To Love a Lord (The Heart of a Duke #5)(5)

“You—” Another rap interrupted the woman’s words. On a huff of annoyance, she stood with slow, precise movements. “Yes?”

The door opened and one of the uniformed instructors, Mrs. Smythe, stood at the entrance. She momentarily glanced at Jane. Pity filled the woman’s eyes. Ah, so all knew. Nothing was private where she was concerned. “Mrs. Belden, there is a quarrel between Lady Clarisse and Lady Nora.”

Lady Clarisse. The very legitimate daughter of the Duke of Ravenscourt—the one not dependent upon the mercy of cruel employers and prey to lecherous gentlemen. Bitterness turned in her belly.

“A quarrel?”

The young woman had despised Jane from the moment she’d arrived at her new post, likely a product of a daughter who knew precisely the young woman her father had coordinated employment for.

“Yes, they are arguing about,” she cleared her throat. “Mrs. Wollstonecraft and,” she slid her gaze away from Jane’s as though unable to meet her stare. “Mrs. Munroe.”

The headmistress favored Jane with a black glower. “I will return in a moment to continue this.” This, as in the ensuing argument between Lady Nora who’d quite taken to the enlightened ideas of free thought and freedoms of choice and Lady Clarisse, who’d quite detested anything and everything Jane had lectured on or spoken of, including mundane mentions of the weather.

Together, the two women hurried from the office, leaving Jane alone. A thunderous quiet filled the room. Her shoulders sagged as the hum of silence in her ears blended with the frantic beating of her heart, nearly deafening. Filled with a restiveness, she shoved to her feet and began to pace before Mrs. Belden’s immaculate, mahogany desk.

“Twenty-five,” she whispered. Never more had she wished for that magical, almost mystical, elusive age which represented her freedom.

The funds settled on her by her benevolent father would pass to her hands. Life had seen her humbled, dependent upon the duke’s powerful connections once her mother had passed. The man, whom she’d met but two times in her life and then only when she’d been a small child, had purged her from his life. Beyond seeing her properly employed, he’d no dealings with her. She tightened her mouth. The funds promised her, that she would take with a sense of entitlement and no regrets. For that impressive to her, insignificant to him, amount her mother had spoken of, represented Jane’s freedom.

Freedom to not find herself on her back, legs spread for some bored nobleman as her mama had been. Freedom to not be subjected to lecherous lords and their vile sons’ grasping hands, merely for the station of her employment in their households. Freedom to set up a small finishing school, not at all like Mrs. Belden’s, where young ladies would be encouraged to read and discuss matters of import. Only two months until freedom was at last granted her.

Jane stopped suddenly and stared blankly down at the desk. Except, two months may as well have proved endless for a woman without references, employment, and stubbornness to not ask the blasted duke for anything more.

The budding panic cloyed at her chest and she closed her eyes a moment. The options for an unwed woman of ignoble origins were not many. Rather, they were nonexistent. She dropped her gaze to the floor and her panicked musings cut short. Absently, she stooped to retrieve the forgotten page dropped by Mrs. Belden moments ago. She’d no intention of reading the contents of another person’s note. She’d never been one of those nosy, eavesdropping bodies unable to mind her own affairs. No, she’d no intention of reading about the nasty headmistress’ affairs. But then, her eyes snagged upon one particular word on that brief note, written in a powerful hand.

…Employment…in need of a companion…

Jane chewed her lower lip and looked to the doorway, and then guiltily returned her attention to the sheet. She quickly scanned the contents.

Mrs. Belden,

I require the services of one of your esteemed instructors for my sister, Lady Chloe Edgerton.

She continued skimming.

…A term of two months…

Her heart started and she picked her head up, staring at the floor-length crystal windowpane. A sign. As a mere girl, her mother had spoken to Jane of signs and encouraged her to find hope in those signs. For all her cynicism of her lot and station in life as a bastard daughter of a powerful duke, she’d looked for and celebrated those symbols. It was the sliver of optimism she clung to; a hope in a better world—for herself, for others. Two months. Surely this was one of those carefully laid signs she was to follow.

Giving her head a shake, she cast one more glance at the door and then returned her attention to the remainder of the note.

…Signed,

The Marquess of Waverly.

Waverly. She ran through the name in her mind, trying to recall a student who was sister to the marquess. Jane had only been at Mrs. Belden’s for a year. A giddy sensation lightened the pressure in her chest. The young woman, a Lady Chloe Edgerton, was a stranger to her. Surely another sign. Fate’s way of intervening. Footsteps sounded in the hall and she quickly folded the note and, shoving aside the tendrils of guilt, stuffed the missive in the front apron of her uniform.

Mrs. Belden stepped through the entrance and did not break stride. She continued on to the seat she’d vacated a short while ago and then thumped her fist once upon the desk.

The stolen note within Jane’s pocket burned and, for a numbing moment, she thought she’d been discovered. That this disobedience and theft would result in her being turned out immediately. She thrust aside the guilt. Her life had been subject to the whims and fancies of an indolent peerage early on. This moment, she would put her security and her future before all those lords and ladies.