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If she were married, the maid would brush out her hair and leave it loose. She would dress Marissa in layers of scandalously transparent fabric, and then luck her into bed to await her husband. Jude would be the man to join her, and he would slide his big, naked body against hers and let her do whatever she wanted with him.
He'd never tell her no. He'd egg her on and dare her to be naughty. And she would be. With him. For him.
But when her maid tucked her beneath the covers, there was no anticipation in it. The door closed, and the room snapped to darkness, and that was the end of her day. She was alone in her cold bed, with no husband.
What if she married someone else? Would that be less lonely? Perhaps her problem lay only in her age. She should've been married by now. Perhaps her feelings had nothing to do with Jude.
Lying in the dark, Marissa stared at the ceiling above her. It was just another shade of black. There was nothing to see, but Marissa imagined. She imagined that another body lay next to her. A man.
She imagined him as Charles LeMont. Then as
Fitzwilliam Hess. She even imagined Peter White and Mr. Dunwoody.
She wanted to turn toward none of them. In fact, her arms hugged her body at the thought. Charles could not have understood her passion. It would've intimidated him. Even during their bout of innocent groping, he'd been ... surprised. "You should not let me," he'd murmured several times, though he'd shown no interest in controlling his own questing hands. He'd wanted to remind her of her virtue even as he helped tarnish it.
And Peter White had been the same. You should have stopped me.
She knew the type now. Mr. Dunwoody could not have been much different. They wanted women to be delicate creatures who could be persuaded, not beings who yearned and wanted.
Fitzwilliam Hess hadn't minded that, at least, but he would've made an awful husband, all the same. How to turn to a mail in bed when you could not trust a word from his mouth?
But Jude ... Jude she could imagine beneath her covers, the weight of him on the mattress pulling I her closer. If he loved her, Marissa could touch him with impunity. She could ask him anything. Explore everywhere. He would not think less of her. He would think more.
And beyond the bedchamber, he would be her friend. He was clever and kind and so comfortable in his skin. "I know who I am," he'd said more than once. And he had known, at least until she'd asked why a woman would love him. What an awful thing to ask a man who was eminently lovable. She was the unlovable one, the one with the cold
heart and arrogant presumptions and casual dismissals of a good and decent man.
Good and decent, yes. Too good and decent for her. He'd spent time with her in close quarters, and now he was done. She wanted to imagine that he'd grieve when he left. She wanted to pretend he would sail away and miss her and return someday to declare his unrelenting love. But in truth, he'd go to Italy and spend time with beautiful dark-eyed women who looked at him and saw a man and nothing less.
He'd do things with them that he'd never done with Marissa. He'd be lost to her.
Tears dripped into the hair at her temples. She scratched away the tickling feeling and sniffled her self-pity.
She did not want to give him up. She wanted to be his friend and lover. She wanted him to never belong to another. She wanted to hang on his arm and growl at any woman who came near.
Marissa wanted to light for him. If she had to fight Jude himself, then so be it. He'd liked her well enough before. He could learn to like her again.
Heart pounding at her own daring, Marissa slipped from her bed and stole to her chamber door. Though it felt like midnight, it wasn't yet ten, and she stayed at her door for a long minute, listening for her family. The hallway seemed bright as day when she finally snuck out, and the stairway a mile across as she hurried toward the south wing of rooms.
She didn't know why she was so nervous. If she ran into one of her brothers, she'd simply raise her chin and inform him she was trying to save her betrothal. If she came across her mother, the woman would be giddy with the shock of scandal and lust. Harry would say nothing to stop her, and Aunt Ophelia would likely squint and order a cup of hot milk from the strange maid sneaking about.
All in all, this was an excellent family to have if one wished to engage in secret trysts.
Marissa reached Jude's door undetected and felt almost let down by the quietness of it all. But before she had a chance to breathe a sigh of relief, she realized she was about to meet her most formidable obstacle. Jude had been impervious to her feelings earlier. And unlike the men of Marissa's family, Jude seemed to grow cool with anger, not hot.
She could understand yelling and fist banging and slamming doors. But Jude's cold stare made her want to cower. She wondered if he'd learned it from the duke.
She wondered if she was stalling again.
Forcing herself to be brave, Marissa raised her hand. For a split second, she considered not knocking at all. Knocking would give him the chance to say no and send her away. But barging in would be worse than rude. It would be cowardly.
Marissa set her shoulders and knocked.
"Yes?" Jude responded immediately, his voice clipped and distant.
Before her bravery could run dry, Marissa turned the knob and opened the door.
Jude sat at the writing desk, a pen in hand, neck bowed as he scratched some last line. A forbidding frown drew his brows low, and the scowl stayed in place when he glanced up.
