Hell. Torture. Agony. “I also see my childhood.”
“There you are.”
They both started. Gabriel stepped away as his sister strode forward. “Forgive my delay, I was distracted by…” At the stilted silence, Chloe looked back and forth between them.
Gabriel cleared his throat. “We should be going.” Several servants rushed forward with their cloaks. As Gabriel shrugged into his cloak, he studiously avoided looking at the tempting Jane Munroe. He held out his arm to his sister.
Joseph stepped forward and opened the door. Where in blazes had the old servant been a moment ago? The other man possessed an eerie ability to dissolve into the shadows and appear when needed. Heat burned his neck in thinking of the other man observing Gabriel fawning over his sister’s companion’s loose curl.
“Would you please slow down,” his sister chided and pinched his arm. “I’d say you are trying to leave Jane behind with this ridiculous pace you’ve set.”
He slowed his steps and kept his gaze trained forward on the waiting carriage. A servant pulled open the carriage door and held a hand out. The liveried footman handed Chloe into the carriage. Jane came to a stop. She smiled at the young servant and then the smile died as she looked to Gabriel.
And once more, the defensive walls put up between them were firmly in place. He was her employer. She was his sister’s companion. The servant helped her inside and Gabriel followed in, claiming the bench alongside Chloe.
Jane sat tucked in the corner, her hands folded primly on her lap. Had he merely imagined the smiling, innocent for a moment woman who’d spoken too briefly of her childhood, a childhood he’d wager both his arms had been a good deal more pleasant than his own? The carriage rocked forward, and he continued to study her, suddenly wanting to know about her formative years.
Which was, of course, neither here nor there. It mattered not to him. Gabriel yanked back the red velvet curtain—the shade of blood and evil—and directed his attention at the passing London streets.
*
For a moment, she’d believed Gabriel intended to kiss her.
And for an even longer moment, she’d wanted him to. Jane sat in the corner of the carriage, focusing on the rattle of the carriage wheels as they rumbled through the busy London streets. All the while, Chloe prattled on and on, a cheerful smile on her face, unknowing that in her absence, Gabriel had revealed with his solemn looks and serious eyes a glimpse of more than a harsh, unfeeling nobleman. No, having known pain and heartache, Jane easily glimpsed those sad sentiments within him.
And she hated it. For with each passing moment spent with Gabriel, he ceased to be a stranger, which was dangerous to her plans for security and her hope of a school for women such as her. Her intentions were good, honorable. Then, hadn’t Brutus said the same? Were her intentions truly honorable? Were they, when there was Chloe lauding her as a good, worthy companion, and Gabriel, a brother who fiercely loved his sister enough to entrust the final decision of a companion?
Brother and sister said something, and their laughter filled the carriage, driving deeper the knife of guilt until she wanted to clamp her hands over her ears and blot out the sound. But she could not. This was to be her punishment; to bear witness to their sibling bond—a closeness Jane would have traded her left, lonely, index finger for, growing up the bastard child of the Duke of Ravenscourt. Emotion clogged her throat as from the crystal pane she viewed brother and sister. They chatted amicably. Occasionally, Chloe would point her eyes skyward and Gabriel’s chest would rise and fall with laughter. Such a loved sibling would never be cast out, scuttled from household to household, a lost soul. For Gabriel’s high-handed words at breakfast yesterday morn, the man that he was, would not, even if his sister believed it, ever dare select the man Chloe would wed.
Jane knocked her head against the windowpane as with each moment this family threw her into tumult over the deception she practiced.
“Mrs. Munroe?”
Gabriel’s concerned tone cut into her tortured musings, twisting that blade once more. The emerald greens of his eyes moved a path over her face.