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J ohnathan had slept very ill last night. Each time he closed his eyes he imagined the ton as they’d been last night at the theater, the avid, greedy expressions on their faces, their mouths spewing one lie after the next.

The first lie had come straight from the lips of Lady Christine and Lord Cudworth—that it had been Juliet Templeton fleeing the library the night of Lady Fosberry’s ball, her violet silk gown askew—but the ton had carried on from there, whispering that Juliet Templeton’s dark hair was just as Cudworth had described it, and that really, it was a wonder they hadn’t guessed it themselves, given her mother’s reputation.

Whispering that Juliet Templeton was the Lady in Lavender.

For a single, suspended pulse of his heart, Johnathan had even believed it himself, but then it had crashed into its next throbbing beat, sending a hot surge of blood into his veins, and his heart had known it for the lie it was.

Only one lady had ever found her way inside those hallowed chambers, and it wasn’t Juliet Templeton.

It was Emmeline. Emmeline, with her gray-blue eyes and soil-streaked pinafores, Emmeline, with that abominable silly lace cap, her rose petals and perfumes, and that mind of hers, as sharp as those wicked thorns on blasted Baronet Hume’s Blush Tea-Scented China roses.

Ridiculous name, for a rose. Much too long. That Johnathan even remembered the whole of it was a testament to how deeply he’d fallen in love with her. He remembered everything about her. Her smile, her laugh, every word she’d ever spoken to him.

Perhaps he and Emmeline were a curious match, at least from a distance. Certainly, they were so to the ton , who were too preoccupied with fortunes and titles to care much for love, and lacked imagination when it came to marriage.

They’d put him with Lady Christine, for God’s sake.

They were, however, far more imaginative when it came to scandal.

To the ton , Juliet Templeton was just the sort of bold, vivacious beauty who’d catch the eye of an earl, and tempt him to abandon his duty to his mother and his title.

That was a rumor they could feast on for weeks, at least until the end of the season.

To them, Juliet Templeton as a devious, ruinous siren made perfect sense, but when had love ever made sense? It was a tangled, messy business, painful and glorious at once, just like the Baronet’s roses with their lovely scent, and deceptively innocent-looking thorns?—

“Good morning, my lord.”

Johnathan looked up from his teacup as his butler, Williams, entered the breakfast room, a silver tray with a stack of letters on it balanced on his hand.

“Good morning, Williams. You may as well take the letters to my study, as I won’t have time this morning to—” He paused as he caught a glimpse of the letter sitting on the top of the pile, his name scrawled on the front in Cross’s bold script. “Was Lord Cross here, Williams?”

“Yes, my lord, an hour or so ago.”

“So early? And he declined to stay?” That wasn’t like Cross, who often had breakfast with him in the morning.

“Yes, my lord. He asked that you beg his pardon, and bid me give you the letter.”

Johnathan took it from the tray, his chest tight. “Thank you, Williams. You may go.”

“Yes, my lord.” Williams bowed himself out as Johnathan tore open the letter and scanned the two sentences on the page before dropping the paper onto his plate, a frown on his lips.

Cross had gone off to Oxfordshire, to his hunting estate near Albury.

It wasn’t wholly unexpected, as Cross had for years hosted a house party during the first two weeks of grouse season, but his departure seemed rather sudden, given he hadn’t said a word to Johnathan about leaving London.

He read the two brief sentences again, but Cross had said only he’d see Johnathan with his new bride at Albury in two weeks’ time.

His new bride…

There’d been a moment last night, right before Johnathan had admitted he wasn’t certain Juliet wasn’t the Lady in Lavender, when Cross had seemed to be holding his breath, as if Johnathan’s reply would make him the happiest of men, or shatter his world forever.

Cross had never been one to share the inner workings of his heart—indeed, most of the ladies in London would claim he didn’t have a heart at all—but that expression on his face…

Johnathan had been too distraught to make any sense of it at the time, but now, looking back, he recognized the look for what it was.

Hope, right before it collapsed into the darkest despair.

But Cross, and Juliet Templeton?

The two of them hadn’t ceased bickering since the moment they met.

Cross contradicted every word out of Juliet’s mouth with his usual arrogance, and when Juliet wasn’t needling Cross, she was laughing at him.

Still, when they were together, they were wholly focused on each other, and Johnathan had never seen Cross as animated as he was when he was in Juliet Templeton’s company.

Yes, he quite liked them together. A tentative smile crossed Johnathan’s lips, but it turned to a frown again as he glanced down at the open letter in his hand.

Had Cross fled London with hardly a word because he’d feared Johnathan was on the verge of making Juliet Templeton the Countess of Melrose? It certainly looked like it.

He dropped his head to his fist with a groan. Another proof that affairs of the heart were messy, tangled, and painful, especially when one threw passion into the mix.

For as long as Johnathan had known Cross, he’d been determined to avoid love entirely, but it seems it had found him at last, sometime between his first glimpse of Juliet Templeton’s face, and their battle over Romeo and Juliet .

As for Johnathan, his heart was as permanently taken as Cross’s appeared to be.

Well then, there was only one thing left to do. He tossed the letter aside, set his teacup on the tray, and left the breakfast room, calling to Williams to fetch his coat, hat, and stick, and order the carriage brought round.

It was time to put this business to rights, once and for all.

“Gone?” Johnathan stared blankly at Lady Fosberry, certain he must have misheard her. “Emmeline is gone ?”

He didn’t realize he’d raised his voice until Lady Fosberry rose from the settee and closed the door of her private parlor with a quiet click.

“Yes, I’m afraid so, my lord. I tried every argument I could think of to dissuade her, but Emmeline can be terribly stubborn, despite her delicate appearance. ”

Johnathan had no trouble believing that . “But where the dev—that is, where has she gone?”

“Back to Buckinghamshire, to Hambleden Manor, very early this morning, and against my wishes.”

What, another defection? First Cross, and now this ?

“Emmeline Templeton has an unfortunate habit of running away.” Johnathan didn’t intend to let her evade him that easily, however. Hambleden was only forty or so miles from London, and he’d go a great deal farther than that to have her back.

“I don’t mind telling you, my lord, I had little hope of persuading her to come to London in the first place, but once she was here, I thought perhaps…” Lady Fosberry trailed off with a sigh. “Well, it hasn’t worked out as I’d hoped it would.”

“What had you hoped for?”

“Why, a marriage for Emmeline or Juliet, of course, or for both of them, if the thing could be managed. Their father, bless him, wasn’t able to do much for them, and they’re in rather tightened circumstances.”

“How tight?” Johnathan asked grimly.

Lady Fosberry hesitated, then let out another sigh. “Tight enough their younger sister Helena has taken a governess position with the Marquess of Hawke. She left only days before Juliet and Emmeline agreed to come with me to London. I fear they’ll lose Hambleden Manor next.”

Johnathan had suspected the Templetons were in dire circumstances from the few things Emmeline had said about Hambleden Manor, but her younger sister, forced out to work? She’d never said a word about that .

He thought about the way Emmeline’s face had lit up when she’d described her home to him, the affection in her voice when she spoke of her sisters, and a pang of regret pieced his chest for her.

I should never have let her slip away from me so easily last night ? —

“I’d buy the house for them myself, if they’d let me, but those girls are dreadfully proud, just as their father was.” Despite the impatience in her voice, a fond smile drifted over Lady Fosberry’s lips. “Too proud for their own good.”

Johnathan nodded, but he was thinking of Emmeline, alone in Lady Fosberry’s carriage on her way back to Buckinghamshire. He could feel her sadness lacerating his own heart, as if her despair was his as much as her own, and he couldn’t bear it.

He had to fetch her, and the thing must be done at once—he was finished being gentlemanly about it. He wanted his lady, and he wanted her now . “I’m going to marry Emmeline, Lady Fosberry,” he announced, without preamble.

“Well then, my lord, it seems we both want the same thing. The only remaining question is, how are we meant to go about getting it?”

Johnathan blinked. “Well, I thought I might go to Buckinghamshire, and ask her.”

It seemed a perfectly logical next step to him, but Lady Fosberry shook her head. “You did ask her, my lord, and she refused you. She didn’t say so, but I’m certain she left with the hope that once she’d gone, you’d forget her and marry Juliet.”

“ Forget her?” Johnathan stared at Lady Fosberry in amazement. “How could I ever forget her? And there’s no question of my marrying Juliet. Juliet Templeton doesn’t love me, and I imagine my being in love with her sister is rather a stumbling block for her.”

Johnathan considered mentioning his suspicions about Cross’s affection for Juliet, but decided against it. That wasn’t his declaration to make.

“Oh, I’m well aware you’re in love with Emmeline, my lord.” Lady Fosberry’s eyes were twinkling. “You gentlemen are a great deal less mysterious than you think you are. The trouble is the ton .”