Always a Rogue, Forever Her Love (Scandalous Seasons #4)(51)

She swung her legs back to the floor on a long sigh. “Oh, fine, then. Pru mocked Miss Marsh for getting tossed from the tree by her brother.”

His brow wrinkled. “Whyever would Prudence say such a thing? What would possess her to…?” His words died on a swift exhale.

He’d pushed her. That bloody bastard, Sir Albert Marshville, cowardly-fiend, had tossed Juliet to the ground, shattering her leg.

“What manner of brother does such a thing, Sin?”

One that Jonathan wanted to hunt down and bloody senseless with the punishing fury of his fists.

Poppy stared at him, her wide eyes conveying hope of an answer to a question she could not make sense of.

“I don’t know, Poppy. Certainly not a nice one,” he said quietly.

She nodded and hopped to her feet. “I should return above stairs and be sure Pru isn’t any more horrid than she already was.”

Ah, God love Poppy.

She reached the door and turned suddenly back around. “I like her, Sin. I like her a good deal. I heard what Mama said to you, and I know what Pru said to Mama about you and Miss Marsh.”

A dull heat burned his neck as he struggled to recall the specifics of the charges leveled at him by their mother. There had been the talk of improper looks and seduction. Through it all, Poppy had remained shuttered away, listening on with neither him nor Mother aware of her presence. “And?”

“And I do not believe I could ever forgive you if you allow Mother to send her away.”

He considered the pretense under which he’d hired Juliet as a governess for his sisters. All the while he’d intended to set her up as his mistress. That was before he’d come to know her. And now, Poppy forced him to confront the temporariness of Juliet’s time here. His stomach tightened. “Well, then that would make two of us. I would never forgive myself.”

Her smile widened, and he realized he’d given the correct answer to whatever test she’d been secretly conducting. She blew him a quick kiss.

He caught it in his hand and placed the imaginary kiss on his cheek. “Now, off with you. I imagine Penelope is of little help to Miss Marsh when Prudence is in one of her tempers. You’ve made me proud.”

She hurried out of the room.

Jonathan stared at the empty doorway long after Poppy had scurried off. He considered the ugly, horrible truth that one day Juliet would leave and his life would never be the same.





Chapter 15


Never before had Jonathan noted the utter ridiculousness of dinner rituals with their very specific seating arrangements and elaborate five courses. Until now. Somewhere around course three, when the liveried footman had served Cook’s loin of veal in a béchamel sauce.

He glanced across the table to where his mother sat glowering at him from her spot beside the Duke of Hawkridge. Something the duke said required her attention and spared Jonathan from any more of her black scowls.

“Everything is delicious, my lord,” a pleasing demure voice murmured from at his side.

He started and shifted his attention to Lady Beatrice Dennington. The young lady appeared to wear a perpetual blush. “And the company is especially pleasing,” he returned. The color deepened in Lady Beatrice’s cheeks at his flirtatious response.

Her eyes fell to her plate, and he used the opportunity to study her with an objective eye. A flawless English beauty with golden ringlets and pale blue eyes, she possessed the soft curves he’d always favored in the women he’d taken to his bed.

Except, it was hard to appreciate the sun’s mere rays when the sky had already been set ablaze by a crimson sunset. Damn you, Juliet Marshville, what have you done to me? She’d tossed his world into upheaval.

Lady Beatrice picked her gaze up and met his with a surprising directness he’d not expected from such a lady. “You are indeed, correct, my lord. The company is particularly pleasing.”

Jonathan called forth the roguish rejoinder, which usually came so easy for him but came up remarkably empty. He cleared his throat and shifted his attention back to his plate. He sliced a piece of veal, speared it with his fork and popped the moist piece into his mouth.

“That was rather poorly done of you,” a soft voice whispered at his opposite side.

He choked on his bite and reached for his glass of wine.

“Forgive me,” Emmaline said with a wicked smile. “That wasn’t at all well done of me. You looked to be in need of rescuing, though.”

Jonathan gave his undivided attention to Drake’s wife, grateful to her for sparing him from more of the awkward flirtation with Lady Beatrice. “That obvious,” he said under his breath.

She nodded. “That obvious.” Emmaline leaned closer, and spoke from the side of her mouth. “She’d make you a lovely wife. Polite, pretty, and proper.”

“Ah, yes, all the essential p’s for a respectable match,” he returned dryly. “Mustn’t forget the most important of the p’s. She must be a member of the peerage.”

Emmaline laughed, earning a series of disapproving stares from the more reserved members of the dinner party. Her husband Drake, on the other hand, seated across the table from her, grinned. The couple shared an intimate look, and Jonathan, feeling like an interloper on the stolen moment, glanced away. Emmaline cleared her throat, and Jonathan shifted his attention back to the young lady. “Must she, though, Jonathan? Must she be a member of the peerage?” There was something probing in both the expression in her eyes, and the question itself.