How the Scoundrel Seduces (37 page)

His voice hardened. “I was always careful not to get caught, careful to keep him from knowing about her. But that day, I was worried. I thought she might be in labor, so I weren’t as careful as I ought to have been.”

“And George discovered what you’d been up to,” Dom said.

The life went out of Hucker’s eyes. “He spotted me leaving with a game hen under my coat that I was hoping to sell, and he followed me to the cottage. He was so angry, he was. Kept raging about ‘whores’ on the estate corrupting his servants and his—”

When Hucker broke off, Tristan groaned. George hadn’t been able to stop Father from having his mistress at Rathmoor Park, so he’d taken his anger out on Drina and Hucker instead.

Hucker’s breathing grew heavy. “He threatened to have me hanged for theft, he did. Said if I didn’t cast her out, he’d turn me over to the magistrate. And what good would I be to her and the babe if I was dead?”

“Yes, much better to become his man of affairs,” Dom said dryly.

“More like his lackey,” Hucker growled, “under his thumb for all eternity.”

“And all you had to do was hand her over to him,” Tristan said, his gut twisting at the thought.

“It wasn’t like that,” Hucker said defensively. “I begged him to be merciful, to let me escort her to her people. He said he’d do that himself.”

Tristan snorted. “Why the hell would George be merciful to some Gypsy woman? Surely you didn’t really
believe
he would take her to a place of safety.”

Hucker swallowed. “He said . . . he didn’t want her returning, trying to worm her way back into my life. He said he would take her to her people and pay them to keep her away. Then I would be free of her.”

“And you
wanted
to be free of her?”

“No! But he gave me no choice.” Hucker shot Tristan an imploring glance. “I had to send her off with him. It was the only way to save us both!”

“It didn’t save
her
.” Tristan glared at the man. “Drina was found beaten on the road to York. She
died
on the road to York.” He heard Milosh’s low cry of pain behind him and prayed the man wouldn’t mention that Drina had borne a child. “And that is how my wretch of a brother ‘saved’ Drina.”

Hucker began to shake. “Dead? Drina is
dead 
?”

“And good riddance, too,” said a voice from beyond them.

Tristan froze. Slowly he turned to find George standing in the doorway, a pair of dueling pistols in his hands and murder in his eyes.

“Well, well, look who has come back to spread lies about me,” George said.

Bloody hell.

Tristan slid his hand casually into his coat and closed it around his own pistol, but he didn’t dare shoot—not when George had them in his sights. The minute Tristan showed his pistol, George would fire, and he would be in the right. Tristan was trespassing, and George would claim it was self-defense.

“Lies?” Tristan said. “Are you denying that you beat poor Drina to death?”

George cast a furtive glance at Hucker. “I never touched her.”

“I happen to know for a fact that you did,” Tristan said. “I have a very reputable witness who says he
found her wandering the road, half-frozen and badly beaten.”

“Do you? And he believed the claims of some damned Gypsy woman who probably spread her legs for every—”

With a roar of rage, Milosh lunged forward, but Dom managed to restrain him. For the first time since his arrival, George turned his attention to Milosh.

“Ah, if it isn’t the good Mr. Corrie.” George aimed a pistol at him. “The man who probably helped my father’s bastard steal and dispose of my horse thirteen years ago. I daresay if I were to exert myself, I could find out exactly who bought Blue Blazes—and from whom. That would certainly cook
your
goose, wouldn’t it, Corrie?”

“If you’d ever been able to determine such a thing,” Dom put in, “you would have done it years ago. You had no evidence then, and you certainly have none now.”

“Leave it to the barrister to speak of legalities,” George said snidely. “Wait,
not
a barrister, eh? Just an aspiring one.”

Though a muscle worked in Dom’s jaw, he showed no other sign of agitation. “I have a thriving business, brother. Didn’t you know?” His tone turned taunting. “Meanwhile, the estate you were willing to lie and cheat for is crumbling down about your ears.”

“Shut up!” George shifted his aim from Milosh to Dom. “Or you’ll end up in the grave with Tristan and his friend.”

“Oh,” Tristan said smoothly, “so you plan to kill us?
Not very sporting of you. And not even feasible. There are three of us, and you’ve only got two pistols.”

“Hucker!” George said in a commanding tone. “For God’s sake, use that gun.”

Hucker lifted the fowling piece. “It ain’t loaded.”

“Well, go load it then!”

When Hucker hesitated, George tensed. It was obviously starting to dawn on him that this might prove trickier than he thought. He aimed at Tristan’s heart. “I only need one shot to kill
you,
don’t I? I found three men trespassing, one of them clearly a thieving Gypsy. They were struggling with my man of affairs, and I had to protect him. Little did I know that two of them were my brothers.”

Tristan laughed coldly. “Really? You plan to convince a magistrate that you accidentally shot the brother you’ve been trying to ruin all your adult life?”

“Hucker will support my story.”

Hucker stiffened and glared at George, but remained silent. He was clearly an unknown quantity in this equation.

Apparently George thought so, too, for he said, a bit uneasily, “And no one will heed a damned thing Corrie says.”

Milosh came toward him. “Which is why after you shoot them, there’s nothing to stop me from throttling you. From watching the life drain from you, the way you watched the life drain from Drina.”

“I didn’t kill her, damn it!” George’s pistol wavered
between Milosh and Tristan. “She wasn’t dead when I left her.”

“No, just nearly dead,” Tristan drawled with one eye on Hucker. “Your beating and the cold finished her off.”

“Shut up, damn you!” George cried, steadying the pistol on Tristan.

But before Tristan could pull his own weapon, another voice said from just behind George, “Pull that trigger, Rathmoor, and you are a dead man.”

Tristan groaned. The Major had come. He had a gun to George’s head and would clearly use it if he had to. Pray God Lord Olivier had possessed the good sense to leave Zoe behind.

“Who the devil are you?” George asked.

“Remember that reputable witness I told you about?” Tristan said. “That’s him.”

“Major Roderick Keane, at your service,” Lord Olivier said.

“How did you find us?” Dom asked.

“Followed the tracks in the snow, of course. It’s not for nothing I was in the army.”

George seemed to have finally identified his lordship’s other self. “Lord Olivier? How did my brothers convince
you
to join their ridiculous charade?”

Though George sounded surprised, he appeared oddly unconcerned, which gave Tristan pause.

“Never mind that,” his lordship said. “They’ve done nothing to you. So put your pistols down and let them go.”

“The hell I will.” George lifted his head, and a grin of triumph spread over his face. “Hear that? It’s the sound of my men coming to aid their master.”

As Dom let out a curse, Tristan’s heart dropped into his stomach. Bloody, bloody hell.

“I can’t believe you two continue to underestimate me,” George said gleefully. “I’m not stupid. Don’t you think I sent for my men before I headed here?”

They heard other sounds outside now, not only of men tramping about but of Lord Olivier’s oaths as he was relieved of his weapons.

“I’m sorry, milord,” came a lad’s voice. “It took a while to get the fellows out of bed, but we’re here now.”

“Excellent,” George said. “We have a nest of knaves to root out.” George nodded to Hucker. “Take that pistol the French whore’s bastard has been fondling all this while, will you?”

Hucker hesitated a moment before coming up to remove the weapon from Tristan’s hand inside his coat pocket. The familiar dead look in Hucker’s eyes had returned.

“You’re going to let him do this?” Tristan muttered. “After what he did to Drina—”

“Hucker!” George said. “Bring them here. Now!”

Hucker wavered and his hackles rose, but like a dog in training he came to heel, using Tristan’s pistol to prod the three of them out the door.

Dom exchanged a glance with Tristan and very subtly touched his own coat pocket. No one had thought to check him yet, but they would soon.

Once they were outside, Tristan made a quick assessment. Things were bad, but not as bad as he’d feared. George’s lackeys had dwindled in number since Tristan’s youth, but they still outnumbered Dom, Tristan, the Major, and Milosh by far. And they were armed with scythes and swords and a rifle or two. The odds weren’t overwhelming, but the battle would be a bloody one if it came to that.

There was no sign of Zoe or even of Lord Olivier’s carriage. He ought to have been relieved, but despair swept over him. Though he didn’t want her caught up in this, neither could he bear the thought of dying without telling her that he loved her.

Loved
her?

Oh, yes. He’d been such a fool. With George’s cruel face before him, all he could think was how he’d been wrong about so many things. About Father, about his own character, and yes, about the possibility of falling in love.

The thought of her rose in his mind with a painful sweetness that staggered him. He couldn’t live without her. Nor did he want to die without telling her.

He steadied his shoulders. He was
not
going to die, damn it, nor were the rest of them. George hadn’t had the last word—and if Tristan had anything to say about it, he never would.

26

Z
OE HEARD THE
commotion a short distance away from where Papa had pulled the coach off the road that led through the woods. That alarmed her so much that she leapt out.

“My lady,” one of the outriders said sharply, “his lordship’s orders were clear. We are to stay out of sight.”

She shook her head. “Something’s wrong. I feel it. And those horses we heard riding up from the estate a few moments ago can’t be good.”

Pipkin stepped down from the perch. “What do you want us to do, my lady?”

She surveyed the three stalwart fellows, who bore no resemblance to the sweet, easy-to-manipulate Ralph. “Have you any weapons with you?”

They laughed. Apparently Papa had warned them to come armed, for they pulled out pistols, knives, and a couple of flintlock rifles.

“We should reconnoiter first,” said Pipkin.

The others agreed. They didn’t want her to come along, but she told them flatly that they were not leaving her behind. Not with her father, her fiancé, her uncle, and her fiancé’s brother possibly in danger.

When they reached the edge of the woods and could see the house of the tenant farm in the dawning light, her heart sank. The four men she cared about were facing down ten fellows armed with weapons of varying sorts. Two men stood apart from the others—she could only assume they were George and Hucker.

“Shall we drive to Ashcroft for help?” one of the outriders asked.

She shook her head. “No time.”

The other outrider pointed to the side of the woods near the house. “If the three of us can take positions in the woods around them, we may fool them into thinking there are more of us, especially if we tether our two horses at intervals, too. Those chaps aren’t hardened soldiers—just servants and farmers with weapons. A few shots from many directions, the sounds of horses responding to the shots, and we’d scatter them. They’ll think there’s an army.”

“Do it,” Zoe said.

The men melted into the woods and she edged as close as she dared, trying to hear what was being said in the clearing.

“What do you mean to do with us, Rathmoor?” Papa asked, his voice ringing loudly in the morning air.

“I can’t let you leave here.”

The man who’d answered held two pistols. One of
them was aimed at Tristan. Her stomach clenched painfully.

Especially when Tristan advanced a step toward his half brother. “Let the rest of them go. It’s me you want. And you’re not going to murder four men in cold blood. Even you can’t cover up that crime.”

“It’s not as hard as you think,” George said, a hint of desperation in his voice. “We saw men running away, we thought they were thieves, and we shot them.”

“But m’ lord—” the other man said in a low voice.

“Shut up, Hucker. You’ll be well compensated for your help, don’t worry.”

Hucker. The sight of the man who’d sired her pierced her through. Could he really be such a villain?

Perhaps not, but George certainly was, and he was unpredictable. She needed to stop this before he did as he threatened. And that would give Papa’s men enough time to get into place.

She walked into the clearing. “If you kill them, Lord Rathmoor, you’ll have to kill me,” she called out as she approached. “And I don’t think you’ll have an easy time explaining how a lady got mistaken for a thief.”