Always a Rogue, Forever Her Love (11 page)

“Please,” Juliet implored from the side of her mouth. “This is not at all a proper discussion.”

Perfectly kissable lips like hers were wasted on words such as proper. “Then what is proper discourse?” he asked, striking a nonchalant pose.

“Your sisters. That is all that is appropriate,” she retorted.

The last thing he cared to speak with Juliet Marshville about were his sisters. Though that was in fact the one matter he
should
want to speak with her about. He sighed and gave a wave of a hand. “Well, then, shall we discuss your intentions for the girls’ lessons?”

She nodded curtly, and said, “I had hoped to begin on the subject of art.”

“Art? Very well, Miss Marsh.”

Juliet’s eyes roved over his face. “That is it? There are no further questions?”

“I have no further questions,” he concurred. “For now,” he added.

Later, much later, when there are no strangers about, and my sisters are otherwise occupied, then, I will have questions for you, sweet Juliet.

“Very well, then,” she said with what he detected as disappointment in her husky alto.

Jonathan continued to study her as she rushed over to his sisters, seeming unaware of his scrutiny. He acknowledged to himself for the first time since he’d come upon her battling Lord Whitby in the streets, he wanted her. Not in a single exchange of two lovers coming together for a fleeting night of passion. He wanted her for more than a governess, but rather as a mistress he could freely shower with lavish gifts and pretty compliments without the scrutiny of his family and Society in watch.

He silently cursed. What in hell had he done?

Chapter 8

Juliet sat at the window seat of the parlor. The handful of sconces along the wall cast the room in a soft glow, far greater than the single sconce in the modest chambers assigned to her on the main living quarters of the earl’s townhouse.

The night moon flooded the room and, illuminated the cover of the sketchpad on her lap.

She rustled the ends of the pages, fanning them distractedly. The faint breeze she created sent the emerald green ribbon on her lap fluttering to the cushion of the window seat.

She picked the ribbon up and studied it. When she’d left home, she’d just been so glad to be rid of Albert and Lord Williams she had not really considered what leaving actually meant.

Until now.

With the exception of the servants who’d been a family to her over the years, she was shocked to find she missed very little of her former life.

But she missed the time she’d had to sketch. As hard and unpleasant as life had been since Papa’s death, she had found joy in her art.

When she’d accepted the earl’s offer of employment she’d not really thought about how the hours she worked would interfere with the precious time she had to sketch. Though Jonathan had been entirely generous with both the terms of her employment and wages, her responsibilities prevented her from sketching at a time of day when lighting was most advantageous for an artist.

Juliet glanced out the window into the quiet London streets below. She imagined she would be filled with a seething hatred for the gentleman who’d refused to return her cottage and instead put an offer of employment to her. Jonathan, with his bold arrogance and roguish smile was everything she’d never wanted in life. She’d wanted a somber gentleman with perhaps an easy smile who’d indulge her love of art, overlook her crippled leg, and give her a babe or two to care for. Instead, with his terms, he had stolen those simple hopes from her and replaced them instead with the promise of freedom—if she simply succeeded in her role as governess.

And she would succeed. She had little thought of any other possible outcome.

The time here, with him, and his sisters would be as fleeting as a single summer that one looked back on with perhaps a fond remembrance. But when she eventually took her leave of this lively home, she suspected she’d not carry with her the resentment she’d expected to have in her heart toward Jonathan.

Juliet’s gaze snagged upon the green ribbon. She picked it up and tugged at it with her fingers, smoothing her thumb and forefinger over the satin fabric. She rather would prefer hating Jonathan Tidemore, the Earl of Sinclair, than feel…anything else toward him. Except, in the short time she’d come to know him, she’d come to appreciate the care he showed for his sisters. Even if they were over-indulged, they were clearly loved, and it was impossible to hate a man who loved his sisters.

Juliet sighed and set the ribbon down. She flipped through the pages of her book. Papa’s visage stared back at her. The dimple in his right cheek, the easy smile upon his face. She quickly turned the page. The broad wood swing anchored to the elm tree. She flipped to the next. Rosecliff Cottage stared mockingly up at her. She touched the tip of her finger to the long-ago drawn image, trailing her nail along the cobbled walkway lined with rose bushes.

Juliet flexed her jaw several times, and swallowed back the ball of regret that granted fools like Albert Marshville power over women. She angrily turned the pages until she opened to an empty page. She smoothed her palm over the blank canvas, and reached for the box of charcoal. She withdrew a piece and began to sketch.

The lines of the page came together, and she continued to work. Poppy’s mischievous smile materialized, with the glimmer in her eyes. Juliet continued to sketch the young girl. She sat there so long, her back ached from the stillness of her position. She paused to flex her fingers, then returned to her efforts. She added the midnight curls, the likeness leant credibility by the black of the charcoal.

A long while later, Juliet set the nub of charcoal down and raised the page to her lips and blew upon it. She lowered it back to her lap and studied the now filled page, angling her head to study her work with a critical eye.

Footsteps sounded in the corridor, and she started. The book fell closed with a decisive thump. She held her breath as the steps continued on, and realized it was surely a servant seeing to his or her evening’s duties. She bit the inside of her cheek. Why should she be disappointed that it wasn’t another?

The door opened, and her breath froze in her chest.

Jonathan stood framed in the doorway. Resplendent in his fine evening clothes, his thick, well-muscled legs filled the black fabric of his breeches. He leaned against the doorframe and studied her through sinfully thick black lashes. “Juliet,” he greeted.

Juliet set her book aside and climbed to her feet. “My lord,” she greeted, dipping a curtsy.

He angled his head toward the window seat. “Please, no need for formality on my behalf.” His husky baritone warmed her through.

She remained standing, praying he’d leave, hoping he didn’t.

He shoved away from the doorjamb
and strolled boldly into the parlor, king of this, his castle, and she a mere subject to his grand presence.

She moved her gaze over the chiseled lines of his firm cheeks, his aquiline nose, his hard, squared jaw with the faintest cleft at the center, the only hint of softness in a face made for artists to sculpt and her fingers twitched with longing for her charcoal and a blank page to commit him to memory, this beautiful specimen of masculine perfection.

Jonathan came to a stop before her. He captured his jaw between a thumb and forefinger and rubbed it back and forth studying her like she were an unfamiliar species he’d happened to stumble upon. “Are you unable to sleep, Miss Marsh?”

His words roused an image of her comfortable bed, and then all manner of wicked thoughts not at all appropriate for an innocent young lady tumbled through her head. She groaned.

He peered at her through thick, black lashes. “Is everything all right, Juliet?”

Nothing had been all right for more than a year. Not since Papa’s unexpected death. Not since Albert had assumed the responsibility of care of her.

He inclined his head. “Because I believe you groaned.”

Her cheeks warmed. Of course a primal tiger should note even the subtlest of sounds of his prey. “Did I?” Her mind went blank.

The half-moon that hung high in the sky beyond the window, cast a bluish-white glow through the windowpanes, and bathed him in its eerie light, giving him the look of a dark god, not a mere mortal, before her.

His body shifted forward, ever so close to hers.

Thumpthumpthumpthump.
Her heartbeat pounded loudly in her ears, dulled her senses, slowed her thoughts so all she knew, all she felt was the heat of his broad, masculine body, radiating out, caressing her with its warmth. Juliet blamed such foolish yearnings on the pull of the early morning moon. In the light a new day, when the sun rose in the distant horizon, logic and order would surely be restored. But for now, she could see naught but him.

She devoured him with her eyes, even as he stood there seeming wholly unaffected by her presence. She’d never considered herself small of stature. In fact, over the years she’d bemoaned her oddly tall height that had her looking down at too many gentlemen. Yet, the earl’s towering frame, six or so inches taller than her own, made her feel for the first time in her life, graceful and delicate. His nearness filled her with a heady sensation, and drove back the history between them, the resentment she’d carried in her heart for his casual possession of Rosecliff Cottage, the vast differences in their statuses. All truth and reality was stripped away, so all that remained were a woman and a man.

Jonathan reached out and trailed the back of his knuckles along her cheek. Back and forth. Back and forth. “I would trade all my holdings to know what you’re thinking just now, Juliet,” he whispered.

I want you to kiss me
. The thought, so very real, and desperate she marveled he’d not heard her innermost wishes. “That would be a fool thing to do.” She prided herself on the steady deliverance of those words. Unable to hold his heated stare any longer, she let her gaze slide away from his, off to the side, toward the full floor-length windows.

He continued his delicate stroking. He brushed his knuckles along her chin. “I must be all kinds of fool,” he murmured.

Her lids fluttered closed, as she leaned into his touch. A man such as this could never be accused of being a fool. Not him. “Why do you say that, my lord?” She managed to squeeze out on a breathless whisper.

He lowered his brow to hers, his sapphire blue stare pierced her with its intensity. “Jonathan,” he demanded with all the authority of one accustomed to having his every desire met. “Say my name.”

“Jonathan,” she whispered, loving the feel of his name upon her lips, so utterly masculine and yet all the same, smooth as warmed chocolate.

He cupped her cheek. “Now tell me you still do not desire my kiss, Juliet?”

She swayed against him, hating the inherent weakness inside her, that she should crumble so easily beneath his delicately sensual touch. Not when he should appear so wholly unaffected by her presence. Juliet tipped her chin up a notch. “Is that what this is, Jonathan? A manner of game? A battle of wills between—”

His mouth closed over hers, hard and searching. Her body stiffened at the unexpectedness of his embrace and then it was as though all the muscles drained from her body, leaving her weak-kneed as she melted against him. She moaned as his lips slanted over hers again and again, almost punishingly, as though he hated himself for his own weakness as much as she detested herself for this hungering for his touch.

He urged her mouth open and plunged his tongue deep inside. Oh God, he tasted of brandy and honeysuckle, an unexpected taste to this sinfully handsome man. The sweetly erotic combination she longed to lose herself within. Her legs buckled, but he caught her to him, anchoring her close to his chest, while he continued to plunder her mouth. “Jonathan,” she moaned into his mouth, the breathless whisper swallowed by his kiss.

He pulled back and she groaned in protest, but he only moved his attention to the lobe of her ear. He drew the sensitive flesh between his teeth and lightly nipped her. “You’ve bewitched me, Juliet Marshville,” he said, his pronouncement harsh and guttural in a manner she’d never before heard from the polished Earl of Sinclair. He trailed his lips down her cheek, to the corner of her lip, and nipped at the flesh there.

Juliet bit her lip to keep from crying out.

“I’ve never encountered a woman who looked at me with such fire in her eyes, and yet burned so hot for my touch,” he said, hoarsely. He concentrated his attention on the sensitive flesh where her neck met her ear.

Her head fell back, and a breathless giggle escaped her. “Th-that ti-tickles,” she rasped but the words ended on a pained groan as he gently sucked at the flesh there. “What are you doing to me?” she implored. This man, who laid careful mastery over her body.

He cupped her breast and she cried out, but he immediately swallowed the sound with his lips. “I’m making love to you, sweet Juliet.” And he did. His expert fingers rolled the swollen bud of her breast, and never more had she wanted to shrug out her gown and expose her naked skin to the night air.

“Oh, please, Jonathan,” she begged as he pulled his mouth away, not knowing what her body begged for, only knowing with his touch he’d erased the logic that drove her hatred and turned her into a quivering mass of fierce desire.

His fathomless eyes, roved over her face, as though he sought to commit her every feature to memory. “Become my mistress.”

Juliet shook her head, and tried to make sense of his words, a statement more than a question.

Become my mistress. Not his wife. His mistress.

He reached for her hand, but she pulled away from him and held her palm up. Jonathan would make her his whore, but never his wife. Even as she longed for his touch, ached for him, she could not, nay would not, ever accept an offer to be his mistress. “No,” she said, proud of the firm resolve in that single utterance.

He scowled, a man who seemed wholly unaccustomed to having a lady deny his every wish. “No,” he repeated.

“No. I will not become your mistress. You can’t—”