers she would one day pay for with the funds given her by the duke. Would it matter to Chloe and Gabriel if she paid for those stolen gifts—gifts she did not want nor desire? Gabriel deserved the truth. Her throat swelled with emotion. Both Chloe
and
Gabriel, but mostly the man who’d flagellated himself with guilt for kissing a member of his staff. When in truth, she’d never been a member of his staff. She was a liar. A charlatan. A pretender of the worst sort. Guilt stabbed at her heart.

A thousand questions filled Chloe’s eyes. “Jane?” The perplexity in the young woman’s eyes only deepened the guilt rolling through Jane in waves.

Before her courage deserted her, she continued. “I
was
an instructor at Mrs. Belden’s.”

“Was.”

Jane nodded, and too cowardly to focus on that emotionless utterance, pressed ahead. “I was there for a year but deemed unsuitable.” The Duke of Ravenscourt’s very legitimate daughter flashed to her mind. With her cruel smile and taunting words, the young woman had hated Jane for no fault that was her own. “She did not take to my sharing Mrs. Wollstonecraft with the young ladies.” Did she imagine the smile on the other woman’s lips? “I was turned out for it, without a reference.” Jane folded her arms at her chest. “There was a note,” she forced out the most shameful part of her truth past numb lips. “From your brother. A request for a companion.”

“And you pilfered the note?” Shocked outrage would be preferable to the gentle question there. There was no recrimination. Just a desire to understand and those dratted tears filled her eyes. She blinked them back.

“I did. Your brother requested a companion for you, for two months’ time. In two months I will—” She flattened her lips.

Chloe searched her face. “What will happen in two months, Jane?”

Except for the lies and deception she’d practiced upon the Edgertons, at the very least she could provide this small truth. She drew in a breath. “Funds were settled on me, by my father.” Surprise lit the young woman’s eyes—the first outward reaction from the collected young lady. Guilt twinged at the likely erroneous assumption drawn that presented Jane as a lady, an assumption she did not bother to correct. “In two months I will receive funds which will be mine to use as I wish.”

“What will you do with your funds?”

“I will set up a school. A finishing school,” she said softly. “It will be different than the schools run by the Mrs. Belden’s of the world,” she spoke on a rush at the frown that formed on Chloe’s lips. Jane lifted her palms up. “It will be a place where young women,” who dwelled on the fringe of respectability, like her, “will be encouraged to use their minds and trust their judgments. I am so, so sorry about the lies between us.”
You and Gabriel
.