Always a Rogue, Forever Her Love (Scandalous Seasons #4)(73)

Juliet gave her head a shake and returned her attention to a branch covered in tear-shaped green leaves. Then, she had hoped if he’d not come for his cottage that he mayhap had come to care enough to come for her.

She snipped off the excess greenery.

In the three months since she’d been escorted to Rosecliff Cottage by Lord Drake and bartered her every happiness for the protection of Patrina’s name, not a day had passed that she’d not thought of Jonathan.

On her better days, she had wondered whether he missed her. On her worst days, she railed at him for not having loved her as she loved him. On her very worst days, she sobbed bitter angry tears that he’d either not known or cared to know where she’d taken herself off to.

Yet, she had always prided herself on being logical.

Logic had told her since the moment she’d met the Earl of Sinclair that nothing could ever exist between them. There was the history between Jonathan and her brother, the loss of Rosecliff Cottage, and then ultimately his offer to make her first his governess, then his mistress.

Such thoughts had compelled her to take that which was owed her—Rosecliff Cottage. The beloved brick-front home had always mattered more to her than Albert, and certainly more than it did to Jonathan who’d never even bothered to visit the modest property he’d won in a game of faro. Pain lanced her heart.

He’d never come.

She had been so very certain that he would, not necessarily to visit the property but because he would surely have known she’d come here.

These past months now, she’d managed to tilt her chin back up and live as she had before Jonathan; confidently, boldly, and when she could…happily. She stared blankly down at the smiling visage upon the opened sketchpad.

Well, mayhap not happily.

Juliet sat back on her haunches amidst the cluster of rose bushes and pink peonies and dragged over the sketchpad. She touched her fingers to the sun-warmed sketch of Jonathan.

Had he wed his Lady Beatrice? Was he in fact kissing the lovely young lady with those sinfully knowing lips?

A spasm of grief ripped through her body and she tossed the book to the ground. “Enough,” she whispered.

A shadow fell over her, and she glanced up at the cloudless summer blue sky with a frown.

“Hullo, Juliet.”

Juliet shrieked and pitched forward. She landed in a tangled heap amidst her rose bush. Jagged thorns bit painfully into the soft flesh of her palm. She shoved herself upright and turned.

Jonathan!

Oh God. You are here? Where have you been?

He beat his riding crop against his thigh, looking impossibly handsome with his tousled, too-long black locks. Her fingers twitched with a sudden need to brush them back from his forehead. She swallowed hard. “Jonathan.”

Their gazes locked and held. A shiver coursed through her body at the desire in his sapphire blue eyes. Then he glanced away, looking at a point beyond her shoulder.

“This is my Rosecliff Cottage?” he said, more to himself.

She wet her lips. “This is my Rosecliff Cottage,” she corrected.

The claim so very reminiscent to that long ago night outside the Hell and Sin Club.

He stood before her looking impossibly handsome, and still elegant in his simple buckskin breeches and black tailcoat. Oh God, how she’d missed him.

She curled her toes inside her serviceable boots at the contrast she presented sweated, in her mud-splattered fuchsia skirts.

He tossed his riding crop down beside her sketchpad and held his hand out.

She eyed his outstretched fingers a moment, and then placed her fingertips in his palm. It was like coming home. More a home than this lonely cottage ever had been.

Wordlessly he wiped away the trickle of blood left by the thorn and raised her fingers to his lips.

“I should have come for you. I wanted to.”

“Did you?” She couldn’t call back the bitterness of that reply. “And what of Patrina? How is she?” She rushed before he could speak.

“She is fine,” he assured her.

How could she be fine? Albert had absconded with the young lady and taken her to Rosecliff, and well, young ladies didn’t survive such a scandal.

“No one has discovered the truth, Juliet,” he said, as if reading her thoughts.

“B-but…” They would. Society always discovered the secret shame carried by its members.

“Your brother will say nothing. I’ve spoken to him.” The flinty edge to that pronouncement gave her pause. She tried to read his guarded expression, unsuccessful in her attempt.

Jonathan reached into the front of his jacket and pulled out a thick packet. He pressed it into her palm.

Juliet stared a moment. She used the tip of her finger to loosen the ribbon that bound the velum together. She opened the packet and read. Her heart paused.

She looked up at him and found him solemn.

“It is yours, Juliet. It has always belonged to you. I just didn’t realize it.”

All the hope she didn’t realize she’d held since he’d reappeared in her life, died.

The deed to Rosecliff Cottage. This is what he’d give her. Her home. The beautiful sanctuary she’d loved since she’d been a girl, and fought so desperately for the return of. He would give her this. But where was the elation? The sense of victory? Of gratitude? “Oh,” she managed to squeeze past dry lips. In this, the kindest, most generous gesture, he would give her Rosecliff Cottage, but selfishly Juliet wanted more.