Amazingly, despite the drama awaiting her below-stairs, Marissa laughed and teased as she dressed. Jude kissed her and promised to meet her at her room so that she needn't enter Edward's study alone. Fifteen minutes later, Marissa was presented before the exhausted eyes of her family. She only just managed to look somber in the face of their shock.
Chapter 24
Caught in the snare of the silent room, Jude realized that from the start, this had been the inevitable outcome: Marissa perched on a chair before her brother's desk; Jude standing behind her, struggling to look regretful; both of them still weak with the intensity of their lovemaking.
Her maid had put some effort into making her presentable, but Marissa's mouth was swollen and pink, and there were at least two distinctively reddened patches on her that weren't quite covered by the high collar of her gown.
Jude hoped he looked almost normal. He'd combed his hair, but it was still wet from the grooming, and there'd been nothing to do for the stubble on his jaw that made him look a rakish debaucher.
Marissa cleared her throat. "So ..."
"I take full responsibility for everything that happened," Jude interrupted.
Marissa looked over her shoulder and raised an eyebrow. "Oh, do you? Funny, if it had been up to you, you'd be halfway to Italy by now. Alone."
Jude aimed a quelling look at her, but she'd already turned around, so it did no good. "I'm a guest in this house," Jude continued. "And I apologize for abusing your hospitality so ..."
"Strenuously?" Marissa ventured. "Oh, for god's sake!" Edward shouted, banging the flat of his hand against the desk. "Marissa Anne York, you are behaving outrageously!"
She shrugged. "I suppose. But we are engaged, so I'm not sure what all the fuss is—"
"The fuss," Edward ground out, "Is that this gentleman—"
The word carried enough scorn that Jude felt his shoulders tense in defense.
"—promised not to dishonor you further, regardless of the status of your betrothal. Which, by the way, I understood that neither of you intended to carry through."
Jude swallowed his anger and bowed his head in acknowledgement. "I can't deny that I broke my word."
"I suppose I shouldn't be surprised, considering," Edward growled.
Clenching his jaw, Jude shot a look toward Aidan, but his friend watched him with a steely eye and offered no sign of sympathy. "I assume you refer to the details of my birth?"
"You made a promise," Aidan snapped Jude squeezed the back of the chair until his hand went numb. This was what he'd always known and never admitted. That one misstep would see respectable friends turn against him. "And what has that to do with my circumstances? A well-born man has never been a fool for the sake of love? Neither of you has ever broken a promise over a woman?"
Oh, Aidan lost his steely-eyed look then. Sharp, jagged fury transformed his face into an animal's.
Jude faced him and stood his ground. "Do not throw my birth at me, then pretend outrage in the face of the truth. You are no better than I, damn it. Not at all."
A moment hung between them, a moment where Aidan might say something unforgivable. At the very least, Jude expected they would conic to blows. But in the end, Marissa stood and rounded her chair to stand next to Jude. She put her arm through this.
"You two men were forgiving enough of my dishonor, and I daresay I have an impeccable bloodline. And my fall was seen to by a gentleman of the ton, I might add." She cocked her head. "Actually, all of the men in my past have been pureblooded gentlemen, ha
ve they not? So Jude is absolutely right. This has nothing to do with his birth, and it dishonors you both to bring it up."
Aidan's face did not relax. His fists remained clenched. Marissa didn't seem intimidated. "Jude was gentleman enough to take your sister off your hands when it was convenient," she said. "Your hypocrisy boggles the mind."
The scene hadn't changed. Jude still stood before two rightfully enraged brothers, but the tension cased from his chest, replaced by a suspiciously maudlin warmth. Her words sounded sincere. She didn't regret loving him. She didn't regret his birth.
Jude tried very hard to maintain a serious expression. "Marissa has agreed to marry me in truth."
"Oh, my word, no!" her mother shouted.
"Mother," Marissa gasped, but Jude could see that the baroness was not the problem.
Edward was the man of the house, and he looked only marginally less furious than he had moments before. "I don't understand, Marissa. You've made your feelings clear from the start. You cared nothing for him."
"I was a fool. Such a fool that even Jude did not believe me. However, I did my best to convince him, and eventually he ... succumbed."