Always a Rogue, Forever Her Love (Scandalous Seasons #4)(41)

She hated even more that she’d pressed herself close to the wall and peeked down through the curtains, eyeing him like such a love-struck, simpering debutante as he’d leapt into the carriage. She’d stared after the departing carriage which had carried him to his evening’s soirees, until the fog had swallowed the last remnants of the conveyance.

With a sigh she glanced down at the sketchpad opened on her lap. Chiseled cheeks, an unyielding square jaw, and determined eyes stared back up at her. She trailed her fingers over the likeness of Jonathan, finding fault with the image which could never fully capture his masculine beauty. The half-grin, not entirely crooked enough, the unfashionably long waves of black hair, captured by the charcoal not even near the midnight hue. “You are a fool, Juliet,” she muttered to the grinning rogue upon the page.

“Tsk, tsk, I’d say clever, quick-witted, a tad feisty, but never a fool.”

Juliet shrieked and scrambled to her feet. The sketchpad tumbled to the floor and landed with a soft thump. She pressed a hand to her hard-pounding heart, and a vise-like pressure tightened about her lungs making it difficult to draw breath. “Jonathan,” she whispered. “Whatever are you doing here?” The rogue she’d read of in the scandal sheets would have invites to the most sought out events, and then carry on well into the evening at his private clubs or gaming hells.

He shoved away from the wall and paused to close the door behind him. The lock turning resonated like a shot off the high plaster walls of the enormous space.

She followed his deliberate movements, and her mouth went dry. She should scold him for enclosing them in this space, alone. She should stride over to the door, unlock it, and storm from the room as any respectable, English young lady would do. It wasn’t proper or decent being alone with him. Only, suddenly…Juliet didn’t want to be proper or decent. Not with him.

Jonathan’s long, legged stride stripped away the distance, until he came to a stop in front of her. His gaze dropped to her face, lower. He paused at the slight gaping fabric of her modest ivory, lace rimmed wrap.

She tugged the material closed.

“Don’t,” he ordered hoarsely.

When he uttered it in that harsh, desirous command she wanted to do something foolish like lay herself at his feet and beg him to make her his in every sense of the word—in name, in body, in soul. Fool, fool, fool. But she released the material, and the cotton shift fell back open.

Her fingers trembled too and to give the quaking digits something to do, she folded her hands in front of her, and stood eying him. This gentleman who winked with one breath, and the next studied her through thick, hooded black-lashes as though he was hungry with thirst, and she was the sole drop of water left in the world.

They stood there. Unmoving. Silent.

Then Jonathan’s gaze moved ever lower, lower… And he stilled.

She swallowed hard, following the path his eyes had traveled. Her stomach dipped. She leapt forward but posed little match for a man of Jonathan’s stealth and speed.

He immediately bent and rescued her forgotten sketchpad.

Juliet wanted the floor to open up and swallow her whole as Jonathan scrutinized the sketchpad opened to the likeness of him. She bit the inside of her cheek, her bare toes curling into the rich, Aubusson carpet. If the Lord would do her just this one favor, she’d be forever grateful. She’d not miss services or curse. Well, mayhap curse, but only if the situation merited it. It seemed a rather small miracle to ask of a God who’d managed to create all the earth in a mere six days…

Jonathan closed the book, and set it down on the sofa. He cupped her cheek in his broad, strong hand. “Do you know, I wonder as to this sketch.” He ran the pad of his thumb over her trembling lower lip. “Is it with an artist’s eye that you study me and sketch my likeness into your book?” She remained silent, a trill coursing through her at his feather-soft touch, and she struggled to make sense of his words. “Or is there more to this, sweet, Juliet? Do you see a man whose kiss you hunger for?”

Yes! Her breath caught as he caught her hand and raised it to his lips. His breath caressed her palm, and for the longest, most splendorous moment she believed he would press his lips to the soft skin of her inner wrist. Juliet’s eyelids fluttered closed, and then promptly opened.

Flecks of gold she’d not ever noticed until this moment glittered in the endless depths of his blue eyes. His smile, suggested he’d detected her body’s subtle awareness of him. “Or do you merely see me as the owner of your precious cottage?”

Odd, she’d not thought of Rosecliff Cottage since she’d moved into the Earl of Sinclair’s townhouse.

He proceeded to run the tip of his index finger along the intersecting lines of her palm. She wished she had the flirtatious, witty words he’d surely grown accustomed to in his ladies over the years. All she knew, however, were the delicious shivers radiating out from the point of Jonathan’s touch, traveling up her arm, and through the length of her body. His finger paused its deliberate trail, and he glanced up. “I’d give a shilling to know your very thoughts.”

“Just a shilling?” she managed to squeeze out.

His grin deepened, revealing two even rows of pearl white teeth to rival the stark brightness of the moon’s glow in the library. A black curl tumbled across his brow, giving him an almost boyish look.

She reached out her free hand and brushed the silken strand back. The irises of his eyes darkened. Juliet cleared her throat. “I was just thinking how very much has changed.” A few short days ago, she’d have sooner seen him, this man who’d bested her brother at that game of faro, to the devil rather than let him touch her. “I was merely considering how if Albert had not wagered away Rosecliff Cottage how very different my life would be just now.” She redirected her attention out toward the row of shelving at the opposite end of the room.