To Love a Lord (28 page)

Imogen jumped to her feet. “Gabriel,” she greeted with a smile and sailed across the room in a flurry of skirts. Jane rose and a thousand questions sprung to her lips about his meeting. She bit the inside of her cheek to keep from blurting any one of them out.

He stepped into the room and sketched a polite, proper, and perfectly formal bow. “Imogen,” he said. All the while, his gaze remained on Jane. “Mrs. Munroe.”

His family was too polite to draw attention to the great hypocrisy in him referring to her so very formally when they’d been discovered
en dishabille
at the opera. Instead, Lord Alex held his hand out, and his wife walked the remaining distance, and then slipped her fingers into his.

Jane studied that sweet, intimate moment as he clasped his larger palm around Imogen’s much smaller one and a sudden hungering slammed into her—a desire to know even just a sliver of that connection to another person. She stared after them as they took their leave, until only she and Gabriel remained.

He fully entered the room and closed the door quietly behind him.

Yes, with her already non-existent reputation in tatters there was no need for a chaperone and apparently closed doors were permitted, too. She glanced down at the tips of her slippers.

He spoke without preamble. “I spoke to your father.”

His words brought her head up. Her father. Had the duke truly been a father? He’d sired her, yes. But she’d only seen two glimpses of the man in the course of her existence. “Thank you,” she said. She pressed her palms together.

It was done. He’d secured her funds, then. She would have her freedom and security. The Edgerton’s would be nothing more than a reminder of a family who’d proven themselves different than all others. His thick lashes dipped. He may as well have been carved from stone for all the reaction he gave. She scooped up her book and pulled it close to her chest. “I—”

Gabriel held up a hand. He took a step toward her, his expression darkening. “There is, however, something we need to speak on.”

*

He’d spent the better part of the afternoon and evening grappling with just what to do with Jane Munroe—the woman who wanted to wed even less than he wanted to be wed.

The truth of her father’s betrayal had tumbled around his mind since he’d taken his leave of his club. He’d turned around and over and through all possible answers. Jane was, of course, deserving of the truth about his meeting with her father and yet…he could not tell her. To do so would shatter her dream and end her security. He could not do that. Not and live with himself.

Jane picked her way carefully toward him and then paused with the gold upholstered sofa between them. She had a white-knuckled grip on the volume in her hands. “What is it?” Concern darkened her eyes and he was struck once more by how very much alike they were. Life had given them reasons to be wary.

He cleared his throat. “I spoke to the duke,” he corrected from earlier. For the monster who’d given her life, more alike than different from his own sire, did not deserve the distinction of parentage. “There is a condition of your acquiring the funds.” For that was the only resolution he’d come to in his own mind.

Jane cocked her head. “A condition?” she repeated back dumbly, as she set her book down on the sofa.

A niggling of guilt pebbled his belly and he forcibly thrust it back. He’d ruined her. He would do right by her and compromising the pledge he’d taken as a boy was the very least sacrifice he could make for ruining her.
What right do I have to make that choice for her?
He took a step away and wandered over to the window seat she’d occupied moments ago. The small leather volume on the upholstered seat snagged his attention and he dropped his gaze to her beloved book. The book she had in her possession whenever he came upon her. The book that had served as her motivation all these years to establish her finishing school.

“Gabriel?” she asked. Unease laced that one word—his name. And just like that, he was Gabriel again to her and the decision was made.

He swiped Mrs. Wollstonecraft’s work from the seat and welcomed the comforting weight of the book in his hands. “I will speak bluntly, Jane,” he said as he turned to face her.

A wry smile formed on her lips. “I’d prefer bluntness to this stilted silence.”

He returned her smile with a faint one of his own. “I have never been the one with ready words. That skill has been reserved for my brother.”

“I’d have you be sincere to filling that quiet with platitudes and false cheer.” False cheer.

“Your three thousand pounds is dependent upon our marriage,” he said on a rush, before the wrongness in his decision cemented in his mind or before his own courage to move forward in this uncertain marital state registered.

Jane opened her mouth and closed it. And then tried again. “What?”

“Marriage,” he supplied, though he far suspected that she very well heard and understood. “To me.”

She furrowed her brow and then shook her head slowly back and forth. “I don’t understand.” Her whisper-soft statement may as well have thundered about the room for the absolute still of the parlor. “Marriage?” She paused. “To you?”

Was the prospect of marriage to him really so unpalatable to the lady? He bristled, feeding the indignation which was far safer than any other more dangerous sentiments that could or would suggest there was any other reason to care about Jane’s response. He set aside her book. “As I said, you will receive the funds for your school if you wed me.”

She gave her head a forlorn shake and then looked away. “I see.” By her flat, emotionless tone he suspected she saw nothing at all.

“Marry me.”

Her gaze shot to his. “Are you asking me?” She squared her shoulders at that same high-handed order he’d made just the prior evening.

Gabriel nodded. “Marry me?” he said again and this time the words were a question.

Jane eyed him with a wary confusion. “But you don’t want to marry me.”

No. He didn’t wish to marry anyone and especially not a woman who roused these tumultuous sentiments within him that he didn’t recognize or care to identify.

“Why?”

It took a moment for him to register her question. “Why?”

She nodded. “Why would you wed me to help me secure my funds? What benefit is that to you? You will not have a proper wife, a
lady
as your hostess.”

Why, because there was little choice except marriage. He opened his mouth but then immediately pressed his lips closed and searched for a suitable response that would not offend a woman who was now presented with marriage to him. Gabriel forced a wry grin. “I expect it is fairly clear why we should wed.”
I want you…
No, that is not what now drove his offer. It was the protection and security of his name.
That
was the impetus behind his proposal.

“No, it is not clear, Gabriel,” she said slowly, as though picking her way through a conversation in Latin when she only spoke French.

He strolled over and stopped before her. “Very well,” he said and brushed the back of his hand along her jaw. Like silk. Who knew satiny soft skin could be so very erotic?

Jane tipped her head at a slight angle, leaning into his touch in a trusting way that jerked him back to the perils of her.

“You are ruined.” She went taut and drew slightly back. That movement forced his hand down to his side. He grimaced. “That is you are unmarriageable.” Was there really a difference between the two? He thought not and, by the dangerous narrowing of Jane’s eyes, she also thought not. He’d spent his life scolding and passing judgment on his rogue of a brother. Now he’d have traded his left hand for a handful of charming words to help him wade through this quagmire with Jane.

“You would marry me because of…” Her cheeks pinked. “Because of what transpired.” What transpired? That was a good deal more polite than referencing the passionate exchange that had found her with her skirts up about her delicious lower limbs and her skirts wrinkled. “All so I could secure my funds?”

He bowed his head. “I would,” he said solemnly. Through the years, he’d failed Chloe, Philippa, and Alex. He’d not fail another. “Marry me,” he repeated. “You’ll have your school.”

A small smile played about her lips. “You cannot help but command, can you?”

Gabriel closed his mouth. “No.” The need to be masterful and decisive had been ingrained into him from the moment Alex had beat their father within an inch of his life. At his younger brother’s side, he’d gleaned the strength and power that came in possessing control—over all.

Jane studied her palms a long moment, and when she looked to him again, there was that wary mistrust he’d come to expect of her etched in the delicate lines of her face. “I’ll have my school,” she spoke that part as though to herself. “And what will you have?” Her cheeks flamed red like a summer strawberry. “I expect you’ll require heirs.”

Heirs. Children. Those small, dependent people who required caring for and protection. Figures who, until this moment, had been murky shadows who would never be, but now with her words, Jane had conjured up the delicious act of taking her to his bed, laying her down, exploring every crevice of her skin, tasting her scent…He groaned.

“Gabriel?” she asked, questioningly.

“There will be no children,” he said harshly. Never before had he resented the vow he’d taken. Before it had been there to sustain and protect. Now the prospect of having Jane as his wife and not knowing every part of her body threatened to destroy him. “There will be no children,” he repeated, this time for his own benefit.

She scratched her brow. “But you are a marquess.” Her tone held all the befuddlement of one trying to divine the answer to life.

“Ours would be a marriage of convenience,” he said. “You will have your funds and your school—”

“And what will you have?”

“A companion for my sister—”

“With the circumstances of my birth and our discovery at the opera house, I will be a dreadful companion.”

He went on as though she’d not interrupted. “—You will serve as my hostess while my mother is away with my sister—”

“I know nothing about being a hostess.”

“You will learn.”

“But I don’t want to learn.”

He frowned.

Jane lifted her hands up. “I thank you for your offer.” She’d thank him for his offer as casually as though he’d laid his jacket across the street so she might avoid a muddy puddle. “But there would be no benefit in your marrying me.” She wrinkled her nose. “Nor do I expect you’d gladly accept your wife establishing and running a finishing school.”

No, most gentlemen would not. Other noblemen committed to their lines and titles wouldn’t even entertain an idea of their wife doing anything other than serving as hostess and becoming mother to their heirs. Gabriel folded his arms at his chest. “I don’t believe I’ve been clear, Jane.”

She nodded. “Yes. I would agree with that much.”

“I am not looking for a wife.”

The furrow of her brow deepened.

“I do not want a wife. Or children,” he added as an afterthought.

“But you require a wife and child,” she blurted with the same shock he’d expect from his now thankfully dead father. “Children,” she amended. “Heirs and spares and issue to carry on your line.” She gesticulated wildly as she spoke.

Gabriel propped his hip against the edge of the sofa. “As we are entering into this state—”

“We are entering into no state,” she interrupted with a hard frown on her lips.

“If we are to enter into this state,” he amended. “You should know that ours would be a marriage in name only. You will be, after your responsibilities to my sister are seen to, free to take yourself off to the country. Your three thousand pounds will be yours to establish a school and see fit the running of it. All you must do is marry me.”

G
abriel spoke with a calculated, methodical precision about her life and his. Their future, which would really be no future together.

All she must do is marry him.

She would have her school. He would have…a very unsatisfactory end of the proverbial bargain. And there would be a husband, but not truly a husband.

The deal he put to her was generous and a week ago would have been the impossibility she’d never dared dream of—freedom. Until now. Now, with the perversity of her own internal weakness, something in his offer was missing. For both of them. How could he fail to see it?

Her skin prickled with awareness under the intensity of his gaze upon her person. Needing some space between them, Jane wandered to the cold, empty hearth and stared into the grate. When she spoke, she directed her attention there. “By your admission, all you require is a companion for Chloe. You would see her married, with me acting as your hostess.” Her lips pulled in an involuntary grimace. “When she is wed, what then?” She cast a glance over her shoulder.

Gabriel remained propped at the edge of the sofa, coolly elegant and refined in his masculine perfection—his powerful height, his broad muscles rippling in the fitted contours of his expertly cut jacket. He lifted his shoulders in a slight shrug. “Then, it is as I said, you will have your freedom and I shall have mine.”