The noose tightened all the more. He’d spent his life trying to care for others but now, there was not another person more in need of his protection than Jane. That ugly idea of her dependent upon the Montclairs of the world entered once more and drove back his own selfish fears. What other course would she have?
An image flitted through his mind. Jane lying with some other man, her golden curls draped in a curtain about her silken, naked frame—Rage slammed into him and sucked away all reservations.
When presented with the possibility of turning her out with no one to care for her, there really was no other option. He reached the front of the club and a servant hurried to the open the door. Gabriel strode through the exit, grateful to be free of the whispers and stares.
His friend, for all the nuisance he’d made of himself, had been unerringly accurate in this. There was little recourse but for him to wed her. And with their union , she would become one more person whose happiness and safety he was responsible for. Gabriel scrubbed his hands over his face. There would be the expectation of children, just additional tiny human beings who would also become figures who would forever look to him. More people to fail.
God help him.
For with one moment of weakness in an alcove with Jane in his arms, he’d consigned himself to this eternal hell that forever reminded him of his previous failures. With wooden movements, he accepted the reins of his horse from a waiting boy in the street. Now, it was a matter of convincing Jane.
Chapter 21
Jane sat at the edge of the window seat and looked down into the streets and scanned the quiet cobbled roads below. Her open book lay at her feet. The dark clouds of night had ushered out the afternoon sun.
She’d expected him hours ago. Of course, that idea had only come from her own opinion. Gabriel had not told her when he intended to meet with the duke or when he’d visit. She’d just assumed. And now, she sat, a stranger in a new world, the ruined lady taken in by his benevolent family.
Gabriel had no obligations where she was concerned and yet, even so, had met with her father in attempts to secure her funds and had enlisted the help of his family to protect her. In the crystal pane, her lips twisted in a melancholy smile. He seemed to be the only one who believed she merited protection.
She stiffened as her benefactress, Lady Imogen Edgerton, appeared in the doorway. Jane swung her attention around. “Lady Imogen,” she greeted. She glanced past the woman’s shoulder and some of her eagerness dipped.
“No need to rise,” she assured as she strolled over. “And please, just Imogen.” She came to a stop at the edge of Jane’s seat and peered around her shoulder into the streets below. “I daresay you’re wondering where Lord Waverly is?”
She mustered a smile. “Have I been so very obvious?” After all, she’d closeted herself away in their parlor with her book and claimed the very same seat by the window for the past nearly six hours.
A light twinkle lit the other woman’s kindly eyes. “Just a bit.” Some of the gentle teasing lifted and she sank into the seat beside Jane. “For my friendship with Chloe and my marriage to Alex, I do not know the marquess, hardly at all. I venture no one truly knows Lord Waverly.” A loose tendril escaped her neat chignon and she brushed back a crimson curl from her cheek. “He’s a rigid, formidable gentleman who invokes fear, but a loyal brother.”
Rigid, formidable, a man who invoked fear. Is that how the world viewed him? But for that last, very important, telling statement by Lady Imo—Imogen, she rather suspected it was. How could they not look past the rigidity and coldness to see the person she’d known these past seven days?
Imogen plucked at the fabric of the window seat. The other woman wished to say more. That much was clear. Alas, Jane had spent too much time with her own company and could not fill the uncomfortable voids the way Imogen, Chloe, or any other lady of their respective station might. Gabriel’s sister-in-law stopped suddenly. Jane followed her gaze to the book beside them. “May I?” the woman inquired. However, she’d already retrieved the small leather volume of Mary Wollstonecraft’s work. She trailed her fingers over the gilt lettering.