Always a Rogue, Forever Her Love (23 page)

He took the bag from her numb fingers and pulled out the necklace.

“What…?”

He stepped behind her and looped the bauble around her neck. The cool metal and weighted diamonds and emeralds somehow damning. His breath fanned her skin and she shuddered. She made to take a step backward, but it only brought her into closer contact with his body. Her back thumped against his chest. “There will be more, Juliet. If you but let me, I’ll shower you with the finest jewels.”

“Go,” she begged.
Please leave, and let me live my life.

He continued to run the back of his knuckles over her cheek. Back and forth. Back and forth. “And what? You’ll remain Sinclair’s whore?” Lord Williams may as well have driven a dagger into her heart. “Tsk, tsk, did you think I’d not find out the details of your arrangement? Albert is quite livid with you.” Juliet took a step forward and backed away from him. He remained rooted to the spot, eying her through hooded lashes. “I’m not at all pleased you gave yourself to Sinclair. Not when I wanted to be the first to lay you down and make love to you.”

Nausea churned in her gut at his words. She bit back the denial that sprang to her lips. She would not defend her virtue to this lecherous bastard. “I want you to leave. I’ve nothing to say to you.” Juliet hesitated a moment, then reached up and loosened the clasp at the back of her neck. With her free hand, she caught her mother’s necklace before it tumbled to the ground. She eyed it in silence; this one small link to the woman who’d given her life. A woman she no longer remembered. Her throat worked reflexively. She couldn’t remember the shade of her mother’s hair or the sound of her voice, but she believed she could say that her mama would never have wanted her daughter to sacrifice her virtue for the small, albeit precious keepsake. She handed it back to him. “Go.”

“You know you don’t want that, sweet,” he said coaxingly. “Why do you continue to fight me?" His tone bore the same satiny edge of a cool, metal blade.

“Just leave.” Her sharp cry sent the kestrel in the tree branches above into flight. Juliet stilled as a familiar figure appeared just beyond Lord Williams’ shoulder. Never before had she been more grateful for the timely appearance of another soul.

Jonathan caught her gaze; questions reflected in the blue depths of his eyes. Then, he leveled a hard stare on Lord Williams. “I believe the young lady asked you to leave, sir,” he said in clipped tones.

Jonathan stared stock-still, his gaze fixed on the bastard who’d dared put his hands upon Juliet’s skin. When he had started after her earlier that morning, he’d imagined stealing a private moment with her, away from the suspicious eyes of his mother and sisters. He had not thought to encounter this…nameless fiend, who didn’t have the sense to realize Juliet belonged to Jonathan in every sense of the word.

Tension thrummed through Jonathan’s body as he took in the panicky glitter in her eyes, and he looked once more to the other man, fashionably attired in fawn-colored breeches and blood-red jacket.

Jonathan had come upon Juliet, conversing with the gentleman a short while ago. The actual words of their exchange had been lost to him. He’d hovered on the edge of the wooded copse, torn apart by an unholy jealousy of the other man’s nearness to her tall, willowy frame. The man’s positioning and low tone had hinted at a familiarity between the unlikely couple. A woman of her general warmth and kindness would never have dealings with the hard-mouthed, sneering gentleman. Then Jonathan had registered the horror in Juliet’s terror-filled eyes.

He flicked a cold stare over the gentleman. The stranger gave a curt bow of his head, and with a final, lingering glance in Juliet’s direction, walked a wide path around Jonathan, and took his leave.

The fluttery dance of the leaves overhead and Juliet’s harsh breathing was the only sound in the still area.

“Did he hurt you?” For if he did, by God Jonathan would drag the bastard back to this secluded spot at the river and rip his entrails through his coward’s throat like the animal he was.

The clipped question yanked her attention back to him. She shook her head. “No.” That one word utterance, so firm, so unwavering from his beautiful warrioress. She folded her arms across tight to her waist as though chilled and in need of warmth.

“Who was he, Juliet?”

She wet her lips. “I don’t...”

He stalked over to where she hovered at the edge of the river. “Do not.” Jonathan forced himself to take a deep calming breath, and he leaned close. “Do not,” he said again, in a hushed, angry whisper.

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.

Something raw, something violent roared to life inside him, as a burning hatred for the man who’d nearly made her his wife, filled every corner of his being. On the heel of it, came the darkest niggling possibility. “Are you betrothed?” The question slid past tight lips. Because if she was, it would destroy him.

“Betrothed?” A mirthless laugh escaped her. “No, he would not wed me.”

Odd, he should all at once be relieved, and yet ache with hurt for the clear pain in her words.

Juliet stepped out of his arms and he followed her movements as she wandered over to the edge of the water. She continued to hold her arms wrapped about her.

“What happened?”

“You are acquainted with Albert. He is a wastrel. An insolent fool who sat down to a losing hand of cards,” her voice broke ever so slightly, and she averted her eyes, as though embarrassed to show hurt for the circumstances to befall her. She cleared her throat. “Just as he lost Rosecliff Cottage to you, he lost even more to this
friend
.”

His breath slipped past his teeth on a hiss, her meaning clear. The gentleman had wanted to make her his mistress. Fury blinded his vision, and he blinked it back. What manner of man would offer her a temporary place in his bed when he could possess her forever? What—?

Jonathan recoiled, feeling as though he’d been dealt a swift jab to his midsection. He’d made the same indecent offer to Juliet. He had offered her the role of his mistress; having pledged jewels and baubles, which he now realized would mean nothing to an honorable woman such as her. Jonathan stretched a hand out, but with her back to him she could not note his silent plea of forgiveness. He let his hand fall to his side.

“I’m so sorry, Juliet.” He didn’t refer solely to the nameless bastard who’d sought to destroy her reputation. Instead, he craved absolution for his own crimes against her.

Her delicate shoulders, which bore the weight of more than any one person deserved, lifted in a slight shrug.

He crossed over to her, until they stood side by side, their thighs brushing, and he stared out at the water. At last the question he’d carried, how a refined young lady came to be outside of the Hell and Sin Club. “It is why you became a governess.” Because she’d had too much honor and pride to make herself the whore to a bored gentleman. “My offer was the more palatable of your options.” And then he’d gone and asked the same thing of her as that bastard.

The late afternoon sun threw their shadows upon the crystalline surface of the rippling water, and he detected her nod on the river. “I lost everything,” she said quietly. “My home, my father, my opportunity to make a respectable match. My virtue was—is—all I have left. That, and my pride.” She looked to him. “And, when your sisters’ instruction is complete, I will have Rosecliff Cottage, too.”

Jonathan tried to imagine her as a young lady who’d just lost her father, with a brother who’d squandered all their wealth, and the crushing fear she’d surely known. He balled his hands into tight fists at his side. Juliet had displayed courage and honor in the tragedy that had befallen her, whereas he had spent too many years living in a state of self-indulgence, gaming and drinking. He’d never been more humbled than this very moment. He scrubbed a hand over his face trying to drive back the memory of their first meeting.