“What is the lesson?”
“Keeping a gentleman’s interest,” he said, without preamble. “That will be the first lesson of the day.”
Ah, yes. Maria thought that she could find that quite useful, though she would not admit it out loud to him.
“You are not required to win his soul. Only to keep his attention long enough to decide if you want it.”
“Shouldn’t I pick him first?”
“You cannot pick every man who shows interest in you,” he replied, seeming offended. “You must have standards of your own, as well.”
As pathetic as that sounded, it was an unknown concept to Maria. She had only known the desperation of wanting to get married. In such a state, it becomes hard to have preferences of one's own.
“That sounds rather complex.”
“That sounds practical,” he corrected and gestured to the long table. “Sit.”
She crossed to the table and sat. When she glanced up, he was watching with an expression that made her feel both examined and protected.
“First principle,” he said, stepping closer, “a man notices a woman’s appearance before anything she says.”
Her stomach tensed. Here it came, the thing she dreaded hearing every time anyone spoke of how a woman looks. She braced for it.
Curvy. Too much.
She was used to being scrutinized like this. As soon as she had stepped into society, she had heard whispers about the plumpness of her figure from ladies of the ton. Even in the nunnery, she had been teased about her appearance endlessly.
So it would come as no surprise if Stephen were to do the same.
“Blue,” he said thoughtfully. “And red.”
She blinked, surprised that he had made no mention of her figure. Rather, he was here discussing… colors?
“I beg your pardon?”
“Wear blue when you want quiet men to listen,” he went on. “The right blue. Wear red when you want the room to choose you without understanding why.”
“That is all you notice?”
“For the first ten heartbeats,” he said. He considered her head. “And hair. Not because I care how many pins it requires, only because a severe line across a kind face is an offense to good judgment.”
Her hand flew up to defend her coiffure.
“It is not severe.”
“It is dutiful,” he said. “And duty is admirable at breakfast, but a tiresome chaperone at midnight. May I?”
She hesitated but then nodded.
He came near, and the room shifted around him. He lifted his hands not quite to her hair and paused again, inviting refusal.She did not refuse. Two fingers found the hair just above her temple and coaxed loose a curl, then another on the other side.
Her pulse tripped at the contact.
Stephen leaned back a little to study the effect, then let the smallest smile appear. “Much better.”
She scowled to cover the flutter in her chest.
“I’m glad that you think so,” she said, or stuttered perhaps. That would be the right way to describe it.