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Mr. Bertrand stood at the end of the hall, hands clasped behind his back as he stared out a narrow window. Sunlight should have streamed through the glass, but the wide span of his back blocked every single ray. If he did dance, Marissa should not like to be the girl whose slipper he trod upon.
Yet as rough a figure as he cut, she could see no other reason to believe that Jude Bertrand wasn't a gentleman. It may have taken yards of fabric to cover those shoulders, but the lines of the coat were impeccable. His hair might look a bit coarse, but it was trimmed straight and neat at his neck.
He shifted, and his hair glowed in the sun, revealing that the dark shade was not true brown but auburn, and Marissa found herself cringing to think that it must have been quite red in his youth. What a little ruffian he would have looked. Red-headed and coarse-featured. What a little ruffian his children would be. And with her own red hair, there would be no escape from it.
She'd meant to approach him with determination, but her feet slowed at that thought.
Perhaps Mr. Peter White was not such an awful choice, after all. He was witty, and he kept a merry crowd of friends.
She stopped, intent on escaping without notice, but Mr. Bertrand cocked his head and turned toward her.
"Miss York," he said solemnly.
When their eyes met, she blushed, thinking of what he must know about her. "Mr. Bertrand," she murmured.
He smiled, and his smile, at least, was pleasant, despite the vulgar width of his mouth. "Have you decided if I may escort you to the breakfast room?"
The question recalled her earlier rudeness. If I may escort you. But in truth, he wasn't asking about breakfast. He was asking if she might marry him a
t the end of the month. If he could pretend to be her suitor. Because she'd lost her virginity the night before on the couch of the sewing room. Her cheeks burned with heal. "Of course, Mr. Bertrand. I'd be honored."
He nodded, but the tilt of his mouth made clear that he found her answer amusing.
"This is overwhelming," she explained. True enough, but she knew that much of her discomfort was because she could not picture marrying a man like him. She liked handsome, elegant, finely made men. Jude Bertrand was . . .
Marissa could not bring herself to call him ugly, not when he was treating her so fairly. But his face was wide and looked hewn from stone, with an old break in his nose as if the sculptor's chisel had slipped. His cheekbones were high and broad, and the wicked angle of his eyebrows added menace to his masculine features. That and his unrelenting largeness. . .
When he walked toward her, Marissa snuck a peek at his thighs. The muscles strained at his trousers in a vulgar display. He was made for the battlefield or the shipyard, not the ballroom.
Still, when he offered his arm, she took it, aware of a hint of spice in his scent.
His arm was too solid beneath her hand. More like the wood of a banister than the flesh of a man. She supposed that might be comforting if she knew him, if he were charged with the duty of caring for and protecting her. But he was a stranger, so she felt nothing more than a vague anxiety and kept her fingers light against his sleeve.
"I apologize," she murmured as he led her through the doors of the breakfast room. "I'm sorry I did not know you earlier."
"You needn't apologize. I didn't expect I'd drawn your notice."
Marissa glanced around the room, noting that one guest was leaving, and only one other, her elderly Great Aunt Ophelia remained. Marissa leaned a little closer to Mr. Bertrand. "I don't understand why you're doing this."
"Are you not hungry?"
"I mean this," she protested, waving an impatient hand. She lowered her voice. "Why did you volunteer to court me?"
He stopped their slow progress toward the buffet and angled his body toward her. "Because I like you."
"You just said yourself that you don't even know me!"
"No, Miss York. I said you didn't know me. But I have liked you from the moment we met."
Shocked, Marissa drew back so that she could more easily see his expression. His mouth offered her that crooked smile again, as if he knew some secret about her. And so he did. "You have never even asked me to dance."
"Would you have said yes?"
No. She knew she would have found an excuse not to dance with him, and a sharp stab of guilt left her angry. "Are you saying you were too cowardly to ask, for fear I might say no?"
"On the contrary. I was brave enough not to interfere with your clear affection for graceful young boys."
"My..." Marissa stared at him, her lips parted in shock. Surely he couldn't mean that he'd noticed her secret. No, he only meant that she liked to dance with elegant gentlemen.
