There was such a wealth of feeling in his last statement that Jane had no doubt that Lady Arabella’s first Season had not been the success the Duke had hoped it would be.
‘She is still very young, Your Grace. There will be plenty more opportuny, I am sure, to receive the required marriage proposal.’ Jane attempted to placate him, sure that, as the sister of the Duke of Stourbridge, LadyArabella St Claire must be a very eligible young lady indeed.
The Duke’s mouth twisted ruefully. ‘You misunderstand me, Jane,’ he drawled. ‘My sister has received numerous offers of marriage in the past few months—she has steadfastly refused to accept any of them!’ he added hardly.
The fact that the Duke had allowed his sister to do so was very telling indeed, and indicated an indulgence for his younger siblings that had not been apparent in his initial comment about them.
Jane shrugged. ‘Perhaps Lady Arabella felt unable to love any of those men—’
‘Love, Jane?’ he interrupted scornfully. ‘What does love have to do with marriage?’
‘Oh, but—’ Jane broke off her exclamation to bite her bottom lip as she recalled that even her own mother had not married for love but to give her unborn child a name.
Was that really all marriage amounted to? Merely a necessary requirement for the sake of having children, made out of duty rather than love?
Was that what the Duke of Stourbridge would require in his own marriage? A woman to bear him legitimate children, necessary heirs to the dukedom, while he no doubt supported a mistress in town and continued to live his life as he chose?
Was that what all men of the ton required in marriage?
If so, then Jane was glad she had no part of it.
She had already spent too much of her two and twenty years knowing what it was like to be unloved to ever contemplate deliberately committing the rest of her life to such an emotionless state. Better to remain an old maid than to be merely suffered in a loveless marriage.
Besides, who would ever want to marry her now anyway? The daughter of a single woman abandoned in her pregnancy by her married lover!
‘Jane…?’
She had allowed her guard to drop, her thoughts to wander, Jane realized as she looked across at the Duke with a guilty start. And the illustrious Duke of Stourbridge was too astute a man, those strange gold-coloured eyes of his too all-seeing to allow such a lapse to pass unnoticed.
He did look so handsome this morning, in a jacket of royal blue, his shirt a snowy white, his waistcoat of pale blue satin and cream breeches worn above highly polished Hessians. But it really would not do, when Jane had just reasoned for herself how small were her own marriage prospects, for her to notice how strikingly handsome the Duke of Stourbridge looked today!
Jane forced a dismissive smile to her lips before answering him. ‘Your brothers and sister do not sound so bad, Your Grace.’
He grimaced. ‘That is because you do not know them.’
Hawk, although unaware of the reason for it, had been completely aware of the shadows that had briefly claimed Jane’s expressive green eyes. That she was hiding something more from him than a disagreement with Lady Sulby he did not doubt. That Jane intended to keep hiding it from him was also not in doubt; he knew, even on such a brief acquaintance, that Jane was possessed of a stubborn need for privacy that almost, but not quite, matched his own.
He eyed her speculatively. ‘But you will. At least you will have occasion to meet Arabella,’ he added with a frown, not sure that he at all liked the prospect of Jane being introduced to the handsomely brooding Lucian or the mischievous Sebastian.
Despite what Sebastian might have assumed to the contrary during their conversation the previous week, Hawk was in fact very fond of his younger brothers. But he also knew their natures much better than they would perhaps have wished. And the thought of either of those handsome scoundrels taking a fancy to the innocently beautiful Jane was not a comfortable one.
She gave a puzzled frown at his comment. ‘How so, Your Grace…?’
Hawk was still scowling at the thought of Jane becoming the object of either of his brothers’ romantic interest. ‘Now that the Season has ended for the summer my sister Arabella has returned to Mulberry Hall, of course.’
Jane’s eyes widened. Lady Arabella St Claire would be in residence at Mulberry Hall when they arrived? Was already there eagerly awaiting her eldest brother’s arrival?
Well…no. From the little Hawk had said of his strong-minded young sister, Jane did not think the other girl would be waiting in the hallway of Mulberry Hall eager-eyed and breathless in anticipation of the Duke’s arrival!
But eager-eyed or not, Lady Arabella would be at Mulberry Hall when the Duke arrived there with Jane at his side. How did he intend to explain the presence of Jane, a young lady completely unknown to Lady Arabella, who had obviously accompanied the Duke completely unchaperoned on the long coach journey to his Gloucestershire home?
‘Of course,’ Jane acknowledged quietly, her lashes lowered onto creamy cheeks. ‘I…’ She paused to moisten suddenly dry lips. ‘What explanation do you intend giving Lady Arabella for my presence, Your Grace?’ She looked across at him anxiously. ‘After all, she will know that I am not your ward.’
He quirked dark brows. ‘Why not simply tell her the truth, Jane? That you begged to be allowed to come away with me.’
Jane gaped at him.
She had given little thought to what explanation the Duke would give his staff for her having accompanied him to his home. If she had thought of it at all, she had assumed that none of the staff employed on the Stourbridge estate would dare to question the Duke concerning his actions. But she doubted a young and headstrong sister would as readily accept Jane’s unaccompanied presence.
Ah—at last he seemed to have shaken Jane from the cool reserve she had assumed minutes ago, which had so irritated him, Hawk noted with satisfaction. Although it was highly insulting to realise, from the consternation he could now see in Jane’s expression, that she now wondered at his motive for allowing her to travel to Mulberry Hall with him. That she believed his young sister might make assumptions about that motive also!
Before inheriting the title of Duke of Stourbridge, Hawk had been as much of a rakehell as Sebastian now was—had for years enjoyed the same carousing and wenching with his own reckless friends. But the last ten years had necessarily seen a change in Hawk’s life. His nature had become outwardly coolly reserved, and, as Sebastian had complained only days ago, any relationships of an intimate nature kept discreetly hidden away from public scrutiny. That Jane could even suspect him of being thought to take a mistress to Mulberry Hall—to the St Claire family’s principal seat, the home where his sister was also in residence—was unacceptable. So unacceptable that Hawk could not repress his instinct to make Jane suffer a little for even entertaining such a suspicion.
‘Do not look so concerned, Jane,’ he taunted as he lounged back on the seat. ‘No one, not even my sister Arabella, would dare to question what position I intend you to occupy in my household.’
And what position was that? Jane wondered dazedly. Had she misunderstood the Duke the previous evening when he had been so insistent she would travel under his protection? Despite what he had said to the contrary, was he now saying he expected her to become his mistress as payment for that protection?
‘Come, Jane.’ He sat forward to take both her tightly clenched hands in one of his. ‘When we were together in the dunes two evenings ago you did not give the impression that you found my…attentions repulsive.’
In truth, Jane did not find anything about the Duke of Stourbridge repulsive. In fact, just having him touch her hands in this way had reawakened those feelings of longing that had so disturbed her that night amongst the sand dunes. An experience she had found herself dreaming