Her heart pounded as she walked with quick strides through the corridors. Lords and ladies in their evening’s finery still filled the hall. Jane kept her gaze trained forward, avoiding the interested stares that flicked over her person by those who’d clearly identified her as an outsider in their glittering world. She dimly registered the orchestra plucking the strings, signifying the beginning of act two, and she welcomed the exodus of the lords and ladies curiously peering at her as they returned to their seats. Jane continued on in the opposite direction. No purpose to her movement in mind, merely an escape from the kindness of that family whose trust she even now violated.
She was an interloper. A liar. A—
A shriek escaped her as a figure stepped into her path. Heart thudding hard, she pressed a hand to her chest. “Forgive m…” Jane swallowed the rest of that apology and choked on the remaining syllable as the loathsome figure she’d hoped never to see again leered at her. The same man whose vile soul and ugly touch had haunted her dreams.
“Jane Munroe,” Lord Montclair murmured. “We meet again.” His breath still stank of brandy. It slapped her face and sucked the breath from her lungs and assailed her senses. How could that scent be so potently seductive when Gabriel had cradled his snifter, and not inspire this revulsion that turned in her belly?
Jane backed up a step. He would never go away. He was relentless. “What do y-you want?” She detested the faint tremor to her tone. She cast a glance about. If Gabriel discovered her now, he’d turn her out without a backward glance.
By the triumphant glint in his eyes, Lord Montclair delighted in her fear. That victorious gleam forced her feet to stop moving. Observers or not, she’d be damned if she allowed him to cow her. Not again. He’d already cost her the post within his father’s household and too many evenings of rest. She’d not allow him to steal her pride, as well.
She made to step around him.
He matched her movements, effectively blocking her retreat.
Her heart pounded hard in her ears, and she hid her shaking fingers in the folds of her skirts, lest he see the effect he had on her. He’d relish in her fear. He always had. “What do you want?” Her chest heaved with the force of her emotion. Of course, she’d known entering London Society it was possible their paths would cross, but she’d believed her role as companion would have kept her along the edge of ballroom floors and out of notice. From within the auditorium La Cenerentola’s aria soared through the rafters and carried to the hallway.
“Is this any way to treat the man you set out to seduce?”
Rage melded with fear and threatened to blind her. She bit down hard on the inside of her cheek and tasted the metallic hint of blood. “I did not seduce you,” she said, proud of the steady deliverance of those words. “You forced your attentions on me.”
His eyes became thin, impenetrable slits of displeasure. He shot a hand around her wrist and lowered his head close to hers. “I do not force my attentions on anyone, sweet Jane.” The heavy liquor scent on his breath slapped her face. Nausea churned in her belly. How very different than when the hint of spirits clung to Gabriel’s breath.
In an attempt to dislodge Montclair’s hold, she yanked her hand. He maintained his manacle-like grip upon her person. “Remember yourself, my lord.”
“Remember myself?” he chuckled. “You are no lady, Jane. Society would find nothing untoward with my advances on a whore’s daughter.”
Her heart dipped at his accusation. She dug deep for the deserved indignation at his vile words, but shock and years’ worth of those very same charges being leveled at her flooded forth with a potency that robbed her of a suitable response.
Lord Montclair captured one of her loosely arranged tresses. “Come, nothing to say now? Did you think I didn’t know the truth of your birthright?”
Her mind raced. How had he discovered…?
“It took nothing to figure out who’d sent you to my father’s household and who continued to scuttle you about,” he supplied, correctly interpreting her unspoken thoughts.