"Now," Thomas said, standing up from the head of the table. He walked slowly down the length of the room until he stood behind her chair. "I find that I prefer the mud. I prefer a woman who hands me a chipped mug of smuggled tea and tells me to my face that I am a parasite."
Jane's breath hitched. She stared straight ahead, gripping the edge of the table. "You are confusing novelty with reality," she whispered, fighting the desperate urge to lean back into him. "I am a novelty to you. A woman who doesn't fawn over your title. But the novelty will wear off, and when it does, the reality is that I am a commoner, and you are a duke."
Thomas placed his hands on the back of her chair. He leaned down, his face hovering just inches from her ear. "I have spent my entire life surrounded by reality, Jane. It is cold and it is empty." His voice was a raw, rough rumble. "The only time I have felt entirely like a man and not a title was when I was standing in a freezing stable arguing with you."
He moved around the chair, crouching down so he was eye level with her. He reached out and gently took her chin in his hand, forcing her to look at him. His gray eyes were completely stripped of their aristocratic armor. They were vulnerable, intense, and terrifyingly sincere.
"I don't want a duchess who knows how to hold a fan," Thomas said softly. "I want a woman who knows how to hold a roof up in a storm. Tell me to leave you alone, Jane. Tell me you feel nothing when I look at you, and I will pack my carriages tomorrow, and you will never see me again."
Jane stared into his eyes. Her cynical heart, the fortress she had built to survive the crushing disappointment of her life, was fracturing. She opened her mouth, fully intending to tell the lie that would save her.
"I..." she started, but the words died in her throat. She couldn't do it. She couldn't lie. Not to him.
Thomas saw the fracture. He saw the truth in her dark eyes. He stood up, pulling her up with him. Before Jane could process the movement, his arms were around her, pulling her flush against his chest, and his mouth came down hard on hers.
The kiss tasted of expensive claret and raw, unvarnished desperation. For 3 seconds, Jane surrendered. Her hands, rough and calloused, slid up the impeccably tailored lapels of his tailcoat and gripped the fabric like a lifeline. She felt the heavy thudding rhythm of his heart against her chest. The heat of him drove the chill from her bones, melting the cynical ice she had spent 5 years carefully cultivating.
Then her brain caught up with her heart. Jane broke the kiss, shoving her hands against his chest. She stumbled backward, her velvet skirt catching on the leg of the mahogany chair. She was gasping for air, her pulse roaring in her ears.
Thomas didn't pursue her. He stood perfectly still, his chest heaving, his gray eyes dark and bruised with emotion. He raised a hand, rubbing the back of his knuckles across his mouth.
"Don't," Jane choked out, holding up a trembling hand. "Do not do that. Do not turn me into a cliché."
"There is nothing cliché about this, Jane," Thomas said. His voice was unsteady.
"It is the oldest story in the world," she fired back, her voice echoing sharply in the cavernous dining room. "The bored aristocrat and the desperate servant. It ends with me ruined in a London gutter and you married to an earl's daughter with a pristine reputation and soft hands."
"I just told you I have no intention of returning to London."
"People lie, your grace," Jane shouted. The title felt like a weapon now. "They lie when the reality of mud and debt becomes too heavy. You survived 3 months in disguise because you knew you could strip it off the moment it became inconvenient. This is my life. I cannot strip it off. If I give you everything and you wake up one morning missing your gentleman's clubs and your spotless boots, I will have nothing left."
Thomas stepped forward. "I am not leaving you."
"You don't know that," Jane whispered. The anger drained out of her, leaving only a hollow, aching exhaustion. "You don't know what it takes to live in the dark for years on end. You've only just turned off the light."
She turned around, lifting the heavy skirts of her mother's dress, and walked toward the grand double doors.
"Jane," he called out.
"Good night, your grace," she said without looking back.
The next morning, the grand illusion of the Duke's dinner shattered under the harsh gray light of reality. Jane awoke at 5 a.m., driven by a biological clock she couldn't silence. Her room was freezing. She dressed in her worn gray wool, tying her apron with mechanical precision.
She walked down to the kitchen, but the fire was already roaring. The French chef was shouting at a scullery maid in rapid angry bursts. Mrs. Gable was sitting in the corner, peeling potatoes with a look of defeated resignation. There was no space for Jane here.
She walked past the kitchen and down the corridor toward the estate office. The door was ajar. Inside, Mr. Finch, the Duke's severe, pinch-faced accountant, was sitting at her desk. He was packing her meticulous handwritten ledgers into a leather traveling case.
"What are you doing?" Jane demanded, stepping into the room.