To Love a Lord (The Heart of a Duke #5)(9)

“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.