To Love a Lord (35 page)

“A-a pleasure, m-my lady,” he stammered and she relinquished her guard in identifying a kindred spirit. He motioned to her dance card. “Will you do me the honor of a s-set?”

She dimly registered the hard stare Gabriel leveled on her and the other man, the narrowing of his eyes as Lord Primly reached for her card and scratched his name. If she did not know better, she’d believe he was…jealous. Which was, of course, also madness. Gabriel would have to care in order to be jealous. “I must warn you, I am quite a dreadful dancer.”

Chloe nodded. “It is true,” she interjected. “Quite dreadful.”

Lord Primly captured Jane’s hand and raised it to his lips. “I-I b-believe it is worth r-risking my t-toes for the pleasure of your company,” he said in a low tone that elicited another scowl from her husband.

“If you’ll excuse me,” Gabriel snapped. “I was going to claim the following set with my wife.”

Lord Primly released her immediately. The small smattering of friends and family went silent at his snarling response. “E-er, yes. Very w-well then.” He sketched a bow and with a hasty goodbye to the remainder of the Edgertons, took himself off.

Before Jane could reprimand her husband for his rudeness to the one, polite gentleman she’d met in the course of her life—with the exception of her now loutish husband—he dragged her toward the dance floor where the dancers were assembling for the first waltz. “What was that about?” she bit out as she placed her hand upon his shoulder.

“What was what about?” Gabriel guided his hand to her waist.

“You were perfectly horrid to that nice gentleman. Lord Primly.”

The orchestra began to play the haunting stains of a waltz and he led them in the scandalous, yet equally delicious, dance. Gabriel lowered his face close to hers. Beneath her fingers, the muscles of his forearm tightened within his coat sleeves. “I did not like the way he was looking at you.”

She stumbled and he quickly righted her, bringing her closer to his frame. Only this misstep had nothing to do with her horrid dancing skills as Chloe had called them and everything to do with her husband’s stunning revelation. “Why does it matter how he was looking at me?” she asked curiously. “Why, if I do not matter to you?” She gave a vague motion to the dancers about them staring openly and whispering loudly. “What should it matter what they say about me? Why, if you don’t care?”

Gabriel leaned ever closer, shrinking the space between them. “Because I do care, Jane.”

Her heart started as she tried to sort through the significance of those words. “Because of your sister,” she put forth tentatively. With his concern for Chloe and all of his siblings, of course, her actions and her reception amidst Society mattered for that very reason.

He lowered his voice. “Because of you.”

*

Of all the admissions he’d made in the course of his life, those three words were the most costly ones he’d ever uttered. And yet, the onslaught of terror did not come.

Gabriel braced for the rush of fear, the sense of panic that admitting she mattered should bring. Jane was unlike any person he’d ever known. It mattered not the circumstances of her birth. For him it never had. It mattered she was so fearless as to take control of her life and shape it for herself. When others saw to their own comforts and security, Jane had carefully guarded her own dreams with the hope of helping other young women like her.

I need her. I want her. I…love her.

Gabriel staggered to a stop. A couple adroitly stepped out of his way to keep from tumbling over them.

“Gabriel?” Jane applied pressure to his arm. He gave his head a clearing shake and promptly picked up the motions of the dance once more.

For years he’d seen that emotion as weakening. It was a sentiment that would cement his connection to another and bring with it responsibility and through that, inevitable hurt, and he could not do hurt. Not anymore. Not because of his own failings. How humbling to realize the siblings he’d spent his life caring for had proven wholly correct in their warnings and urgings. The emotion of love had once represented a shackle and yet he’d shattered the manacles he’d wrapped about his heart and admitted—he wanted her love. He wanted to be loved. More importantly, he loved her. “Jane—”

She cocked her head and stared expectantly back at him.

“I—” Could not say it here. He registered the stares trained on them. She deserved this moment but away from the peering eyes of gossips and unkind lords and ladies. The music drew to a halt and they stopped. Couples politely clapped about them and he closed his mouth. “I will lead you back to my family,” he said lamely.

Jane nodded. “Of course.”

As Gabriel turned to lead her to the side of the dance floor, he froze. His gaze collided with a pair of familiar blue eyes—Jane’s eyes. From where he stood at the opposite end of the hall, the man skimmed his bored, ducal gaze over the crowd, as though he felt Gabriel’s frigid stare. And then their gazes collided.

He once believed he could never hate a soul more than that of his monstrous father. In this instance, he realized there was another. With every fiber of his being he detested the Duke of Ravenscourt who, with his pomposity and disdain, had forced Jane alone in a world in which she relied upon only herself. And for that, a seething hatred coursed through him and licked at his senses until it was all he could do to keep from storming the room and taking the man apart for his crimes.

“What is it, Gabriel?” Jane asked, concern in her voice as she followed his stare to the duke. She looked back to Gabriel. By the lack of recognition in her eyes, however, she did not know the man who sired her was just a floor’s length away.

He steeled his jaw, and jerked his attention away. “It is nothing. My family is motioning,” he lied. Wordlessly, they made their way back to his family and, of course, his sister paced relentless as usual. “You cannot keep the lady to yourself all evening,” Chloe chided. “Lord Primly is here to claim his set.” She motioned to blasted Lord Primly who stood in wait.

Jane beamed as the earl sketched a bow.

Bloody hell. The ladies seemed to adore Primly. Granted, he was an easy-going, mild-mannered chap, but did his wife have to smile at him in that manner?

“M-my L-lady,” Primly said with an arm outstretched.

With a last look for Gabriel, Jane allowed Primly to escort her back onto the dance floor. Gabriel stared after them as the orchestra struck up another waltz. His brother stuck a glass of champagne under his nose and he grabbed the glass. “Isn’t there some manner of etiquette and rules in playing two waltzes together?” he groused and then took a sip while from over the rim he stared at Primly, with his hands upon Jane. And this was far worse than bloody Mr. Wallace whom she’d been all frowns for.

“I suspect there is,” Alex drawled at his side. “But then, when one is a duke, I’m sure rules of etiquette in terms of dance sets do not apply.”

“I heard the duchess has always loved to dance and adores the waltz,” Imogen said with a softness in her expression. “And the duke orders orchestras to play those waltzes so they might be in each other’s arms.”

Gabriel shifted his gaze away from Jane and damned Primly with his…with his…
hands
, and glanced momentarily at the duke and duchess in question. Hard, unflappable and coolly aloof, nothing struck Gabriel as warm or sentimental about such a man. No, one would never take the aloof duke for the romantic sort.

Gabriel found Jane once more. His heart swelled. A loose golden tress wound down her back, the pink of her satin shimmered in the candlelight. But then, one would never say there was anything warm or sentimental about Gabriel…and he’d gone and fallen hopelessly in love with his wife, a mere stranger three weeks ago.

So, one never truly did know where matters of the heart were concerned. It had taken Jane to show Gabriel just how much he’d been wrong about in the course of his life. Just then Lord Primly said something that raised one of Jane’s unfettered smiles.

A growl rumbled up his throat.

“Stop glaring at Lord Primly,” Chloe scolded.

“I’m not glaring at him,” he said from the corner of his mouth. If he was glaring, it was certainly permitted with the way the man had his hands upon Jane.

“No, not a glare,” Alex said with far too much humor in his tone. “I’d say more a glower than anything else.”

At that precise moment, Jane stumbled and Primly caught her to him. He said something that raised another smile, a smile that should be reserved for Gabriel. And he suspected would have been if he’d merely been honest with himself and her. But now there was smiling Primly. Jane laughed and even in the crowded room with the din of the orchestra, the bell-like sound carried over to him. He snapped the delicate stem of his champagne flute. A servant rushed over to attend to the mess. “What are they talking about?” he muttered to himself.

His brother leaned over and spoke in a low whisper. “If I know Primly it is entirely scandalous, inappropriate—”

Gabriel turned a glare on him and his brother dissolved into a fit of laughter. He found Jane once more. He was bloody pleased that everyone was having a good time at his expense, but blast and damn, this being in love business was as trying as he’d expected it would be.

She laughed once more and he curled his hands at his side. What were they talking about?

W
ith Lord Primly’s stammer and his easy nature, Jane came to an almost immediate conclusion—they related more than she’d ever expected she would with a peer.

“Th-they judge a person quite unfairly d-don’t they, Lady W-waverly.” His was more a pronouncement than anything else.

She grew guarded and looked up at the earl as they made their way through the waltz. “Er—”

He snorted. “D-do I take you a-as one welcomed i-into their fold?”

“No,” she said automatically.

A slight frown played on his lips.

“You are too nice,” she said honestly.

Her words raised a grin. How very blessed the Edgertons were. They had not only family, but also friends. It was wrong to begrudge people who’d given her everything, this special something, and yet, she’d trade a portion of her soul for such luck. “Thank you for your support. I imagine it cannot be easy to dance attendance with,” a bastard. “One such as me.”

He snorted. “D-don’t be silly.” Lord Primly jerked his chin. “Who would you rather me spend the evening with?”

She started with surprise at the steady deliverance of those words. Gone was the man’s stammer.

“There is Lord Albertsley, rumored to be cruel to his servants.” He motioned discreetly to a stout lord with a bulbous nose.

Jane frowned. “That is horrid.”

He continued. “Or there is Lady McAtwaters, who won’t speak to anyone who is less than a baron.”

A shocked laugh escaped her. “Surely you jest?”

He winked. “Well, perhaps a bit. I’ll not tell you what they say of Lady McAtwaters.” Some of his lightness was replaced by seriousness. “Th-these people are not better than you. They might disparage you and treat you as less worthy, but you are not, and do not give them the satisfaction of thinking they are.” Jane suspected the earl spoke to the both of them and the kindred connection between them grew. He cleared his throat. “M-more worthy that is.”

He fell silent and Jane looked out at the dance floor once more, contemplating Lord Primly’s words. The whole of her life she’d been told she was inferior because of her birth. It was difficult to shrug off years of those very reminders. Yet, in the time she’d spent with Gabriel and his family and now Lord Primly, she’d come to realize—she was not different than these people and they were not different than her. They were all broken people in some way, moving through life, carving out happiness when and where they could. The muscles of her throat worked. And she wanted to carve out that happiness with Gabriel. Jane squared her jaw. Whether he wished it or not. She was going to fight for him.

She located Gabriel with her gaze and found his stare trained across the room, upon an older, vaguely familiar stranger at the opposite end of the hall. The same man he’d been staring at earlier. “Who is that?”

Lord Primly followed her stare. “The unsmiling fellow?” That could be very nearly everyone present. “The Duke of Ravenscourt.”

A loud humming filled her ears. She stomped on the earl’s feet once more. “The Duke of Ravenscourt,” she repeated back dumbly.

He nodded once.

The Duke of Ravenscourt. Her father. A man she’d caught but two glimpses of during her childhood. The blonde of his hair had been replaced by a steely gray and his form had more weight to it than she remembered. But it was him. She bit down hard on the inside of her cheek. How odd to attend the same social function as one’s father but still have no idea that the man who’d sired you was just fifty feet away—until a chance look across the ballroom floor.

The music drew to a stop and Lord Primly made to escort her from the floor. “If you’ll excuse me,” Jane murmured. And of their own volition, her legs carried her those fifty feet to the figure she’d spent the course of her life hating. A man who’d never acknowledged her existence but who’d settled funds upon her regardless. Such a man must have cared—if even just a bit.