Always a Rogue, Forever Her Love (Scandalous Seasons #4)(29)

His fathomless eyes, roved over her face, as though he sought to commit her every feature to memory. “Become my mistress.”

Juliet shook her head, and tried to make sense of his words, a statement more than a question.

Become my mistress. Not his wife. His mistress.

He reached for her hand, but she pulled away from him and held her palm up. Jonathan would make her his whore, but never his wife. Even as she longed for his touch, ached for him, she could not, nay would not, ever accept an offer to be his mistress. “No,” she said, proud of the firm resolve in that single utterance.

He scowled, a man who seemed wholly unaccustomed to having a lady deny his every wish. “No,” he repeated.

“No. I will not become your mistress. You can’t—”

“I’m the Earl of Sinclair,” he interjected. “I can do whatever I want, Juliet.”

A breathless laugh, more of a sob, worked its way up her throat. It spilled past her lips, the sound desperate to her own ears. Oh, her boldly arrogant Jonathan. He saw the world in absolutes. He didn’t know, nor likely had ever known, the shades of uncertainties in between the unpleasantness of life. All he knew was that he wanted her in the physical sense. He wanted ownership of her body, but not her heart. What did you think, you silly fool? A jeering voice echoed around her mind. That he would wed you? No, earls didn’t wed their sisters’ governess.

As though he detected the shock in her silent thoughts, he again said, “Be my mistress, Juliet. I’ll give you your cottage. I’ll give you more jewels than you know what to do with. I’ll give you any damn trinket your heart desires.”

Her heart wrenched. “Your mistress,” she said, her voice hollow. He’d make her his mistress. He’d put to her the very same indecent proposal made by Lord Williams. He knew her so very little that he should believe baubles meant more to her than her own respectability.

Jonathan continued, seeming unaware of the turbulent emotions raging through her. “You’ll never have to take employment as a blasted governess again. You’ll live for the pleasure I can give you.”

Because she was a weak-willed fool, she allowed him to pull her into his arms and kiss her until all coherent thought fled, until she was whimpering his name, almost prepared to accept the offer he put to her.

He pulled back, and placed a kiss at the corner of her lips. “You are so beautiful. ‘But, soft! What light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and you are the sun.’ And you’ve set me afire, sweet Juliet.”

His unwitting words of the star-crossed lovers and their family of enemies yanked her viciously from the moment. She wrenched away from him, her breath coming in fast, hard pants. Juliet touched a hand to her heart in attempt to slow the pounding organ.

“What is it?” But for the hoarse edge to those three words, she’d not know that this man had been the same one to caress her body, and search her mouth with such a fierce intensity.

She slipped her fingers into his, and guided his hand back to his side. “Don’t,” she whispered, as the implications of her actions here, in this very place slowly sank into her like a foot attempting to slog through thick mud. “Oh, God,” she whispered, and raised a trembling hand to her mussed locks. She tucked the loose, flyaway strands behind her ears.

You’re one of Sin’s fancy pieces. Prudence’s earlier accusation resonated in her head like the loud chimes of church bells. Because even a girl of fifteen had detected Jonathan’s dishonorable intentions toward Juliet. Become his mistress, indeed.

What had happened here, with this man, their very actions jeopardized the stability she’d hungered for this past year. With his intoxicating kiss, and expert touch she risked her good name, her virtue. “Oh, God,” she repeated, shaking her head. She’d been so very close to laying herself open, fearless to his invasion, and then what would have become of her? In the end, she would have been nothing more than the fallen woman Lord Williams had attempted to make of her.

Jonathan placed his hands upon her shoulders and turned her to face him. His stark white gloves a vivid reminder of the great divide between their stations; he, a powerful, sophisticated nobleman, and she…a small baronet’s sister, and now governess. “We’ve done nothing wrong. We are both adults who know what we want, Juliet. I want you, and you want—”

She slapped her hands over her ears and cringed. “Stop.” Juliet shied away from his touch. Why, he saw her as nothing more than a woman of questionable moral standing, and she’d done nothing but indulge those assumptions. A bitter laugh gurgled up from her throat. She’d leaned into him and begged for his kiss like any common strumpet in the street.

“Don’t look like that, Juliet,” he ordered, his tone harsh and angry.

She ignored him, and took a step backward. With fingers that shook she gathered together sketchbook and charcoals. “And so there are no misunderstandings between us, my lord, I will never, ever become your mistress.” I should have left this room the moment you entered.

His thick-hooded lashes veiled his eyes. “Never is a very long time.”

“If you’ll excuse me, my lord,” she said on a shattered whisper and then turned and fled.

Perhaps she was something of a coward after all.





Chapter 9