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

by Christi Caldwell

  “Jane Munroe,” Lord Montclair murmured. “We meet again.” His breath still stank of brandy. It slapped her face and sucked the breath from her lungs and assailed her senses. How could that scent be so potently seductive when Gabriel had cradled his snifter, and not inspire this revulsion that turned in her belly?

  Jane backed up a step. He would never go away. He was relentless. “What do y-you want?” She detested the faint tremor to her tone. She cast a glance about. If Gabriel discovered her now, he’d turn her out without a backward glance.

  By the triumphant glint in his eyes, Lord Montclair delighted in her fear. That victorious gleam forced her feet to stop moving. Observers or not, she’d be damned if she allowed him to cow her. Not again. He’d already cost her the post within his father’s household and too many evenings of rest. She’d not allow him to steal her pride, as well.

  She made to step around him.

  He matched her movements, effectively blocking her retreat.

  Her heart pounded hard in her ears, and she hid her shaking fingers in the folds of her skirts, lest he see the effect he had on her. He’d relish in her fear. He always had. “What do you want?” Her chest heaved with the force of her emotion. Of course, she’d known entering London Society it was possible their paths would cross, but she’d believed her role as companion would have kept her along the edge of ballroom floors and out of notice. From within the auditorium La Cenerentola’s aria soared through the rafters and carried to the hallway.

  “Is this any way to treat the man you set out to seduce?”

  Rage melded with fear and threatened to blind her. She bit down hard on the inside of her cheek and tasted the metallic hint of blood. “I did not seduce you,” she said, proud of the steady deliverance of those words. “You forced your attentions on me.”

  His eyes became thin, impenetrable slits of displeasure. He shot a hand around her wrist and lowered his head close to hers. “I do not force my attentions on anyone, sweet Jane.” The heavy liquor scent on his breath slapped her face. Nausea churned in her belly. How very different than when the hint of spirits clung to Gabriel’s breath.

  In an attempt to dislodge Montclair’s hold, she yanked her hand. He maintained his manacle-like grip upon her person. “Remember yourself, my lord.”

  “Remember myself?” he chuckled. “You are no lady, Jane. Society would find nothing untoward with my advances on a whore’s daughter.”

  Her heart dipped at his accusation. She dug deep for the deserved indignation at his vile words, but shock and years’ worth of those very same charges being leveled at her flooded forth with a potency that robbed her of a suitable response.

  Lord Montclair captured one of her loosely arranged tresses. “Come, nothing to say now? Did you think I didn’t know the truth of your birthright?”

  Her mind raced. How had he discovered…?

  “It took nothing to figure out who’d sent you to my father’s household and who continued to scuttle you about,” he supplied, correctly interpreting her unspoken thoughts.

  “Let me go.” She yanked her hand once again, managing to wrest free. She took a step backward. “Whore’s daughter or kin of the queen, I would never sully myself by taking one such as you to my bed,” she spat.

  Rage mottled his cheeks and for one moment she suspected he intended to hit her, but then his gaze moved past her shoulder. She followed his gaze to the tall, commanding, and, more importantly, familiar figure just several paces away. Eventually, when Montclair was gone, there would be the implications of Gabriel’s arrival and inevitable questions. A man who loved his family as he did and pledged to ruin her if she brought shame to his family would turn her out in a moment. For now, however, her shoulders sagged in relief at his unexpected, but timely, arrival.

  Montclair inclined his head. There was a faint mocking sneer on his lips. “Waverly.”

  Gabriel moved that cool, crystalline stare between her and Montclair, and ultimately settled that hard gaze upon the earl. “Montclair,” he drawled. A lethal edge of steel underlined that one word greeting.

  For one horrifying moment, Montclair gave Jane a prolonged look, and she believed he intended to reveal all to Gabriel, here, now, in this public way. But then, he dipped a bow and gave her a lingering glance. At the determined glint in his eyes, gooseflesh dotted her arms. He stepped around the marquess and made to take his leave. Some of the tension left her, but then he suddenly froze.

  She fisted her hands at her sides as Lord Montclair looked Gabriel up and then down. What game did the calculated lord even now play?

  “With your regard for your sisters, I would expect more care in the selection of their companion.” Jane went taut; her body so brittle she feared if she moved in any way she’d splinter apart. “Surely a woman with Miss Munroe’s past is unfit company for your sister.” She flinched at his deliberate use of her title miss. Then, the earl shot her a condescending grin and left.

  With the earl gone, stilted silence stretched on between her and Gabriel. The lively strains of the string instruments from La Cenerentola mocked the volatility of the moment. She shifted on her feet. “We should return to your sister.”

  He narrowed his gaze all the more. “That is all you’ll say?” That same unforgiveable tone fit more with the stranger who’d first ordered her from his home than the gentleman who’d shown her more kindness than she’d known in the course of her life.

  At the unrelenting gleam in his eyes, Jane wet her lips. “Er, yes?” The silver flecks of fury in his eyes threatened to ignite. She skittered her gaze about. No, it was too much to hope he’d simply ignore the meeting he’d stumbled upon. Gabriel took a step toward her and took her by the wrist in a manner similar to Montclair’s, and yet, so entirely different. For the power of his hold, there was still a gentleness, a care to not harm her. Blasted emotion clogged her throat once again, but then she met his gaze squarely and there was nothing warm or caring in the green of his eyes. A startled squeak escaped her as he pulled her into a nearby alcove. The curtain settled about them, shrouding them in darkness. She blinked several times in an attempt to bring his face into focus. When she did, she wished she’d left the veil in place.

  Fury, outrage, and questions stamped the harsh, angular planes of his face. “How do you know Montclair?” His touch, however, remained gentle and for that, she knew he’d not harm her. His words contained a wealth of questions that as a gentleman he was too proper to bluntly speak.

  “Ask the question you truly wish to ask,” she spat out. “Am I his lover?”

  Gabriel relinquished her so suddenly, she stumbled back. The thick, crimson fabric rustled in protest. He folded his arms about his broad, muscular chest and shrunk the space between them. “Well, madam?” His thick, black lashes swept low, veiling his eyes. But not before she detected the flash of fury there.

  She bristled. Granted, she was a liar and a thief by the manner in which she’d entered his household, but she’d not be intimidated by him and treated as though she were a mere child. Jane angled her chin up. “Does it really matter whether…?” Her attempt at bravado slipped as he lowered his brow to hers. Of course it mattered. Even she, an outsider to Gabriel’s world, knew that.

  “Madam, you try my patience.” A muscle ticked at the corner of his right eye. “You have five minutes, Mrs. Munroe.”

  He could gift her five hundred minutes and it wouldn’t be enough. “You have already found me guilty. What matters what I say at this point?” Those words dripped with bitterness that came from years of scorn by polite and proper gentlemen and ladies.

  “Your first minute is up,” he said, coolly unaffected.

  Did you expect him to be kind and concerned? Not when he loved his siblings as he did? Still, for Jane’s indignation at Gabriel’s high-handed treatment and the fury in his tone and words, he was not undeserving of those sentiments. Not when she truthfully looked at the circumstances that had brought her to this moment and to his life. And now, she wi
shed she’d handled everything so very differently. Wished that the truth she’d given to Chloe, she’d given to him before the likes of Montclair had robbed her of choice—once again.

  “You are rapidly approaching the end of your second—”

  “You asked if I know Lord Montclair,” she said tiredly. “And I do.” Her sudden admission cut into his warning. Unable to meet his probing gaze, Jane slid hers to the curtain. “Not in the way you…” Her skin warmed. “N-not in the way you alluded to,” she attested.

  Gabriel’s eyes narrowed, but he said nothing. Finding courage in his silence, she continued. “I served in his father, the Marquess of Darlington’s employ as the governess for his youngest sister.” As vile as Lord Montclair had been, that was as kindhearted as his sister was. She and Jane had not had the close relationship that Jane knew with Chloe, but still the young woman had been kind and for that she would be eternally grateful. She stole a glance up at Gabriel, and though there was none of the warmth she’d known from him these past days, neither was there vitriol in his green eyes. Not wanting to relive the horrors of Montclair’s touch, she shifted the conversation to safer, more comfortable topics—other lies. “I do not need spectacles,” she blurted, in a desperate bid to slow the admission that she must give. Jane plucked the metal-wired frames from her face and fisted the delicate pair. “Chloe, Lady Chloe,” she corrected, “insisted they earned attention for the wrong reasons, and yet, when I did not wear them, I found far greater difficulties.” She clasped her hands together so tightly, the rims of her spectacles dug into her palm. Her skin burned at the intensity of his gaze trained on her.

  At last, Gabriel broke his silence. “What manner of difficulties?” he asked through stiff lips.

  That night in the Marquess of Darlington’s parlor flashed to mind. The door closing. The click of the lock. Terror churned in her belly, and even knowing she was safe and out of Montclair’s clutches, the vile remembrance of his hands upon her rolled through her as though it had just happened.

  “Jane?” he prodded, and had his tone been cold and aloof she could have found the strength to conclude the telling. Yet it was so gentle and soft that a single teardrop rolled down her cheek.

  She angled herself away lest he see that crystalline sign of her weakness. “Lord Montclair decided I was…” Her tongue grew heavy with embarrassment. She discreetly rubbed at that lone tear on her cheek. “There for his enjoyments.” Glasses in hand, she folded her arms and attempted to rub warmth back into the chilled limbs. She jumped as Gabriel settled his hands on her shoulders, angling her back around. Lethal fury emanated from his frame, potent and powerful, and oh so comforting that another blasted drop squeezed past her lid. Jane swiped it away.

  “Did he put his hands upon you?”

  Her skin crawled with the memory of his lips, hard and punishing on her skin, as he’d worked his wet, ruthless mouth over her neck. Her lips still throbbed in remembrance of his vicious kiss. She gave a jerky nod.

  A black curse escaped him and echoed around the alcove. If she were a proper young lady, the ugliness of that obscenity would have stung her ears, and yet she’d been born to a different station and heard things no polite lady would have ever heard. She continued on a rush, desperate to have this admission complete. “I did not want him to.” Her fingers tightened reflexively so hard about the frame in her hands, she snapped the fragile metal. She stared dumbly down at the spectacles rendered useless. “He said I’d given him reason to believe that I did.” She drew in a shuddery breath. Her lips twisted up in a mirthless smile. Then since she’d come into Gabriel’s home she’d panted and sighed after him like the whore’s daughter she was.

  “I will kill him,” he whispered.

  His words brought her head up. “No,” she said matter-of-factly. “You won’t.” Yet, her heart skipped several beats at the rage etched in the chiseled planes of his face. He would do that for her. No one had ever dared defend her. Her father had shuffled her off from one position to the next, but that had been a mere obligatory responsibility for the by-blow born to his mistress. It hadn’t truly been of any real caring or affection. Would he still defend her when he discovered the origins of her birth? Knowing the man who cared for and defended his kin, she suspected he would. Because that was what honorable men did. She’d just always believed that none of those men existed.

  She forced words past a tight throat. “I didn’t seduce him.” The admission came out as a raw whisper. Desperately craving space between them, she backed up. Jane knocked into the alcove wall. She braced her hands on the hard plaster at her back, seeking the strength to stand. “For his insistence that I did, entice him, that is,” she rambled. “I did not. Nor would I ever…” She bit her lower lip. For her mother’s blood in her veins, she still didn’t have any more idea on how to seduce a man than a sister taking her orders. What reason did Gabriel have to believe she didn’t simply go about kissing or enticing her employers? “I expect given our…” Her face heated all the more. “Our exchanges,” His eyebrows dipped. “That you would believe Montclair, but I…” Her words ended on a startled gasp as he closed that slight space she’d placed between them.

  “You think I would believe Montclair?” His breath tickled her face, soft, like a gentle caress and with the faint hint of mint, so very different than the earl’s from a short while ago. He cupped her cheek and she stiffened as his touch had the same entrancing effect upon her senses.

  What hold did he have upon her?

  Chapter 16

  When Gabriel had been a boy of seven, he’d realized that in his father’s presence, he’d clenched and unclenched his hands at his sides. The reflexive action had been borne of a desire to wallop his sire, but more, a fear that he’d sought to hide from the heartless beast.

  As he’d come upon Jane and the Earl of Montclair, a thick haze of red had coursed through him, a sentiment that had felt a good deal like jealousy. She’d clenched and unclenched her hands at her sides. And he’d seen the movement that bespoke her unease and then the terror in her eyes. It marked the rakish Montclair a liar before the man had opened his mouth and uttered his vile charges about her.

  Even now, a burning fury coursed through him, a desire to take Montclair apart for having put his hands upon Jane…

  He noticed me.

  That slight imperceptible pause spoke volumes of Montclair’s notice and called up the legacy of violence he carried in his blood.

  He steeled his jaw. “Montclair is a snake.” Had he sung in praise of her beauty, she could have not been more captivating in her appreciation. Her lips parted on a soft moue of surprise and then she darted the tip of her tongue out and trailed a path over the line of her lips. He followed that movement, hating himself for being no different than Montclair and wanting her. Despite what she’d just shared.

  She glanced away from him and looked to the tiniest gap in the curtain. “Why are you here?” Her words emerged ravaged and breathless.

  Why am I here? Why had he taken a hasty leave of his family and left Chloe alone with Alex and Imogen to follow after Jane—a companion in his employ who was mature enough and capable enough to care for herself? But then, was that entirely true? He’d seen how Montclair had eyed her like the last ice at Gunter’s and he with the intention of laying claim to it. He’d never been one to prevaricate. “I worried after your sudden flight.” He tightened his mouth. “And seeing Montclair, I had good reason to be concerned.”

  Jane sucked in a shuddery breath. “Why can you not be the arrogant, domineering lout I’d first believed you to be?”

  His lips twitched and some of the tension left his frame. Gabriel cupped her cheek, bracing for her to pull away. She angled her head and leaned into his touch. “Would you have me believe Montclair’s charges for no other reason than the station of his birth?”

  The muscles of her throat moved with the force of her swallow and she gave another nod. “Y-yes. Y-yes, that is just what I’d expect you to do.” />
  Was that what every other gentleman had done before him? Never had he resented his station in life more than he did in this moment. Those snide, hypocritical members of the ton who’d look down upon the Jane Munroe’s of the world, while lauding the late Marquess of Waverly, a man who beat his children, for no other reason than his status at birth.

  Jane pressed her fingers against her temple and rubbed. “What are you doing?”

  “I told you, I—”

  “Not here,” she cut in on a soft cry. “With your Italian words and your—” A delicate, pink blush stained her cheeks.

  “And my what?” he prodded. He’d have everything between them. The lies hinted at by Montclair. All of it.

  “Your kiss,” she said on a harsh whisper.

  Gabriel stilled. He opened and closed his mouth several times.

  “And, not that you’ve kissed me of late.” Even as he’d dreamed of it, every day since. “Nor should I think of you as I do. I should forget your kiss and your touch.” And it would destroy part of him if those embraces meant nothing to her. Not when she’d been the first—“But…” Her spectacles fell from her grip and landed on the carpeted floor with a soft thump. She covered her face with her hands. “What are you doing to me? Why can’t you be the condescending, judgmental man you first showed yourself to be instead of this seductive, gentle person I do not know what to do with?”

  Not once in the course of his thirty-two years had he been accused of being a rogue. He’d taken great pains to distance himself from the image crafted by his father and, in many ways, adopted by his brother. With gentleness, he encircled her wrists in his hands and lowered her arms to her side. “I was not seducing you.” Shame and embarrassment added a gruff quality to his tone. Guilt turned within his belly. “You likely see me no different than Montclair.” A man whose residence she’d shared, who should have respected her station within his father’s household, and had instead forced his attentions on her.