“Your finishing school.”
She stared confusedly up at him.
“You did not mention the funds you now have to establish your school.”
Jane started. Why…he was indeed, correct. She hadn’t. “Of course, there will be my finishing school.” Though, now that they were wedded, it would really be his finishing school. She took another step around him and this time he did not block her retreat. She’d reached the door, when a question pressing on her all evening brought her spinning back around. “You would allow your wife, your marchioness to establish and run a school.” The scandal of it would surely be gossiped about for years.
He walked over and then came to a stop before her. “I would.”
“Why?” Was it because he, in some way, had come to care for her enough that he’d allow her that freedom?
“Because I think it is honorable, Jane. I think your efforts and goals are worthy and, for that, I don’t give a jot for Society’s opinion.”
“I am a bastard,” she felt compelled to point out. Bitterness tinged her words. She’d been reminded of that detail from the very moment she’d entered the world, as such, it was impossible to extricate herself from that distinction.
He pressed his thumb against her lips and rubbed the lower flesh. “My father was a monster,” he said, jerking her attention up to him. “He beat my brother and my sisters…”
“And you,” she finished when he let the obvious thought go unspoken.
“And me.” He gave a terse nod. “Society would see him as a man of worth and value for no other reason than the title he was born to and the noble blood coursing through his icy veins.” Suddenly, he stopped stroking her lip and she mourned the loss of that gentle touch. “The truth is, you have more worth than any bloody nobleman I’ve known, more worth than any person I know.” He gave his head a sad shake. “You deserved a true marriage, to a man worthy of you. Not me. I’m merely a name.”
Merely a name. That is all he believed himself to be? A sliver of her heart cracked away from the once whole organ and, in that moment, became his. No one had ever seen her worth beyond the circumstances of her ignoble birth. This man did. He might not want her in his bed or in his life, but he saw her worth. Selfishly, she wanted it all from him.
He offered her his elbow. Jane hesitated a moment and then placed her fingertips along his sleeve. The ripcord muscles rippled under her touch, hinting at a man who didn’t only see her in terms of finishing schools and companionship for his sister.
They stood there, unmoving, with a room of his family and his closest friend, and the vicar who’d wed waiting. The room echoed with the noticeable intakes of her breath. Or was that his? She looked up and found his gaze trained upon her mouth. He dipped his head and then hesitated, as though warring with himself.
I want you, too. She willed him to kiss her as he’d done at the theatre, before they’d been thrust into this uncertain world as wedded strangers. Then with his hesitancy, she made the decision for him. Jane leaned up on tiptoe and touched her lips to his. He stiffened as she pressed herself against him but then, with a groan of surrender, he slanted his mouth over hers again and again. Lost was the restrained gentleman he’d been since the theatre two evenings ago. In his place was the man who’d wanted her.
Gabriel worked his hands down her body and settled them on her hips, dragging her even closer. She melted into him and opened to his fierce invasion. He stroked her tongue with his, over and over until a desperate moan escaped her. He swallowed that sound under the force of his kiss. Jane clung to him in a bid to stay upright, but he drove her back against the wall, anchoring her with the strength of his body.
She arched her neck and borrowed the support of the hard plaster. “What hold do you have upon me, Jane Munroe?” he rasped as he dragged a trail of kisses along the column of her throat. He nipped at the tender flesh where her pulse beat maddeningly for him and drew the skin into his mouth, suckling.
“Th-the same hold you have upon me,” she gasped as her eyes slid involuntarily closed. Gabriel moved his lips down the length of her neck, lower, to the swell of her décolletage. She fisted her hands in his hair and bit her lip hard as he touched his mouth to her skin. “I never knew I could feel like this,” she whispered as he continued to worship her with his searching caresses.