Page 5 of The Matrimonial Advertisement

Granted, he knew nothing of women’s fashion—aside from the fact that the hooks, laces, and miles of skirts were dashed inconvenient when one was in an amorous frame of mind. But one didn’t have to know the difference between a petticoat and a paletot to recognize that everything Miss Reynolds wore was of the finest quality. Even the tiny buttons on her bodice and the fashionable belt and buckle that encircled her waist appeared to have been crafted by a master.

Next to her, the suit of clothes he’d chosen to wear that morning to meet his intended bride felt rather shabby and third rate. Far worse, he was beginning to feel a little shabby and third rate himself.

“You’ll forgive the deception,” he said. “As you can see, I’m not the sort of man a woman would wish to find at the other end of a matrimonial advertisement.”

“Aren’t you?” She tilted her head. The small movement brought her hair in the path of a shaft of sunlight filtering in through the parlor window. It glittered for an instant in her fashionable coiffure, revealing threads of red and gold among the brown. “Why do you say so? Is it because of your burns?”

He was hard-pressed to conceal a flinch. Damn, but she was blunt. He wouldn’t have expected such plain speaking from a decorative little female. “You can’t claim the sight doesn’t offend you. I saw your reaction in the taproom.”

Her brows drew together in an elegant line. “I had no reaction, sir.”

“No?”

“I was, perhaps, a little surprised. But not because of your burns.” Her cheeks flushed a delicate shade of rose. “You are…very tall.”

His chest tightened. He was uncertain what to make of her blushes—or of her personal remark. She was such a finely made little creature. He wondered if she thought him too big. Good God, he was too big. And too rough, too coarse, and too common and a host of other negative traits, the distastefulness of which he had not fully appreciated until being in her presence.

“You were expecting someone shorter?”

“No, I…I didn’t know what to expect. How could I have? You never mentioned anything of that sort in your letters.”

Justin recalled the polite and wholly impersonal letters he’d written to her over the past months. He’d described Greyfriar’s Abbey, the seasons and the weather and the sound of the waves hitting the rocks beneath the cliffs. He’d mentioned the repairs to the roof, the new outbuildings, and the persistent trouble with keeping servants.

His own appearance hadn’t merited a single line.

“Would you still have come, had you known?” he asked.

“About your burns, do you mean?” She didn’t hesitate. “Yes, I think so. But there’s no way to prove it now, is there? You shall have to take my word for it.”

He allowed his gaze to drift over her face, taking in every feature, from the dark mahogany brows winging over her wide-set eyes, to the gentle curve of her cheekbones, and down to the impossibly sensual bow of her upper lip. It was not the face of a woman who had to answer a matrimonial advertisement in order to find a husband.

Take her word for it? “I suppose I must,” he said.

“Did it happen while you were in India?”

He nodded once. “During the uprising.”

“I didn’t like to assume.” She paused. “I know something of soldiers from my brother. He often wrote to me about the exploits of his regiment and the hardships of friends who’d been injured in battle. He was a soldier himself, you see.”

“Was he, indeed?” Justin regarded her with a thoughtful expression. “I understood that you had no family.”

“I don’t. Not any longer. My brother was lost last year at the siege of Jhansi.” Her bosom rose and fell on an unsteady breath. He noticed for the first time that she was trembling. “Is that where you were hurt, Mr. Thornhill?”

It wasn’t a subject he enjoyed discussing, but there was no point in dissembling. She would find out soon enough. “No, at Cawnpore in ’57.”

Something flickered briefly in the velvet depths of her eyes. Everyone in England knew what had happened in Cawnpore during the uprising, but as the sister of a soldier, she’d have a better understanding than most.

“Were you serving under Major General Sir Hugh Wheeler?” she asked very quietly. “Or did you arrive later, with Brigadier General Neill?”

“The former.” His mouth curved into a mocking half smile. “You may rest easy, Miss Reynolds. I had no part in the raping and pillaging engaged in by the relieving forces. I was safely tucked away in an enemy prison at the time, being flayed alive by rebel sepoys.” She blanched, but he didn’t spare her. “The burns and scars you see here are nothing. The ones beneath my clothing are much, much worse, I assure you.”

“I am very sorry for it.”

“Are you?” He felt an unreasonable surge of anger toward her. “You may not feel quite so much Christian charity toward my scarred body when it’s covering you in our marriage bed.”

From his place across the room, Boothroyd emitted a strangled groan.

Justin ignored him. His attention was fixed on the scalding blush that swept from the slender column of Miss Reynold’s porcelain throat all the way up to her hairline. Doubtless he’d shocked her virginal soul to its very core. He wouldn’t have been surprised if she leapt up and slapped his face. He certainly deserved it.