He bowed his head. “I would,” he said solemnly. Through the years, he’d failed Chloe, Philippa, and Alex. He’d not fail another. “Marry me,” he repeated. “You’ll have your school.”
A small smile played about her lips. “You cannot help but command, can you?”
Gabriel closed his mouth. “No.” The need to be masterful and decisive had been ingrained into him from the moment Alex had beat their father within an inch of his life. At his younger brother’s side, he’d gleaned the strength and power that came in possessing control—over all.
Jane studied her palms a long moment, and when she looked to him again, there was that wary mistrust he’d come to expect of her etched in the delicate lines of her face. “I’ll have my school,” she spoke that part as though to herself. “And what will you have?” Her cheeks flamed red like a summer strawberry. “I expect you’ll require heirs.”
Heirs. Children. Those small, dependent people who required caring for and protection. Figures who, until this moment, had been murky shadows who would never be, but now with her words, Jane had conjured up the delicious act of taking her to his bed, laying her down, exploring every crevice of her skin, tasting her scent…He groaned.
“Gabriel?” she asked, questioningly.
“There will be no children,” he said harshly. Never before had he resented the vow he’d taken. Before it had been there to sustain and protect. Now the prospect of having Jane as his wife and not knowing every part of her body threatened to destroy him. “There will be no children,” he repeated, this time for his own benefit.
She scratched her brow. “But you are a marquess.” Her tone held all the befuddlement of one trying to divine the answer to life.
“Ours would be a marriage of convenience,” he said. “You will have your funds and your school—”
“And what will you have?”
“A companion for my sister—”
“With the circumstances of my birth and our discovery at the opera house, I will be a dreadful companion.”
He went on as though she’d not interrupted. “—You will serve as my hostess while my mother is away with my sister—”
“I know nothing about being a hostess.”
“You will learn.”
“But I don’t want to learn.”
He frowned.
Jane lifted her hands up. “I thank you for your offer.” She’d thank him for his offer as casually as though he’d laid his jacket across the street so she might avoid a muddy puddle. “But there would be no benefit in your marrying me.” She wrinkled her nose. “Nor do I expect you’d gladly accept your wife establishing and running a finishing school.”
No, most gentlemen would not. Other noblemen committed to their lines and titles wouldn’t even entertain an idea of their wife doing anything other than serving as hostess and becoming mother to their heirs. Gabriel folded his arms at his chest. “I don’t believe I’ve been clear, Jane.”
She nodded. “Yes. I would agree with that much.”
“I am not looking for a wife.”
The furrow of her brow deepened.
“I do not want a wife. Or children,” he added as an afterthought.
“But you require a wife and child,” she blurted with the same shock he’d expect from his now thankfully dead father. “Children,” she amended. “Heirs and spares and issue to carry on your line.” She gesticulated wildly as she spoke.
Gabriel propped his hip against the edge of the sofa. “As we are entering into this state—”
“We are entering into no state,” she interrupted with a hard frown on her lips.
“If we are to enter into this state,” he amended. “You should know that ours would be a marriage in name only. You will be, after your responsibilities to my sister are seen to, free to take yourself off to the country. Your three thousand pounds will be yours to establish a school and see fit the running of it. All you must do is marry me.”
Chapter 22
Gabriel spoke with a calculated, methodical precision about her life and his. Their future, which would really be no future together.