The press of the door handle echoed like a shot in the dead of night and she stilled, knowing with an intuitiveness that terrified her who stood on the other side of that door. Heart pounding, she looked up as Gabriel stepped inside and closed the door with a soft click. He paused at the entrance of the room and blinked several times, as though accustoming himself to the dimly lit room.
And then he located her with his stare. “Jane,” he murmured.
Jane immediately lowered her legs to the floor. “My lord.” She hopped to her feet, but he waved her back down. Reason warred within her—abandon this lavish space that was his, a world in which she was merely an interloper and worse, a thief. Hesitantly, she reclaimed her seat.
He stalked forward with the lethal grace of a panther, and she stiffened in a breathless anticipation, but he continued past her. She followed his movements as he strolled over to the sideboard and with crisp, concise movements poured himself a snifter of brandy.
Lord Montclair, with his wandering hands and hard eyes, had favored brandy. Yet, as Gabriel carried his glass over and claimed the leather chair opposite her, she acknowledged that this was not a man who’d force his intentions upon a woman. No, most gentlemen would have sacked the woman responsible for those faint purplish-blue marks he still wore and yet, Gabriel had responded without even the faintest hint of anger to her punch.
“You do not sleep at night.” His was an observation.
Since her mother’s death four years earlier when she’d been thrust upon the world with not a single skill to recommend her but only the benevolence of her father, she’d tasted the fear of her circumstances. “No.” He peered hard at her face a moment and then looked into the contents of his drink. The haunted depths of those fathomless eyes spoke of a deep pain. “Nor do you,” she said softly.
His broad shoulders tightened the expert cut of his sapphire coat sleeves. “No.” The usual smoothness of his tone was now gravelly and harsh.
He too had fears. She dropped her gaze to her lap. What fears would a powerful nobleman such as he know? Then, she lifted her gaze back to him and his white-knuckled grip upon his glass. Suffering and pain were not reserved to a single station.
Suddenly, the intimacy of this moment, the view of him as more than a marquess and merely a man hammered home the folly in her being here, alone with her already weakening defenses. She made to rise.
“Did you enjoy yourself today?”
His words froze her. He doesn’t want to be alone. For his cool nonchalance and his veneer of icy strength, he craved company. She knew, as only one who’d lived a solitary life could, that need in another. Retreat was wise and yet compassion kept her at his side. Jane settled back in her seat. “Which part of the day did you refer to?” The stolen moment when you captured my curl? “Our trip to Bond Street?”
Some of the tension seeped from his shoulders. Relief that, even as she should have taken her leave, she’d, in fact, stayed.
Jane studied him, this stoic stranger who would have tossed her out after their first meeting, but now spoke to her in the privacy of his library. What did he think of, even now?
And more…what was this hungering for her to know his unspoken thoughts?
*
Tonight, the demons of his past haunted him. They came at the most unexpected moments, triggered by a scent, a sound, and a memory. He’d prided himself on effectively squashing the memories of his father’s abuse and yet he’d never truly be free of them. None of them would.
This evening it had been Waterson’s unassuming statement about Gabriel’s role as brother that had plunged him into the turbulent horrors of his youth. It was what had driven Gabriel to abandon his clubs and seek out the solitude of his office. Except, as he’d wandered down the silent corridors, the faint flicker of candlelight from under the doorframe had beckoned and with it a need to see the occupant of that room, knowing intuitively the woman who’d be on the other side of the door.
After years of striving to be different than the foul, rotted bastard his father had been, Gabriel, staring at Jane Munroe, came to the unpleasant realization that he was more like that monster than he’d ever dared believe.