To Love a Lord (14 page)

Her lips twisted with bitterness. Love was cold and empty and selfish, and Jane wanted no part of it. After she had the three thousand pounds her father had settled upon her when she reached her twenty-fifth year, she could retreat from the reminders of satins and silks and use those funds for something that mattered. Except, since she’d entered Gabriel’s home, how often had she thought of her plans for a school different than the Mrs. Belden’s Finishing Schools of the world? Instead, she’d kissed Gabriel of her own will and desires, and worse, still dreamed of that embrace.

Jane drew her knees close to her chest and dropped her chin atop the coarse, brown, and comfortably safe fabric. Being here as hired companion to his sister was a matter of necessity; safety, even. And yet nothing seemed safe anymore, now knowing the coolly aloof nobleman. For God help her, she’d tasted in his kiss the weakness that had so consumed her mother that she’d tossed away all for the pleasure of it. Jane rubbed her chin over the fabric of her gown. She must take care around Gabriel. For this awareness of him moved beyond the physical and into dangerous territories that involved emotion and—

The press of the door handle echoed like a shot in the dead of night and she stilled, knowing with an intuitiveness that terrified her who stood on the other side of that door. Heart pounding, she looked up as Gabriel stepped inside and closed the door with a soft click. He paused at the entrance of the room and blinked several times, as though accustoming himself to the dimly lit room.

And then he located her with his stare. “Jane,” he murmured.

Jane immediately lowered her legs to the floor. “My lord.” She hopped to her feet, but he waved her back down. Reason warred within her—abandon this lavish space that was his, a world in which she was merely an interloper and worse, a thief. Hesitantly, she reclaimed her seat.

He stalked forward with the lethal grace of a panther, and she stiffened in a breathless anticipation, but he continued past her. She followed his movements as he strolled over to the sideboard and with crisp, concise movements poured himself a snifter of brandy.

Lord Montclair, with his wandering hands and hard eyes, had favored brandy. Yet, as Gabriel carried his glass over and claimed the leather chair opposite her, she acknowledged that this was not a man who’d force his intentions upon a woman. No, most gentlemen would have sacked the woman responsible for those faint purplish-blue marks he still wore and yet, Gabriel had responded without even the faintest hint of anger to her punch.

“You do not sleep at night.” His was an observation.

Since her mother’s death four years earlier when she’d been thrust upon the world with not a single skill to recommend her but only the benevolence of her father, she’d tasted the fear of her circumstances. “No.” He peered hard at her face a moment and then looked into the contents of his drink. The haunted depths of those fathomless eyes spoke of a deep pain. “Nor do you,” she said softly.

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.