Page 9 of Loving Mister Stratford
“You dance beautifully,” Odette couldn’t help but extend the compliment as he expertly guided her around a turn.
He inclined his head in thanks.“I usually detest the spectacle.”
“You’re remarkably talented for disliking it.”
“My fencing practice must be put to good use,” he replied nonchalantly.“Similar muscles.”
Odette silently agreed, feeling the smooth, powerful movements of his lean body beneath her fingers; his impeccable posture as he guided her across the floor. She was still lost in her silent admiration when next he spoke.
“I should like to call on you if you’ll allow me to.” The words were said so suddenly and with so little emotion that Odette wasn’t sure she heard the words correctly. She met his blue-green eyes and the sincerity she witnessed caused her to momentarily lose her footing. Thankfully, he easily recovered from her slip-up and disguised it as the skillful partner he was.
Though her mouth opened and closed a few times, she couldn’t speak; no man had ever asked her such a thing before in the several years since her debut; no man had been interested—either finding her face or her personality lacking or believing her to be wholly unsuitable because of the accident of her birth. She couldn’t blame them entirely. Despite her mother’s best efforts, Odette could be polished and dressed to perfection, but she would always be the illegitimate daughter of an actress.
A niggling part of her wondered if this could possibly be some cruel joke, but meeting Mr. Stratford’s eyes put all of that to rest.
His remarkable eyes were truth personified.
This was a man to whom artifice held no attraction.
She hardly knew him—had only met him on two occasions—but she trusted him. She could only describe it as a warm, comfortable feeling filling her gut each time their eyes met.
Though his beautiful face remained impassive, something was lurking behind his eyes, some vulnerability that she saw there and it made her quickly nod her head in mute agreement, a heated blush covering her face like a veil. His gloved fingers tightened very slightly on hers and they continued into the next turn of the steps.
Before she knew it, the dance was completed and Mr. Stratford deposited her back with her mother. Even though he retreated for the remainder of the evening and her dance card was soon filled with names of other men curious to discover why she (of all the other young women in attendance) had gotten the attention of the Prince Regent, and they were seated far apart at dinner due to the order of precedence, Odette swore she could feel Mr. Stratford’s eyes upon her through it all.
In the wee hours of the following morning when she lay awake in bed after they finally returned home, she recalled the highlight of her evening not as her dance with the Prince Regent, but hiding behind a column and a potted plant with a slightly odd, but still impossibly charming, Mr. Stratford.
Chapter Three
The next few weeks felt to Odette to be either a dream or some vicious prank.
In between his work, Mr. Stratford frequently came to call upon her at the West End flat she shared with her mother, though she couldn’t have begun to guess how he’d learned of the address. Surely incomprehensible resources were available to those with the money to access them.
Although he maintained his reserved nature throughout, Odette managed to coax a smile or two from his handsome lips, confirming her suspicions that the gesture would brighten up his entire face. His eyes would crinkle charmingly and his normally staid expression became almost boyish in comparison to his usual air of almost aloofness.
As she came to know him better, however, she learned he was not aloof; rather, he was infinitely thoughtful and perceptive. He examined everything, weighed each of his words, and seemed to watch her with a keenness that made her skin tingle. He made her feel interesting; he made her feel heard.
Of course, she also came to learn that his manners were imperfect, though Odette knew it was not from lack of breeding or education. He seemed to miss some cues and she quickly recognized this was not done out of mal-intent or disrespect.
Once, when he accompanied her and her mother out to shop one afternoon, he failed to offer her his arm. The gesture wasn’t unnoticed by her mother, who raised a brow. Not wanting her mother to think ill of him, Odette gently asked Mr. Stratford if he might kindly assist her. He all but jumped at her soft nudge back to social propriety and they resumed their excursion without further incident. He was obviously willing to adjust his manners and, indeed, seemed towantto dote, but simply wasn’t all that certainhow.
She made occasional inquiries into his work, but, rather than open up to her about it, he seemed to withdraw into himself—almost as if he was afraid to speak too much about his interests. He glossed over it, simply stating it involved mathematics one time, and answering that it built upon some of the work developing in France another. Were she less perceptive, then Odette might have feared he believed her too dim to understand; instead, she recognized his hesitancy was born from a life of being told he was boring or uninteresting.
How amusing she found it that Mr. Stratford believedhewas the uninteresting one!
His visits gradually increased in length and frequency as he seemed to take pleasure in her company. To her delight, his touch would sometimes linger upon her arm and his eyes would follow her intently. No other man had ever looked at Odette in such a way and it thrilled her, but it also made her feel uneasy—as if this was not reality.
Had he been a more socially cunning or contrived man, she might have been inclined to believe that it was all a joke (“let’s seduce the awkward daughter of the scandalous actress”), but she didn’t sense a conniving, cruel bone in his entire body. She quite sensed that this was the last sort of prank he would play upon her or anyone else.
After four weeks of his visits and obligatory tokens of flowers and even a couple of books of poetry by some of her favorite authors (she had noticed early on that he was a careful listener and she had only to mention something once for him to pick up on it), her mother began to comment on Mr. Stratford’s earnest interest.
“You know, my dear,” her mother said one evening as she reclined post-performance in embroidered silken robes, sipping from a glass of claret;“this Mr. Stratford is quite taken with you. Perhaps more than you’re even aware.”
Odette flushed and looked down to her fingers where she picked at a loose thread on her skirt.
“And I can tell you’re a bit smitten as well,” her mother continued smugly.
“I thought you said I could do better than a second son of an earl,” Odette said more icily than she’d intended. Somehow, along the way, she’d grown protective of Mr. Stratford. There was an innocence about him she wanted to shelter and nurture, like a dog who had been weaned on neglect and subsisted on a diet of scraps. He didn’t always know how to behave or react when shown attention, but he always accepted it with tentative grace.
