Gabriel took in her bow-shaped lips pressed to the rim of the porcelain and a sudden need to take her mouth under his sucked all logical thought from his head. He blinked rapidly. What in blazes? He gave his head a firm shake, dislodging his desirous musings. Yesterday, when he’d first met the quiet, stammering, wide-eyed companion he’d immediately dismissed her as unsuitable for his spirited, unconventional sister. Chloe required a companion who’d not be dragged along on his sister’s madcap schemes, with the steely resolve to convince her of the rightness in making a match with a good, honorable gentleman. This more colorful, more insolent, and vastly more infuriating version of Mrs. Munroe, however, would not do for any number of different reasons. He’d go mad with one such as she in his home.
He steeled his jaw. “Explain your presence in my home now, Mrs. Munroe.”
*
For all Jane’s false bravado, her heart thumped hard enough that she marveled His Lordship could not see the frantically pounding organ against the wall of her chest. The forced smile on her lips threatened to shatter her cheeks. She’d have to be deaf as a dowager to fail to hear the thin thread of rage underscoring the marquess’ question. She’d wager a powerful, commanding lord such as he was unaccustomed to having his orders gainsaid. Yet for all her unease, she clung to the furious annoyance of the dismissive words he’d uttered in the hall. The fact that he cared not at all for her security, post, or in any regard beyond those should come as little surprise. All the noblemen she’d had the displeasure of knowing had seen her as a lesser person there to serve, there to see to their pleasures, or, in some instances as in the case of her father, see her not at all.
“Mrs. Munroe?” he snapped.
Jane started and hurriedly set down her tepid coffee. She placed her hands on her lap, out of his vision, shielding the faint tremble that would demonstrate how unnerved she was by his massive, towering form standing above her. Marquesses had no right to look the way this man did. A muscle-hewn frame and sun-bronzed skin, he might as well have been any honorable man who worked with his hands in the Kent countryside that she and her mother had called home.
In an attempt to demonstrate some mastery over the tenuous situation, Jane dusted her palms together. He followed that movement and then looked at her through dark, impenetrable slits. “You see, my lord, you unfairly dismissed me. You judged my suitability by a brief conversation and nothing more.” Which in fairness was his right. In a world where she was powerless, subject to the whims and desires of her employers, she chafed at the total lack of control over her circumstances. “You believed your sister and I would not suit.”
He leaned down and shrunk the space between them. “I believed you would not suit,” he said with a bluntness that deepened her frown.
Oh, the lout. “Precisely,” she said with a vigorous nod.
Only, that slight movement brought him down further, so mere inches separated their faces. The slight cleft in his square jaw ticked in a telltale indication of his annoyance. Fury emanated from his eyes. “I beg your pardon, Mrs. Munroe.” And God help her, she really shouldn’t note anything beyond his high-handedness and easy disregard for her future, she’d have to be blind to fail to appreciate the chiseled planes of his face that may as well have been carved of stone.
“You believed I would not suit your sister, but you can’t know that. Not truly.” He pierced her with his intense stare and she rushed on before her courage fled and her feet followed suit. “If your sister is as spirited as you proclaim—”
“She is,” he bit out.
“Then surely the lady should have some input as to my suitability.” Which was the desperate plan she’d crafted somewhere between the glorious, hot, soothing bath last evening and the hours of being unable to sleep. It was a sorry day indeed when a woman hung her hopes upon a post she’d hoped to steal and the benevolence of a spirited noblewoman.
The marquess straightened. “You would have me allow my sister to decide as to whether you will suit as a companion?”