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

by Christi Caldwell

  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.”

  Chapter 22

  Gabriel 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.”

  A chill stole through her at that detached acceptance of an empty existence. “I do not understand. You have an obligation to your title.” All the noblemen she’d ever known had put that great lineage before all else.

  “I have an obligation to those I care for and beyond that, the title can go hang.”

  Care for. Not love. And yet, she’d wager her soul to the devil that he loved more deeply than any other. Then his flat, emotionless words registered. She blinked several times. “Why?” Why, when the cold, calculated members of the ton prized that hereditary line more than anything, should he be different? Jane ran her gaze over him, searching for answers to solve the complex riddle of Gabriel, the Marquess of Waverly.

  His thick lashes swept downward, shielding all hint of emotion from his eyes. “My father was a monster. I have no desire to carry on that line.”

  That was it. Two sentences emotionlessly delivered. Fourteen words meant to convey all about why he’d wed her and why he’d given up on his line and the possibility of a family for himself.

  She opened her mouth to ask a question, but the words died in her throat as he suddenly shoved back from his relaxed pose and stalked over. Jane’s feet twitched with the urge to flee but remained fixed at the hearth as he came to a stop beside her. “I venture you have your secrets,” he admonished. She’d had her secrets. He now knew more than anyone else. “I ask for the privacy of mine.”

  Her throat went dry at the clipped request. She managed a shaky nod and then drew in a deep breath. “Surely, sacrificing your life is not worth the cost of a companion. Your mother—”

  “Do you know where my mother is?” he cut in.

  “Chloe explained she retired to the country for your sister’s confinement.”

  “My sister has developed complications that have put at risk her life and the life of her baby.”

  Her heart throbbed. “Oh. I…” Her useless apology faded.

  He ignored her. “I will not have Chloe know that.”

  In light of their circumstances, Jane really should be attending the question of her fate, marital state, and finances, and yet annoyance stirred in her belly. “You would keep that from her?” She could not keep the incredulity from creeping into her question.

  Gabriel rolled his shoulders and she gritted her teeth at the infuriating nonchalance of him. “What good is there in her knowing? Is there anything to be done to change Philippa’s circumstances?”

  “No, but—”

  “Should she retire to the country and worry, all the while being unable to change Philippa’s circumstances?”

  Jane nodded briskly. “Yes. Yes she should. That is what she’d want.” She braced for him to question her brash insolence in knowing what his own sister wanted after only a week of each other’s acquaintance. It spoke volumes that he did not.

  “My family’s circumstances aside, what will you do?”

  A panicky laugh worked its way up her throat and stuck there. What will you do? With such harsh precision, there would never be the worry over either of their hearts being engaged. Gabriel, a man who made decisions for others and commanded as though he was born to it, a man who did not want issues or really a wife, would be safe in ways that mattered. Yet, f
or his devotion and his goodness to his entire family, and now her, he deserved more. “I cannot marry you,” she said softly. “Even for my school. You will someday want a woman for your wife who is more than a companion for your sister, a woman you d-desire.” His eyes grew more shuttered and an increasingly familiar heat burned her cheeks under his veiled scrutiny.

  He shot a hand out and folded it gently about her neck. She stiffened at the unexpectedness of his touch. Shivers radiated at the point of contact and warmth spiraled through her as he angled her closer. Her lashes fluttered as he dipped his face close. His breath fanned her lips. “Is that what you believe? That I do not desire you?”

  All she need do was reach up on tiptoe and their lips would touch. A little moan stuck in her throat. “I—”

  “Surely, you know the effect you have upon me.” Those last few words, spoken in that husky, powerful baritone cascaded over her senses and washed away reason.

  “Then why?” she managed when she trusted herself to speak. Except the words came out garbled and thick.

  He rubbed the pad of his thumb over her lower lip. “Why will I not have children with you?”

  Those words conjured an image of she and Gabriel locked in an embrace, bound by marriage, and suddenly that binding did not seem so very unappealing. She wet her lips and told her throat to bob up and down.

  A slow, seductive grin pulled at the corners of his lips. “I do not want the responsibility that comes with a wife or family, Jane,” he said and then he let his hand fall to his side.

  Her skin went cool at the sudden loss of his touch and she mourned the absence of his caress. “But you will have a wife,” she reminded him, infusing as much strength as she could into those handful of words. She’d long ago sneered at any future that involved a gentleman in it and therefore, by all intents and purposes, should be of like mind in terms of a cold, empty union, if there must be any marriage at all.

  Gabriel touched a finger to her lips and they parted as her belly stirred with a need for him. “Ah, yes, but you will have your school.”

  Her school. She blinked back the haze of desire he’d cast over her eyes and with an almost agonized pain at the loss of his body’s nearness, she drew back and retreated. Yes. Her school. The beacon of hope she’d had all these years. The thought that had sustained her. Now, it was within her reach.

  And yet, she wanted more.

  Jane folded her arms at her chest. What choice did she have? The funds settled upon her by the duke would be lost if she did not do this thing. Yet, still…she hesitated.

  Don’t be a ninny. You will have everything. And more, she would, if not have Gabriel’s affection or warmth, be a member of the Edgerton family. That was a heady thought, indeed. She drew in a breath and turned back to face him. “Very well,” she said and stuck out her hand.

  He eyed it a moment, as though he’d never before been presented with a lady’s fingers. “You shall have a temporary hostess.” Explaining that she knew nothing in terms of being a hostess or even the most rudimentary aspects of balls and soirees and such would likely only convince him of the madness in his offer. When he still did not accept her extended fingers, Jane grabbed his hand and gripped his palm, forcing a shake. “And I shall have my school.”

  Gabriel folded his hands about hers and she gasped. Would she ever grow immune to the heat of his touch? Hands weren’t supposed to feel like his. They weren’t. They were functional and used for all manner of mundane activities. So why did his fingers leave her with this breathless longing? He raised her knuckles to his lips and dropped a kiss upon the top of her naked hand. “It is settled.”

  It is settled. Never were there words less romantic or heartfelt than those. Then, why should there be? He’d been clear in his aspirations for her as his wife and she…well, she’d long ago sworn to never care for, or about, a nobleman.

  Only in this short time, Gabriel had become more than a powerful marquess. He’d become a person who’d care for those around him, who’d forgive her deception and give her the protection of his name, anyway.

  He released her suddenly. “We will wed tomorrow morn.” Tomorrow? “If you’ll excuse me?” With that, he started for the door.

  Panic pounded hard in her chest. She raced after him. “Tomorrow?” She flinched at the desperate edge to that one word.

  He stopped so quickly she skidded to a halt to keep from slamming into him. Her skirts, another gift given her by him and his sister snapped noisily about them. Gabriel fished around the front of his jacket and withdrew a thick, ivory folded velum. “I took the liberty of securing a special license.”

  That’s where he’d been all this day.

  She’d become so accustomed to making any and every decision that impacted her life, she didn’t know what to do with a person who took on that role—and so boldly as Gabriel. “You were so very certain I would say yes?”

  He grinned that crooked half-smile that made her heart flutter. “I was,” he said with an arrogance that made her point her eyes to the ceiling. “Do you know how I knew?”

  Jane pursed her lips. “How?”

  “I know you well enough after just a week,” Seven days. “To know that your school matters more than anything else, and as long as you have that, you’d be content.” With that, he pulled open the door.

  She mustered a smile as he dropped a bow and then left. When he was gone, her smile died. He spoke of knowing her so very well. And yet, if that were true, then he’d know, in this moment, with his request and offer of marriage, she wanted far more than her finishing school—she’d wanted a family.

  Gabriel’s skin pricked with the burn of Jane’s gaze on his retreating form. He increased his stride, desperate to put much needed distance between them. She’d accepted his offer. Of course she had. There had been little choice. No recourse really, for the lady.

  He turned the corner and froze. Yet, in the moment when presenting her with the terms of their marriage, for one span of a heartbeat, he’d read a desire for more in her eyes. Dangerous sentiments had swirled within her gaze and filled him with terror at the prospect that he’d merely been staring into a reflective pool of his own thoughts and feelings.

  “You don’t have the happy look of a man about to find himself wed,” Alex drawled from beyond Gabriel’s shoulder.

  At the amusement underscoring his words, Gabriel stiffened and turned slowly to face his ever-grinning brother. “Alex,” he said tersely. How could the other man smile through life so effortlessly and easily as he did?

  His brother strode down the corridor. He narrowed his eyes. He’d wager Alex had not been far from the parlor where he’d just spoken to Jane. The idea that he had heard their exchange grated. “Were you listening to my conversation with Jane?” he snapped.

  His brother chuckled. “Despite what you believe of me, I ceased listening at keyholes for some time now.” He winked. “At least a year.”

  Some of the tension left Gabriel’s frame. “Forgive me,” he requested. Jane was wreaking havoc on every part of his world—most particularly the reason and calm he’d always valued. “I appreciate your allowing her to remain here with you and Imogen until…” He choked on his swallow. “Until…well until.” Marriage. He would be married.

  I will be married to Jane.

  His brother looked at him for a long while and then tossed back his head and shouted with laughter. He laughed so hard tears seeped from the corner of his eyes and he dashed them back, not unlike Waterson earlier that afternoon.

  “I am glad you should find amusement in my situation,” he said with a frown.

  Alex slapped him on the back. “I do not find amusement in your situation,” he assured. He flung his arm around Gabriel’s shoulders and guided him onward. “I find great irony in you, the man who’d taken such umbrage with my roguish ways through the years, not even being able to choke out the word marriage.”

  “I can say the blasted word,” he argued as Alex steered him to his office.r />
  “Oh,” Alex drawled as they came to a stop beside the closed door. He quirked an eyebrow. “Then say it.”

  “I…” He tried once more. “Oh, go to hell,” he growled as Alex launched into another round of hilarity.

  “Here,” Alex said and opened the door. With a hand between Gabriel’s shoulder blades he shoved him inside. “I daresay a talk is in order.”

  “A talk?” As he stepped further into the room, he loosened his cravat. “I’m hardly a child requiring any kind of talk.”

  With the heel of his boot Alex shoved the door closed behind them. He stalked over to his sideboard and fetched a bottle of brandy. Decanter in hand, he jabbed a finger at the leather button sofa. “Sit.”

  Gabriel bristled, but then with the blasted day and previous night he’d had, the last thing he cared to do was launch into a childish debate about tones of voice and orders to sit. Especially not when Alex had been far more magnanimous than Gabriel deserved in not having a good deal more fun at the scandal at the opera house. He sat. The room filled with the sound of crystal touching crystal as Alex poured a drink. “I hardly see what there is to talk about,” he said, grateful when his brother thrust a glass under his nose.

  With his own glass filled, Alex claimed the King Louis XIV chair opposite Gabriel. He swirled the contents of his glass. “Oh, I suppose your Jane would be as good a place as any.”

  He sighed. It was too much to hope that the discovery, the offer of assistance, and the limited jests would be enough. “She is hardly my Jane.”

  Over the rim of his glass, Alex gave him a look. “That isn’t quite true.”

  No, no it wasn’t. Not when tomorrow morn, she’d belong to him forever. He wiped a tired hand over his face. “What in blazes were you and Imogen and Chloe doing wandering the corridors during the performance?” Then, it hadn’t really mattered. Not when two of the most notorious gossips had also stumbled upon him and Jane locked in one another’s embrace.