Free To Love a Lord by Christi Caldwell Page A

gave her hope.
    The long-case clock struck eleven and she started. A slow smile tipped her lips at the corner at that slight, but very obvious, sign. “I do believe you’ll not be rid of me as quickly as you wish, my—Gabriel,” she corrected at his pointed look.
    “Is that what you believe?” He arched an eyebrow. “That I am eager to be rid of you?”
    “Aren’t you?”
    “I’m merely trying to see my sister properly cared for.” The serious set to his face hinted at a sadness to him and gave her pause. She recognized that sadness because she carried that painful sentiment within her and she hated that she’d seen a like emotion from him. For it was far easier to challenge and loathe a man for his high-handedness. It was quite another to confront a gentleman who genuinely cared for his sister and wore a cloak of sadness about him. That made him real in ways that were dangerous to her well-ordered thoughts. “I have to leave.” She winced. Should leave. She should leave.
    He inclined his head, but made no move to stop her. Instead, he stepped aside, opening the path to the doorway. Jane forced her legs to move.
    Gabriel called out. “Jane?”
    She stopped and cast a glance back at him.
    “Have you forgotten something?” Her common sense, her logic and clear thoughts. He motioned to the lone book, startled from her hands a short while ago lying indignantly upon its spine.
    Jane rushed over and claimed the forgotten volume and with the black leather book pulled protectively against her chest, she hurried from the room, desperate to put distance between herself and the suddenly very human marquess.
    Gabriel.

Chapter 7
    T he following morning, Gabriel sipped coffee from his cup. His lips pulled at the familiar but still bitter bite of the black brew. Periodically, he glanced at the empty doorway. Jane, the feisty companion with a powerful right jab, had occupied his thoughts from the moment she’d fled the library. With her parting, he’d sought out his chambers. Alas, sleep had eluded him. Instead, alternating emotions—desire, a hungering to explore her mouth once more, and a nauseating guilt had gripped him. Gabriel didn’t go about kissing those in his employ.
    He tightened his grip on the fragile glass in his hand. He’d spent the better part of his life distancing himself from the man the previous marquess had been. He’d dedicated himself to never adopting any part of his father’s ways. Yet, drunk with the scent of lavender and honey, he’d kissed her. Sleep had eventually come and when he’d arisen from that restless slumber haunted by the wide-eyed companion, he’d gone through his morning ablutions resolved to be free of any thoughts of Mrs. Jane Munroe. Her presence here only roused the dark similarity between him and his bastard of a sire who’d taken his pleasures where he would—with ladies of the ton and servants in his household.
    He stared into the contents of his cup and then took another slow sip. Except—was she a Mrs.? Was the lady, in fact, a young widow dependent upon her own skills to survive in a society that gave few options to those very women? He frowned at the empty doorway and then shifted his cup to his other hand and consulted his timepiece. Jane had broken her fast at this time yesterday morn. At the prospect of seeing the companion, an odd excitement stirred in his chest.
    With a groan, he set down his cup and scrubbed his hands over his face. What manner of madness was this, his thinking of the woman with anything less than annoyance? The sooner the tart-mouthed, yet kissable, lady took her leave, the better he’d be. He didn’t require distractions in the form of stiffly proper companions with a veneer of ice and a coating of molten heat underneath. But now that he’d tasted Jane’s fire, God help him if he didn’t burn for her.
    The soft tread of footsteps sounded in the hall and he glanced up, a nonsensical eagerness stirred within, and then died a