But this evening, on stage, she’d seen something else in his eyes.
“Nothing,” she muttered.
“No, I want to know. Do you think of yourself as unattractive?” he asked, tilting her chin up and forcing her to meet his gaze. “Because you’re so very wrong. You’re beautiful, don’t you know that? Didn’t you see the way the gentlemen were staring at you this evening? Every man in the room was struck by your beauty. They all wanted to prostrate themselves at your feet.”
Her breath caught. “All of them?”
“You truly don’t know how stunning you are?”
“I’ve always thought... I was told I was awkward and unpleasing.”
“Whoever told you that was a blind fool. If it was a woman, she was jealous. And if it was a man, he wanted you to feel bad about yourself for some unfathomable reason.”
“It was a woman.”
“Then she was jealous, plain and simple. You have a light shining from you, Mari. It draws everyone’s eyes to you. Your smile is incandescent. When you’re in a room, everything gravitates toward you, haven’t you noticed? The way you were able to charm the children in such short order. The way you charm me. Disarm me.”
He was still kneeling at her feet.
“You’re the most beautiful woman here.”
She smiled. “I’m the only woman here.”
“I meant here.” He brushed the air as if he held a paintbrush. “In England. On this earth.”
That was taking things too far. “You know that’s not true,” she said.
“I know nothing of the sort.” He rose, staggering slightly on his bad knee but quickly righting himself. He held out his hand. “Come, have a look in the glass.”
She put her hand in his, mesmerized by the tender light in his eyes. The counterpane slid to the floor as he led her to the tall oval glass in the corner and tilted it forward, toward the lamp.
He stood behind her. “You have golden freckles, more interesting than flawless skin. Lively blue eyes like a sky turning to night. A small straight nose, the slightest bit stern and uncompromising, but the luscious curve of this upper lip, the extravagant swoop.”
He touched each place he mentioned, ending with his thumb in the indentation of her upper lip.
She rested her head back against his chest.
“A slender, elegant throat.” His hand closed around her throat. She shivered, feeling the immense power he wielded over her.
“A frame that combines delicacy and strength.” Both of his hands on her shoulders now, kneading away the tension.
His hands slid down her arms, clasped her hands. “Capable hands, doing hands, hands that teach, and soothe hurt away, and calm terrors.”
The rough texture of his fingers reminded her that he had capable hands as well. That despite his privileged status as a duke, he built steam engines... shaping his dreams into existence.
He rested his chin in the crook of her shoulder and brought both of her hands round to her belly.
“Slender waist.” With his hands over hers, he guided her hands over her waist. “Softly flaring hips.”
Her hands, covered by his hands, grasping her hips.
Her hands, his hands, inching slowly up her torso, over her breasts, stopping at her heart’s center. “A heart that beats strong and true and brave. Undaunted by the likes of me.”
Their reflection in the mirror a study in contrasts.
The strong, uncompromising lines of his jaw sharply delineated in the lamplight.
The soft curve of her cheek.