“You’ve summed it up brilliantly,” she said.
Perfectly. Brilliantly. His brother got the gushing compliments, while she raked Tristan over the coals. He wasn’t used to that, even from her sort.
Women like her did sometimes turn up their noses at him on the few occasions when he frequented “good society.” But when no one of their class was around, they were perfectly eager to smile and bat their eyelashes. Many a married lady of rank had tried to seduce him, and even the unmarried ones flirted with him, practicing for their more serious pursuit of lords.
But, ever conscious of their reputations, they only showed their true colors privately, in the dark. Give him an honest actress or opera dancer in his bed any day over some bored baroness. They knew what they wanted, and they went after it with gusto. They didn’t hide their desires behind hypocrisy.
Lady Zoe knows what she wants and is going after it. She just doesn’t want you. And she’s being perfectly honest about it.
True. Damn her. It shouldn’t annoy him that she was apparently the one female immune to his flirtations. But it did.
“Have you any information that will help us with the search?” Tristan demanded. “Do you even know what ship your parents traveled on?”
Drawing a sheet of paper from her reticule, she placed it on the desk. “I wrote down everything about my birth that I could glean from talking to servants, tenants, and villagers over the past few months. I had to be careful, though. I dared not risk rousing suspicions in anyone.”
“That must have been difficult,” Tristan quipped. “Clearly subtlety isn’t your strong suit.”
To his surprise, a rueful smile crossed her lips. “It certainly isn’t. Still, I did my best because I also couldn’t take the chance of my questions getting back to Papa. He tends to be overprotective.”
“Which makes sense, when you consider that you’re his only heir.” Dom picked up the paper to look it over.
“True,” she murmured. “Not to mention that he keeps forgetting he’s no longer in the army.”
“The army?” Tristan echoed, taken aback.
Dom glanced up from the sheet of paper. “Don’t you remember hearing about the Keanes of Winborough? The estate is near the town of Highthorpe, only a couple of hours away from home.”
Home. Tristan hadn’t thought of Rathmoor Park as home in a very long time. It reminded him too powerfully of what he’d lost. “Might as well have been a couple of days away if her family wasn’t keen on racing.”
“Good point. Father’s friends did tend to be exclusively from that set. In any case, Lady Zoe’s father was Major Keane before his elder brother died, leaving him to inherit the title.”
“And Mama and Aunt Flo were the daughters of a colonel,” the young woman put in. “Father runs our family the way he used to run his regiment. Or so I would guess, since I wasn’t even born then.”
A certain vulnerability flashed over her face, and Tristan realized how young she must be. Based on what she’d said about her coming-out and her mother’s death, she couldn’t be more than twenty-one, barely into her majority.
The thought of a woman that age facing a fight for what was rightfully hers unsettled him. It reminded him of how easily he and Lisette had been deprived of their own inheritance. Dom, too, because of the vagaries of English law. In France, Dom would have inherited a portion no matter what George did to prevent it.
Still, Lady Zoe had a father who cared about her and meant to give her a tidy inheritance, regardless of whom she married. It was why she felt free to act recklessly. Unlike Tristan, she’d never had to risk paying for her reckless behavior with her life.
“Unfortunately,” she went on, “when Papa is being the Major, he saddles me with one of our fiercer servants as a gaoler, who dogs my every step. I could never have come here today if Papa had realized what I’ve been up to.”
Instead, she’d coerced her pup of a footman into doing her bidding. No wonder her father felt compelled to give her “fiercer” servants as gaolers.
Dom held up her paper. “I see no information here about the Gypsy woman. Can you tell us anything else about that?”
“I do have a name for her,” she said with a sideways glance at Tristan. “She called herself Drina. Apparently she didn’t mention a surname.”
Drina was actually a popular Romany name. Perhaps her aunt’s tale wasn’t entirely spurious. Still, it wasn’t much to go on. It would require several forays into the different Gypsy camps, and there were quite a number.
As it finally dawned on him what this could mean for him, his blood raced. Lady Zoe wanted someone to talk to the Romany; he wanted to find Milosh. He might actually get paid for doing what he’d been itching to do for months.
“Did your parents know where Drina’s people had camped?” Dom asked.
She furrowed her brow. “Mama told Aunt Flo that Drina was headed west for York when they encountered her. Perhaps she was going to join her family.”
This was getting better and better. With both Winborough and Rathmoor Park near the road to York, Tristan could easily investigate them both.
But he was getting ahead of himself. “What time of year was this?”
“January. Mama and Papa disembarked the ship in Liverpool, then traveled by coach to York. They were headed home to Highthorpe when they met up with Drina. That’s all I know.”
Tristan glanced at Dom. “Many of the Romany winter in major cities like York or Edinburgh or London. Some even take houses for those months.”
Lady Zoe began to tremble so violently that she had to sit down again. “My aunt’s tale might be true, then.” Her gaze, oddly unfocused, met Tristan’s. “I might indeed be a Gypsy by birth.”
“Not necessarily,” he said, inexplicably alarmed by her distress. “There are things about the tale that don’t make sense. Why would this Drina have been on the road in January? The Gypsies who used to camp on my father’s land left for town in early November, not two or three months later, when there was more likelihood of snow.”
She swallowed hard. “Still, you must admit that I look like a Gypsy, with my coloring and my hair—”
“Nonsense,” he said.
Granted, she looked unusual, rather like a Russian princess he’d once met. But not so unusual as to provoke suspicion about her heritage. Her skin was the creamy hue of marzipan, and her hair wasn’t dark enough. Though she did have a Gypsy’s high cheekbones, her eyes were pure English—green as the wolds of York in summer.
“You look half-Gypsy at most.” As something occurred to him, Tristan searched her features again. “Perhaps the Gypsy story is only partly true. Perhaps you really aren’t your mother’s child. But you could still be your father’s.”
Her eyes got huge in her face. “What are you saying?”
“Nothing,” Dom put in with a look of caution.
Tristan ignored him. “Perhaps Drina was your father’s mistress.”
ALSO BY SABRINA JEFFRIES
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THE DUKE’S MEN SERIES
When the Rogue Returns
What the Duke Desires
THE HELLIONS OF HALSTEAD HALL SERIES
A Lady Never Surrenders
To Wed a Wild Lord
How to Woo a Reluctant Lady
A Hellion in Her Bed
The Truth About Lord Stoneville
THE SCHOOL FOR HEIRESSES SERIES
Wed Him Before You Bed Him
Don’t Bargain with the Devil
Snowy Night with a Stranger
(with Jane Feather & Julia London)
Let Sleeping Rogues Lie
Beware a Scot’s Revenge
The School for Heiresses
(with Julia London, Liz Carlyle & Renee Bernard)
> Only a Duke Will Do
Never Seduce a Scoundrel
THE ROYAL BROTHERHOOD SERIES
One Night with a Prince
To Pleasure a Prince
In the Prince’s Bed
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2014 by Deborah Gonzales
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ISBN 978-1-4767-7053-6
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
How the Scoundrel Seduces Excerpt
Dorinda and the Doctor Page 6