Ah, God damn his soul. He was his father’s son and there was no escaping that crime. Gabriel rucked the skirts of her gown up higher, higher, ever higher and exposed her limbs. Then with desperate movements he ran his hands over her hips then lower. He stroked the expanse of her thigh and drew it about him, testing her against his form. His aching shaft pressed against the front of his breeches and another groan rumbled up from his chest and stuck in his throat.
The orchestra’s distant music, muffled by the pounding of his heart, faded altogether. “We should stop.” Please do not agree.
“We should.” She dropped her head back, allowing him access to her neck once again. He groaned and released her skirts, shifting his search of her body higher.
She whimpered as he returned his attention to her neck. Jane pressed herself against him and drew his head forward. He stumbled and pulled his mouth away, attempting to right her. To no avail. She tipped and crashed backward onto the thin-carpeted hall. Gabriel caught himself on his elbows, above her. The red velvet curtain fluttered and danced damningly about them.
He registered the three pairs of feet in front of his gaze. Two pairs of slippers and a gleaming set of Hessians to be precise. Gabriel swallowed hard and forced his stare upward.
Chloe and Imogen stood with their mouths rounded in like circles while Alex’s green-eyed stare gleamed with the faintest trace of amusement.
“Gabriel?” Alex’s slightly bored drawl jerked him back to the moment. He held a hand out to assist him to his feet.
Bloody hell. This night could not possibly get any worse. Then Lady Jersey with Lady Castlereigh arm-in-arm stepped into the corridor. Their gazes collided with Jane and Gabriel’s prone forms, and as one their eyes formed round moons. He bit back a curse.
He’d been incorrect. The night had just worsened.
*
Positioned between Lady Imogen and Chloe, Jane hurried through the theatre. Her skin pricked from the burn of Gabriel’s gaze on her back and the stare of the two Society matrons who’d chosen the most inopportune time to slip from the performance and enter the corridor and see—
She closed her eyes a moment. The matrons saw her twined with Gabriel’s form like a vine of ivy around a powerful tree. Jane swallowed a humiliated groan and quickened her stride. Had there been any doubt before this moment, there was none now—she was her mother’s daughter. A shameful, wanton harlot who’d kissed a man and been discovered before his family and two ladies of the ton. She pressed a hand to her mouth and buried a moan.
Chloe shot her a sideways look. Concern filled the young woman’s overly kind eyes. “I say, it was a splendid performance, don’t you think, Jane?”
Tears pricked behind her lids. Why would this woman be so kind? Why, when she’d shamed her and Gabriel’s entire family as she had? Chloe slid her arm into Jane’s and patted her hand. “Alex will have secured the carriage by now,” she said with swift assurance.
They made their way down the stairs, through the quiet hall, and outside to where, as Chloe predicted, Lord Alex stood beside the waiting carriages. A surge of relief slammed into her; a desire to hide within the black lacquer walls and hope that those two women failed to glean her identity and—
She thrust aside the futile wish. Society matrons made it their affair to know the affairs of others. Even now, the scandalous exchange between Jane and Gabriel was likely circulating through the theatre fodder for the gossips and no black lacquer carriage would shield her from that.
Jane accepted the assistance of the coachman and allowed him to hand her inside. Chloe followed, and for one moment she believed Gabriel should take a carriage with his brother and for one longer moment, wanted him to and spare her the humiliating agony of sitting beside him and Chloe.
Alas, the fates were uncooperative this evening. Gabriel climbed inside and the wide space of the carriage grew smaller under the power of his frame.
A moment later, the servant closed the carriage door and the conveyance rocked forward. The rumble of the carriage wheels along the cobblestones filled the quiet, punctuated by the beat of her heart in her ears. She gripped the edge of the seat and replayed each horrid moment of this evening.—Montclair’s presence. Her wanton kiss. The discovery.