Always a Rogue, Forever Her Love (Scandalous Seasons #4)(33)

“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.”