Oh, the cad!
Juliet reached out a desperate, searching hand. She sent a prayer skyward when her fingers found purchase on the crystal candelabra. With a deep breath, she awkwardly raised the solid ornament and brought it down hard on Lord Williams’ head.
He stiffened in her arms, and then slumped against her.
“Oomph,” she grunted as he slid into an ignoble heap at her feet. She shoved away from him. Her heart pounded fast and hard as she studied his prone form. “Don’t you be dead,” she whispered angrily. On legs that trembled, she lowered herself to the floor and searched around for sign of breath. A sigh of relief slipped out as a short prayer at the sign of his pulse beating steadily at his neck. She scanned the room with a panicky fear. Her brother would be livid, but she shuddered imagining a taste of the determined Lord Williams’ wrath.
Juliet surged to her feet as quick as her injured leg would allow and hurried from the room. She closed the door behind her and turned the lock in the door.
As she made her way through the long corridor, down toward her chambers, her mind raced.
Her brother had lost her beloved cottage and was bleeding father’s wealth faster than a fatal wound to one’s person. Now, he’d make her Lord Williams’ whore. Her jaw set as she reflected on the unfairness of it all, being dependent upon the mercy of men for her own safety and security.
She limped quietly down the hall toward her room, the soles of her slippers silent in the empty corridor. She paused outside her chambers, then threw the door open. Her maid, Lillian, who stood at the armoire paused, and turned around with a smile. It died on catching sight of Juliet. “Whatever has happened, Miss Juliet?”
Lord Williams. Albert. Life.
Juliet closed the door behind her, and turned the key.
Lillian’s eyes followed her precise movements, and her kind blue eyes went wide with concern. “Are you…?”
“I’m fine,” Juliet said, and waved off the loyal girl’s concern. She drummed her nails alongside the hard panel of the door. She could not remain under Albert’s care any longer. She needed to get word to her guardian, which seemed a rather daunting feat considering his ship had been lost at sea for some time now. She continued to hold out hope; Lord Henry would return and pluck her from her brother’s clutches.
She chewed at her lower lip. Considering Lord Williams’ current state, and his intentions for her, she could no longer remain patiently waiting for him to return. The alternative was Uncle Horace. She winced remembering back to their last meeting some years back. With his failing hearing, the gentleman wouldn’t hear the clamor of a bustling London street, let alone her requests for help.
Juliet shoved away from the door and began to pace. Her steps grew more frenzied as she reflected on the unfairness of it all. That Albert should inherit. She frowned. That her very existence was dependent upon one missing guardian, and one aging, wholly disengaged uncle. Her frown deepened. That the Earl of Sinclair should now possess her beloved Rosecliff Cottage. A growl worked its way up her throat.
“Miss Juliet, are you certain you’re all right?” Lillian called softly.
“Fine,” she bit out.
She chose to feed the fury over Albert’s wager with the earl, which had resulted in her great loss. The bounder whose name she’d read of in the papers was purported to be deep in the pockets, a horrible rogue, and as one who kept company with Albert, well that was saying a good deal about the gentleman’s total lack of honor. That such a gentleman should ever own her beloved home!
Juliet drew to a sudden, jerky halt. Her chest heaved up and down. She might be unable to locate her misplaced guardian or stop her fool brother from taking part in obscene wagers, but one thing within her power she could do was speak to the bloody bounder.
“What is it?” Lillian said on a beleaguered sigh, having clearly known Juliet enough to recognize the determined glint in her eyes.
Yes, she’d find the gentleman, which shouldn’t prove a difficult task. The papers reported on his whereabouts with shocking regularity. He could be found most evenings at a handful of gaming hells, and…and houses of ill repute. Her cheeks warmed, but she ignored her polite sensibilities.
“I need help.” And she needed it now before Lord Williams awoke and before her brother discovered the other man had been clouted over the head and locked up like a thief in the bowels of Newgate Prison.
“Anything, miss.”
Juliet folded her arms across her chest, with determination thrumming through her being. “I need a hackney.” She pointed to the armoire. “And my cloak. The sapphire muslin one with the deep hood.”
Yes, it shouldn’t be at all difficult finding this Earl of Sinclair.
Chapter 3
For the better part of the evening, Juliet had sat in the cramped confines of the too-small hackney. Her lower back ached from the hard contours of the scratched bench. She’d spent the better part of her pin money from the past two months on the hired conveyance as she’d waited for the Earl of Sinclair to leave his townhouse. She had instructed the driver to follow the gentleman to his clubs, which had only brought them deeper away from the earl’s respectable Grosvenor Square district and into the seediest parts of London.
Juliet peeked behind the edge of the frayed black curtain that covered the window for surely the thousandth time that evening. She’d expected once the earl had entered his clubs he’d take his leave a short while later. Having lost count of the minutes she’d ticked off in her head, all she knew was that the afternoon sun had dipped and soon ushered in the night sky. Now, uncharacteristic stars dotted the London night sky, and the faint glow of a half-moon bathed the disreputable establishment in an eerie glow.
What had she expected of a man who spent his days and nights gaming and…and…with those string of mistresses as her brother had earlier mentioned?
No, he was probably fully soused by now, and would be little good to her in terms of a calm, rational conversation.
She gripped the edge of the curtain and rumpled the worn fabric. He had to be. He had to be reasoned with. Since Lord Williams’ attack that morn, she’d come to appreciate her precarious position in this world, and the loss of Rosecliff Cottage would only indicate her fall into a world in which her brother exercised total control of her.
She swallowed back a blasted lump of emotion. She’d not feed that weak sentiment. If she were to give in and have the good cry she’d been longing to since Papa had died, she feared she’d dissolve into nothing more than an empty puddle of weak despair.
The doors to the Hell and Sin Club, an aptly named gaming hell for a fiend like Lord Sinclair to attend, opened.
She leaned forward in her seat, as the two foppish dandies garishly attired in gold and orange satin breeches staggered outside. Their raucous laughter filled the otherwise quiet streets. Juliet’s frustration emerged on a swift exhale as she sat back.
What if he intended to spend the evening? After all, after what she’d read of these types of gentlemen, they would often spend all hours of the evening at their clubs, well into the morning hours. Only now did she begin to fear those were the earl’s intentions for this evening.
The club doors opened again, and a sinfully dark gentleman stepped outside. The moon’s glow cast his devilishly handsome face in a pale light. Her breath caught, and she forgot what had brought her here this day. She forgot the hours upon hours she’d sat in this uncomfortable hack, in this dangerous part of London. He was far more handsome than a gentleman had a right to be. With a crop of thick, black curls he looked more like that fallen angel Lucifer. Even with the distance between them, she detected a faint glittering in his eyes. Then he presented his tall, broad back to her and continued down the street, and she registered too late that he made for his carriage.
Panic bubbled up from her chest. She’d not waited all day for sign of the gentleman, and spent all her pin money to throw it away for naught. Juliet shoved the carriage door open and pulled her cloak
close. She leapt to the ground then cursed as pain radiated up along her long-ago injured leg and shot up to her hip. She careened forward several steps. “Wait for me,” she called up to the hackney.
The young man yawned, having clearly grown as tired of waiting as she herself had. He nodded and tugged on the brim of his cap.
The driver forgotten, Juliet surged ahead, damning her leg that slowed her steps and damning the earl for his long strides that carried him onward to his carriage. The earl’s driver scrambled from the top of his perch, his murmured greeting lost in the distance between Juliet and the pair. “You there,” she called impulsively. Imprudently.
A figure stepped into her path, and she tipped her head back at the leering fop with curls cropped in the Brutus fashion “You looking for me, sweet?”
She made to step around the reed thin dandy, but he countered her movements. Juliet cursed. “No, I’m looking for another,” she bit out and peered around his slender frame. The earl had a foot up into his carriage.
She could not lose him.
She lunged around the dandy and started as fast as her legs could carry her, when an arm shot around and grasped her wrist, yanking her to an abrupt, awkward halt.
The dandy grinned through yellow-stained teeth at her, like some kind of wild creature about to tear into its prey. She jammed the heel of her slipper into the fiend’s knee, tired of gentlemen who seemed to believe ladies existed for nothing more than their bored amusements. He cursed, his grip loosened on her, and Juliet used it to her advantage. She jammed her elbow into his mid-section hard, and he relinquished her on a swift hiss.
Juliet sprinted ahead. Her arm up, just as the driver closed the door of Lord Sinclair’s carriage. “You, wait! My l…oomph!”
Someone slammed into her back, and knocked the air from her lungs. She pitched forward as the now outraged dandy wrapped his arms about her waist. Juliet struggled to draw in breath as he put his ear to the side of her head. Even through her muslin cloak, his fetid breath washed over her, and her stomach churned with nausea…and more, a sudden fear for the rash decision to seek out the earl.
“You dare assault a lord, you little flirt? I’ll turn you over to the authorities, but only after I give it to...oomph.”
Juliet blinked as the gentleman slid forward, and landed hard on the pavement in front of her. She stared down, wide-eyed at the slack-jawed fop who lay in an unconscious puddle at her feet. She raised her gaze and swallowed hard at the grinning gentleman now before her.
He bowed his head and touched the brim of his midnight black hat. “Miss.”
Juliet stared unblinking, robbed of speech and breath at the gypsy-like beauty of the gentleman. Never before one to make a cake of herself for a handsome face, she found herself suddenly struck silent by the towering, muscle-hewn frame of the Earl of Sinclair.
His wicked grin suggested he noted her scrutiny, and Juliet’s body warmed but still she could not stop her study. Her fingers twitched, filled with the sudden urge for her charcoals and sketchpad so she could commit such beauty to page and forever immortalize this man so aptly known as Sin. A gentleman such as he would inspire all manner of sinful thoughts in even an innocent lady’s private musings.
A low groan at her feet knocked the much-needed sense back into her fool’s head.
Juliet glanced down momentarily at the dandy handily laid out by the Earl of Sinclair and back to the earl. He continued to study her, his head cocked at an angle, and she burrowed closer into the cloak, realizing too late her hood had been knocked loose in her scuffle with the dandy. Juliet pulled the hood back into place, finding the only solace she might in the empty, quiet of the streets at this late hour, and in this unfashionable district no less. As she stood there, she was filled with the silliest idea that he could somehow see through the fabric. “My lord?” she began before her courage deserted her and she ran for her…she glanced back momentarily and cursed as her faithless hackney driver urged his mount forward.
“Yes, miss? May I be of assistance?”
She ignored his question as she cried out, a hand outstretched for her hack as it rattled by. Juliet stamped one foot in annoyance. What in blazes was she to do now?
Then the horrors of the day played out with an infinite slowness in her mind. All of it. Albert’s horrendous revelation, Lord Williams’ repulsive tongue in her mouth, the dandy’s grasping touch, and now this…
She stood alone, unchaperoned in the dangersome part of London, with no one but the Earl of Sinclair, reprobate rogue for company. She jabbed a finger at him. “I’d speak with you, my lord.” Interest flared in his eyes, and it occurred to her that he suspected an unladylike offer on her part. “Not about that!” she said on a rush.
His grin widened. “Not about what?”
She waved a hand. “That. You know. That.” She knew very well she’d not misunderstood the improper path his thoughts had roguishly meandered down.
He held out his arm to her like they were to stroll chaperoned alongside the Serpentine in Hyde Park and not in the dark streets of St. Giles.
The fop at their feet groaned again and she hastened to place her fingertip along his midnight black coat sleeves, opting for the devil who’d thus far not put his hands unwillingly upon her.
They reached his carriage. He held gloved fingers out to hand her up into the carriage. She hesitated a moment, before placing her fingers in his.
A heated charge, like one who’d walked in their bare stockings upon a carpet surged through her at the point of his touch. Juliet drew her hand back swiftly and scrambled to the far corners of the earl’s carriage. He entered behind her. The driver closed the door behind them, and she registered the slight dip as the young servant scrambled back into his box. The conveyance remained fixed on the side of the street.
She drew in a deep, steadying breath. Even in the wide expanse of the carriage, his tall, imposing frame filled the space. She wet her lips as for the second time the rash decision in coming here filled her.
He leaned back in his seat. “How may I be of assistance?” he asked, in a soft, seductive whisper that made ladies do all manner of reckless things such as forget they were ladies for the pleasure of his voice alone.
Juliet gave her head a firm shake. Juliet Eleanor Marshville get a gather on yourself right now! She loosened her hood and fixed her gaze on the new owner of her Rosecliff Cottage. “You, my lord, have something I want.”
Jonathan sucked in his breath as the spirited vixen who’d dealt rather handily with Lord Whitby a short while ago revealed herself. Here, in the closeness of his carriage, he could appreciate that which he’d not noted a short while ago.
Her green gaze, the color of the richest emeralds, the fiery crimson curls piled high atop her head, and a smattering of freckles along her high cheek-bones. “You, my lord, have something I want,” she breathed.
Which was rather good for him, because he rather wanted her as well. A recalcitrant red curl tumbled free from the precarious arrangement of her locks. He followed the path of that captivating strand as it bounced and then fell, nestled in the slight gap in her cloak, between her breasts. Jonathan fixed his gaze on that crimson curl, never more jealous of a slip of hair than in that moment.
He reached out and caught the siren’s lock. He raised it to his eyes, wishing it were day so the sun could bathe her in its light and illuminate the vibrancy of the fiery shade of red. His body hardened as he considered his good fortune this evening.
The fiery beauty slapped at his hand, and the curl fell from his fingers. She lurched back in her seat, eyes wide like great, big emerald saucers. “Are you attempting to kiss me, my lord?”
The shocked disgust underscoring those few words jerked Jonathan from the haze of desire that had engulfed him. He angled his head. “Would you like me to?” Because he rather hoped her answer was in fact; ‘yes, that and more, my lord’.
The green of her eyes darkened nearly black jade. “You are mad, my lord,” she hisse
d.
His grin widened at her refreshingly honest reaction. “Is that a no, then?”
She slapped him.
His head snapped back, the resounding crack from her solidly dealt blow rang in his ears like the church bells on Sunday.
He rubbed his cheek and flexed his jaw. Goodness, she was a bloodthirsty wench. Perhaps it had been Whitby who’d needed saving after all.
Jonathan folded his arms across his chest, intrigued as to what the fiery-eyed beauty should want, if not a place in his bed. He waved a hand. “Well, then, Miss…?” Her lips set at a mutinous line. Ah, so she didn’t intend to tell him her name. Very well, in time then. “Miss, just miss, then. You wished to speak with me about something you want?” Something which unfortunately is not my kiss and hands upon your person.
She trailed the tip of her tongue over the seam of her lips. He noted the telltale sign of her nervousness, and a desire to know what brought a gently reared lady outside the Hell and Sin Club filled him. His intrigue doubled.
“Rosecliff Cottage,” her soft whisper cut into his wondering.
He angled his head, still studying the bow-shaped red lips that begged to be kissed.
Her shoulders straightened in a way that Wellington himself would have admired. She jabbed a finger in his direction. “You, sir, have taken my cottage and I would see it returned.”
Her words registered, and perplexity quashed his desire. “Rosecliff Cottage?”
He had a number of properties flung all over England. A manor in Kent. An old estate more castle than anything else in Devonshire. There wasn’t, however, a single cottage amidst all his properties. He stretched his arms out and rested them along the back of his seat. “I assure you, miss, I’ve no Rosecliff Cottage.”
Always a Rogue, Forever Her Love (Scandalous Seasons Book 4) Page 3
