She finally let the story drift away, but Jude's hand kept up its small caresses. In that moment, she wished they were married, just so they could climb beneath the covers of the bed and lie like this, with no stiff fabrics or stays between them. She wanted to press her hand to his bare chest again, and feel his skin against her cheek.
"I've been thinking . .." he said, and her heart gave a small cry of pain. This was it. He was calling off. She held her breath and wailed for the awful words.
"Is there any possibility your cousin could be behind this bribery?"
Her mind tumbled for a moment, tossed about by the strange topic. "What? Which cousin?"
"Harry."
"Harry!" She pushed up from his chest for a moment. "That's absurd."
Jude raised an eyebrow. "Is it? He knows all about your escapades."
"That's only because he's always here. He's like a brother, really."
"And yet he's not."
"He spent every summer with us. We are his
family."
Jude eased her back down, and she went willingly, comforted by his warmth despite that he was the one saying such discomfiting things.
He put his hand to her neck and stroked his
thumb against her nape. "So he is almost like a brother, but not quite. Welcome in the family home, though it will never be his—"
"Yes. And?"
"Have you never considered that it could be painful? I have some experience with this, you know," Jude said, and Marissa felt suddenly chastened. Yes, of course he did.
"But you are not saying you resented them?"
"No, but I could have. And so could Harry."
"That's impossible. He's not that type of man. He loves us."
"All right. I only just thought of it. I haven't spent any time trying to feel him out."
Marissa frowned at the fire, troubled by his words. It was such a simple thought, that one could belong to a family and yet not belong. But it would never have occurred to her to have sympathy for Harry. Did he resent them? Surely not.
"It can't he him!" she blurted out. "What about the birthmark?"
"Ah. Yes, there's that. I suppose that settles it then."
"Yes. Good. It can't be him."
"I didn't mean to upset you. Harry seems a likeable fellow."
"He is."
"I was only grasping at straws."
They lapsed back into silence, and eventually, his easy touches soothed her trouble. Jude always did that for her, and her thoughts inevitably turned back to thoughts of marriage and this complex betrothal.
He pressed a kiss to the crown of her head, and her heart felt very strange in that moment. "Why wouldn't you let me seduce you?" she whispered.
"I don't need to be seduced."
"And I do?"
"Well, you need something,
ma belle
My god, that was true, and Marissa couldn't do more than turn her face into his chest and laugh. If she shed a few tears in the process, no one ever knew. Not even Jude.
Jude's mood of self-doubt had vanished by the next day. Oh, he wasn't more certain of Marissa's feelings for him. She'd cuddled quite sweetly into his lap, but the cuddling had started out as an attempt to secure his continued cooperation.
His only consolation was that Marissa was apparently having just as much trouble deciphering Jude's feelings, if she really thought he needed to be reminded how much he liked her. Seduction implied some resistance, after all, and he wanted nothing more than to take the woman to his bed and keep her there.
So, no, he was no more confident this morning, but he was already tired of his own brooding about. She'd love him or she wouldn't. There was no reason to get maudlin over it.
And jealousy.. .Jude had never understood jealousy and had looked on its victims as greedy, stupid men. But now he had a better understanding, not that he liked it any more. He wasn't jealous of Marissa's body, exactly. He just wanted to hoard all her pleasure for himself, even the pleasure she'd fell in the past.
"Fool," he hit out as he shrugged on his coat and stalked from his room. Hadn't he spent countless hours being pleased by other women? How had any of that affected what he felt for Marissa?
Despite the fact that he was done with his brooding, Jude wouldn't name his mood pleasant as he strode down the hallway toward the library. Aidan and Edward were supposed to have returned the night before, but it was now nine in the morning and there was no word. Had they discovered the culprit? Had they given him the thrashing he deserved?
By God, he wished he'd gone with them. Except then he wouldn't have spent that hour with the weight of Marissa's sweet body against him.
Jude reached the library and found it blessedly empty. After tasking a servant with bringing him coffee and breakfast, Jude positioned himself in the window nook and watched the stables. The breakfast room had a view of only the leading edge of the stable yard. From the library, Jude would see any sign of someone approaching.
But the first person he saw wasn't approaching the house, but leaving it. Harry hurried from the rear of the house with a packet tucked tight beneath his arm. He disappeared into the stables, and when he emerged a few minutes later without the paper-wrapped bundle, he looked around with a decided air of nervousness.
Jude frowned as he watched a young groom walk from the stables to mount an old gelding. The boy strapped the package behind the saddle and set off.
Something was going on.
Oh, there was nothing damning in a man sending a post, of course. Jude had sent a letter himself only two days before. But Harry had looked decidedly... furtive. And what did light-hearted Harry have to look furtive about?
Jude was still worrying over the scene a quarter hour later when the York brothers finally rode into view. He headed straight for the study and paced the length of it, waiting for the men to appear.
"What news?" he snapped as soon as Edward crossed the threshold. The man shook his head, and Jude cursed.
"Charles LeMont appears to have been away these past three weeks. He'll return tomorrow."
"Can you be sure?"
Edward pushed a hand through his disheveled hair and collapsed into the chair behind his desk. "We spoke to his wife. His sister took ill in Bath, and he went to visit.
Jude frowned. "And his wife didn't accompany him? That's suspicious."
Aidan walked in and tossed his coat onto a chair. "She's with child. Four or five months gone, I think. Handsome woman. She seemed eager to help."
Edward nodded. "I believed her. I don't think it's him."
"What story did you tell?" Jude asked as he resumed his pacing.
"Said we had a dying horse. Same illness that had taken one of the LeMont mares ten years ago and we couldn't remember his old stable master's treatment."
Aidan poured them all a serving of brandy before slouching onto the couch. Jude couldn't sit still to save his life. "Where the hell were you two?" he asked as he stalked over to glare out the window.
"We headed hack," Edward grumbled, "but had to find an inn when it started to rain. Remind me never to share a room with Aidan again. He snores."
"That was you, old man." Aidan tossed back his drink, then tilted his glass toward Jude. "What's got you so foul? Courtship not playing gently on your soul?"
Jude ignored him and addressed Edward. "Is it Fitzwilliam Hess then?"
"Everyone we asked agrees that he's been on the Continent since the start of the Season."
"Perhaps he needs money?"
Edward shrugged. "He'd have plenty of targets to choose from. Certainly families more wealthy than ours."
"Could it he possible this is the way he supports himself? He's a wastrel by all accounts."
"A rich wastrel," Aidan interrupted. "I've dealt with some of the firms that handle his investments. He has no need for blackmail. His lifestyle is fully financed. I'm telling you that it's White!"
"Everything in life is not so black and white," Jude answered. "I spent my life around men active in one kind of transgression or another. I daresay I'm more familiar with the vagaries of the world than you."
Edward looked up. "But perhaps Aidan and I have a better understanding of honor among gentlemen." He said the words so casually, as if he didn't mean them as an insult at all. So Jude let them float away unanswered. He was a bastard. There was no denying that.
The silence stretched on. For a brief moment, Jude considered mentioning his suspicion of Harry, but he bit back the words. There wasn't even a hint of proof, and Marissa was right. Harry seemed a good, uncomplicated man. Jude would hold his tongue, but he'd keep his eyes open.
"Aside from White, who does that leave then?" Jude pondered. "Someone one of the men told? A friend?"
Aidan cleared his throat as if he were relieved to change topics. "A more recent lover?"
"That would be strange pillow talk," Jude said.
"I've heard stranger."
Well, he had a point. Men talked with their mistresses. "Right," he murmured. "Not a wife, but a lover." He puzzled back over the men. Peter White had seemed genuinely chastened, not to mention terrified. And aside from the woman he'd ruined and scorned, Jude hadn't heard rumors of a recent lady friend. Perhaps Harry would know.
Jude knew nothing of Charles LeMont to say whether he kept a mistress or not. But Fitzwilliam Hess . . .
His head snapped up in alarm. "Christ. What about Mrs. Wellingsly?"
"What about her?" Aidan asked with a wary edge to the words.
"Didn't she and Hess have a flirtation last year?"
"Not that I noticed, but it seems likely enough. Still, I can't think why you'd suspect her. She inherited nearly half of her husband's estate. She doesn't need money, and I can't imagine she'd do something like this just to punish me."
Jude laced the window again. "No, but she might do it to punish me."
Despite the softness of Marissa's voice, it managed to fill the whole room. "Why would she want to punish you?"
Alarm flooded his body as he turned around. Marissa stood in the doorway, and her stiff face matched the even tone of her words perfectly. "You told me you'd never even spent a moment alone with her."
He held up a hand. "I—"
"You lied to me!"
"I didn't, Marissa, I swear. She ..." He glanced toward Aidan for help, but the man smiled and made no move to assist.
Shit.
Jude could hardly call the man to the carpet in front of his sister. But tears glistened in her eyes now. "Listen," Jude pled as she started to turn away.
She froze but didn't look at him.
"The other night Patience Wellingsly confessed to some... tender feelings for me—"
"The other night?" Marissa snapped.
Jude looked up to the ceiling, but it was as unhelpful as Aidan York. "She implied that she was in love with someone. Possibly me."
"I see. Was she overwhelmed by your kisses?" Marissa was nearly shouting, and Jude would've enjoyed the spectacle if he wasn't feeling quite so panicked. Still, he assured himself, her jealousy was a good thing, as long as it didn't take too strong a hold.
"I told you I've never kissed her."
"Then it makes no sense." She flung a hand in his direction. "Why would she love you then?"
He'd taken a step toward her, but those words stopped him in his tracks. "What?"
"If you haven't so much as touched her, why would she be falling in love with you?"
That was far more than a question. It was an insult wielded with all the subtlety of a medieval mace. "You can't believe a woman would love me for any other reason?"
"How would I know?" Her words hovered in the air.
"Marissa," Edward said quietly.
Her brow wrinkled in a brief moment of confusion before the anger took over again. "What I believe is that you told me there was nothing between you and that woman, and now I discover she may be in love with you."
He'd told himself there would be no brooding today, but it was hard not to brood when it felt as if his chest was an open wound. He turned away from the woman who'd wielded the weapon and looked at Edward York. "I'll go see her. It's a small chance, but if we can put this to rest, all the better."
He heard the soft sound of his name on Marissa's lips as he passed, and felt the even more tentative touch of her hand, but Jude kept walking. Let her worry over what he thought of her; he'd spent enough time doing the same for her.
She thought him not worthy of affection, and her brothers thought him too low to understand honor. He'd always loved the York home, but for now he wanted nothing more than to walk away from it for a few hours.
Jude paced the receiving room of the Wellingsly house, still furious with Marissa for her casual words. To assess that he was good for naught but physical pleasure and then throw that in his face.
But what right had he to be angry? His entire plan had centered around seducing her into affection. Yes, he'd hoped they had some small friendship as well, but seduction... that had been the very soul of his plan. So why did he feel so wronged to have it named?
He could not reconcile his anger, and it didn't help that he'd almost convinced himself that Patience Wellingsly was behind this blackmail fiasco. Had he sent her some false signal? He'd thought it nothing more than a simple flirtation. But she fell in love easily, and perhaps he should’ve taken more care.
"Damn it," he breathed, running a hand through his hair. The ride over had been damp and had done little to relieve his dark mood.
"Mr. Bertrand," she said, walking into the room with a wide smile. "What a pleasure."
"Mrs. Wellingsly." He managed a polite bow, but there was no mistaking the roughness of his voice. She started to stretch out both hands, as if to take his or even embrace him, but when she met his eyes, her hands fell. So did her smile.
"Is something the matter?"
"I wished to speak with you about a delicate matter."
For a split second, her eyes brightened, turning up a bit at the corners as hope started to bloom on her face, but then she gave her head a little shake. "I see. A delicate, unpleasant matter?"
"You know why I'm here, then?"
"I've no idea," she responded before sinking gracefully to a chair. He'd never seen her do anything with less than perfect grace.
Jude took the scat that faced hers and cleared his throat. "The other night, I felt you were about to confess something to me. Were you?"
She swallowed and tried on a pleasant smile. "I can't imagine what that would have to do with anything."
How was he to tell what she was hiding? He hardly knew this woman at all. Deciding he had little to lose, Jude offered an edited version of the truth. "I received a disturbing letter. An anonymous letter. I wondered if you had sent it."
"Me?" she gasped. "What kind of letter?"
"It was ... the intent of it was to damage my relationship with Miss York."
"And you think I would want to do that?"
"At the ball, you implied some... tenderness for me, if I wasn't mistaken."
She stared at him, her face frozen, but her eyes bright as candles.
Jude flinched at the obvious pain in her gaze, but he did not temper his words. "Did you send the letter?"
"No." She didn't avert her eyes or shake with nervousness.
He inclined his head in acknowledgement, but he said nothing. As he'd expected, she couldn't tolerate the silence.
"I did mean ... at the ball, I did mean you. But it wasn't ..." Now she was nervous, swallowing hard, her hands fluttering for a moment before she pressed them to her knees. "I fancied myself falling in love with you."
Despite that he'd come here for an answer to that question, Jude still felt the shock of those words. It nearly rattled his bones. "Patience—"
"Don't," she interrupted. "After we talked, I realized I had assigned you an unwarranted affection. I'm lonely, Mr. Bertrand. And you are an attractive man. Something about you ..."
An unfortunate amount of heat warmed his skin. Jude knew he was blushing, and he could not stop it.
"Something about you fascinated me. I wanted you so badly that I even turned my eye toward Aidan York, wondering if I might make you jealous."
Jude felt his jaw fall at that, but she waved off his shock with a little laugh. "Not that he's an unappealing companion."
"I don't. . . I'm sorry. I don't know what to say."
"You don't need to say anything. I'm a forty-year-old widow. I may still be as foolish as a girl, but I am at least mature enough to know when I'm being foolish. And you were right. If I really wish to find love, I must give up these childish affections. Surely there is someone for me. Perhaps a man who already has his children and will not mind a barren wife."
"Patience," he said. "You are as lovely a woman as I've met. Easy to love. And do you think I would love Marissa less if she could not have children?"
"Would you not?"
Jude didn't wish to probe his feelings for Marissa too deeply, but he knew the answer to this already. "Absolutely not. And if you hold yourself low because of such a thing, you dishonor your worth for no reason, madam."
"It's no matter," she said, but Jude handed her a handkerchief when tears spilled from her eyes. "I'm so sorry I put you in this awkward position, Mr. Bertrand. I promise that I wish you and Miss York only the best."
He believed her. Hell, maybe they were all fools in the face of these suspects, but Jude had no reason not to believe her. If she truly wanted to insert herself between Jude and Marissa, she would've at least confessed love.
If she had, what would Jude have said? Her admission that she was attracted to him had filled him with a twisted mix of appreciation and... discomfort? No, it fell like something more than that, and after he bid her farewell, he left the manor with a heavy step.
She wasn't the first woman to admit a strange attraction to him. Hell, Marissa herself had said nearly
the same thing. He'd taken advantage of that very phenomenon with her and other women. He was strangely appealing, and he'd never minded that. He'd accepted it as his due.
Ten steps from his horse, Jude stopped in his tracks.
His
due.
His
place.
The role he fit in this world of polite people and impolite realities.
Jude's stomach dropped with a sickening realization: He did not think himself equal to these people at all.
"I'm sure this will turn out well." Marissa looked up from her stitching to find Harry sitting next to her. She hadn't noticed that he'd sat down. "Pardon?"
"Jude will return soon with good news, I'm sure."
"Are you?" Marissa sighed. She wasn't sure at all. In fact, she was quite certain that if Jude returned at all, it would be with awful news. First that Mrs. Wellingsly wasn't the blackmailer. And second, that he'd discovered it quite nice to be around a beautiful woman who truly loved him. The more Marissa thought of it, the more sure it became. What man wouldn't want that? What man would prefer a childish girl who hurled insults and used him for selfish purposes?
Marissa blinked back tears. "Thank you, Harry."
"You just... if you don't mind my saying so, cousin, you look awful." She didn't bother pretending insult. Harry wasn't as close as a brother, but he was certainly as close as a ... cousin. He'd gone to school with her brothers,
so his bond was stronger with them, but during the summers she'd learned to swim and ride and cheat at cards right along with him.
"You shouldn't worry so," he continued. "We'll watch out for you."
"Thank you, Harry." She studied him for a moment, trying to think what he was like as a man and not just as her cousin. But he was inscrutable to her, a true gentleman of the ton, never interested in more than horses and... well, he had a slight interest in sheep farming, but no head for politics.
She had never thought too much about him. He'd always simply been a fixture in her life. But Jude had begun teaching her to look beyond the surface of things, not that she was learning that lesson too well.
"Can I ask you something, Harry?"
"Of course."
"Was it ever... lonely for you? Spending so much time in our household?"
Harry frowned and shook his head. "What do you mean?"
"Well, between school and the time you spent here ..."
"God, no. It was a relief. My mother is so dour, I can hardly bear the time I spend in her house even now. And I don't remember my father, I was so young when he died. Your father was far more than an uncle to me. An excellent man."
He had been an excellent man. Quiet, but not dour like his sister. He'd been a happy audience for the mischief his wife and children had got up to.
"I'm glad. You are such a good actor, I wondered if you were only pretending to be happy with us."
"Nonsense. Your family has been the only true family I've ever known."
Marissa looked back to her little pillow, the very pillow she'd teased Jude about two weeks before. The stitching was going quite nicely. If circumstances were different, she would have told Jude that and they would laugh together. She would have talked to him about her father, dead for seven years now. But she'd thrown Jude's friendship in his face this morning, as surely as if she'd slapped him.
"Thank you," she finally said.
Harry cleared his throat. "So, I believe Mrs. Samuel is trying to talk me into marrying one of the Miss Samuels."
That stopped Marissa's wandering mind. "She is? Which one?"
"I'm not sure she cares. She feels they've both been on the scene too long."
Well, Mrs. Samuel was a practical woman if nothing else. Beth had told her that her mother's only goal was to see both girls marry so that if she took ill again, they would be looked after. "And ... do you favor one?"
"I hadn't much thought about it. Miss Nanette Samuel seems quite a handful. Not sure she'd make an ideal wife."
Marissa didn't know whether to feel hopeful for Beth or insulted that Harry was approaching this so heartlessly. But, she supposed, this was how most marriages were made. "Beth is my dearest friend, you know. She's a wonderful person." "She is rather nice, isn't she? I suppose I shall consider it. She's modest and attractive, and I think we might match well."
She nodded, still torn by the strangeness of it all. "Don't you mean to find love, Harry?"
"I'm sure we'd come to love each other. I know our family typically approaches these things with a bit more fire, but I'm not quite as passionate in nature, I suppose."
Marissa couldn't help but smile. "Odd, considering your acting skills. Too bad you were born so respectably, Harry, or you might have trod the boards in London."
His expression twitched for a moment before he set it rights again. "I would've liked that, I think. Sometimes I do admit to feeling a bit superfluous."
"How so?"
"Edward holds all the responsibilities of the title. Aidan has his import firm. And I ... I am merely pleasant entertainment. I've always enjoyed my time here, as I said, but I sometimes feel I should’ve made myself useful and entered the church."
"The church? Good God, I can't begin to imagine you as a parson."
He flashed a grin. "Mother was quite keen on the idea. I suppose I could've made a good show of it."
"Well, your sermons would've been lively. I can picture you illustrating all the parables with scenes from Shakespeare."
"You're right! Perhaps there's still time to take up the collar."
Marissa laughed, but then she took his hand between hers. "I do know what you mean, Harry. I've felt that same suspension myself. What have I to do but marry, after all? But you're a gentleman. You have your income. You can do what you like, you know."
"But what would I do?"
She shrugged. "Travel the world. Go to Africa. Visit the Orient. It's not as if you're some threadbare relation. You're not forced to stay here." "No, I suppose I simply like it. Africa, eh?" He seemed to think for a moment, then shook his head. "No, I like this family too much, I think, not to mention the comforts of England. And who would entertain your mother if I sailed away?"
"I daresay she can entertain herself."
They were chuckling over that when Jude walked into the drawing room, his hair wild from the wind and his face stony as a demon's, Her smile fell as his gaze met hers and touched her with ice. She stood and felt the pillow drop to her feet.
! "It wasn't her," he said simply, before turning to leave.
That was all.
It wasn't her.
Nothing about whether Mrs. Wellingsly loved him, or how he knew she hadn't done it, or what had happened when the woman had finally got him alone.
The horrid images that had writhed through Marissa's mind today all came to the forefront. Jude would've spoken privately with Mrs. Wellingsly, of course. He would've been forceful with her. She would've swooned into him. And then what?
Marissa strode toward the door to force him to answer her questions, but Jude wasn't in the hall.
She glanced up just in time to see his shadow round the corner at the top of the stairs, and she S followed without another thought. S Patience Wellingsly was a delicate beauty with
polished manners and knowing eyes. She would never have called Jude ugly or insulted his appeal, not if she wanted him. No, she was the type of woman who knew how to stroke a man's ego. Marissa had never managed that skill, of making them feel important and masculine and needed. She could make a man feel lust, but what about love? That was a different thing entirely.
But Patience Wellingsly looked like a fairytale princess in need of rescue, and Jude had already proved himself capable of playing the valiant hero.