She shifted back and forth. “My lord?”
He stalked back to his desk and motioned her forward. “Please, sit.”
How could he be so dispassionate following everything that had transpired? After he’d had his hand upon her thigh, his lips upon her skin? She wet her lips and took a cautious step and then another but did not take the proffered seat. Instead, she hovered at the leather winged back chair at the foot of his desk. “I prefer to stand, my lord.”
He snapped his dark eyebrows together with a slight scowl on his face. Good, so he was not unaffected. He was just far more adept at maintaining falsities than she, the deplorable, caught-in-a-lie companion that Jane was. “Very well,” he said from behind his desk. “Your trunks are being readied. I have spoken with my brother. He and his wife have agreed to allow you to visit until,” he waved a hand about, “this situation has sorted itself out.”
This situation. That was all she’d ever been. To the mother who’d loved a duke. To the duke who’d no need of illegitimate issue. Now to Gabriel. Why did this one hurt the most? Her throat worked with the force of her swallow. Then his words registered. “You are sending me away.” She flinched at how very pathetic those words were.
Gabriel tugged out his watch fob and consulted the timepiece. “I have a meeting with the duke shortly, at which time I shall speak to him of your funds. In the interim, it is best for all,” For Chloe. His innocent, unwed sister was the one requiring protection. “If you remain with my brother and his family.” He stuffed the intricate gold piece back into his waistcoat pocket.
“Of course,” she said stiffly. She smoothed her palms over her skirts. “Is there anything else you require?”
He shook his head. “That is all. I will visit following my meeting with the duke.”
The duke. Her father. The same man who’d had to deal with the scrapes Jane had landed herself in through the years by shuffling her about to various posts, at her inability to hold whichever one he’d secured through his influence.
From the moment she’d stolen the missive from Mrs. Belden’s office, this parting had been inevitable. Gabriel’s magnanimity in light of her deception and the trouble she’d brought to his family was far more than she deserved. Yet, there was an agony of regret in knowing she would leave—Chloe—him.
But there would be her school and that would fuel her and sustain her. It would give her purpose and be the constant in her life. She pulled her shoulders back. “I would thank you for your kindness, particularly with my,” her cheeks warmed. “My lying to you.” She prided herself on the stable deliverance of those humiliating words.
He rose and came around the desk so she was forced to crane her neck back to look at him. “You need not thank me, Jane,” he said gently.
She blamed dust for the sudden tears that popped behind her lids. Which was, of course, silliness. The marquess did not have dust. Not in his well-tended home. But then, why would she be crying? “But I do.” He dropped his gaze lower, to where she fiddled with her skirts.
Jane stopped the telling gesture that had long been a sign of her discomfort. She lifted her eyes to his. “In my deception, I’ve brought difficulties to you, your sister, and your entire family.” As much a burden now as she’d been since her birth. “And I am sorry,” she said, knowing as the words left her mouth how hopelessly inadequate they were. “So very—”
He pressed two fingers to her lips, ending that weak apology. “Stop,” he ordered on a whisper that was both gentle and hard all at once. Her heart thudded at the intimacy of his naked hand upon her mouth. “It is done.” And yet, he did not draw back. Worse, she did not want him to.
Gabriel worked his gaze over her face, lingered upon her lips. He dipped his head lower and she leaned up to receive his kiss when he froze, his mouth a hairsbreadth from hers. “I should go.”
“Yes.” He should. There was his meeting. But more, they’d established this was wrong. Yet, there was this irrevocable pull between them. An awareness she’d never known of anyone. And it terrified the blazes out of her.