Always a Rogue, Forever Her Love (13 page)

He bit back a curse and reached for his coffee. He peered into his glass with a frown. Empty. Jonathan sighed and set it back down. “It is not enough that I’ve found us Miss Marsh?” He drummed his fingers upon the mahogany surface of the table.

“It is certainly not.” Mother placed her folded hands in front of her. “Miss Marsh will not secure the Sinclair line.”

Except with those eight words uttered all manner of wicked thoughts paraded through his mind; wicked thoughts that involved
Miss Marsh
upon his bed and her sweet thighs spread wide in invitation as she secured the Sinclair line.

His mother continued, fortunately unaware of his desirous thoughts involving the delectable Juliet. “I understand you courted the Duke of Somerset’s niece, but the young lady is now married. Her cousin would make you an excellent match.”

He snorted. Her cousin? As in the Lady Beatrice Dennington. With her golden ringlets and soft-spoken, well-modulated tone she could not be more different than the vibrant, spirited Juliet Marshville. No, Lady Beatrice could not hold a candle to Juliet’s effervescent glow.

“Do not make that face, Jonathan.”

“And what face is that, Mother?” he drawled.

She motioned toward him. “The one that suggests you find Lady Beatrice dull.”

He spread his hands before him. “It would be ungentlemanly for me to say such a thing about a lady.”

She smiled with motherly approval.

“Which is why I rather appreciate your saying it for me,” he finished, motioning a servant over.

The footman rushed forward to provide Jonathan a fresh,
warm
glass of coffee.

Mother tossed her arms up despairingly. “Then the Lady Diana Shorington. She is a diamond of the first water.”

Ah, yes, but what living, breathing man would desire a mere diamond when he could have a crimson ruby?

“You must at least promise to begin taking your responsibilities as earl seriously.”

“Don’t I always, Mother?”

“No, you don’t,” she said bluntly.

Jonathan blew on his steaming coffee. “You wound me, Mother. I did find Miss Marsh.” It was only a mere technicality that he’d in a way, won her at a game of cards. He took a sip.

She sighed. “You did find, Miss Marsh, I suppose,” she granted.

Which proved the perfect reprieve. He took a final sip, wincing as it scalded a path down his throat. “If you’ll excuse me, Mother? Patrina?”

“Where are you off to?” they called after him.

“I merely want to see how my three sisters are getting on with their lessons.”

More specifically, he cared to see Juliet. He grinned in anticipation of seeing the young lady who’d captivated him since…hell since she’d climbed up into his carriage, nothing more than a stranger.

Jonathan made his way through the house, toward the Ivory Parlor his sisters took their lessons in. His footsteps beat a quiet path along the thin red carpet lining the corridors. He studied that red carpet, never having appreciated just how dull the shade was…until Juliet. The young woman could set a room ablaze with her courage and crimson beauty.

He slowed to a halt as he reached the closed door, and turned his head sideways against the wood panel. Not that he was eavesdropping per se, but rather…

Oh, hell, he was eavesdropping.

He listened close for Juliet’s tears, prepared to storm the room and give his sisters a dressing down for their unruly behavior. By God, they would not drive her from this house. If they did, they’d not set foot in another shop, he’d swear it upon the title Sinclair. The door muffled what sounded much like a giggle. Or was it a whimper? Another giggle-whimper.

Jonathan listened closer.

Poppy peeked over Penelope’s shoulder. “That is horrid.”

Penelope frowned and studied the page in front of her. “It is not.” She growled. Then with a “humph” she tore the page out, crinkled it into a neat little ball, and tossed it to the floor.

Amidst an ever growing pile.

Juliet stared at the mound for a moment with pained regret. She’d assured Jonathan they had enough supplies, but that had been before Penelope had made her way through most of one of Juliet’s sketchpads. “It is not horrid, Lady Penelope,” Juliet assured her.

“Aren’t you supposed to instruct us on how to sketch?” Prudence called out from her spot beside Poppy on the ivory sofa.

Juliet walked over to the seat, trailing her fingertips along the richly upholstered furniture. “Is that what you would like, Prudence? Would you like me to tell you what to sketch?”

“Well, isn’t that your role?” Prudence tossed back. “Isn’t that what governesses do? Instruct young ladies on what is expected of them?”

Instruct young ladies on what is expected of them. Yes, Juliet suspected their well-ordered world had very specific expectations of a young lady. What to paint…how to dress…how to laugh, even. Juliet leaned down and said softly, close to the girl’s ears. “But where is the fun in that?” The one joy she’d found in life had come at the freedom Papa had given her to express upon the blank pages of numerous sketchpads.

“If you’re a proficient artist, Miss Marsh, then why’ve we not seen your work?” Penelope said with a heavy dose of skepticism.

Juliet’s lips twitched. “Would you like me to provide samples of my work?”

The three girls exchanged a look. Prudence nodded for them.

Juliet slid into the vacant King Louis XIV chair and reached for a sketchpad. She shuffled through the pages until she came upon a blank sheet. She sat there in silence for a long while running her charcoal across the sheet. “You see girls, I can tell you what to sketch or paint,” she murmured as her fingers danced upon the page. “I can tell you that ladies sketch floral arrangements.” Her fingers stilled, and she glanced up at the trio of enrapt stares. “Floral arrangements that a lady is, of course, expected to arrange.” She resumed her work, adding lines to the page. “I can demand you sketch that which I demand you sketch, but what would that serve to accomplish?” Juliet paused a moment to study the page with a critical eye. “You’ll despise me for stifling your ability to creatively express yourself, and more, you’ll detest art. You won’t see the beauty in it.” She added a line. “You won’t see the freedom in it.” She shifted the book on her lap and rubbed the charcoal back and forth. “You see, I far prefer these young ladies,” she turned the page out for the girls to examine.

Prudence, Penelope, and Poppy all wordlessly leaned forward in their seats to examine the animated girls captured upon the page. Wide, unabashed smiles wreathed their cheeks, merriment danced in their eyes.

“Bloody hell, you’re marvelous, Miss Marsh.” Poppy breathed.

“Language, Poppy,” Juliet reminded her gently. “You see, I prefer these girls,” She tapped the page. “To these,” she turned to a sketch she’d completed last evening, an imaginary moment with the three seated, stone-faced, stoic, and expressionless upon the same upholstered sofa they now rested on. “Do you understand what I’m saying?” Because they needed to understand. If she left today, and they learned nothing else from her, not to sing, or play pianoforte, or dance, they should know to never, ever lose a joy and love for life.

Penelope scratched at her head. “You prefer us mischievous?”

Juliet laughed. “I prefer you lively.”

“Mother says gentleman do not prefer a lively lady,” Prudence said, and by the way she hovered at the edge of her seat, Juliet suspected her next words would matter very much to the girl.

She held Prudence’s gaze. “Then I imagine such a gentleman would not be worth wedding.”

Prudence smiled, the first real smile, sincere and innocent, devoid of all suspicion and ill will.

Poppy tossed a hand over her brow, and the moment was shattered. Prudence’s lips fell into their familiar, hard line. “We shall never find a husband. Mother says if we do not conduct ourselves in a manner like Lady Beatrice Dennington then we’ll remain forever spinsters.”

“We’ll
become
forever spinsters. Become. Not remain,” Penelope groused from under her breath.

Juliet furrowed her brow. “Lady Beatrice Dennington?”

Penelope and Poppy shared a look. Poppy broke the silence. “Sin’s intended.”

The bottom fell from Juliet’s stomach and she unwittingly gripped the edges of her page so tight, they wrinkled in her hand. Oh God, there was a woman who would be Jonathan’s wife. She supposed with her oft-used logic and reason she should have considered there would come a day when the roguish, charming Jonathan Tidemore, Earl of Sinclair wed…wed a woman of elegance and grace and sophistication. But she’d not considered the day he’d set his marital cap upon a deserving young lady.

It didn’t matter. It couldn’t. It shouldn’t. She told herself all of that, and mentally lashed herself with the truth of the girls’ words, to no avail. Her heart twisted.

Penelope and Poppy carried on, seeming unaware that they’d somehow, in a way Juliet could not understand, tossed her world off-kilter. Penelope nudged her elbow into her sister’s side. “She is not his intended.”

Juliet’s eyes slid closed a moment and a giddy sensation filled her chest, a sensation that felt remarkably like relief. When she opened her eyes, she found Prudence studying her with a knowing glint in her hazel eyes.

“Not yet,” Prudence directed those two words and her pointed stare at Juliet. “But Mother says it is but a matter of time before they wed.”

“Before who weds?”

The four ladies emitted like shrieks and their heads turned.

Jonathan
.

Chapter 10

Jonathan had stumbled into something, that much was clear by his sisters’ guiltily, averted eyes, and the manner in which Juliet refused to meet his stare. He scowled. What was this? His Juliet was as bold as brass and wholly unrepentant. She was not this…this… Her chin ticked up a notch, and she met his stare. He grinned.
Ahh, there you are sweet, Juliet.

“Er, we were discussing our future husbands,” Penelope said at last.

Jonathan strolled into the room. He paused beside the arm of Poppy’s chair and tugged at a loose black curl. “Is that right, Poppy?”

“Er, yes, absolutely,” she said entirely too quickly.

He wandered over to the vacant seat beside Juliet and sank into it. He stretched his legs out in front of him, and hooked them at the ankles. “Well then, let’s hear of this gentleman. What have we decided?” Because he’d already decided he couldn’t hope to find one worthwhile gentleman, let alone four worthwhile gentlemen for his sisters. He shuddered at the prospect of them each making their Come Out. Patrina was quite enough for now.

“Miss Marsh believes we should be mischievous,” Poppy supplied.

He quirked an eyebrow in Juliet’s direction. Now, that certainly didn’t sound of the Miss Juliet Marshville he’d come to know. “Is that true, Miss Marshville?”

“Miss Marsh,” Penelope corrected.

He blinked. “Beg pardon.”

“You called Miss Marsh, Miss Marshville. Her name is Miss Marsh,” Penelope explained.

Christ.

Juliet blushed furiously.

He cleared his throat. “My apology, Miss
Marsh
. So, what is this of encouraging—?”

“I’ve not encouraged them to be mischievous. I encouraged them to be lively.”

Jonathan cocked his head. “Aren’t they one in the same?”

“That’s what
I
said,” Penelope muttered.

Juliet shook her head. “They certainly are not.”

He folded his arms across his chest. “Enlighten me then, Miss Marsh.”

Juliet wet her lips in that delicious way that had him longing to toss her over his shoulder like the first Earl of Sinclair surely had done of years past; carry her through the halls of his house, up to his chambers, strip the clothes from her body, and make sweet love to her until she was incapable of using those delectable lips for anything but moaning his name. “Well,” she began. “A gentleman should value honesty and forthrightness. I merely encouraged your sisters to be ladylike but also to be free with their thoughts.”

“Free with their thoughts,” he repeated. A grin pulled at his lips. Which immediately earned him four matching frowns.

“Yes. Their
thoughts
, my lord,” she said slowly as though speaking to a child. “They are the ideas that move freely through a person’s head…”

He swiped his hand across his mouth burying a laugh, and schooled his features. “Carry on.”

Juliet gestured to his sisters. “I explained they should find a gentleman who values and cares for them as they are, and not one who’d shape them into something they’re not.”

“Which would be respectable ladies,” he muttered beneath his breath.

Prudence swatted him on the arm. “Hush, Jonathan.”

Poppy leaned over and plucked a book from Juliet’s grasp. “Oh do give me this. I’ll explain, Miss Marsh,” she said like a seasoned governess. “Here,” she said, and jabbed her finger at a page. He froze, but his sister seemed unaware of his shocked silence. “We are like this. Isn’t that correct, Miss Marsh?”

“It is,” Juliet concurred.