Always a Rogue, Forever Her Love (27 page)

Poppy nodded solemnly. “Whether he was deserving or not.”

When had his sisters become these mature, serious-sounding ladies?

“You must find Juliet.” Patrina quietly urged.

Juliet, another woman wronged, deserving of a good, principled man who would love and care for her—something he could never be. Not after the wrongs he’d committed against her. He dragged his hands over his face. “Where could she be?” he whispered to himself.

Penelope shrugged. “We only know that Miss Marsh left and then Patrina came home.”

“I’ve never seen Mother so joyous,” Penelope said.

“But then Miss Marsh was gone by that point,” Poppy added, bringing the matter back to Juliet’s disappearance. “She went off with Lord Drake.”

“Drake?”

He jumped as Patrina touched her fingers to his arm. “Mother trusted he could be discreet. He came to retrieve me. He and Juliet. She,” She caught her lower lip between her teeth, “went off with him, Jonathan. I do not know where they went, but Miss Marshville insisted she would be all right, and…” She began crying once again. “Selfishly, I left her with him.”

He touched his hand to the top of her head. “This is not your fault.” He should have been there, not just for his sister, but also for Juliet who was on her own in this world without anyone’s protection. Pain squeezed his heart. And he’d failed her, too. All exhaustion faded, as energy surged through his body, a determination to find Juliet.

Penelope stepped directly into his path, having clearly interpreted his intentions. “You need food, Jonathan.”

Poppy plugged her nose. “And a bath. You smell horr…er, as though you’ve slept with the horses for the past four days.”

“I need to find her,” he said harshly.

They both nodded. “Yes.”

“But you need food and a bath if you’re to do Miss Marshville any good,” Penelope added.

Jonathan cursed and marched around Penelope.

“Where are you going, Jonathan?” she cried.

“I’m going to have my bath and a meal,” he called over his shoulder. And then he was going to find Juliet. He hurried from the room and nearly bowled Prudence over. She stood poised in the center of the hall. Tears filled her eyes. Jonathan stepped around her, short on patience for the sister who’d slandered Juliet’s name. All of Juliet’s previous charges, her claims that he overindulged his sisters and tolerated ill-behavior flooded to the surface. Never before had the flaws in raising his sisters been more glaring than in this moment, with her gone, and his mind numbed with fear for her.

“Jonathan,” Prudence cried softly and raced after him. She tugged his arm and forced him to stop.

“What is it?” he asked, his tone harsher than he’d ever used with any of his sisters.

Her lower lip trembled. She held her palms up. “I-I’m s-sorry. Not because y-you expect m-me to say as much, but b-because I am. I was deliberately cruel to M-Miss Marsh, and I’m so very sorry.” She buried her face into her hands and wept. Her shoulders shook under the force of her tears.

Jonathan dashed a hand over his face. He’d never been able to bear the sight of his sisters’ suffering. He took Prudence by the arms and forced her to look at him. “I’ve failed you, Pru,” he said quietly. He wasn’t sure where or when. Sometime after father had died, and she’d been a sobbing little girl of three with hopelessly big blue eyes.

“No, Jonathan. Penny and P-poppy are correct. I-I’m horrid. Miss Marshville was the most wonderful thing to e-ever h-happen to us, and I just let h-her go, and n-now my life will n-never be the s-same.”

He cradled her to his chest as she wept copious amount of tears over the front of his heavily rumpled coat.
She is the best thing to ever happen to us, and I just let her go.
His eyes slid closed.

Ah, God, truer words were never spoken. Had he truly never told Juliet what she’d come to mean to him? Had he ever bothered to tell her that with her in his life, he smiled more and laughed more?

“F-find her, Jonathan. Y-you m-must,” she begged.

His jaw hardened. “I intend to, Pru.”

A large chunk of bread and a quick bath later, Jonathan found his way to Drake and Emmaline’s townhouse. He pounded on the front door for a third time. He knew it was unfashionably late to pay the family a call.

He pounded harder. But Juliet had been turned out.

He knocked again. And if he didn’t find her, he’d go mad.

The door opened, and the air left him on a swift sigh of relief. He didn’t wait for the butler to grant him admittance, but instead pushed his way inside. “I need to see—”

“You look like hell.”

Jonathan glanced up as Drake strode down the stairs. If he looked like hell now, then his friend should have seen him before the bath and change of attire.

Drake reached the foyer. Jacketless, and with his shirt hanging open, his friend clearly hadn’t been expecting or wanting visitors this evening. However, the somber set to his face indicated he’d been expecting this
particular
visitor.

Jonathan ran a shaking hand through his hair. Drake jerked his chin toward the corridor leading to his office. “I gather you know the reason I’m here,” Jonathan muttered, as they started down the hall.

“I strongly suspect I have the why of it.”

They reached Drake’s office and he motioned him inside. He closed the door behind them.

“Where is she?” Jonathan demanded without preamble. “Poppy and Penelope said you’d escorted Juliet somewhere. Where did—?”

Drake held a hand up. Then wordlessly, he crossed over to the crystal decanters on the table in the far back corner of his office, and poured two glasses of whiskey. He held one out to Jonathan.

“I don’t need a bloody drink.” Except, he took the glass his friend carried over to him.

“She’s Sir Albert Marshville’s sister, Sin. You won her home in a game of cards and then put her to work as your governess.”

Jonathan winced at the damning words spoken by his friend. Put in those harsh, succinct terms, he couldn’t help but be ashamed. “It wasn’t…she approached me…” He went silent. Because with Drake’s tangible disappointment, he realized there were no words to condone his treatment of Juliet.

Drake studied him over the rim of his glass, and cursed. “You made her your mistress, didn’t you?”

“No!” the denial burst from Jonathan’s lungs. “I didn’t make her my mistress,” he said, his voice quiet. He could not admit even to his friend the truth—he had wanted Juliet in his bed. He’d promised her jewels and trinkets. Now, with her gone, and all that remained was the memory of her, he nearly choked on the offer he’d put to her. A woman of Juliet’s honor and integrity would never have been swayed by a desire for material possessions. He gripped his glass hard. “I didn’t make her my mistress,” he repeated.
Because she said no.

Drake set his glass down. “Do you love her?”

Jonathan studied the contents of his glass. He knew his heart ached at the prospect of never seeing her again. He knew if he failed to find her, the light would go out of his life. He knew that with her he smiled more and laughed more and hurt more and…

Liquid splashed over the sides of his glass and he stiffened as Drake removed the tumbler from between his hands.
Oh God help me. I love her. I love her, and she is gone, and I do not know where she is.

Drake didn’t press him for an answer, perhaps because he was Jonathan’s closest friend and as such didn’t need confirmation of his question. Perhaps Drake knew Juliet was entitled to those words, first. “Sit down,” his friend commanded.

Jonathan sank into the nearest seat, a leather sofa.

Drake dragged a nearby King Louis XIV chair over opposite Jonathan. “Your mother summoned me after you set out in search of Patrina.”

He would have felt uneasy if anyone else discovered of Patrina’s actions, but he trusted Drake implicitly.

“Your mother did not believe Marshville intended to elope with your sister.” Unlike Jonathan who’d been so very certain the couple had been off for Gretna Green. “Your mother believed Miss Marshville knew where her brother intended to take your sister.”

“Rosecliff Cottage.” Of course, a sister for a sister, and where else should the exchange take place but at the home Sir Albert had lost in a game of faro to him. His heart thumped loudly in his ears. “She remained with Marshville?” he asked hoarsely.

Drake hesitated a moment, and then gave a brusque nod. “She insisted upon it.”

Of course she would. His intrepid, bold Juliet who’d propositioned him in the seediest streets of London and demanded her precious cottage returned would think nothing of trading herself for Patrina.

Four days. She’d been with that bastard who’d tried to whore her out to cover his gaming debts, for four, nearly five days now. The same dastard who’d tossed her from a tree when she’d been a small child. If Sir Albert Marshville had treated a small girl so vilely, what would he do to the woman who’d thwarted his attempt to use her body as compensation for a lost wager? His gut churned with nausea. “Oh, God,” he whispered. He surged to his feet, and dragged Drake up by his shirtfront. “Where is she? Where are they? How could you?” he raged.

How could I?
He’d offered her a place in his bed, when what she’d truly deserved was an honorable offer as his countess. She should be his wife, even now. A strangled half-sob tore from his throat. As though he’d ever been worthy of her. Jonathan released Drake, and staggered backward. “I have to find her.”

“I suggest you speak to Marshville,” Drake said quietly.

“Thank you. For everything. For your discretion with Pat—”

Drake waved off his gratitude. “Don’t thank me, Sin. You’re my friend,” he said with the steely strength of a military man.

Jonathan’s jaw set with determination. He would find her and he would convince her of his worthiness. He would spend the remainder of his life making amends for all the wrongs he’d committed against Juliet.

“I’ve taken the liberty these past days of having one of my servants follow Sir Albert Marshville’s going-ons.” He glanced across the room at the long-case clock. “By my accounts thus far, you should be able to find the gentleman at Guilty Pleasures around this time, and probably for the duration of the night. That is, if he’s winning. He’s usually losing, however.”

Jonathan nodded. “Thank you,” he said hoarsely. As he took his leave of Drake and set out in search of Sir Albert Marshville, he considered all the time he’d spent with Juliet. Now, sitting in the closed confines of his carriage, he stared at the opposite bench and remembered back to when she’d climbed into his carriage, bold as you please.

You sir, have taken my cottage and I would see it returned.

He’d wanted her from the moment he’d set eyes upon her. He’d loved her since he’d held her palm and read the future he’d dreamed of for her—a future, he hadn’t realized until this very moment that he desperately wanted to be part of. He peeled back the red velvet curtain and stared absently out into the passing streets. The carriage pulled him further and further away from the fashionable districts and deeper into the underbelly of London. Juliet had sacrificed her happiness, the possibility of owning Rosecliff Cottage all to help Patrina, and to spare his other sisters’ reputations. What other woman would be so wholly selfless?

And how could he ever be worthy of her?

The carriage rocked to a sudden halt in front of a relatively modest establishment that concealed all manner of sin within its walls. He didn’t bother waiting for his driver. Instead, he opened the door himself and leapt to the ground. Jonathan strode with purposeful steps toward the doors of Guilty Pleasures, the notorious gaming hell that catered to the most immoral members of Polite Society.

A servant pulled the doors open. The din of raucous laughter and the shuffle of cards filled the air around him. He scanned the noisy hall. His gaze moved with methodical precision over each table. And narrowed on two specific gentlemen. Jonathan started toward them, ignoring the greetings shouted his way.

He knew the moment Sir Albert registered his appearance. The ginger-haired man blanched, and his gaze darted about as if in search of escape. He jumped to his feet so quickly, his legs knocked against the table.

Lord Williams, seated beside the baronet, grumbled in protest as their cards and wagers were tossed about the table. Then he looked at Jonathan and smiled a cold, heartless grin.

Jonathan’s clenched his hands tight. This was the bastard who’d offered to make Juliet his mistress and then put his hands on her body.

Lord Williams rose somewhat unsteadily, his voice slurred from drink. “To what do we owe—?”

Jonathan drew his arm back and planted his fist into the smug bastard’s grinning face. The man crumpled into a heap on the floor, amidst the shocked gasps and shouts from the tables around them. Jonathan leaned over the man’s prone form, and shoved his face close to Lord Williams’. “That was for Juliet,” he said on a flinty whisper.

Lord Williams pressed his hands over his nose and winced. Blood spurted between his fingers, those fingers that had dared to touch Juliet. “Y-you b-broke my n-nose,” he wailed.