To Love a Lord (23 page)

Gabriel stood framed in the doorway, watching her with an inscrutable expression.

She wet her lips, and he followed that slight movement a moment and then closed the door behind him with a soft click. Jane clenched and unclenched her hands at her side. In that assessing manner of his, he dropped his gaze to that distracted movement. When he met her stare once more, a frown marred his lips.

Then, wordlessly, he strode past her and made for his sideboard. He swiped the nearest decanter, poured two snifters of the amber brew, and returned. “Here.” He thrust the glass at her.

Jane held her palms up. “No. I…” Something hard in his eyes silenced those words. She accepted the glass and cradled it in her hands. Of all the households she’d been employed in, every last man had drunk the dratted spirits. What was it about the favored spirits that called to a man? Perhaps the ability to make a person forget? Jane raised the glass to her lips and took a tentative sip. Her lips pulled in a grimace and she exploded into a fit of coughing. She glared at him. “Th-that is horrid.” She’d never understand men. There was no accounting for their interests and tastes.

Some of the hardness left Gabriel’s mouth and that ghost of a smile hovered on his lips. He took a sip of his drink and then carried it to his desk. With a casualness she marveled at, he propped his hip against the edge. Then, being a male and a marquess no less in their Society permitted one that effortless ability in all regards. And just like that, all hint of warmth was gone, replaced with that frozen impenetrableness so that she wondered if she’d merely imagined any softening.

Unnerved, she dropped her gaze to the liquid contents of her glass. “I am sorry,” she said quietly and then grimaced at how useless those regrets were.

“Do you think I hold you responsible for what transpired this evening?” That terse question brought her head up.

Jane stared unblinking, back at him. “I kissed you.” And then she darted her stare about the room, half expecting interlopers to charge forward with their accusatory fingers pointed. She raised the glass to her lips, took another sip, and then promptly choked. “It really is horrid stuff. Utterly awful.”

He took a long swallow and then set his glass down on the desk beside him. “I am sorry,” he said without preamble.

Jane cocked her head, but otherwise remained silent.

“It was not my intention to seduce you at the theatre.”

“Yes, you’ve said as much.” Three times now.

“We will marry,” he continued as though she’d not spoken.

Her heart fluttered and she touched her chest. Her reaction made so very little sense. Why should she have this odd lightening when she’d never before even considered marriage and to a powerful nobleman no less? Surely she’d heard him incorrectly. Though, there had never been anything wrong with her hearing. Or at least she didn’t believe there was. And yet it had appeared he’d said…

He nodded. “Marry.” Gabriel shoved away from the desk and stalked over to his sideboard. He poured several fingerfuls into his snifter, and then seemed to think better of it. “As in wed.” And then added another splash for good measure.

As in, she had heard him correctly.

“Wed?” Gentlemen like him did not wed women such as her.
But then, he doesn’t know who I really am.

He gave a brusque nod. A flash of horror glinted in his eyes, the first indication as to just what Gabriel Edgerton, the Marquess of Waverly, felt about the prospect of marriage to her. Her heart dipped back into its proper place and resumed beating a steady, unaffected rhythm. She studied him as he downed the contents of his drink in a single, long swallow. “Of course, given the state of…” He tugged at his cravat. “Our discovery.” He was as awkward at picking his way through this discourse as she. Was there a gentleman in the whole of the kingdom less interested in sealing his marital fate than Gabriel? “There is no recourse except marriage.”

Except there was. There were the funds settled upon her and her finishing school and a life free of a gentleman’s interference in her life. Where was the joy in those prospects that had once given her hope?

Her mother had depended on a man and it had cost her all. Yet in this moment, there was something sweetly seductive in the prospect of being wanted for her. She clasped her hands to her throat. “You would marry me?” Guilt twisted in her belly and she fisted the glass so hard, her knuckles turned white. She was undeserving of his apologies and his generous offer. “You would marry me, when you don’t even know me?” In a world with men who’d take their pleasures where they would, when they would and how they would, this was the kind of man Gabriel Edgerton, the Marquess of Waverly, was. He’d wed her, a stranger, to protect her.
Or is it to protect himself
, a suspicious voice needled. Was Gabriel so very committed to being the responsible gentleman that he’d marry her and sacrifice his own happiness in the process?

He rolled his shoulders and took it, however, as a question. “I see little choice in the matter.” She winced at those emotionless words, hating that they grated on her heart.

To give her mind something else to fix on, Jane took another sip. She dissolved into a sputtering fit of coughing. No, she could not do it. She set the glass down hard. Foul, stuff the spirits were. They did have a dulling effect upon her senses that at least drove back the edge of anxiety that had dogged her since her and Gabriel’s discovery at the opera.

“I’ll obtain a special license in the morning,” he said, with all the wariness of a man who’d been saddled with the weight of the world upon his shoulders.

Despite the disarray of her own life and her inevitable ruin, her heart tugged with regret. Poor Gabriel. He cared for his sisters and his brother. Would he take on Jane, a stranger, to appease his misplaced sense of guilt? Never would she steal a person’s freedom, not when she so craved it for herself. She gave her head a slow shake. “I cannot,”
will not
, “wed you.” Not in good conscience. Not when she’d long disavowed marriage to a nobleman. And most certainly not to a nobleman who appeared more eager to march the steps to a guillotine than find him wed to her. His reaction should not matter, and yet, oddly, a pang struck her heart. She could not maintain the lies between them. Not any longer.

Gabriel froze with his drink midway to his mouth. “Of course you—”

Before her courage deserted her, she cut across his defense. “The Earl of Montclair was not wholly wrong about me, Gabriel.”

F
rom the moment he and Jane had tumbled from the alcove at the London Opera House, horror had attacked his senses over the inevitability of his fate—he had no choice but to wed. He, who’d vowed to never take a wife, or bring offspring into this world, had lost self-control, and as such, had confined himself to a life with everything he’d disavowed. That horrifying prospect had occupied his thoughts—until now.

Jane shifted back and forth on her feet and wrung her hands before her.

The Earl of Montclair was not wholly wrong about me…

The other man’s allegations rushed to the surface. “What are you on about?” he bit out.

She cleared her throat. “I told you I was employed by the Marquess of Darlington,” she said over him when he made to speak. “I did not explain what happened after I’d been,” she wrinkled her nose, “relieved of my responsibilities from that post.”

Glass in hand, Gabriel stalked over to Jane. “Continue,” he snapped, impatient at her unfinished thoughts.

“Er, yes. Right. You see.” He didn’t really see anything this night. “I was given employment at Mrs. Belden’s. I served as one of her instructors.” Dragons as Chloe referred to those other women. “For nearly a year.” Jane ran the tip of her finger along the fabric of the sofa in a distracting manner and when she spoke, her words came fast and furious. “One of the
ladies
,” Bitterness laced that word. She slashed the air with a hand. “She spoke to the headmistress about me and I was turned out. I discovered your note.”

“My note?” By God, she hadn’t! Gabriel set his glass down hard on a nearby side table. Liquid splashed over the rim.

Jane’s color heightened. She peeked up at him. “I didn’t steal it,” she said defensively. “It was left on the edge of Mrs. Belden’s desk and I…” She let her words trail off. He studied her through narrowed eyes trying to make sense of that pink color on her cheeks. Was it guilt on the lady’s part? Regret? “And yet, I did steal it, didn’t I?” she whispered, more to herself. “That, and everything else.”

Impatient with that confession which really answered nothing, he tipped her chin up and forced her gaze to his. “I do not understand,” he bit out. “Explain yourself, madam.”

“I am a liar.” She flinched. “An impostor.”

He let his hand fall to his side, momentarily robbed of words and thoughts. An impostor? A chill stole through him. “What are you on about?” he prided himself on the steady deliverance of those coolly spoken words, while disjointed questions spun through his mind.

“I intended to tell you. And then your sis…” She colored.
His sister
. He narrowed his eyes. What secret did Chloe withhold from him about her mysterious companion? Jane cleared her throat. “That is,
I
resolved to wait until the right moment to tell you.” She furrowed her brow. “Though in hindsight there never would have been a right opportunity. Not truly.”

Her incessant prattling snapped his patience. “Jane?” he demanded in clipped tones.

“I was not sent by Mrs. Belden as your companion. I stole the missive and presented myself before you in the respective role.” The long column of her throat worked. “But I am not that woman, Gabriel. And you deserve to know that.”

Shock slammed into him; froze him immobile. Surely she jested? And yet by the agonized glimmer in her blue eyes and the sheen of tears she blinked back, these were the only true words she’d spoken. He took a step back, and then shook his head, as he desperately tried to make sense of her admission. “I do not understand.” Gabriel winced, knowing he must sound like the greatest lackwit, gaping at her.

Silence met his confusion.

Despite his intentions to turn her out on the day they’d met, she’d wheedled her way into his thoughts and household. With her deception, she’d involved his sister Chloe. Fury thrummed through him. He took in this interloper into his household, a mere stranger, a woman he’d not known at all. Jane must have seen something terrifying in his eyes, for she took a quick step back. He shot a hand around her wrist, halting her retreat. Gabriel raked an icy stare over her slender frame. “Explain yourself, madam,” he seethed.

Jane pulled free and held her palms up in an entreating manner. “I did,” she said quickly, “at one time work for Mrs. Belden, that is. But then she…” She blushed. “She let me go. I’m really rather deplorable at maintaining employment, which I understand reflects ill, and I could maintain that it was not my fault…” She captured her lower lip between her teeth and worried the plump flesh.

All the while, Gabriel tried to sort up from down. A dull humming filled his ears. This woman had entered his home, slipped into his employ and, despite his early misgivings about her suitability, had refused to leave. He captured her wrist in his hand once more, in a hard, relentless grip. By God, he’d put his sister’s care into this woman’s hands? “Who are you, Mrs. Munroe,” he hissed. Self-loathing filled him for risking his siblings’ well-being once more. “If that is even your name.”

“It is,” she said and flinched.

He lightened his hold but did not release her. How was he to believe the words of a stranger who’d lied her way into his home?

“My name is Jane Munroe,” she said quietly. “I have served as a companion and governess as I said.” He searched her face for the truth of her claims, wanting to believe her—to believe
in
her. “However, I lost my post at Mrs. Belden’s and discovered your letter.” Her cheeks blazed red. “You required a companion for your sister—” Jane’s words ended on a gasp as he stuck his face close to hers.

Gabriel relinquished her wrist and she hurried to put distance between them. “And you lied your way into my household?” For that, she’d robbed him of his freedom, the vow he’d taken long ago, and sealed his fate. A black curse escaped him.

Jane backed up a step, tripping over herself in her haste to be free of him. “It was just to be for two months.” Now it would be forever.

He stepped around the couch and stalked toward her. “And lied to me at every turn.”

“Not all lies,” she said futilely. She continued her retreat.

He was unrelenting, advancing forward. “And you risked my sister’s reputation?” That was by far the most egregious affront. For it was Chloe’s happiness and security he’d resolved to protect.

She compressed her lips into a flat line. There was no rebuttal to that accurate charge.

By God, how indignant she’d been when he’d questioned her suitability. Lies, all of it. Then the ugly truth slipped in. “Did you intend to trap me?” he asked, coming to a stop just a handbreadth away.

She opened and closed her mouth several times. “Trap you?” Jane shook her head hard. “Egads, no.” By the horrification etched in the delicate planes of her face, the lady appeared as eager to marry him as he did her. Then she widened her eyes. “You think
that
is why I am here?” He bristled at the horrified, mirthless laugh to escape her lips. Those lips he’d kissed not even thirty minutes ago, and longed to kiss, even despite her deception. What a weak fool he was. “Oh, no. No. No. Not at all, my lord.”

So, he was my lord again. Unknowing why her dismissive response should chafe, he folded his arms at his chest. “Madam?” he demanded pointedly.

“I am trying to assure you I have no designs upon your title.” She gave her head an emphatic shake. “I cannot wed you.”

There it was again. Cannot. An ugly, niggling of a possibility took root and grew in his imagination. “You are married,” he said, his voice garbled. Even as her marriage would have preserved his vow and freedom, the idea of her belonging to another twisted at his insides.