A shiver snaked down her spine and her impetuousness in coming here set off the first stirrings of uncertainty. Only, he was the one who’d wronged her through the years. She was, as Gabriel and Primly and Chloe had reminded her, worthy of being here. “I—” Jane angled her chin up. “My name is Jane Mun—Edgerton,” she amended. “I am the Marchioness of Waverly.”
He flicked an imaginary piece of lint from his sapphire coat sleeve. “I know who you are,” he drawled in thick, bored tones.
She wrinkled her nose. The duke likely heard the scandalous tale of her hasty wedding. “No,” she tried again. “I am…” She dropped her voice and spoke in hushed tones for his ears alone. “I am your daughter.” The duke gave no outward reaction that he’d heard or cared about her admission. Coldness spread throughout her frame and she resisted the urge to fold her arms and rub warmth back into them.
“As I said, I know who you are.”
Jane rocked back on her heels. This was the man her mother had loved? This unfeeling, remote being is who her mother had died of a broken heart for? She eyed him a moment and expected more of the burning vitriol she’d carried all these years. Where was the consuming hatred? The scathing words she’d wanted to level upon his head? It was gone. Instead, in its place was a freedom—a freedom from her past. She didn’t need his recognition or his love. And there was something freeing in that revelation. A tremulous smile turned her lips. “I have hated you for so long.” He stiffened at her words. “You are no father. Not in the ways that matter,” she said more to herself. Jane squared her shoulders. “But you settled funds upon me that sustained me and gave me purpose. For that, I thank you.”
He peered down the length of his hawkish nose at her. “Funds?”
The first stirrings of alarm set bells rang within her ears. “The three thousand pounds upon my birthday. This year.”
His brow furrowed in deeper confusion and the bells chimed all the louder. “I didn’t settle funds upon you. I told Waverly I’d not see a pound go to any bastard claiming to be my child.”
The floor fell out from under Jane’s feet and her world tilted.
With his words blaring in her ears, Jane spun on her heel and rushed from the hall.
She skirted the edge of the floor and weaved between couples and when she’d put the ballroom behind her, and with only her father’s words for miserable company, she raced down the corridors. Her heart thundered in her breast and threatened to beat outside her chest. Lies. All of it. Lies. There had been no funds. She ran all the faster. Her breath came in harsh spurts that filled her ears.
Why would Gabriel do this? Why…? On a sob, she shoved open a door, stumbled into a dimly lit room, and then quickly closed the door behind her. Jane leaned against the wood panel and closed her eyes. A tear slid down her cheek, followed by another and another. There had never been any funds. No three thousand pounds with which to shape a life for herself. He had known as much and yet he’d come to her, with the promise of those funds, given up his freedom and the vow he’d taken to never wed—all for her.
“Wh-why would you d-do that, you silly man?” she rasped. Not of love. But of some misbegotten sense of guilt; a need to take care of others while never caring for himself—even her, a stranger who’d lied to him. And she’d taken the greatest something of all—his name. Then, it appeared they both had based their entire relationship on deception. Jane covered her face with her hands and tried to suck in breaths, but they caught as broken sobs until she had nothing left to cry.
She scrubbed her hands over her cheeks to drive back the remnants of useless tears and absently wandered about the empty library, replaying every moment since she’d tumbled from the alcove at the London Opera House. Gabriel’s offer, their wedding, the terms of their marriage. All of it. Jane stared down into the cold, empty grate of the fireplace. She preferred a world in which she’d perceived him as the pompous and arrogant nobleman. Those sentiments fit neatly into the views and beliefs she’d developed all these years about noblemen. Those powerful nobles weren’t supposed to care about anyone except themselves. But Gabriel did and that truth now shook the foundation she’d constructed all her beliefs, goals, and hopes upon.