To Love a Lord (2 page)

“I’ve agreed to your foisting me off on a companion so you can be free of me, I do not, however, want a Belden dragon.”

Guilt tugged once more. “Is that what you believe?” His siblings all possessed such a low opinion of him. Then how could they not when he’d so failed to care for them as he had?

She arched an eyebrow. “Isn’t it true?”

He glanced over her shoulder at the wood door panel. Yes, he certainly saw how, on the surface, it appeared that way. After all, hadn’t his own father gleefully pointed out that Gabriel possessed the same vices as his sire? He’d proudly noted Gabriel’s ability to put his own comforts before all others. “It isn’t,” he said quietly. Instead, he’d spent his life fighting those addictive personalities he’d learned at his father’s knee and secretly striving to put his siblings first. “I very much enjoy your company, Chloe.” His lips pulled in a grimace.

A burst of laughter escaped his sister. “That is hardly convincing,” she said between gasping breaths. “You don’t enjoy anyone’s company, Gabriel.”

He’d built a fortress about his heart when his father had taken him under his wing, a boy of ten. It had been a mechanism to protect himself from hurt. To show emotion had wrought more pain at his father’s hands. Yet, in so many years he’d spent proving he didn’t feel, he’d done a damned convincing job of making his siblings believe that lie. In truth, he wanted her safely wed and at which point all those he loved would be properly cared for. Their security and happiness represented an absolution of sorts. Perhaps then, with Chloe wed, there would be a sense of having proved his father wrong. “That isn’t true,” he said defensively. “There is you and Alex and…” He slashed the air with his hand. “I’ll not continue this discussion.”

Chloe hopped to her feet. “Of course you won’t.” She leaned over the desk and patted his hand. “Because I daresay, but for your equally stodgy Lord Waterson, there isn’t a single soul you’d add.” Lord Waterson—a man who’d known Gabriel since he’d been a sniveling, afraid-of-everything coward at Eton. Any person who could set himself up as a devoted supporter of the miserable, cowering, weak fool he’d been was deserving of an eternal friendship.

Not wanting to traverse the path of his rotted youth, he cleared his throat. “If you’ll excuse me, I’ve matters of business to attend.”

His sister pointed her gaze to the ceiling. “My, how you do enjoy my company.” A chuckle escaped her as she started for the door. She paused at the threshold. “Oh, and Gabriel?”

He inclined his head.

“If you’ve brought one of Mrs. Belden’s Beasts to transform me into a marriage-minded miss, I warn you, their efforts proved futile at finishing school and they will be just so here.” With a jaunty wave, she slipped from the room, and then pulled the door closed behind her.

Silence remained in her wake, punctuated by the tick-tocking of the long-case clock. His sister’s charges from their exchange rattled around his mind. He studied the lingering droplets that still clung to the edge of his glass.

Gabriel enjoyed people’s company. He just enjoyed his own more. Solitariness represented safety. The less people one was responsible for, the less a person could hurt. He’d little interest in expanding the number of individuals dependent on him—by doing something as foolhardy as adding a wife, as his sister suggested. With a wife came that heir and a spare she’d spoken of, which merely compounded the people reliant upon him. A family merely represented more opportunity for failure and disappointment. He’d had enough of such sentiments to last the course of his life and into the hereafter.

Once Chloe was wedded, nay
happily
wedded, then his obligations would be fulfilled.

Yes, the line would pass to Alex and his heirs, and Gabriel?

An ugly laugh rumbled up from his chest and split the quiet. His lips twisted in a bitterly triumphant smile. And he would have the ultimate revenge against his dead father who, even now, burned in hell.

Southampton, England

Spring 1817

S
ince she’d been a child, Jane Munroe had been told her quick tongue would land her in all manner of trouble. In fact, her nursemaid had said as much with such a staggering frequency it had become the same as a morning greeting. The nursemaid was ignorant, unkind, and horribly stern. Jane had never placed much stock in anything the rail-thin, lanky woman, Mrs. Crouch, who’d been tasked with caring for her, told her.

Which is why, seated now before her employer, Mrs. Belden, she found great irony in learning Mrs. Crouch had been correct—about something.

Why did it have to be that particular point?

Mrs. Belden removed her wire spectacles, folded them with an annoying slowness and set them down on the immaculate desk before her. And then, she uttered those words Jane knew were coming.

“I am afraid you are not working out in your current post, Mrs. Munroe.” She steepled her fingers together. “Lady Clarisse has brought it to my attention that you have been filling the heads of her and the other young ladies with thoughts of independence and,” she wrinkled her nose, “remaining unwed.”

Lady Clarisse. The Duke of Ravenscourt’s legitimate daughter. Golden blonde and icy as a January freeze, she epitomized all a duke’s daughter should be. And unfortunately for Jane, the young woman was astute to have heard the whispers and knew her instructor was really none other than her half-sister. “I did not advise them to maintain an unmarried state.” Wise though they’d be. “But rather encouraged them to exercise their own opinions and beliefs and—”

The headmistress thumped a fist on the desk hard enough she rattled the lone page upon the otherwise immaculate surface. “Enough, Mrs. Munroe.” The page fluttered to the edge of the desk and then hovered there, one heavy breath from tumbling to the floor.

And even knowing the words had been coming did little to stem the tide of panic threatening to overtake her. Jane placed her trembling palms on her lap. “Mrs. Belden,” she began. Having been summoned a quarter of an hour ago, she really should have placed her efforts on finding the appropriate and necessary words to save her post. “I won’t make the same mistake.” As soon as the words left her mouth, she bit the inside of her cheek. Blasted lie, and an obvious one at that.

To both of them.

“Ah, yes, you’ve said as much,” Mrs. Belden said while peering down the length of her disapproving nose. “Four times.”

“Surely it was not four,” she murmured. She’d have wagered this very post she depended upon that it had been at the very least six times.

“Regardless, Mrs. Munroe, I simply cannot have you here any longer.”

The panic climbed higher and higher, tightening her belly, and settling in her throat, threatening to choke her. She gripped the edge of her seat and held firm. “I do not have anywhere else to go.” This proved to be the second worst possible response.

The stern headmistress of the esteemed finishing school sat back in her chair. “That is, unfortunately, not my problem, Mrs. Munroe. I’d had,” she raked her cool gaze over Jane. “I had reservations about you but was
persuaded,
” likely paid a substantial sum to take her on, “to allow you a post. In your time here, you’ve filled my girls’ heads with dangerous talk of treason, challenging the very tenets of Society.”

“I’d hardly say encouraging the ladies to strengthen their minds and not offer blind allegiance to a gentleman constitutes treason.” She couldn’t keep the dryness from threading her words. The other woman snapped her eyebrows into a single line.

Blasted quick tongue.
She cleared her throat. “That is, what I’d intended to say is I’ve striven to instruct the young ladies on the importance of using their minds to formulate productive thoughts.” That extended beyond the match they’d make and instead to rely on their own strengths and capabilities. “And—”

“And lecture them on the words of your Mrs. Mary Wollstonecraft.”

She was hardly Jane’s Mrs. Wollstonecraft. That esteemed woman was the inspiration who had given Jane hope she could be more than mere chattel. But she was everyone’s Mrs. Wollstonecraft. “Yes,” she said calmly. “I have spoken to them about Mrs. Wollstonecraft’s philosophies so they might formulate their own opinions.”

Mrs. Belden propelled forward in her seat. She thumped her fist on the desktop once more, sending the lone page fluttering to the floor forgotten. “Mrs. Munroe, women do not have opinions. They are obedient, decorous creatures to be cared for by a husband and your Mrs. Wollstonecraft with her bastard children is not fit discourse for anyone.” Crimson blotches blazed upon the woman’s cheeks, and she stared at Jane with pointed condescension, her words a smidgeon shy of the insult she’d level at her.

For every employer from the previous households she’d found employment in to this dour creature, all knew the truth—the Duke of Ravenscourt’s requests of employment for Jane were more of an order than anything else and stemmed from some obligatory response to his by-blow daughter.

She tipped her chin up at a mutinous angle, daring the woman with her eyes to speak the whole truth. The woman wisely remained silent, likely fearing retribution if she were to issue that insult. Little did the nasty headmistress realize that Jane would no sooner humble herself before the man who’d sired her by asking for his aid than beg the pinch-mouthed crone.

“I agreed to His Grace’s request but was forthright in saying that if you did anything to jeopardize my charges, I’d be forced to release you from your responsibilities. After all, I’d heard rumors of you.”

Rumors. So the grounds of her dismissal from her previous employer had found their way to the far flung corners of Kent. Not even the duke could silence those scandalous whispers. Fury tightened Jane’s belly at the condescending sneer on the woman’s lips. A woman who instructed young ladies on blind obedience and their rightful position in Society would never believe the word of a duke’s by-blow daughter over that of a powerful earl’s
respected
son and heir. So she said nothing.

“I cannot provide you a reference…” Nausea turned in Jane’s belly. A knock sounded at the door and she looked blankly from the arbiter of her fate and to the wood panel. Mrs. Belden frowned and glanced briefly over at the door, and then returned her attention to Jane once again. “As I said, I cannot provide you a reference. It would not be the honorable thing for me to do as your employer.”

Honor. What did this woman or the Earls of Montclairs and Dukes of Ravenscourts of the world know of honor? Fear turned her mouth dry. Where would she go? For the briefest, infinitesimal moment, she entertained sending a missive to her father. She slid her eyes closed. God help her, she’d not be so weak to rely on the assistance of a man whom her mother had thrown away all hope of respectability and honor for. She could not, nay would not, appeal to her father. She’d not ever done so on her own behalf. Her foolish mother, who’d given away all happiness for that man’s love, had done so. The employers who cast her out, time and time again, had done so as a deferential respect for the revered Duke of Ravenscourt. “I ask that you allow me a fortnight, Mrs. Belden,” she said at last.

“You—” Another rap interrupted the woman’s words. On a huff of annoyance, she stood with slow, precise movements. “Yes?”

The door opened and one of the uniformed instructors, Mrs. Smythe, stood at the entrance. She momentarily glanced at Jane. Pity filled the woman’s eyes. Ah, so all knew. Nothing was private where she was concerned. “Mrs. Belden, there is a quarrel between Lady Clarisse and Lady Nora.”

Lady Clarisse. The very legitimate daughter of the Duke of Ravenscourt—the one not dependent upon the mercy of cruel employers and prey to lecherous gentlemen. Bitterness turned in her belly.

“A quarrel?”

The young woman had despised Jane from the moment she’d arrived at her new post, likely a product of a daughter who knew precisely the young woman her father had coordinated employment for.

“Yes, they are arguing about,” she cleared her throat. “Mrs. Wollstonecraft and,” she slid her gaze away from Jane’s as though unable to meet her stare. “Mrs. Munroe.”

The headmistress favored Jane with a black glower. “I will return in a moment to continue this.”
This
, as in the ensuing argument between Lady Nora who’d quite taken to the enlightened ideas of free thought and freedoms of choice and Lady Clarisse, who’d quite detested anything and everything Jane had lectured on or spoken of, including mundane mentions of the weather.

Together, the two women hurried from the office, leaving Jane alone. A thunderous quiet filled the room. Her shoulders sagged as the hum of silence in her ears blended with the frantic beating of her heart, nearly deafening. Filled with a restiveness, she shoved to her feet and began to pace before Mrs. Belden’s immaculate, mahogany desk.

“Twenty-five,” she whispered. Never more had she wished for that magical, almost mystical, elusive age which represented her freedom.

The funds settled on her by her benevolent father would pass to her hands. Life had seen her humbled, dependent upon the duke’s powerful connections once her mother had passed. The man, whom she’d met but two times in her life and then only when she’d been a small child, had purged her from his life. Beyond seeing her properly employed, he’d no dealings with her. She tightened her mouth. The funds promised her, that she would take with a sense of entitlement and no regrets. For that impressive to her, insignificant to him, amount her mother had spoken of, represented Jane’s freedom.

Freedom to not find herself on her back, legs spread for some bored nobleman as her mama had been. Freedom to not be subjected to lecherous lords and their vile sons’ grasping hands, merely for the station of her employment in their households. Freedom to set up a small finishing school, not at all like Mrs. Belden’s, where young ladies would be encouraged to read and discuss matters of import. Only two months until freedom was at last granted her.

Jane stopped suddenly and stared blankly down at the desk. Except, two months may as well have proved endless for a woman without references, employment, and stubbornness to not ask the blasted duke for anything more.