He didn't even look in her direction.
"I'm sorry if I wounded your feelings yesterday. It’s just that... I don't understand."
"You made that clear." "What?"
"That you don't understand Patience’s attraction to me."
Patience. Oh, God, the sound of that name on his lips stung like sparks had landed on her skin.
"It's not just her. I've seen the way other women look at you. They look at you like... like you are the catch of the Season. Rich and titled and ..."
"Handsome?" Bitterness burned in that one word.
Yes, she thought. They look at you like you are handsome, and you are not. But that was a truth she could not lay between them, despite that he'd already spoken it once. You think I'm ugly, he'd said. Her throat thickened with sorrow.
"You leave me so confused," she whispered.
He finally turned his eyes on her. She'd expected fire, but they were still ice cold. "I'll not list my worth to you, as if I were begging your approval. I offered you my name because I liked you, and I hoped to inspire the same admiration in you."
"I do like you! I've told you that."
"And yet you agonize over what other women might see in me. Do you really want to know?"
"I ... I see that you are a good man, Jude. I do understand that."
"That is not what they want from me," he growled. "They do not want my heart, sweet Marissa, they want the man. They want my body. They want the things I can do for them and the way I can make them feel. I'm big and base-born, and they know that my mother was a whore, and they understand that I will be an animal in their beds." He paused, as if challenging her to respond.
Marissa felt her mouth open. She told herself she should speak, but what words could she possibly offer him?
"I have had that sort of admiration for a long while. I understand it perfectly, whether you do or not. And it never bothered me. Never. Not until I realized that I wanted more than that from you. But that's all you see in me too, isn't it? A big, ugly brute who can please you in private, but should hardly be acknowledged otherwise?"
"No!" she gasped. "That's not true!"
"It is true, but I can understand if you don't want to admit your own shallowness to yourself."
The sharp breath she drew hurt as it entered her lungs, as if it were so cold that it froze her very blood. "But I told you ... I said you were my friend."
He jerked his hand aside as if he were flicking her words away.
"Jude, please. I know I said something awful yesterday, but it was only because I was ... I was hurt."
Now that he was so focused on her, Marissa half wished he would turn away again. Because even though he'd always seen things in her that others did not, he'd liked those things. He'd teased her and praised her and wanted to know more. But now she saw scorn in his eyes. And pain.
"Perhaps tomorrow," he said, "I will beg the same excuse for saying awful things. But tonight I wish to be left in peace."
Marissa held her tears back by sheer force of will. "I did not ask for any of this. I did not ask you to want me at all, much less offer to be my husband. You have no light to hold my feelings up and judge them. What you want or don't want from me is your burden, not mine."
For a moment, something broke through the ice of his gaze, something so raw that Marissa looked instinctively away, down to her clenched and shaking hands.
"You're right, of course," he murmured. "I apologize for trying to place on your back a burden you did not choose. How selfish of me."
His words did not relieve her pain. Instead, they drove it deeper, until the hurt pierced something hidden deep inside her.
She'd never been one for excessive introspection, but she did understand some things about herself. She'd never been quite the same as other ladies her own age. She didn't feel things as deeply as they seemed to feel. She'd claimed herself in love with Charles at some point, but in truth, it had only been attraction. And attraction was something she'd felt for many.
Likewise, she hadn't been stung too often by the words or opinions of others. But she could no longer deny the capacity to feel emotions as deep and true as anyone else, because Jude's pain had cut through her, and now the ache spread like a pool of blood through her chest.
Why? Because he truly was her friend? Or was it something more?