With her desire for the kiss of a man who saw her as a member of his staff and yet attired her in lavish gowns, she proved that blood held true. Jane closed her eyes, detesting the resemblance to the woman who’d given her life and chosen another. A woman who’d passed her weakness on to her daughter.
The door handle clicked and she stiffened at the soft tread of footsteps. “Jane, are you—?” Chloe’s words ended on a gasp. The mirror reflected the shock stamped on her face. She blinked like an owl in the night. “You are beautiful,” she whispered. Awe, shock, and wonder filled those three words.
And if Jane weren’t so blasted miserable and terrified and panicked she would have found humor in that shock. She gave a small smile. “Thank you.”
Chloe walked a small circle around her while assessing her in that contemplative manner of hers. She captured her jaw between her thumb and forefinger and continued to study her as though she were an exhibit at the Royal Museum. Then, she stopped suddenly and rocked back on her heels. “Why, you don’t require spectacles.” No, those clear, crystal frames however had detracted notice. She gestured to her hair. “And your hair is, why, it is gloriously curled.” Gloriously bothersome. Those loose tresses had been what had lured the lecherous Lord Montclair. He’d tangled his wandering hands in her hair until she’d vowed to never wear even a single strand free about her shoulders.
She thrust back the memory. “It is too much.”
“Do not be silly.” Chloe’s smile widened. “You are absolutely splendid.”
Jane gave her head a forceful shake. “I do not need to be absolutely splendid.” Quite the opposite. She fixed an accusatory stare on the young woman. “Your intention was to have me blend with Society.” A companion in satins with diamond encrusted hair combs woven throughout her hair would earn her all manner of inappropriate attention.
A beleaguered sigh escaped Gabriel’s sister. “Yes, yes I did. Unfortunately, Jane,” she moved her gaze from the top of Jane’s head to her toes. “You are incapable of blending in.”
Panic cloyed at her chest. “No, I’m not.” With her gaze, she desperately searched for her spectacles.
Chloe was across the room in four long strides and intercepted her efforts. “These,” she held them up, “do not make you blend in. They attract notice. Your dragon skirts,” she pointed to the offensive garments in question, “also earn you notice, for entirely different reasons.” With careful movements, she set the wire-rimmed spectacles down on the table beside Jane’s bed. “You spoke to me of not judging all dogs by the ones who snapped and snarled.” She held Jane’s gaze. “Do not hold all members of polite Society in judgment for those unscrupulous ones you knew in your past.”
Shock went through her. How could this woman she’d only just met see so easily through her? With a sound of impatience, she took a step back. “This is different.” The words exploded from her lungs.
“It isn’t,” Chloe said matter-of-factly.
A bitter laugh bubbled past Jane’s lips and she stalked over to the corner of the room. She peered out the floor-length window down into the streets below. For as good and intelligent and all things kind Chloe Edgerton was, she’d been born to an altogether different world than Jane. As the daughter, and now sister, of a marquess, she didn’t bear the shame Jane knew for her illegitimate beginnings. She pressed her forehead against the cool windowpane. Chloe was firmly settled in her world, whether she wished it or not. Jane, on the other hand, straddled two very different worlds—the glittering Society she’d never belong to courtesy of the fraction of blood given her by the Duke of Ravenscourt and also that shameful, scandalous world of an actress-turned mistress. There was no belonging for her. There was only the hope of leaving everything and reestablishing something that mattered.
Her school.
From the crystal windowpane, the harsh smile on her lips reflected back at Jane. A finishing school she’d not given proper thought to because she’d been so very consumed with Gabriel’s touch and the connection they shared.