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

by Christi Caldwell

  Some of the fury receded from Gabriel’s taut frame and he reached for the pair. He eyed the delicate lenses bent at the rims with a wary caution. “They are bent,” she said needlessly. Ruined from the man’s attack more than a year past. They’d never been the same since and she’d never spared the funds to have the merely ornamental disguise replaced or repaired.

  He handed them over to her slowly and she quickly snatched them from his hand. “You should return to the ballroom, Jane,” he said hesitantly.

  Jane nodded. “Of course.” She placed her spectacles upon her face and started for the door.

  “Jane,” he called out, staying her movements.

  She stopped and turned back to face him.

  “If I find you have lied to me and if you, in any way through your presence here, harm my sister,” he paused and lowered his voice. “I will see you ruined.” His words contained the satiny edge of steel, a lethal threat that drove the beat of her heart into an even more frenzied rhythm.

  She managed to incline her head. “Is there anything else you require, my lord?”

  He shook his head once and she, with forced calm, opened the door and took her leave of him. She did not doubt if he were to discover all the lies she kept, he’d attempt to see her destroyed. Alas, he didn’t realize, it was impossible to ruin someone who’d already been born ruined.

  Chapter 14

  Jane stood frozen before the bevel mirror. The young woman with some curls held in place with butterfly combs at the base of her neck and the other tresses hanging freely down her back, stared back, a stranger. She took in the pale pink of the satin creation selected by Chloe and with trembling fingers, ran her palms down the smooth, soft French fabric.

  It was just a silly scrap of material. In the bearing of a woman’s worth and capabilities, it had neither here nor there to do with her value, as she’d maintained to Gabriel just two days earlier. Her throat worked. Yet, it was by far the loveliest garment she’d ever donned. Tears filled her eyes and she blinked back the useless weak droplets. God forgive her, but five days in the Marquess of Waverly’s household and she’d proven the ugly, sorry fact that she’d spent the better part of her life convincing herself otherwise of—she was her mother.

  With her desire for the kiss of a man who saw her as a member of his staff and yet attired her in lavish gowns, she proved that blood held true. Jane closed her eyes, detesting the resemblance to the woman who’d given her life and chosen another. A woman who’d passed her weakness on to her daughter.

  The door handle clicked and she stiffened at the soft tread of footsteps. “Jane, are you—?” Chloe’s words ended on a gasp. The mirror reflected the shock stamped on her face. She blinked like an owl in the night. “You are beautiful,” she whispered. Awe, shock, and wonder filled those three words.

  And if Jane weren’t so blasted miserable and terrified and panicked she would have found humor in that shock. She gave a small smile. “Thank you.”

  Chloe walked a small circle around her while assessing her in that contemplative manner of hers. She captured her jaw between her thumb and forefinger and continued to study her as though she were an exhibit at the Royal Museum. Then, she stopped suddenly and rocked back on her heels. “Why, you don’t require spectacles.” No, those clear, crystal frames however had detracted notice. She gestured to her hair. “And your hair is, why, it is gloriously curled.” Gloriously bothersome. Those loose tresses had been what had lured the lecherous Lord Montclair. He’d tangled his wandering hands in her hair until she’d vowed to never wear even a single strand free about her shoulders.

  She thrust back the memory. “It is too much.”

  “Do not be silly.” Chloe’s smile widened. “You are absolutely splendid.”

  Jane gave her head a forceful shake. “I do not need to be absolutely splendid.” Quite the opposite. She fixed an accusatory stare on the young woman. “Your intention was to have me blend with Society.” A companion in satins with diamond encrusted hair combs woven throughout her hair would earn her all manner of inappropriate attention.

  A beleaguered sigh escaped Gabriel’s sister. “Yes, yes I did. Unfortunately, Jane,” she moved her gaze from the top of Jane’s head to her toes. “You are incapable of blending in.”

  Panic cloyed at her chest. “No, I’m not.” With her gaze, she desperately searched for her spectacles.

  Chloe was across the room in four long strides and intercepted her efforts. “These,” she held them up, “do not make you blend in. They attract notice. Your dragon skirts,” she pointed to the offensive garments in question, “also earn you notice, for entirely different reasons.” With careful movements, she set the wire-rimmed spectacles down on the table beside Jane’s bed. “You spoke to me of not judging all dogs by the ones who snapped and snarled.” She held Jane’s gaze. “Do not hold all members of polite Society in judgment for those unscrupulous ones you knew in your past.”

  Shock went through her. How could this woman she’d only just met see so easily through her? With a sound of impatience, she took a step back. “This is different.” The words exploded from her lungs.

  “It isn’t,” Chloe said matter-of-factly.

  A bitter laugh bubbled past Jane’s lips and she stalked over to the corner of the room. She peered out the floor-length window down into the streets below. For as good and intelligent and all things kind Chloe Edgerton was, she’d been born to an altogether different world than Jane. As the daughter, and now sister, of a marquess, she didn’t bear the shame Jane knew for her illegitimate beginnings. She pressed her forehead against the cool windowpane. Chloe was firmly settled in her world, whether she wished it or not. Jane, on the other hand, straddled two very different worlds—the glittering Society she’d never belong to courtesy of the fraction of blood given her by the Duke of Ravenscourt and also that shameful, scandalous world of an actress-turned mistress. There was no belonging for her. There was only the hope of leaving everything and reestablishing something that mattered.

  Her school.

  From the crystal windowpane, the harsh smile on her lips reflected back at Jane. A finishing school she’d not given proper thought to because she’d been so very consumed with Gabriel’s touch and the connection they shared.

  She started as Chloe’s visage pulled into focus behind her. The young lady settled a soft hand on her shoulder. “I do not know your story.” Which story did the young woman refer to? The lies of her birth? Or the lies that brought her into this household? “Nor is it my place to know.” In the glass, she searched Jane’s face with her gaze. “Unless you wish to tell me.”

  Gabriel’s lethal promise last evening snaked about her. She closed her eyes. Tell her. Tell her, not in the hope she’d understand the desperation that brought forth this deception. But tell her so she could be freed of attending this ball and any other…and Gabriel.

  “It does not have to be now,” Chloe said softly with a slight squeeze of her shoulder. “Come along, we are off to your first performance.” She made to leave.

  Jane could not do this. Not anymore. The ruse had been different when they were cold, calculated strangers. Now they were people; loyal brothers, loving sisters. These people she could not deceive. “I was not sent here by Mrs. Belden,” she said quietly. The words echoed damningly in the quiet room, and yet Chloe continued forward, as though they’d never been uttered.

  At last her words registered. Chloe turned back, her brow furrowed in consternation.

  With a painful breath, Jane dropped her gaze to the tips of her slippers. Slippers she would one day pay for with the funds given her by the duke. Would it matter to Chloe and Gabriel if she paid for those stolen gifts—gifts she did not want nor desire? Gabriel deserved the truth. Her throat swelled with emotion. Both Chloe and Gabriel, but mostly the man who’d flagellated himself with guilt for kissing a member of his staff. When in truth, she’d never been a member of his staff. She was a liar. A charlatan. A pretender of the worst sort. G
uilt stabbed at her heart.

  A thousand questions filled Chloe’s eyes. “Jane?” The perplexity in the young woman’s eyes only deepened the guilt rolling through Jane in waves.

  Before her courage deserted her, she continued. “I was an instructor at Mrs. Belden’s.”

  “Was.”

  Jane nodded, and too cowardly to focus on that emotionless utterance, pressed ahead. “I was there for a year but deemed unsuitable.” The Duke of Ravenscourt’s very legitimate daughter flashed to her mind. With her cruel smile and taunting words, the young woman had hated Jane for no fault that was her own. “She did not take to my sharing Mrs. Wollstonecraft with the young ladies.” Did she imagine the smile on the other woman’s lips? “I was turned out for it, without a reference.” Jane folded her arms at her chest. “There was a note,” she forced out the most shameful part of her truth past numb lips. “From your brother. A request for a companion.”

  “And you pilfered the note?” Shocked outrage would be preferable to the gentle question there. There was no recrimination. Just a desire to understand and those dratted tears filled her eyes. She blinked them back.

  “I did. Your brother requested a companion for you, for two months’ time. In two months I will—” She flattened her lips.

  Chloe searched her face. “What will happen in two months, Jane?”

  Except for the lies and deception she’d practiced upon the Edgertons, at the very least she could provide this small truth. She drew in a breath. “Funds were settled on me, by my father.” Surprise lit the young woman’s eyes—the first outward reaction from the collected young lady. Guilt twinged at the likely erroneous assumption drawn that presented Jane as a lady, an assumption she did not bother to correct. “In two months I will receive funds which will be mine to use as I wish.”

  “What will you do with your funds?”

  “I will set up a school. A finishing school,” she said softly. “It will be different than the schools run by the Mrs. Belden’s of the world,” she spoke on a rush at the frown that formed on Chloe’s lips. Jane lifted her palms up. “It will be a place where young women,” who dwelled on the fringe of respectability, like her, “will be encouraged to use their minds and trust their judgments. I am so, so sorry about the lies between us.” You and Gabriel.

  Her revelation was met with a long stretch of silence, made more powerful by the tick-tock of the ormolu clock atop the fireplace mantel. At last, Chloe spoke. “If you are determined to establish a school for young ladies,” Not necessarily ladies by Society’s standards. “And that is what has brought us together, then,” she collected Jane’s hands. “Then that is why we’re together. Your secret is yours, Jane.” She frowned. “Is your name in fact, Jane Mun—?”

  “Oh yes. Though I was referred to as Mrs. Munroe at Mrs. Belden’s.” She lowered her gaze. “I am not married, nor have I ever been.”

  Except, this understanding between Jane and Chloe could not be so very simple. The secret was a deception she’d practiced not only on Chloe, a woman who after just several days considered her a friend, but also Gabriel. “Your brother deserves the truth.”

  Chloe’s eyes went wide and she gave her head several sharp shakes. “No. No. No. No.” She slashed the air with a hand. “Gabriel sees the world in absolutes.” Her heart spasmed. “He sees only the white and black but never the gray between.”

  Yes, the coolly aloof lord who’d so kissed her and who, even for just several stolen moments had felt connected to would never understand. And yet—“Perhaps, but he is deserving of the truth.” All of it. With absent movements, she retrieved her spectacles and then toyed with the useless pair. Regardless of how a nobleman would view a young woman turned out for having struck the son of an earl who’d put his hands upon her person. Even as the thought entered, she thrust it aside. Gabriel was a good, honorable man. He’d not hold her guilty for crimes of another. She drew in a shuddery breath. He’d only hold her guilty of the crimes that were hers.

  Chloe gave her a gentle smile. “Now come,” she took her free hand. “Gabriel is waiting below.”

  Her heart tripped a beat. “The marquess.” She flinched. Was there another?

  A mischievous twinkle set the young woman’s blue eyes aglow. “I do concur. It would be a good deal preferable if my charming, affable brother, Alex, were to accompany us. Alas, we are to be with Gabriel’s miserable self.”

  “He is not miserable.” Those words escaped her and she curled her toes into the soles of her slippers at that revealing defense.

  Chloe, however, gave no outward reaction she’d noticed anything awry. “That is good of you.” She slipped her arm into Jane’s. “You are loyal,” she said as she steered her from the room. They fell into step down the quiet corridors. “But he really is quite miserable, you know.” Chloe waved a hand. “Very high-handed.”

  Yes, he’d proven himself to be that on numerous occasions since she’d entered into his employ. Annoyance stirred in her belly. Still—“You are fortunate to have his support.” Life was a good deal harder with no support.

  Chloe snorted. “I’d appreciate him a good deal more if he accepted my resolve to remain unwed and ceased treating me as a woman in need of his guidance. Ah, here we are,” she said as they came to a stop at the top of the stairwell.

  Gabriel paced the white, Italian marble foyer. His elegant black cloak whipped about his long legs and Jane stood frozen, stilled by his masculine perfection. With his midnight black, unfashionably long hair and broad, powerful shoulders, he was that first man—virile and strong. “Where in blazes are they?” That impatient question carried up the marble stairs.

  Her lips twitched at that reminder of how very real and human he was. He was no marble God. He was just a man. Who happened to curse.

  The butler glanced up the stairwell and caught her eye. His eyes glittered with amusement. “They are above stairs, my lord.”

  “Yes, I know as much,” he said, his tone heavy with impatience. “I’m wondering—”

  “He means we are here, Gabriel,” his sister called down.

  Her words startled him into a stop and his cloak snapped noisily. “At last,” he complained.

  Gabriel’s words ended on a soft hiss of shock.

  His sister stood at the top of the stairwell, and yet it was the stranger alongside her who commanded his attention, captured his notice and he was ensnared all over. He blinked. Jane Munroe? Surely not? Where were the spectacles and the severe chignon and…

  Then she wet her lips, a nervous gesture on her part.

  By God, Jane Munroe. There was nothing plain or bitter or ugly about this woman, gossiped about by Society. She was the goddess Aphrodite, rose from the sea foam, to torment with her beauty. He opened and closed his mouth several times, but could not manage one single utterance. At his notice, color blossomed on her cheeks and God if he did not want to go back on every honorable pledge he’d vowed where she was concerned and make her his.

  Chloe urged the young lady forward. They stopped before him and waited. His sister stared pointedly at him. His mind raced. There was something expected of him? Words? Actions? Unscrambled thoughts? With a deliberate cough, Chloe tipped her head in Jane’s direction.

  “Where are your spectacles?” he blurted.

  A becoming blush stained Jane’s cheeks as she hastily placed the wire rims in their proper place. By God, they did nothing to detract from her beauty. She was still more striking than Aphrodite, Goddess of Beauty. How had he failed to see it from the moment he’d first met her?

  His sister coughed into her hand.

  Gabriel remembered himself. He sketched a jerky bow. “Mrs. Munroe.” Jane. She could only be Jane, in this moment.

  She dipped a curtsy, holding his gaze with a boldness he admired. “My lord.”

  It was a sin the name belonging on her lips went unuttered. Gabriel. My name is Gabriel.

  Several liveried servants came over and saved him from making a cake of himself a
ny further with his gaping mouth and lack of words. The footmen helped the young women into their cloaks and then Joseph rushed forward and pulled the door open. Arm-in-arm, Chloe and Jane filed out before him. He drew in a deep breath and lingered at the doorway, taking a moment to appreciate the gentle, seductive sway of Jane’s hips.

  “My lord?” Joseph drawled with such dry amusement, Gabriel flushed.

  “Er, yes. Very well.” He tugged at the lapels of his cloak and set out after Jane. And his sister. Jane Munroe was a companion and nothing more.

  What a bloody liar. As he walked to the carriage, he remained with his gaze fixed on Jane. She was a blasted beautiful woman. Just then, she placed her fingertips in the servant’s hand and with a murmur of thanks that made the young man’s cheeks flush, allowed him to hand her into the coach.

  At the momentary flash of masculine appreciation in the man’s eyes, Gabriel balled his hands into fists. With a growl, he stomped the remainder of the way. As though feeling Gabriel’s burning gaze trained on him, the servant glanced at his employer. His throat bobbed and he backed quickly away. Gabriel pulled himself up into the carriage and paused.

  The two young women, seated side by side gave him no choice but to claim the opposite bench. He slid onto the seat and, a moment later, the coachman closed the door. The carriage rocked into motion.

  In a bid to not openly stare at Jane, Gabriel tugged the red velvet curtains open and peered out at the passing London streets. Jane’s visage, however, reflected back in the crystal pane and he used the opportunity to study her in ways he shouldn’t notice her. Yet, how had he failed to appreciate the heart-shaped contour of her face or the long, thick, golden lashes that shielded her crystalline blue eyes? In the windowpane, their stares collided and she hastily averted her gaze. He frowned. How could she remain so indifferent to him when she’d so upended his righted world?

  His sister, ever the consummate talker, filled the quiet. “Have you ever attended the opera, Jane?”