Marissa hesitated, irritated with herself for giving so much away. “What makes you think it was?” she hedged.
“You said that on your eleventh birthday your grandmother went to a great deal of effort to make up for your tenth birthday. Why?”
Marissa sipped her wine to gain time, but he was still waiting when she’d finished, so she told him. “I had asked my friends to come to my party. There was going to be a cake and games. But my parents forgot—something else had come up to claim their attention—and when my friends arrived nothing was prepared, nothing was ready. It was…embarrassing, mainly. Painful. I pretended it didn’t matter, but I could see they felt sorry for me, and that was horrible.”
He said nothing and she was grateful he didn’t offer meaningless platitudes. The memory was still an uncomfortable one, like a stone in one’s shoe. She couldn’t believe she’d mentioned it at all—she never did normally—and decided it must be her anxiety in his presence that had caused her to say far more about herself than she’d meant to.
“On my own tenth birthday,” he began, sipping his wine and gazing across the room as though he was seeing into the past, “my mother had just died.”
Marissa felt an ache in her heart for the little boy he must have been, but she did not think he would want gushing sympathy any more than she did. “Was she ill for a long time?”
“She was always ill.” He grimaced. “That sounds callous, but it is true. I’m afraid that, although I missed the fact I no longer had someone I could call mother, I rarely grieved for her. She wasn’t involved in my upbringing in any way, and apart from an occasional visit to her boudoir, always dim and smelling of eau de cologne, I was kept from her. I was told my boisterous ways made her head ache.”
“And then she died.”
“Yes. I used to overhear the servants whispering that it was George who finished her off—she died soon after his birth—but I didn’t blame him.”
“Was your father often away?”
“While Bony was locked up on Elba, he had more time to be with us, but then Bony escaped and there was the showdown at Waterloo, and afterward he was dead, too. George and I were alone, apart from a collection of elderly aunts to fuss over us. I was glad when I was old enough to take over my own affairs, and George.”
“Yes, I can see you would be. But it is different for a man. He is expected to be independent. Whereas women are to be cosseted and cared for, and any decisions about their lives are made for them by their parents or the menfolk in their lives. At least, that seems to be the belief held by a large part of our society.”
“But not by you?”
“Definitely not by me.”
His mouth curled up in a mocking smile, the sort of male smile Marissa found particularly annoying. “You know there is a good reason for that belief,” he said. “Women are unworldly and they need men to guide them through the pitfalls that await them beyond their front doors.”
“What rot—”
“Look at your own behavior, Marissa. Do you know how dangerous it is? There are bad men out there who would hurt you without a moment’s thought and believe your behavior gave them the right to do so.”
He was sounding so prim and proper, she wanted to scream. Or laugh in his face. But she schooled her expression into one of polite interest.
“I
am only telling you this for your own good,” he finished, a little clumsily, and sat back in his chair as though he’d just performed an unpleasant but necessary task.
He was treating her like a silly child and she’d had enough of it. Marissa knew her own mind; she had done for years. And even if she didn’t she wouldn’t ask someone else to tell her what to do. If he wished to play the man of the world to her innocent then he deserved to be taught a lesson.
“Actually, Valentine,” Marissa said, picking up her wineglass and taking another sip, “that is the very thing I was intending to speak to you about.”
“Oh?” His eyes narrowed. “Bad men?”
“About how to conduct myself safely in the sort of situation I happened to find myself in today. I mean, if it wasn’t you I was with, if it was someone else. For instance…Baron Von Hautt.”
“What has Von Hautt got to do with it?” he said sharply, his brows lowering.
“Well…he did say I was beautiful.”
He seemed to be speechless, but not for long. “He said what!”
“Today, when I saw him outside the church. He said I was beautiful, and then he said he wouldn’t hurt me. Not yet. You can see why I might consider that some sort of threat to my person. What if he captured me somehow and carried me deep into the woods and threw me down onto a soft bank of grass, and then undressed me and himself and—”
“Marissa, stop, please.” Valentine set down his glass with a thud and stared at her, while she gave him one of her wide-eyed innocent looks. “I will not let Von Hautt do anything of the sort to you, you can be certain of that.”
“That is all very well, Valentine, but what if you’re not around to protect me?”