Always a Rogue, Forever Her Love (Scandalous Seasons #4)(67)

“Stop,” he commanded. Again, guilt hammered at him. Patrina was his responsibility, just as Poppy, Penelope, and Pru. He’d had an obligation to protect her from those with disingenuous intentions…and he’d failed. Emotion clogged his throat and roughened his voice. “I should have paid closer attention, Trina,” he said, using her girlhood moniker.

She smiled sadly up at him. “This isn’t your fault, and you cannot make it right.”

He could. He would. There were no gentlemen who would ever be worthy of any of his sisters, but he could manage to find them good, honest men who would love and care for them. “I will. I shall find you a gentleman—”

Through her tears, Patrina buried a laugh in her hands. “You cannot simply find me a gentleman, Jonathan.”

He clenched and unclenched his jaw. “Of course I—”

“Of course you can’t,” Penelope exclaimed from across the room. “You can’t simply determine what is in a lady’s heart. She loved him.”

Poppy nodded solemnly. “Whether he was deserving or not.”

When had his sisters become these mature, serious-sounding ladies?

“You must find Juliet.” Patrina quietly urged.

Juliet, another woman wronged, deserving of a good, principled man who would love and care for her—something he could never be. Not after the wrongs he’d committed against her. He dragged his hands over his face. “Where could she be?” he whispered to himself.

Penelope shrugged. “We only know that Miss Marsh left and then Patrina came home.”

“I’ve never seen Mother so joyous,” Penelope said.

“But then Miss Marsh was gone by that point,” Poppy added, bringing the matter back to Juliet’s disappearance. “She went off with Lord Drake.”

“Drake?”

He jumped as Patrina touched her fingers to his arm. “Mother trusted he could be discreet. He came to retrieve me. He and Juliet. She,” She caught her lower lip between her teeth, “went off with him, Jonathan. I do not know where they went, but Miss Marshville insisted she would be all right, and…” She began crying once again. “Selfishly, I left her with him.”

He touched his hand to the top of her head. “This is not your fault.” He should have been there, not just for his sister, but also for Juliet who was on her own in this world without anyone’s protection. Pain squeezed his heart. And he’d failed her, too. All exhaustion faded, as energy surged through his body, a determination to find Juliet.

Penelope stepped directly into his path, having clearly interpreted his intentions. “You need food, Jonathan.”

Poppy plugged her nose. “And a bath. You smell horr…er, as though you’ve slept with the horses for the past four days.”

“I need to find her,” he said harshly.

They both nodded. “Yes.”

“But you need food and a bath if you’re to do Miss Marshville any good,” Penelope added.

Jonathan cursed and marched around Penelope.

“Where are you going, Jonathan?” she cried.

“I’m going to have my bath and a meal,” he called over his shoulder. And then he was going to find Juliet. He hurried from the room and nearly bowled Prudence over. She stood poised in the center of the hall. Tears filled her eyes. Jonathan stepped around her, short on patience for the sister who’d slandered Juliet’s name. All of Juliet’s previous charges, her claims that he overindulged his sisters and tolerated ill-behavior flooded to the surface. Never before had the flaws in raising his sisters been more glaring than in this moment, with her gone, and his mind numbed with fear for her.

“Jonathan,” Prudence cried softly and raced after him. She tugged his arm and forced him to stop.

“What is it?” he asked, his tone harsher than he’d ever used with any of his sisters.

Her lower lip trembled. She held her palms up. “I-I’m s-sorry. Not because y-you expect m-me to say as much, but b-because I am. I was deliberately cruel to M-Miss Marsh, and I’m so very sorry.” She buried her face into her hands and wept. Her shoulders shook under the force of her tears.

Jonathan dashed a hand over his face. He’d never been able to bear the sight of his sisters’ suffering. He took Prudence by the arms and forced her to look at him. “I’ve failed you, Pru,” he said quietly. He wasn’t sure where or when. Sometime after father had died, and she’d been a sobbing little girl of three with hopelessly big blue eyes.

“No, Jonathan. Penny and P-poppy are correct. I-I’m horrid. Miss Marshville was the most wonderful thing to e-ever h-happen to us, and I just let h-her go, and n-now my life will n-never be the s-same.”

He cradled her to his chest as she wept copious amount of tears over the front of his heavily rumpled coat. She is the best thing to ever happen to us, and I just let her go. His eyes slid closed.

Ah, God, truer words were never spoken. Had he truly never told Juliet what she’d come to mean to him? Had he ever bothered to tell her that with her in his life, he smiled more and laughed more?

“F-find her, Jonathan. Y-you m-must,” she begged.

His jaw hardened. “I intend to, Pru.”





A large chunk of bread and a quick bath later, Jonathan found his way to Drake and Emmaline’s townhouse. He pounded on the front door for a third time. He knew it was unfashionably late to pay the family a call.