Always a Rogue, Forever Her Love (Scandalous Seasons #4)(66)

He set Poppy back on her feet. “Where is Mother?”

Poppy slashed a hand through the air. “She’s at Lord Stinkley—”

“Pinkley,” Prudence muttered under her breath.

Poppy and Penelope shot glares in her direction, and the eldest of his sisters present went silent.

“As I was saying,” Poppy continued, clearing her throat. “She is at Lord Stinkley’s, and we are here with…with…” She jabbed a finger in Prudence’s direction, and immediately ended Prudence’s slow flight. “That one.”

So, Mother continued to put in appearances. He sighed. Her efforts would be for naught. It was only a matter of time before the truth of Patrina’s actions came to light. “Where is Miss Marshville?” he said tiredly, needing to see her with a desperation that should have terrified him, if he wasn’t so bloody exhausted. He tugged out his watch fob and consulted the time. Ten o’clock in the evening.

His sisters really should be abed. He knew he’d given Juliet her evenings free, but this chaos certainly merited attending. He stuffed his timepiece back into his rumpled jacket pocket. And registered the absolute stillness of the room.

His sisters had gone uncharacteristically silent. He looked at them. “What?” An ill sense of foreboding snaked through him.

Poppy’s lower lip began to tremble, and she promptly burst into tears.

All three girls began shouting at one another all at once, jabbing fingers in each other’s general direction.

“Your fault…”

“I didn’t…”

“Horrid…”

Bone-weary from having ridden for four straight days with very little rest, Jonathan found himself remarkably short of patience. “Silence!” he thundered.

The girls went quiet. Eyes wide.

“Where. Is. Miss. Marshville?” he bit out, looking between them.

Prudence’s gaze slid away from his guiltily.

His heart paused. “What is it?” he asked quietly. He fell to a knee beside Poppy, and took her by the shoulders. “What is it?”

“Oh, J-Jonathan,” Poppy said as tears again filled her eyes. She shook her head back and forth.

“I didn’t…” Prudence snapped. “I…” She closed her mouth, and glanced away from him. “I’m sorry.”

“Miss Marsh is gone,” Penelope blurted.

A loud buzzing droned in his ears, and he reflexively tightened his grip upon his sister’s shoulders.

“Jonathan,” Poppy winced.

He released her suddenly, and sank back on his haunches. “Gone?” he repeated blankly. His tired mind tried to process the disjointed conversation. “What do you mean, gone?”

Prudence’s lower lip trembled, and with a cry she fled the room. She slammed the door in her wake; it shook in its foundations.

An impending sense of doom turned his legs to lead. He shoved himself awkwardly to his feet, and did a small circle around the room.

Penelope spoke so quickly her words blurred together. “Prudence told Mother horrid…” Poppy gave her a pointed look. “Er…Awful things about Miss Marsh. She said Miss Marsh was your fancy piece. Mother insisted Miss Marsh leave. And still Miss Marsh left to help f-find Patrina…and…” Her voice broke, and she began to weep copious amounts of tears.

He dimly registered her piteous reaction. He knew he should go over and offer comfort to his two sisters, huddled shoulder-to-shoulder crying. Jonathan shook his head. He’d heard them wrong. Gone. Juliet had left. Surely his sisters were wrong, because if Juliet had, in fact, left him, she would have taken his bloody fool heart with her, and… He touched a hand to his chest, and the organ still beat hard so she must be here. “I don’t…” Nothing was making sense. He stalked over to the sideboard. He sloshed several fingerfuls of whiskey into the glass and raised the glass to his lips. He finished it in a single swallow, embracing the fiery path it burned in its wake. Jonathan set it down hard, and took a deep breath. “Now, where is Miss Marsh?”

Penelope wrapped an arm around Poppy’s shoulders. “She’s gone,” she said with far more seriousness than he’d ever come to know from his thirteen-year-old sister.

He shook his head back and forth.

“Mother turned her out,” Penelope went on.

“Turned her out,” he repeated dumbly. Then of a sudden it made sense. Mother had learned Juliet’s identity. Knowing his mother and how she’d been that morning, four days past, she’d surely blamed Juliet.

And turned her out. Fear spiraled throughout his body at the idea of Juliet on her own. A woman of her beauty would have little chance at maintaining her innocence when presented with the lecherous, desirous fiends who moved about Society.

“Why?”

Patrina stepped into the room. “It is my fault, Jonathan.”

The whiskey tumbled from his fingers and shattered on the hardwood. He crossed the room and in four long strides reached her, but jerked to a halt when her eyes welled with tears.

She gave her head a slight shake. “I am so sorry,” she whispered brokenly. “I’ve been an unmitigated ass. I believed he loved me. He was the only gentleman to pay me any note in two Seasons, and it mattered not that he was a baronet and I should have assumed no gentleman would truly have any interest in one such as m—”