Always a Rogue, Forever Her Love (Scandalous Seasons #4)(17)

She leaned close, a glint in her eyes. “What was that?”

“What was what?”

“You had that, that,” she waved a hand. “Look. You know, the one you had when you began taking on with that opera singer.”

Jonathan scrubbed his hands over his face. Oh, by all the saints in heaven. He shook his head back and forth.

“You’ve hired a fancy piece, haven’t you, Sin?” his sister hissed.

“Do not call me, Sin,” he automatically corrected, and he frowned. “I most certainly have not hired a fancy piece. Nor should you be speaking as…oh, hell, this is why I’ve hired Miss Marsh.”

Poor Miss Marshville did not stand a chance in earning back her cottage.

Penelope waggled a finger at him. “You shouldn’t curse in the presence of a lady.” Her cat-like eyes narrowed into tiny slits. “There is more here, Jonathan, and I intend to find out just what the more is. Do you hear me? And when I do, your Miss Marsh—”

“She’s your Miss Marsh.”

“Will be gone just like the others,” Penelope continued as though he’d not spoken.

He bowed. “I have to leave. I have a meeting. I’ll be glad to speak with you more about Miss Marsh when I return,” he lied. He considered this matter at an end.

“Liar,” she called out after him.

He didn’t even pause to glance back and fuel her already accurate suspicions.

His butler, Smith, God love the man held the door open and he sailed through it, where his horse had been readied for him. The female members of his staff would lay down their lives for his mother, the Countess, but the male members of his staff must have taken pity on him. They seemed to anticipate his frequent need to flee the gaggle of females under his care, even before he himself did.

Jonathan swiftly mounted his spotted black mare, Beauty, and nudged her forward, toward Emmaline and Drake’s townhouse. He guided the horse through the crowded streets, all the while cursing the busy road, slowing his journey.

It only forced him to reflect on his meeting with Miss Marshville last evening. In the light of a new day, with a gentleman’s practical sensibilities, he realized the folly in bringing such a spirited beauty into his household, even if it was to care for his sisters. He grimaced. Or attempt to care for his sisters. Too many had come before Miss Marshville and he suspected many more, more experienced governesses would come after her.

Jonathan maneuvered past the carts that lined the street.

“A rose, yer lordship,” an older man called from behind his wood cart filled with floors, the striking crimson hue put him in mind of Miss Marshville’s vibrant tresses, and that sole lock that had tumbled past her shoulders and laid between her pert breasts.

He slowed his mount, and motioned the vendor over. “A rose, my good man,” he called, and tossed a sovereign to the older man.

The gaunt fellow with a bald pate eyed the coin like he’d received the king’s crown. “Thank ye, yer lordship,” he cried, and held up a rose.

Jonathan became aware, too late, of the rabid stares trained on him, and then his rose. Bloody hell. He could imagine the speculation that would find its way into the gossip columns about the mysterious young lady who’d earned a rose from Lord Sinclair. He gave his head a firm shake. What manner of madness had possessed him, purchasing a rose on the whim of a memory of last evening?

He’d never been more grateful to see a townhouse than his friend Lord Drake’s. He urged Beauty to a halt, and dismounted in a single leap. Jonathan scanned the area, and his gaze alighted on a young boy with a tattered garments and a cap low over his eyes. “You, boy,” he beckoned.

The young boy jabbed a finger at his chest. “Me, Yer Lordship?” He hastened over.

Jonathan handed him the reins to his mount. “Will you wait with her a short while?” He shifted the silly red rose to his free hand and tossed a purse at the boy who caught it easily.

The boy’s eyes formed full moons in his face as he studied the bag in his hands. “Yer Lordship?”

“There will be more when I return,” Jonathan shot over his shoulder as he climbed the steps of Drake’s townhouse. He pounded on the door. All the while his back burned with the interest trained upon the rose in his hand.

He raised his hand to knock once more, when it opened. Drake’s butler, a one-armed fellow who’d served alongside the marquess in the Peninsula War motioned him inside, pausing momentarily to eye the rose.

“Lord and Lady Drake are receiving visitors,” the butler, Jones informed him.

Jonathan fell into step beside the fellow who moved with the precise, clipped steps of one who’d spent years marching to the drum.

They arrived at the drawing room when Jones cleared his throat. “The Earl of Sinclair.”

Emmaline sat beside her husband on a too-small sofa, a book on each of their laps. She colored at Jonathan and Jones’ appearance, and quickly jumped to her feet. “Sinclair, how wonderful to see you!”

He sketched a deep bow, and flashed a grin knowing very well from the guilty flush he’d interrupted his friend and wife. “The pleasure is always mine, my lady.” He winked at her.

Drake snorted. “Stop flirting with my wife, Sin.”

Emmaline swatted at her husband’s arm. “Do behave.”