Always a Rogue, Forever Her Love (Scandalous Seasons #4)(58)

For the protection afforded the trees, Polite Society hovered just beyond, unaware of the tumult in the picturesque landscape.

If he so wished, Jonathan could command those that worked his land-holdings and members of the peerage with nothing more than a black, censorious glower. And yet, this delicate slender beauty with hair the color of sunset should stand there, a mutinous set to her mouth, deliberately silent.

Jonathan cursed. “Who is he?”

“He is a close friend of my brother.” Juliet dipped a curtsy, and walked away.

By God, the audacious minx had more pluck than all the lords in the House of Lords. “Where are you going?” Did she merely think to leave him here without any answers to the questions tumbling through his mind?

Her boot hung suspended mid-air. She completed the step. “I must return and see to my responsibilities.”

“I granted you Sundays free, Juliet.”

She tilted her chin up. “Did you follow me here today? For what purpose would you spy on me?” Her scolding tone would be better reserved for her young charges.

He arched an eyebrow. “I’m the Earl of Sinclair. I don’t spy on anyone. I merely ask, and information is imparted.”

“Oh, your level of arrogance is staggering,” she hissed. “How dare you?”

“I dare because your behavior today hardly inspires a sense of trustworthiness.” Her throat bobbed up and down. Tears flooded her eyes, giving them the look of fathomless pools he wanted to drown himself in. His heart cracked. In the time he’d come to know Juliet, he’d seen her spitting mad, deliberately teasing but never this broken, crushed creature before him now. “Ah, God, Juliet.” Her name, a prayer, an entreaty merged as one and he pulled her into his arms.

Only, she struggled against him like an angry cat, clawing at his chest. “Stop it. Just, release me.”

For a too-long, ugly moment it seemed as though she saw him the same as the cold-eyed, leering bastard who’d put his hands upon her a short while ago. Pain knifed through him that she should ever put him into a category with a man she’d clearly feared and detested. “I would never hurt you,” he murmured against her ear, all the while he maintained his delicate hold about her.

She rested her forehead against his chest, and at last allowed him to give her his strength. He didn’t know how long they stood there, her wrapped in his embrace. It may have been minutes, or hours. Time melted away, and of all the power afforded him as an earl, never before had he wanted anything more than to order the whole world away, so that just they two remained.

He thought of Poppy’s confession about Juliet’s crippled leg, and it occurred to him, how little he really knew of her. And he didn’t merely want to know the identity of the gentleman in the copse or about the incident at Hyde Park. Jonathan rested his chin atop the crown of her fire-kissed tresses. He wanted to know all of it…every last piece of her. “I want to know everything there is to know about you,” he said quietly. “Tell me, Juliet.” And he’d come to know his Juliet enough to know it unlikely she’d give him answers to even one of those questions.

“Why? Because you’ll remove me from my post if I do not?” she tossed at him.

He edged away from her, and closely studied a face that had become so very precious to him. “Do you truly believe that of me? Do you think I’d so carelessly toss you from my home?” He could no sooner separate one of his limbs from his person. So accustomed to her guardedness, her next, whisper-soft words nearly bowled him over.

“My father died more than a year ago.”

He looked at her face, but the elegant planes of her cheeks gave little indication as to her thoughts. “I’m so sorry.” Jonathan realized before he’d finished speaking how wholly inadequate his apologies were.

“He fell ill,” she went on, her gaze directed inward. “One day he came down with a fever. Three days later he’d died. I, of course mourned Papa, but Albert,” a brittle smile formed on her lips. “Albert took himself to London and…” She shrugged. “Well, you know Albert. You know what he did.”

His jaw tightened. She spoke as though he kept frequent company with her reprobate, whoremonger of a brother. “And you remained alone.”

She remained silent.

Jonathan gritted his teeth so hard, pain shot from his jaw to his temple. As the older brother to four sisters, he had always seen himself as an extension of his father. His sisters’ every happiness had mattered to him more than his own. And here was Juliet, on her own in the world, sitting in hired hacks in wait for the gentleman who’d won her precious cottage. A vitriolic rage boiled inside him toward her brother and threatened to consume him with an animalistic fury. Not trusting himself to speak, he waited for her to continue.

“He couldn’t be more different than my calm, practical papa. Papa valued hard-work, and cool logic. My brother thinks nothing of wagering all on a game of chance.” She shook her head as if even after the year since her father’s death, she still couldn’t quite believe it. “He met a gentleman in London and they became fast friends. He…he…began to court me.” She smiled wryly. “I believed he intended to offer marriage.”

A loud buzzing filled Jonathan’s ears, and he stared unblinking at her. Some gentleman had fought to claim her. The truth of that gnawed at his insides for the realness of it; there had been another, and not a mere fictitious man Jonathan had conjured in his mind.