Her eyes narrowed in a menacing fashion, and even through the near impenetrable slits sparks of fury shot from their fathomless depths. She jabbed that same digit in his direction. “I do not care to be lied to, my lord.”
Jonathan frowned. He’d had enough of the tart-mouthed miss and her insulting accusations. He leaned across the seat, so a mere hairsbreadth separated them, and their breaths mingled as one. “Take care, miss, I do not take slights upon my honor lightly.” He’d had his fill of reproachful words and disapproving glances at his meeting with Patrina and Mother earlier that day. He certainly didn’t need to tolerate this one’s ill opinion—even if she possessed a beauty to rival Aphrodite. “Now,” he reached across her and shoved the carriage door open. “If you’ve nothing more than insults and confounded talk about cottages I do not own to share, then I’d ask you to take your leave.”
With their bodies’ nearness, he detected her swift inhale. Her throat bobbed up and down.
She glanced over to the opening, and then back to him. “I cannot go out there,” she bit out.
He hesitated a moment, then pulled the door closed, eyeing her with even greater interest. Yes, her tones cultured and clipped were those that belonged to a refined lady, and yet…refined ladies did not wander these particular streets and demand to speak to gentlemen about matters of business. Jonathan pulled out his watchfob and consulted the time. Nor did refined young ladies go out, unchaperoned at two o’clock in the morning.
She seemed to follow his unspoken recriminations for she inched forward in her seat. “Rosecliff Cottage,” she repeated.
He clicked his timepiece closed and stuffed it inside his jacket. “Miss,” he said, not bothering to bury his exasperation. “I do not know what—”
“You won it,” she blurted. “In a game of faro.” Her brow furrowed. “Or whist.” Her lips tightened. “Regardless of the game, you sat across from my brother, and he mistakenly wagered Rosecliff Cottage. I’d like it back. Please,” she added almost as an afterthought.
Jonathan studied the freckled beauty as a dawning awareness sank into his confusion. Well hell, indeed. The tart-mouthed, winsome beauty was in fact the sister of Baronet Albert Marshville, the foul dandy whose pockets he’d emptied more than a week ago. He narrowed his eyes and searched for any similarity between this tall, lean Spartan princess and her much shorter, stouter, ginger-haired brother. He sank back in his seat. “Impossible.”
Incorrectly interpreting the reason for that ‘impossible’, she nodded, “Not impossible, my lord. It is a certainty. You now have possession of my cottage, and I’d like it back. Please,” she added yet again.
A grin pulled at his lips at her politeness. It would appear Miss Marshville, even for all her accusations, fiery temper, and her earlier slap could not separate from her position as a lady.
“This is not a matter of amusement, my lord,” she said, impatience threaded her gentle rebuke.
He sighed. “Miss Marshville, am I to believe your brother wagered your property?”
She gasped. “How did you…? No, but—”
“So, then your brother, though an ill-thought decision on his part, rightfully wagered that which belonged to him—?”
“Yes, but—”
“And rightfully lost,” he finished, cutting into her interruption. He’d not make apologies for winning at that game of whist. “Your brother chose to sit down across from me. He chose to wager—.”
“Yes, my lord, but—”
“His purse that night, and his cottage.” Fire flared to life in her eyes, and if looks could scorch she’d have set the entire coach ablaze. “I’ll not make apologies for my win. Furthermore, your brother,” the inept wastrel, “should not send you to beg for him.” Yes, Marshville may have sent his sister here to try and reclaim the small property, but Jonathan wouldn’t relinquish his hold on…Cottage Rosegarden…or was it Rosecliff Cottage? Either way, he’d won it from the baronet quite fairly.
Miss Marshville gritted her teeth so hard, the click of the two rows meeting filled the carriage, and he wagered would result in a nasty megrim the next morning. “I am not begging. I do not beg.”
Suddenly, the most wicked musings filled his head; Miss Marshville’s wide mouth quivering with wonder as he lowered himself over her lean, lithe frame and laid masterful claim to her body.
“Nor did my brother send me to you.”
Mention of Sir Albert effectively doused his ardor.
“I’m here, my lord, b-because…” Her voice broke. She swallowed audibly.
Jonathan cursed, words not fit for any genteel lady’s ears. She colored quite prettily. “Do not cry,” he commanded. He abhorred tears. Tears of all kinds. Great, gasping sobs. Little droplets. The single bead that trailed down a fragile cheek. And living in a household with five women, he’d grown accustomed to the whole gamut of tears. None of which he’d grown comfortably able to ignore.
Anger flared to life in her previously sad eyes. “I do not cry.”
He snorted.
“I do not,” she insisted.
“All ladies cry, Miss Marshville.”
“As I said, I do not.”
He arched a quizzical eyebrow, and waved a hand. “Well then, Miss Marshville? You were saying?”
She glanced down at her palms a long moment and then turned them up. “I’m here because I hope you might do the gentlemanly thing and return my cottage.”
“ My cottage,” he felt inclined to remind her. He shook his head. “And I’m sorry, Miss Marshville, but it will not benefit you if I return it to your brother.”
She tossed her hands up as if exasperated. “I assure you, it would.”
“It wouldn’t.” The young lady could be no more than twenty, or somewhere around there in years. By her boldness in coming out at this late hour, she’d demonstrated not only her extreme desperation but also her absolute naiveté. “Your brother would merely wager that cottage off to some other gentleman.”
“You do not care about the cottage. You didn’t even remember you won it,” she seethed. “You selfish, selfish…bas—cad,” she finished far more weakly than had she uttered the words on her lips and tongue. “You’d deny me my property?”
He inclined his head. “Perhaps I am selfish, Miss Marshville,” he concurred. “But if I were to return the cottage to your brother, then Rosecliff Cottage would be no more your property than it would be mine.” Jonathan knew from the slight slump to her shoulders that she understood the truth of his admission.
She closed her eyes a moment, seeming to forget he sat across from her. Mayhap even where she was. “I cannot go home.”
As the proud Miss Marshville sat there, so very clearly defeated, a slight pull tugged at his heart. Pity, and something else, something more but indefinable. “I’ll see you home,” he assured her. He rapped on the ceiling of the carriage, and the driver sprung the horses into forward movement. “Your location, Miss Marshville,” he said a touch impatiently when she remained tucked in the corner, in abject silence.
She blinked as if in a haze. “I cannot return there,” she whispered.
Jonathan closed his eyes and sent out a prayer for patience. They were back to discussing Rosecliff Cottage, were they?
“My brother will…” She gave her head a shake, and seemed to pull herself from the reverie she’d been trapped within.
But damn it.
Those three words.
My brother will…
Her brother would what? Scold her? Be the death of her? The words to follow that very important ‘will…’ mattered very much.
“Your brother will what, Miss Marshville?”
She turned her cheek to profile and studied the red velvet curtains that hung over the window with the same attention one might pay a Drury Lane production.
“Your brother will what, Miss Marshville?” he repeated, infusing a deliberate sternness into his question.
“It is none of your affair, my lord.” It would seem
, a lady of her grit would not be cowed by even him, then.
That appeared the first correct thing the lady had uttered all evening, and yet, the minute she’d gone to St. Giles street, and hailed him like he was a hackney in wait, well, then she had become his affair.
“I must admit, I’m intrigued, Miss Marshville.” Nor was he one easily intrigued. “What manner of woman would come out this late evening and boldly confront a gentleman, demanding he return that which was rightfully won?” His lips twitched. “I do not know if you have pluck or whether you’re the biggest lack-wit I know.”
She jerked her gaze angrily back to his. “I am no lack-wit.”
Studying the sparks in her eyes, he acknowledged these were no vapid, empty-headed young misses eyes. “So then, pluck it is. Now you’ll make me wonder what has brought you out this evening. Very well, I do enjoy a nice game from time to time, Miss Marshville.” Though in actuality, the only games he cared to play with the lady would require a proper bed, satin soft sheets, and her completely naked before him.
Her color deepened as though she’d understood his private yearnings.
“Your brother would make a match between you and some gentleman, but you seek a love match?” he predicted.
Stony silence met his supposition.
“You first fell in love at your cottage and would dread losing the reminder of that first love.” Something dark and primitive churned in his gut at his own pondering.
She shook her head once, and the oddest relief swept through him. Then, she met his gaze with a frank directness he admired. “It is my home, my lord, and it would crush me to know you own a property that will never mean anything to you.”
Perhaps Miss Marshville would have been correct in making that charge a short while ago, before he’d known her. Now, whenever he heard mention of the cottage or at last visited, he would think of the night a brazen vixen had confronted him.
He caught his jaw between his thumb and forefinger, and rubbed back and forth as he examined her. “How old are you, Miss Marshville?”
Crimson red stained her cheeks. He suspected she might not reply but shocked him by answering, “Two and twenty.”
The lady had never had a Season. Jonathan would have remembered a beauty such as she. He’d wager she stood six inches or so smaller than his own six-foot three-inch frame, and she would therefore tower over most gentlemen of his acquaintance.
“Has he foiled a match between you and a gentleman you’ve set your marital cap upon?”
“I’ve set my marital cap upon no one. I’d be content to spend the remainder of my days in Rosecliff Cottage with no one but myself for company.”
Now, that would be a tragedy of the greatest kind; this spirited beauty, unwed, a forever virgin who never explored passion under the veneer of ladylike gentility. An ugly, needling idea slipped into his mind. He didn’t know where the thought came from, and knew there was no merit to such an idea, but… “Some gentleman has set his cap upon you.”
Her body jerked, and he knew with the intuitiveness that had won him Rosecliff Cottage and vastly heftier purses he’d been on the mark with his statement.
It rankled that some nameless gentleman had discovered the hidden beauty when Jonathan and the remainder of the ton were unaware that one such as she bloomed in their grimy, city grounds. Suddenly, Jonathan wished he’d taken the time to learn more about Sir Albert Marshville who’d wagered at the same table as him a number of times, because then he might have known there was a sister, and the identity of the gentleman who intended to claim her.
He reached over and distractedly pulled back the curtain that covered his window, just enough to study the passing streets. “You know, I still do not know where you make your home, Miss Marshville.” He glanced over at her. “Other than my Rosecliff Cottage,” he amended when she opened her mouth to speak.
She quickly closed it, only confirming he’d been correct in his thoughts about what she’d intended to say. She was as tenacious as a pup with a bone from Cook’s kitchens, he’d grant the young lady that much.
He dropped the curtain and it fluttered back into place. “I’m left to wonder why a young lady such as you would not return home.” A muscle twitched at the right edge of her lip. She remained silent. “Ahh, so you’ll not tell me,” he said, when she folded her arms, almost protectively, about herself.
How interesting, indeed. For the first time, in a very long time, interest hummed through him. “I have a proposition for you, Miss Marshville.”
“A proposition?” she repeated through taut lips. Another crimson stain flooded her cheeks, and he realized what manner of proposition she thought he put to her. Ahh, the poor beauty would be deplorable at a game of chance.
“Do you know how to handle a needle, Miss Marshville?”
She cocked her head. “A needle?”
He waved a hand. “A needle. As in embroider.”
“I’m proficient at needlework,” she said, confusion in her eyes.
“How about the pianoforte? Are you an accomplished songstress?”
Miss Marshville’s brow wrinkled even further. “I am an adequate singer,” she replied, a guarded caution in her eyes, as though she spied a neat snare laid out before her, and gauged the best way to tip-toe around it.
“And watercolors?”
She hesitated a moment, and then nodded. “Why do—?”
He held a hand up. “What if I assured you that I had a place for you, a place that would find you free of your brother’s hold, which is what I imagine you seek. I’ll not even delve into the desperation that brought you out this evening, and in return you’ll do something for me?”
She brought her arm back and he caught the delicate wrist before she could slap him a second time. He turned it over and studied the cream white smoothness of her palm. Palms such as these were not made for slapping a gentleman.
Jonathan raised her hand to his mouth and placed his lips along the skin on the inside portion of her wrist. “I’d like to hire you as a governess, Miss Marshville.”
Chapter 4
Juliet shook her head once. Then twice. And a third time for good measure. Her efforts proved futile. The Earl of Sinclair’s words came as if down a long, muffled corridor. “A governess,” she repeated in a bid to make sense of his last words.
As he’d lowered his smooth, baritone voice, a breathless anticipation of his indecent offer had both tantalized her senses and outraged her sensibilities. She’d be so very certain the offer he intended to make her had been the same Lord Williams had earlier yesterday afternoon.
She should be solely focused on the words he’d floated into the air, his outlandish request to make her a governess, but he ran his lips along the sensitive skin on the inside of her wrist, and such delicious shivers shot up her arm and somehow fanned all the way to her belly.
He picked his gaze up from his tender ministrations and grinned like he knew all her darkest, most wicked thoughts, and God help her, she wanted to divulge all those wicked thoughts to him. “Yes, Miss Marshville. I’d like to offer you employment as a governess.”
The spell he’d cast upon her loosened. “A governess?” she blurted. She knew she must sound like the lack-wit he’d accused her of being a short while ago, but for all the sketchpads and charcoal in the world, she could not make sense of his offer.
He placed one more kiss on the inside of her wrist, and then released her. “Yes.”
A governess. His governess.
“For who?” she eyed him skeptically.
“My sisters. I’ve four altogether, but one has already made her Come Out, so you’d have three charges. My mother charged me with the task of finding them a suitable governess.”
Juliet continued to eye him with a wary skepticism. “You would hire me, a stranger who found you outside your gaming hell, who entered your carriage, demanded her cottage returned—?”
“My cottage,” he interjected.
“And slapped you once—”
“Nearly twice,” he pointed out.
“Nearly twice,” she amended. “You’d ask that woman to care for your sisters?”
“I would.”
Between Albert and Lord Williams, she’d come to expect nefarious intentions from most gentlemen.
She’d prepared for him to offer her a spot in his bed and not this respectable offer of governess to his sisters.
She continued to study him, knowing intuitively there was more to his decent proposal. “You must be either mad or desperate to offer a woman you’ve only just met the post of governess to your sisters. Why…why, I could be a violent woman.”
The right corner of his lips tugged up in a smile. With his unfashionably long crop of loose dark curls, and the wicked grin on his lips, he had the look of a marauding pirate, and certainly not that of a respectable nobleman.
“You don’t strike me as a violent young lady, Miss Marshville, with of course the exception of the slap,”
“Nearly two,” she felt inclined to remind him.
“Nearly two,” he repeated with a grin. “Are you interested in the post, then?”
Juliet sat back and folded her arms across her chest. She shook her head. Mad. He is as mad as one bound for Bedlam.
She continued to eye him skeptically. She knew next to nothing about the earl beyond what the papers reported. He kept membership at White’s and Brooke’s and gambled heavily in his clubs and won there. He had scores of mistresses as her brother had pointed out.
Now the gentleman spoke of three, nay four sisters and a mother. Yes, even irredeemable rogues such as the Earl of Sinclair had families. They didn’t simply spring from the soil with the summer’s greens.
Odd, the thought of it somehow made him seem more real, and less…less…of a coldhearted monster who’d ruthlessly won her cottage in a game of cards.
“Well, Miss Marshville,” he murmured, freeing her from her silent thoughts. “What say you?”
Always a Rogue, Forever Her Love (Scandalous Seasons Book 4) Page 4