How the Scoundrel Seduces (40 page)

Her face fell. “I was hoping they’d spend the whole summer. And then winter in York after the harvest.”

“You know they prefer to winter in London,” he said softly. “Besides, it’s one thing to have them camp here and help with the planting or the harvest. Though some villagers grumbled, no one found it suspicious. But if you go hieing off to a Gypsy encampment in York—”

“I know, I know,” she grumbled. “Besides, I can see him once or twice when we go to London for the season.”

“For the
season
? But you’re having a baby!”

“I’ll have had her by then. And I’ll want to show her off.”

“Him,” he corrected her.

It was a running joke between them that she wanted a female heir and he wanted a male, but in truth he just wanted a healthy child. And for his wife to survive the birth.

He’d never forgotten George’s terrible tale of Lady Rathmoor choosing to share their father’s bed, despite knowing that having another child could kill her. It hadn’t negated the horrible things George had done, but it had helped to explain what had warped him beyond redemption.

It also explained why he’d hated Tristan so. And why he’d found it so hard to love Dom unreservedly, the way Tristan did.

“You need to stop tormenting Dom over Jane,” Tristan told Zoe. “He has a great deal to handle right now.”

“Well, so does Jane,” Zoe said with a sniff, having instantly taken up Lisette’s cause once she’d met Dom’s former fiancée. “George’s widow, for one.”

“Yes, I heard that she is having a difficult time with her husband’s death. Hard enough to hear that George was killed while trying to murder his half brother, but then to have some of his unsavory deeds exposed afterward . . .”

Zoe stared earnestly at him. “Did George really force those tenants from their homes and break their leases, as they claim?”

“It appears so. George threw his weight around with
a lot of people. And now those people are all coming out of the woodwork, trying to get a piece of the estate. They know that Dom won’t blackmail them into silence, the way George did.”

“What a legal nightmare,” she said dolefully.

“Dom will sort it all out, don’t you worry. Not for nothing did he train as a barrister.”

They danced a moment in silence, intimately entwined, swept up in the music and their thoughts.

“Do you realize how very lucky we’ve been?” he said softly.

“Very lucky,” she agreed. “Or perhaps just fated to be together, as that Romany fortune-teller said.”

He eyed her skeptically. “The one who said you were born of secrets and sadness?”

“Yes. And I was, you know. She also said that it would either destroy my future or lead me to greatness.”

He snorted. “She gave you two opposite possibilities, so one of them was likely to prove true. And that has nothing to do with us being fated to be together, anyway.”

“Ah, but I never told you all of it.” Zoe positively smirked at him, a bad habit she’d picked up from God only knew where. “She said that a handsome gentleman with eyes like the sky and hair like a raven’s wing would come into my life.”

Though that gave him pause, he wasn’t about to let
her
know it. “That describes probably a third of the men in England,” he said dryly. When she frowned, he softened his tone. “Much as I like the idea of our being
fated to be together, my love, I wouldn’t base it on some fortune-teller’s spurious predictions.”

“There’s more.” She gazed up at him, her eyes soft and warm in the moonlight. “The woman also said, ‘If you let him, he will become the hand of your vengeance.’ What do you say to that?”

A chill passed down his spine. “That was just a lucky guess.”

“I suppose you’re right. She also said, ‘If you let him, he will shatter your heart.’ And you certainly haven’t done that.” She cast him an arch glance. “Though you very nearly did, before I convinced you to give yours to me, instead.”

“I would never have shattered your heart,” he said. “Because when a man is entrusted with the most precious thing on earth, he knows it. And he treats it with the love and respect it deserves.”

He bent to brush his lips over hers. “Besides,” he said in his best seductive manner, “if I’d shattered your heart, you would never have let me back into your bed—and I’m not fool enough to risk that.”

A laugh sputtered out of her. “You, sir, are a scoundrel in married man’s clothing.”

He grinned. “The better to seduce you with, my lady.” He lowered his mouth to hers. “The better to seduce you with.”

A
UTHOR
’
S
N
OTE

Whenever you read about Lady Somewhere (the Countess of Somewhere), you’re reading about a woman with a courtesy title given to her because she married Lord Somewhere (the Earl of Somewhere). But, once in a great while, titles were handed down to women (according to the rules governing the title when it was first established), and that meant that the daughter could inherit the title. That’s why poor Zoe is in a pickle. Because
she
will be the one inheriting the title. Her problems would be similar if she were a son who was not the legitimate blood relation of the noble father. One had to be both a blood relation and legitimate to inherit a title and an entailed estate.

So adoption wasn’t an option. Until the early twentieth century, there was no such legal construct in English law. A couple could certainly take in a little boy, give him their name, leave him their unentailed property, and in every way treat the boy like a son. But he could not inherit the father’s title or entailed estate. There was no legal way to accomplish that . . . except by lying to everyone, as the Keanes do in my book.

As for the Romany, it is difficult to research them in our period because many of the sources from that time are biased against them. But I did find a few that seemed evenhanded, and there is some recent material on the Web written by the Romany themselves. The term “Gypsy,” while used a great deal during the Regency, wasn’t what the Rom called themselves, even then. It’s misleading, because it tries to encompass the Romany, Scottish Travelers, Irish Travelers, tinkers, and a number of other British nomadic groups, all of which are culturally and ethnically different. And yes, the Romany often did take houses for the winter. Given the vagaries of English winters, that’s no surprise!

Turn the page for a sneak peek at the fourth book in the Duke’s Men series from
New York Times
bestselling author Sabrina Jeffries!

If the Viscount Falls

Coming in Spring 2015 from Pocket Books

J
ANE
V
ERNON WAS
impatient to be gone from Mrs. Patch’s. She was dying to know what Dominick Manton had discovered. Was it possible he’d actually found her missing cousin? Could that be why he was taking so long? Perhaps Nancy had simply stopped for a few nights at Ringrose’s Inn, and he was coming back to give them the triumphant news.

But when the Viscount Rathmoor arrived, nothing in his grim expression said that he’d found Nancy. Dom
had
discovered something, however. She could tell. And it was clearly something he didn’t want to share with Mrs. Patch.

Jane impatiently waited through the goodbyes and repeated assurances that they would keep Mrs. Patch informed of what they learned, and by the time they were in the street, she was fit to be tied. “All right,” she said without preamble, “what took you so long? What did you find out at the inn?”

He walked with such long strides toward the Elephant and Castle that she had to hurry to keep up with him. “I learned that Nancy arrived there around noon on the day you left Rathmoor Park. And then she apparently vanished.”

“What?” Jane seized his arm. “What do you mean ‘vanished’?”

He stared over at her. “No one saw her leave. Unfortunately, that doesn’t tell us much, because not all of the ostlers from that day were working today.” Frustration crept into his voice. “They said I’d have to return tonight to speak with everyone who would have been here then. But . . .”

When he hesitated, she shook his arm. “But
what
?”

“One of the ostlers said that when he asked if he could fetch a hackney coach for Nancy, she told him there was no need because she was meeting a friend.”

Jane’s heart began to pound. “Mrs. Patch?”

“I doubt that.” Eyes hard and brittle as emeralds glittered at her. “She would have said ‘aunt.’ Besides, ‘meeting’ implies that Nancy expected someone to come there for her. And you heard Mrs. Patch say she never ventures from her house.”

This got worse by the moment. “Perhaps Nancy has a female friend in York.”

“One you’ve never heard of ? Never met? How likely is that?”

Oh, the man was so infuriating! “I take it you’re determined to believe that Nancy was meeting with a lover.”

“As I said—it’s the most likely explanation.” When she frowned at him, he said smoothly, “Certainly the ostler’s words don’t fit
your
pet theory—that she was kidnapped.”

Seething with worry and anger and frustration that he could be such a . . . a
man
about this, Jane dropped his arm and quickened her pace. “You are attributing a great deal to one remark by an ostler.” She turned onto the street that led directly to the inn. “He might have misheard or misunderstood the fact that she really was heading to Mrs. Patch’s.”

Dom followed her. “Without telling the woman ahead of time? Didn’t Mrs. Patch say that Nancy always sent a note before she came?”

“She also said that murderers run rampant in the streets of York, but I don’t hear you quoting the woman on
that
.”

“Yes, but, Jane—” he began in that condescending, arrogant tone of his that pricked her harder than any embroidery needle.

“So that’s it,” she bit out. “You’ve got your mind made up. Nancy ran off with a lover, and you’re washing your hands of the whole thing.”

“Can you give me a good reason why I shouldn’t?”

Something in his voice made her glance at him. He was regarding her as a naturalist regarded a beetle he intended to dissect.

That’s when it dawned on her—Dom wanted to unearth her secrets.
Nancy’s
secrets. And somewhere between Winborough and here he’d deduced that she was hiding some.

A shiver ran down Jane’s spine, and she jerked her gaze from him, fighting to hide her consternation. “Merely the same reason I gave you before. Nancy could be in trouble. And it’s your duty as her brother-in-law to keep her safe.”

“From what?” he demanded. “From whom? Is there more to this than you’re saying?”

Ooh, that he was so determined to unveil the truth about Nancy while hiding his former collusion with her scraped Jane raw. “I could ask the same of you,” she said primly. “You’re obviously holding something back. You have
some
reason for your determination to believe ill of Nancy. I wonder what that might be.”

Two can play your game, Almighty Dom. Hah!

He was silent so long that she ventured a glance at him to find him looking rather discomfited. Good! It was about time.

“I am merely keeping an open mind about your cousin,
which is more than I can say for you,” Dom finally answered. “She isn’t the woman you think she is.”

“Because she wouldn’t give in to your advances twelve years ago, you mean?” Jane would make him admit the truth about the night they parted if it was the last thing she did! “Perhaps that’s why you’re determined to blacken her character. You’re angry that she resisted you and went off to marry your brother instead.”

“That’s a lie!” When several people on the street turned to look in his direction, Dom lowered his voice. “It wasn’t like that.”

She stifled a smile of satisfaction. At last she was getting a reaction from him that was something other than levelheaded logic. “Wasn’t it? If you’d convinced Nancy to marry you, you might not have had to go off to be a Bow Street runner. You could have had an easier life, a better life in high society than you could have had with me if you’d married me. Without being able to access my fortune, I could only have dragged you down.”

“You don’t really believe that I wanted to marry her for her money,” he gritted out.

“It’s either that or assume that you fell madly in love with her in the few weeks we weren’t able to see each other.” They were nearly to the inn now, so Jane added a plaintive note to her voice. “Or perhaps it was her you wanted all along. You knew my uncle would never accept a second son as a husband for his rich heiress of a daughter, so you courted me to get close to her. Nancy was always so beautiful, so—”

“Enough!”

Without warning, he dragged her into one of the many alleyways that crisscrossed York. This one was deeply shadowed, the houses leaning into each other overhead, and as he pulled her around to face him, the brilliance of his eyes shone starkly in the dim light.

“I never cared one whit about Nancy.”

She tamped down her triumph—he hadn’t admitted the whole truth yet. “It certainly didn’t look that way to me. It looked like you had already forgotten me, forgotten what we meant to each—”