Last Dance in London (Rakes on the Run #1) - Sydney Jane Baily Page 0,59
before coming to a stop directly in front of Sarah as if to welcome her. He didn’t take her hand, though, since he was as likely to be punched if he tried.
“To what do I owe the pleasure of your unexpected visit?”
There was a hard edge to his voice, and Julia realized he was as upset at the interruption as she was.
“Lord Marshfield, can you truly be asking me that question,” Sarah spat out each word, “when my sister was here. Alone. With you!”
When Jasper said nothing, she added, “Without a chaperone.”
He gestured behind him, in Julia’s general direction.
“As you can see, you had no call to rush to her aid. Miss Sudbury is unharmed.”
“Is she?” Sarah snapped. “What about her reputation?”
Julia swallowed, watching the battle unfold.
“Her reputation,” Jasper repeated. “Why, it is as solid and unblemished as ever it was.”
Julia tried to make out if he was insulting her, saying she’d never had a perfect reputation to begin with, or was defending her.
“What’s more,” he continued, “she will have no cause to worry about her respectability unless you choose to tarnish her name.”
“Me?” Sarah took an indignant step back. “I will always protect my sister.”
Julia recalled how she’d intended to follow Lady Daphne’s advice and protect Sarah, but her good sense had gone out the window when Lady Chandron’s strange and threatening missive had arrived.
Turning to Jasper had seemed a good, albeit wanton and self-indulgent, idea. Moreover, she’d never got around to asking him for assistance.
“It is you who is tarnishing her,” Sarah continued. “You were entertaining her in your private rooms. Even if alone, you both would seem less guilty if I’d discovered you in the drawing room. My sister showed terrible judgment going upstairs with you.”
“I think she made a particularly fine choice in doing so,” Jasper shot back.
Julia was about to berate them for discussing her as if she wasn’t there when her dear sister turned her gaze upon her and said words that broke her heart.
“I have failed you.”
Julia rushed forward and clasped Sarah’s hands, hearing Jasper mutter something under his breath that sounded like “calculating crone.”
“No, you haven’t,” Julia insisted, feeling tears well. “There is no calamity.” She knew Sarah would say nothing to anyone, and thus her reputation was as intact as her frustrating virginity.
“Why are you trying to throw your life away on this worthless rogue?”
“I say,” Jasper began. “That’s rather harsh.”
“You don’t even know him,” Julia said, although she didn’t know him too well herself — except that he kissed divinely, smelled like a God, had muscles as if sculpted by Michelangelo, and had the ability to make her purr. “He isn’t worthless.”
She couldn’t quite get herself to declare him not a rogue. In fact, she feared he was.
“I know his type,” Sarah continued. “More to the point, you know his type. Again, I ask, why are you being reckless?”
Julia could do nothing but sigh. She could hardly say she wanted to experience passion. Nor could she confess she was growing a ridiculous affection for this particular rogue. That way lay madness. She knew it, but there was no denying her heart had become entangled.
“Let’s go home and leave his lordship in peace,” Julia said.
“Miss Sudbury,” Jasper started behind her, sounding as if he were going to protest her imminent departure.
Finally, she looked him squarely in his coffee-brown eyes. She could clearly recall how he’d watched for her reaction while sliding down her body to kiss her most private area. She curled her hands at her sides, thinking of his gaze holding hers, then lowering at the last second, as his mouth touched her—
“Surely you must understand,” Julia said, “I need to leave with my sister.” Sarah would probably wash her hands of her altogether if she did aught else. And what an unfathomable insult it would be to send her away and return to Jasper’s warm, inviting bed.
Still, she couldn’t help wishing her sister had never come and interrupted them.
“Will I see you again?” he asked, rather outrageously given the circumstances.
“No,” Sarah’s voice exclaimed.
Julia sighed and offered him a smile, thinking it best not to give him an answer until she sorted out her emotions.
“Good evening, my lord.” With that, she turned, took her sister’s arm under hers, and departed.
Sarah had come after Julia in a hackney, and so they drove home together in the Worthington carriage she’d borrowed. Resting against the late-earl’s leather squabs, Julia saw no reason to speak, but simply let Sarah lecture her endlessly.