Gabriel and Jane fell silent and the lively orchestra’s song filled the theatre with the contralto Cenerentola soaring through the enormous ceiling.
“Despite what you believe, Jane, I did not make light of you,” he whispered quietly against her ear. She stiffened at his side but remained silent. In an effort to restore the lightheartedness to her earlier expression, he asked, “Do you speak Italian?”
She tore her gaze from the stage below and gave her head a slight shake, eying him warily. What man put that guardedness in the eyes of a lady so young? Then, weren’t his own sisters scarred by life in a way that should have shown him that age had little impact on experience?
“Once there was a king who grew tired of being alone. He searched and he found three who wanted to wed him.”
“What did he do?” That whisper was pulled from her as though she warred within herself to maintain the walls she’d erected between them and her own curiosity to know more of the play.
“He despised show.”
“Who did he choose then?” With her words and eyes she urged the answer.
“Ah, but you have to listen,” he whispered once more as the contralto’s soaring lyrics filled the massive theatre, drowning even the whispers of gossip to a dull hum. “He chose innocence. Innocence and goodness.”
And God, for all his vows these twenty years, with Rossini’s words, he understood the seductive pull of those gifts—innocence and goodness.
Chapter 15
With Gabriel’s innocuous translation of those seductive lyrics, desire flared to life once more, potent and strong. “You should not,” she said, her words pleading to her own ears.
“I am merely translating the words, Jane.” His husky whisper invaded her spirits. “Listen to their song.” She closed her eyes and lost herself to the seductive trance cast by each word translated. “My heart is pounding.” As was hers. In a desperate rhythm for him. “Why is my heart pounding so?” Because it, too, possessed the same madness as her own heart? Which was madness. With the exception of his kiss, he’d been quite clear in his feelings for her. He liked her not at all. And she liked him not at all. And… She was the very worst liar. “How lovely that smile.” His breath fanned her cheek; the hint of brandy, once ugly and vile, a sign of sin and evil, filled her senses until the power of those spirits threatened to make her drunk with a desire for life and him. “That smile. It enters my heart and brings me hope.” He shifted close and his powerfully muscular thigh brushed her leg and crushed her satin skirts.
Was that subtle movement deliberate? The weighted feel of him against her burned her through the fabric of her gown, touched her skin, and went deeper into her blood, heating it so it coursed through her body and threatened to set her ablaze. I want him. I want him in ways I’ve never wanted, or wanted to need, a person. She longed for his touch in ways that marked her as her mother’s daughter. Jane pressed her eyes closed.
The hall surged with a crescendo of applause as the orchestra concluded act one of Rossini’s latest masterpiece and it brought her eyes flying open. Jane blinked away the befuddlement woven upon her senses by Gabriel’s innocent translations and careless touch.
“It is splendid, isn’t it?” Chloe’s cheerful voice piped in.
It was a blasted disaster. Jane nodded jerkily. “Yes.” Her skin pricked with the burn of Gabriel’s gaze upon her person.
Chloe dusted her gloves together and scanned the crowded theatre as the lords and ladies present rose from their seats to take in the real show—the one occurring about them in respectable theatre boxes. Jane welcomed the young woman’s distraction and used it as an opportunity to bring sense to her muddied thoughts, and to set Gabriel firmly from her mind.
And focus on the whole disliking him business.
He stretched his legs out in front of him and hooked them at the ankle, wholly elegant and so unaffected it was impossible to not admire him and the figure he cut.
She groaned. Whatever was the matter with her? A harlot’s heart through and through.
“Are you all right, Mrs. Munroe?”