Free To Love a Lord by Christi Caldwell

sufficed,” he said drolly and experimentally tested the soundness of the bridge of his nose.
    “Oh, God, have I broken it?” It would be the very worst shame for that aquiline nose to be forever crooked because of her involuntary reaction.
    “I’m merely afforded a ‘my lord’ from the title marquess. I assure you, I’m no god,” he drawled.
    How could he affect that droll, dry humor? How, when she’d hit him as she had? She backed into a rose-inlaid side table and the fragile piece of furniture shifted sideways, upending a porcelain shepherdess. The white and pink piece tumbled to the floor and exploded in a spray of splintered glass. She stared blankly down at the mess she’d created and then swung her gaze back to the marquess. “M-my lord. Forgive me,” she said, detesting the hoarseness of her tone; that weak, spiritless quality which had convinced him of her unsuitability for the post as companion to his sister.
    He waved his free hand. “It was inappropriate for me to kiss you.” Heat spiraled through her at those uttered words that made the memory of his embrace all the more real. The marquess lowered his handkerchief and she let out a small sigh of relief at the halted blood flow. He gave her a wry smile. “And considering that kiss, I’d venture it is entirely appropriate for you to refer to me by my Christian name.”
    She blinked. It would never be appropriate for her to refer to him or any other nobleman by his Christian name. And yet, she angled her head, hopelessly wanting, nay needing, to know the name assigned to a broadly powerful figure such as the marquess.
    “Gabriel,” he supplied.
    Gabriel. One of those seven archangels, a warrior of the heavenly armies. Strong, powerful. It perfectly suited him. “It wouldn’t be appropriate.” She warmed at that belated, half-hearted protestation.
    “No. It would not, Jane .” His thick, hooded, black lashes shielded all hint of emotion within his eyes. There was the faintest and yet, she’d venture, deliberate emphasis on that, her name. A statement from a man who, with his aura of power, could command a kingdom, that he’d noted her regard for propriety and gave not a jot.
    She fisted her hands. But then, wasn’t that a luxury permitted one of his lofty station? Jane stiffened as he bent down and retrieved something.
    He held up her fragile, wire-rimmed spectacles. “Your spectacles?”
    Jane touched her naked face and anxiety pounded at her chest as she flew across the room and, in the most undignified manner, plucked them from his fingers. How could she have not recalled dropping them? The hideous and useless frames she’d donned after her first post as a companion to an aging countess “Thank you.” The woman’s devoted son, with his wandering hands, had taught Jane her first important lesson on those of the nobility who saw in her, and every other woman of her station, someone there for nothing more than their pleasures. She hurriedly opened them and jammed them on her face. Jane smoothed her palms over the front of her skirts. “I would apologize again for hitting you, my lord.”
    “Gabriel.”
    “Gabriel,” she amended. After all, when one was pleading for one’s post, it wouldn’t do to argue.
    He took a step toward her. “And I’ve already said there is nothing to apologize for.”
    “But there is.” Putting one’s hands upon a nobleman, a punishable offense that, at least, merited being turned out immediately. She held her palms up. “I’d ask that you not dismiss me outright, but allow me to remain on so that I might meet your sister.”
    The ghost of a smile hovered on his lips. “And you still believe that my sister will agree to you as a companion?” There was a faint trace of humor there that gave her pause. He was so very confident that she should be turned out by his sister, and the experience Jane had working with Mrs. Belden’s students should have very well supported his opinion, and yet something