A Heart of a Duke Collection: Volume 1-A Regency Bundle

by Christi Caldwell

  The door opened and the alacrity of that movement wrenched her forward. She released her grip upon the dragon so quickly she sprawled forward and came down hard, half-inside and half-outside the home of the illustrious Marquess of Waverly. Despite the chill of the rain, humiliated shame set her body ablaze with fiery heat. Mustering a smile, she raised her gaze upward to the gray-haired butler towering over her. The wrinkles lining his weathered cheeks marked him at some ancient age. She frowned. Was the marquess one of those monstrous sorts who abused his servants and didn’t provide a deserved pension at the end of their years of service? Jane scoffed. Then, didn’t all noblemen place their interests and desires before—?

  “Ahem,” the older man cleared his throat.

  She started and belatedly recalled she lay prone at his feet, her backside presented to any members of polite Society who happened by. She stared up at his outstretched fingers and the burn on her cheeks threatened to set her face afire. “Er, yes. Thank you.”

  With the older man’s assistance, Jane climbed to her feet. Her hem dripped a sizeable puddle onto the otherwise immaculate, marble foyer. Oh, dear. This was hardly an entrance that would earn her the marquess’ favor. She braced for the sneering condescension in his servant’s cool, blue stare and froze. A twinkle lit the servant’s rheumy eyes.

  He was one of the kind ones. Having been born a bastard, she’d had a good deal of experience in sorting out the kindly ones from the sneering, disapproving others. Unfortunately, there had been a shortage of the kindly ones.

  She cleared her throat. “I am Mrs. Munroe.”

  The man stared at her in confusion.

  “I am here to see the Marquess of Waverly.” Jane fished around for her reticule and opened the sopping piece. She withdrew the well-read note. She held it up for the other man’s inspection. “I’ve come from Mrs. Belden’s Finishing School at the marquess’ request to serve as companion.” He accepted the note from her trembling fingers. Her breath caught in dreaded anticipation of the gods sending a bolt of lightning through the sweeping foyer to smite her for her lies.

  The butler eyed the page in his hands and she braced for him to jab his finger at her and thunder “Liar” into the towering space. He folded the note and handed it over. There was nothing in his kindly eyes to indicate he’d seen her for the charlatan she was. Instead, he inclined his head with a smile. “Allow me to show you to the marquess.” He motioned to her cloak.

  Jane followed his discreet gesture and then glanced back at him. She gave her head a small shake. What was he on about?

  A ghost of a smile played on his lips. “Er, your cloak, Mrs. Munroe.”

  “Oh, yes!” She widened her eyes. “Of course, my cloak.” With jerky movements, she fiddled with the clasp of her modest, brown muslin cloak and then turned the wet garment over to his care.

  A footman rushed over to claim the cloak and then disappeared. A protest sprung to her lips as he carried off the only one she had in her possession.

  “If you will please follow me, Mrs. Munroe?”

  Jane jumped at the servant’s quietly spoken request. She wet her lips. Fear always chose the worst time to present itself. She stood rooted to the floor. Unease turned in her belly. Her future hung upon the following exchange; upon the benevolence of a nobleman who’d hired a companion for his sister and had instead received a sacked, former instructor and, well, a liar. Guilt needled at her insides. I am a liar.

  Desperate, but a liar all the same and desperation did not pardon the sins of a liar. Alas, survival superseded honor in the cold, uncertain world in which she dwelled.

  The butler coughed, breaking her from her panicked reverie. He stood at the edge of the corridor looking at her expectantly. “I—” She flitted her gaze about the foyer and then her stare collided with her bag. “I cannot—”

  The old servant clapped once and a different footman instantly materialized. A startled shriek escaped her at the liveried servant’s sudden appearance. Jane slipped on the dampened marble and slid forward. Her heart thudded hard, but she tossed her arms wide and managed to prevent a fall. Another fall, that is. How many blasted footmen did a person require? She managed a sheepish grin for the butler.

  “If you’ll follow me,” he repeated. This time, he did not wait to see if she followed but continued along the halls.

  Jane forced her legs to move and, with wooden steps, walked at a slower, more reluctant pace behind him. As they walked through the lavish townhouse, the trepidation that had gripped Jane all morning threatened to overwhelm her with numbing panic.

  What if she was discovered as an interloper? An imposter? She glanced down at her dark, modest uniform of Mrs. Belden’s. Surely the gentleman’s letter returned to him with Jane and her Dragon skirts would rouse no suspicions. Because the alternative, to be turned out and ultimately forced to starve or humble herself before the father she’d met but twice as a child, and only when he’d paid visits to her mother, was unfathomable. His lover. Familiar rage rolled through her, reminding her of why she hated the nobility who saw those deemed inferior, such as a bastard Jane and her actress mother, as beneath their notice. Those gentlemen who could, with a single look or one word utterance, decide a person’s fate.

  She tightened her grip upon her reticule. Or who, with their roving hands, could cause a woman being turned out, labeled a whore, and—

  Jane collided with the butler’s back as he stopped beside a closed door. Her spectacles fell forward. “Forgive me,” she said hurriedly. She adjusted the frames, pushing them back on the brim of her nose. Goodness the man moved with far greater speed than she’d expect of one of his advanced years. “I—” Am distracted by my panic. “Forgive me,” she finished lamely.

  He gave her another one of those kindly smiles and, blast, if they weren’t the first smiles she’d received in…She wracked her mind, well, blast, she couldn’t recall a time she’d received one of those types of smiles. The butler knocked. There had been plenty of smiles. Silence met his rapping. There had been plenty of leering grins. He knocked once more. There were also the knowing grins.

  “Enter,” a booming voice called from within.

  She braced her shoulders as the servant pressed the handle. Jane hovered at the entrance, thinking of all the smiles she’d received in the course of her life. There had also been cruel ones and mocking ones.

  “My lord, a Mrs. Munroe has arrived from Mrs. Belden’s school.”

  But never the kindly ones. A sheen filled her eyes. Blasted rain. She removed her spectacles and dashed a hand over her eyes. How else was there to account for the sheen there other than that moisture?

  Silence met the servant’s pronouncement. She placed her wire rims on once more and looked across the room to the seated figure of the marquess. With the hard, chiseled planes of his face and the firm, noble brow and jaw, he was a regal specimen of noble perfection. She dimly registered the kindly servant backing out of the room. An irrational urge to call the kindly man back bubbled to her throat. The door closed with a quiet click that made her jump. Unnerved by the intensity of the marquess’ hard, impenetrable stare, Jane dropped a curtsy. “My lord.”

  Belatedly, he climbed to his feet, unfurling to his full height. “Mrs. Munroe.” She swallowed hard. More than a foot taller than her own five foot-three inch figure, his broad shoulders and arms strained the fabric of his midnight black coat. But for his tousled dark hair, there was nothing soft or gentle or kind about this man. The mere strength of one such as he would rouse terror in the most seasoned soldiers. Then a single loose curl fell across his brow, momentarily softening him. With long, powerful fingers he brushed it back, as though annoyed by that weakening.

  Lucifer.

  She’d once read that Lucifer came to Earth disguised in the form of a gloriously handsome gentleman and set a person to sinning. Jane thrust aside the foolish ramblings.

  He moved out from behind his desk and walked toward her, and she immediately retreated, which was,
of course, foolish. More than twenty long strides separated them and she wasn’t easily roused to fear and…Her back thumped noisily against the door. “Mrs. Munroe,” he drawled, as he came to a stop at the center of the room. “Do you intend to stand at my door all afternoon or will you sit?”

  That deep, mellifluous baritone was a devil’s tone, too. Smooth and refined, yet clipped and cool. There was nothing soft in that voice, either. “Sit,” she blurted.

  He gave a flick of his wrist and she followed that subtle movement to the leather button sofa, and then looked to him once more. Did his lips turn up in a smile? Surely she’d merely imagined that faint expression of amusement? A coolly aloof, lofty gentleman such as he did not smile. She peered at the marquess through her glass lenses but could detect no trace of humor.

  The marquess studied her through thick, hooded, black lashes and the singular intensity of his focus jolted her into motion. Jane tipped her chin up and sailed over to the nearby sofa. She hesitated, detesting that in claiming the seat he’d be granted even more of an advantage over her. Her previous positions in the homes of those vaunted nobles had taught her that they’d take, regardless of whether anything was offered. A muscle leapt at the corner of her eye. And she’d not offer anything to those indolent, self-serving lords.

  “Mrs. Munroe?”

  Jane hastily claimed a seat and folded her hands upon her lap. And waited. After all, her recent dismissal from Mrs. Belden’s had taught her the perils of her quick tongue. Surely for two months she might manage to be the proper, polite companion the marquess sought for his sister.

  The Marquess of Waverly claimed the chair opposite her. He continued to examine her in that assessing way until she shifted under the weight of his scrutiny. She’d spent the better part of her life striving to remain invisible, to attract no notice. To be noticed was to be ruined, particularly for a young woman in a powerful nobleman’s employ. Jane promptly dropped her gaze to her lap. The fire snapped and hissed from within the hearth, however, the roaring fire did little to warm her. He knows. She fought to still her quaking fingers. Of course he didn’t know. How could he? She stole an upward peek at him. Or did he?

  Ever the regal, polished nobleman, he reclined in his seat, elegant in repose. His long fingers rested along the arms of his mahogany armchair. He broke the impasse of silence. “Forgive me. I’d believed I’d been clear with Mrs. Belden that I would send around a carriage to retrieve you.”

  Jane curled her hands into a white-knuckled grip. She should truly be focused on that carefully ignored detail accounting for her hasty travel plans. Retrieve her. Instead, she fixed on those two insolent words. Retrieve her, the way he might an errant child.

  “Mrs. Munroe?”

  “Forgive me, I didn’t realize yours was a question.” His dark eyebrows snapped into a single line and she cursed her tongue. Jane managed a demure smile. Or at the very least attempted a demure smile. Alas, her mother had always said Jane had possessed more spirit than a ghost haunting his resting place on All Hallows’ Eve. “Mrs. Belden knew your request was an urgent one, my lord.” There, a safe response. After all, Mrs. Belden was long concerned with respectability and the powerful peers who entrusted their daughters to her care. She would have recognized any missive sent by the marquess as a matter of urgency.

  The marquess inclined his head as though he’d found her answer satisfactory. Hope stirred within her breast as some of her misgivings lifted. “I trust Mrs. Belden has shared information with you about my sister?”

  He may as well have removed the medieval broadsword from his office wall and drove it directly through the fledgling optimism. Of course the beastly headmistress would be expected to select a companion who, if not a former instructor, at the very least came to the marquess with knowledge of his sister.

  “Oh, yes,” she lied through her forced smile. Her mind raced as she considered all the ladies she’d known in her tenure at the finishing school. Dull. Proper. Exceedingly polite. Unfailingly and unflinchingly demure English ladies in every regard. “Mrs. Belden spoke with fond remembrance of your sister.”

  He stilled. “Did she?”

  As those two words lacked any hint of emotion or indication of his thoughts, she gave a vigorous nod. “Ever so proper.” Devoid of spirit. “Practical of nature, she evinces all ladylike skills the school is renowned for instilling.” Did his lips twitch?

  The marquess hooked his ankle over his knee, drawing her attention down to his leg. She swallowed hard and told herself to look away. It wasn’t polite or proper or any of the other very ladylike words she’d spouted for his benefit. But perhaps she had more of her shameful mother in her than she’d believed, for Jane, who’d never done something as foolhardy as notice a man, particularly not a nobleman, stared transfixed at the thickly muscled expanse of his thighs, entirely too broad for any proper nobleman. Marquesses were supposed to be spindly and reed-thin from lack of physical exertions, not this…She fanned her cheeks.

  “Are you warm, Mrs. Munroe?”

  “Yes.” Jane yanked her gaze up and found the faintest trace of amusement contained within his eyes, as though he knew she’d been staring at his legs, which was madness. Jane Munroe, bastard daughter, detester of men and their glib tongues, did not admire men. And then belatedly she recalled the frigid room. “No,” she said quickly.

  His brow dipped in confusion. That was preferable to any knowing on his part of the effect his impressive physique had upon her. “Forgive me,” she said, proud of the stoic deliverance of those words. “You were saying, my lord?”

  “I was not saying anything.” Dry humor underscored that statement.

  She furrowed her brow. “Weren’t you?”

  “We were speaking of my polite and proper sister.”

  Something in the slight emphasis of those two very important words gave her pause; set up a slight warning bell that suggested there was more at play. As soon as the thought slipped in, she thrust it back. Of course any prideful nobleman would speak of his sister’s worth in their narrow-minded Society. “Yes, we were,” she murmured.

  “Do tell me,” he drawled. “What else did Mrs. Belden say about my sister?”

  Her mind went blank. Literally blank. Every single thought, worry, or hope fled with that question. Something in his tone suggested he sought a very specific something from Jane with that question. “Say?” She winced at that dreadful nervous tendency to parrot back another’s words.

  He waved a hand about and she followed that faint movement. “Surely she spoke more of my sister, Chloe?”

  “Indeed.” She had not. Oh, to someone the head dragon had surely said something, but it would have never been to Jane who, with her birthright, had been treated as lesser than the dirt upon the dull, black boots donned by the headmistress. The marquess sought specific information from her on his sister. She’d give him precisely the falsities craved by the heartless, self-aggrandizing members of the ton. She spread her hands wide. “I assure you, my lord, Mrs. Belden has thoroughly informed me about your sister, the esteemed Lady Chloe, who by her very nature aspires to an honorable, distinguished match.”

  That silenced the pompous lord. After all, Jane had merely spouted off what most members of polite Society hoped for; for their daughters, sisters, and selves.

  Chapter 4

  The esteemed headmistress, Mrs. Belden, was either cracked in the head sending him Mrs. Munroe to oversee his sister Chloe or the woman knew her charges a good deal less than she was purported to.

  Gabriel ran a critical eye over the rumpled woman in her drab brown dress. By the manner in which she’d drawn her blonde hair tightly back at the nape of her neck and the spectacles perched on the rim of her pert nose, Mrs. Munroe evinced a proper companion and she’d make some proper English lady a perfectly acceptable companion.

  Just not his sister.

  By Mrs. Munroe’s admission, his sister aspired to an honorable, distinguished match. In truth, his sister would sooner lob
off her arm than make any match. He bit back a curse of annoyance. His spirited, headstrong sister would devour a woman with Mrs. Munroe’s awkward smiles and words of proper, polite ladies. No, if he allowed Mrs. Munroe the post of companion, his sister would remain unwed for yet another Season and Gabriel would be obligated, once more, to endure another Season and another year with her uncared for; his responsibility stretching on. He drummed his fingertips on the arms of his chair.

  “I mean you no disrespect,” he began. Because there really was no gentle or polite way to dismiss a woman from a position she’d not even fully stepped into. Time was of the essence.

  With an unexpected show of spirit, Mrs. Munroe leaned forward in her chair. “I beg your pardon, my lord?” A frown marred her lips.

  Gabriel opened his mouth to disabuse her of the notion that she’d be granted the position as companion but blinked instead. He fixed his gaze upon the too-full, bow-shaped lips. Odd a plain woman of her severity should possess such a tempting mouth that fairly begged to be kissed. Gabriel fisted his hands into tight balls. God help him, he was his depraved father’s son. “I am afraid you will not do,” he blurted. What madness was this, admiring the mouth of a servant who’d come to him seeking employment? He gave his head a disgusted shake.

  Confusion creased her brow. “I will not do what?”

  He was making a blasted mess of this. “You will not do as a companion.” With a sigh, he came to his feet. “You are, of course, welcome to stay the evening and I will send you back to Mrs. Belden’s with the use of my personal carriage.” He sketched a bow and made to turn toward his desk when he registered the crystalline blue of her eyes. The endless depths made a man think of summer skies and unexplored waters. For all that was plain about the woman, there was a staggering beauty in those fathomless irises.

  Mrs. Munroe met his stare with a staggering boldness. “Send me back?” For the lady’s bravado, a hint of panic underscored her words.

  The woman had a rather bothersome tendency of parroting back a man’s words. He nodded. “I will also send you with a letter informing Mrs. Belden of your suitability.” For anyone other than his minx of a sister. He strode over to the bell-pull, rang for a servant, and then stalked over to his desk.