Always a Rogue, Forever Her Love (Scandalous Seasons #4)(53)

God forgive her, she’d come to love him, hopelessly, helplessly beyond all reason and logic. Now, she must be content with that stolen interlude in the library. The memory of that night, of the rapid beat of her heart, and the warm heat as it had coursed through her body would have to sustain her through the years when she lived alone in her Rosecliff Cottage, and he lived with his refined, prim wife.

An image of him, with Lady Beatrice Dennington on his arm, filled her mind. She curled her hands into tight balls, hard enough that her nails threatened to draw blood on her palm.

Oh, God. Juliet groaned. She could not bear the idea of him belonging to another. It had been so much easier when he’d been nothing more than a rogue, but she knew that was no longer the truth.

In the time she’d come to really know Jonathan, he’d revealed himself to be a man who cared deeply for his sisters, a man of principle, and she wanted him all to herself. She wanted him for more than a lover. She wanted him as the one person who would be there to love and protect her, when she’d never, ever before wanted to depend on another. Juliet folded her arms about her stomach and held herself tight.

A knock sounded at the door, and she leapt to her feet. “Enter,” she called out, a faint tremble to her voice. The door opened, and a familiar head crowned with black curls peeked inside. “Lady Penelope,” Juliet greeted. “Come in, come in,” she motioned her inside, grateful for the diversion. “Is everything all right?”

The girl nodded from behind the door. She peered about the room, as though fearing Juliet had stored away a secret dragon to breathe fire upon her usually mischievous charges.

“You surely know by now, I do not bite. Even if I may some days want to.”

Penelope smiled and slipped inside. She kicked the door behind her with the heel of her foot, then wandered into the room, arms clasped behind her back.

“You should be abed. Are you unable to…?”

Penelope pressed a sketchpad into Juliet’s hands.

Juliet eyed it a moment.

“Pru mocks my sketches. She says they’re silly, and that I’m rubbish at sketching.” She sank into the upholstered seat Juliet had vacated moments ago.

Juliet looked from the closed book in her hands to Penelope perched on the chair. The tension in her slender shoulders and the grip she had upon the edge of her seat indicated the girl’s anxiety. “May I?” she murmured.

“They are awful.” Penelope shrugged. “I know that, however, Pru really needn’t say so.”

Juliet opened the book, and stilled. She trailed her fingers just above the surface of the pad so as to not disturb the recently created sketch of an empty gravel, walking trail. She’d managed to capture the gravel-lined path, the expertly pruned bushes alongside the path. She glanced up. “You did this?” she said softly.

“It’s horrid, isn’t it?” Penelope groused.

If Juliet could strike one of the words uttered by her charges it wouldn’t be bloody, or hell, or damnation, though those might be good places in which to start—rather, she would begin with the word horrid, which they seemed to use with a disturbing frequency. “It’s not, Penelope. You’ve done a marvelous job in capturing the very slightest detail from the texture of the earth to the kestrel in the distance.”

Penelope scrambled closer to the edge of her seat. “Do you truly think so?” She chewed her lower lip. “Pru said you’d say as much merely because you’re my governess.”





Juliet snorted. “I don’t say anything because I have to. You should know that by now.”

The young lady smiled.

Juliet continued turning the pages, marveling at each simplistic image so beautifully captured. When she’d reached the final sketch, she closed the book and handed it back to Penelope. “Do you enjoy sketching various landscapes?”

Her charge colored and said slowly. “Mother said ladies paint landscapes.”

If Juliet were a proper governess she would surely nod and concur with the young lady’s mother. Instead, she said, “I imagine it is rather more meaningful to capture images that speak to your soul.” She leaned over and touched her fingertips to the book in Penelope’s hands. “Do you enjoy sketching landscapes?” she asked again.

Penelope hesitated, and then gave a curt nod.

“So what would you draw then?”

“My mother—”

“If your mother and Polite Society did not have their stringent expectations,” she interrupted.

The girl responded instantaneously. “People. Your sketches, they show emotion and feeling and mine—”

“Are beautiful.”

Penelope hopped to her feet and swung the book in her hands. “Perhaps, but they do not show anything that truly matters. Does that make sense?”

Juliet nodded. “Absolutely.” She placed her hands on the girl’s shoulders. “Penelope?”

“Yes, Miss Marsh?”

“Then, sketch people. They are your images to either share or not share. Sketch what is in your heart.”

Her smile returned, richer and fuller with its sincerity. “Do you know, Miss Marsh, I rather like you.”

Warmth filled Juliet’s heart. She tweaked the girl’s nose. “That is fortunate, as I rather like you and your sisters.”