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"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.
Chapter 16
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.
