“Mrs. Munroe—”

“Jane,” she corrected.

“Jane, kindness costs us nothing, but brings us everything.” She squeezed Jane’s hand once more. “And you must call me Imogen.”

Footsteps sounded in the hallway, calling their attention to the front of the room just as Gabriel stepped in. His brother, Lord Alex, stood at his side. He favored his wife and Jane with one of those charming smiles that had likely earned him the reputation of rogue and then looked to his wife.

Imogen jumped to her feet. “Gabriel,” she greeted with a smile and sailed across the room in a flurry of skirts. Jane rose and a thousand questions sprung to her lips about his meeting. She bit the inside of her cheek to keep from blurting any one of them out.

He stepped into the room and sketched a polite, proper, and perfectly formal bow. “Imogen,” he said. All the while, his gaze remained on Jane. “Mrs. Munroe.”

His family was too polite to draw attention to the great hypocrisy in him referring to her so very formally when they’d been discovered en dishabille at the opera. Instead, Lord Alex held his hand out, and his wife walked the remaining distance, and then slipped her fingers into his.

Jane studied that sweet, intimate moment as he clasped his larger palm around Imogen’s much smaller one and a sudden hungering slammed into her—a desire to know even just a sliver of that connection to another person. She stared after them as they took their leave, until only she and Gabriel remained.

He fully entered the room and closed the door quietly behind him.

Yes, with her already non-existent reputation in tatters there was no need for a chaperone and apparently closed doors were permitted, too. She glanced down at the tips of her slippers.

He spoke without preamble. “I spoke to your father.”

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His words brought her head up. Her father. Had the duke truly been a father? He’d sired her, yes. But she’d only seen two glimpses of the man in the course of her existence. “Thank you,” she said. She pressed her palms together.

It was done. He’d secured her funds, then. She would have her freedom and security. The Edgerton’s would be nothing more than a reminder of a family who’d proven themselves different than all others. His thick lashes dipped. He may as well have been carved from stone for all the reaction he gave. She scooped up her book and pulled it close to her chest. “I—”

Gabriel held up a hand. He took a step toward her, his expression darkening. “There is, however, something we need to speak on.”

*

He’d spent the better part of the afternoon and evening grappling with just what to do with Jane Munroe—the woman who wanted to wed even less than he wanted to be wed.

The truth of her father’s betrayal had tumbled around his mind since he’d taken his leave of his club. He’d turned around and over and through all possible answers. Jane was, of course, deserving of the truth about his meeting with her father and yet…he could not tell her. To do so would shatter her dream and end her security. He could not do that. Not and live with himself.

Jane picked her way carefully toward him and then paused with the gold upholstered sofa between them. She had a white-knuckled grip on the volume in her hands. “What is it?” Concern darkened her eyes and he was struck once more by how very much alike they were. Life had given them reasons to be wary.

He cleared his throat. “I spoke to the duke,” he corrected from earlier. For the monster who’d given her life, more alike than different from his own sire, did not deserve the distinction of parentage. “There is a condition of your acquiring the funds.” For that was the only resolution he’d come to in his own mind.

Jane cocked her head. “A condition?” she repeated back dumbly, as she set her book down on the sofa.

A niggling of guilt pebbled his belly and he forcibly thrust it back. He’d ruined her. He would do right by her and compromising the pledge he’d taken as a boy was the very least sacrifice he could make for ruining her. What right do I have to make that choice for her? He took a step away and wandered over to the window seat she’d occupied moments ago. The small leather volume on the upholstered seat snagged his attention and he dropped his gaze to her beloved book. The book she had in her possession whenever he came upon her. The book that had served as her motivation all these years to establish her finishing school.




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