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"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 ima
gine 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.
