How the Scoundrel Seduces (23 page)

God, she was as adept at twisting a man about her finger as his meddlesome sister. “I’m not taking you.”

Her gaze turned calculating. “I see. Then I suppose I’d better go home.”

“Give me a moment to get my coat and my pistol. Then we’ll head down to the livery where my horse is stabled.”

“No, I’m riding out now.” She headed for the door. “Perhaps I’ll take the long way, see a bit of Covent Garden first.”

“The hell you will!”

Covent Garden was a teeming mass of whores and pickpockets and devils just waiting for a tender piece like her to come along. It was all right at this spot of Bow Street, across from the theater, but wandering farther afield could be decidedly dangerous.

When she kept on toward the door, he growled, “Stop right there, damn you! You will wait for me to accompany you. You will—”

“You cannot command me, Mr. Bonnaud.” When
she lifted her hand to unlatch the front door, her cloak fell open to reveal the same redingote she’d worn earlier, the one he’d had his hands beneath . . .

He groaned. He couldn’t command her, but she sure as hell knew how to command
him.

As if sublimely unaware of what she did to him, she cast him a coy smile and opened the door. “I am Lady Zoe, and I will do as I please. Good night.”

“Damn it, Zoe.” He rushed over to catch her by the arm before she could dart outside.

She stared pointedly at his hand. “I suspect it will be difficult for you to fetch your horse while holding me prisoner, but you’re welcome to attempt it.”

He let loose a colorful string of French curses that didn’t seem to faze her one bit. If anything, her lips were tightly pursed as if she fought a smile.

That little show of humor utterly disarmed him. “All right, princess. I’ll almost certainly regret this, but I
suppose
you may go with me to Lambeth.”

“Wonderful!” She tugged free of him and smoothed her skirts. “Then I shall wait while you fetch your horse and whatever else you need for our expedition.”

She was so bloody pleased with herself that it rankled. “Has anyone ever told you that you are a royal pain in the . . . er . . . derriere?”

“
Derriere? 
” she said, eyes gleaming. “Why, Mr. Bonnaud, that’s a much politer word than you generally use. I don’t believe I’ve ever been insulted with such a milksop word. It’s a bit like the opposite of ‘damning with faint praise,’ only you’re praising with faint damnation.”

Leave it to Zoe to throw his own words up in his face. “Fine. A pain in the arse. Happy now?”

“Delirious.”

Her brilliant smile set his blood racing. She was a piece of work, and he wanted to kiss her senseless. And more. But he couldn’t—shouldn’t—which made him want to howl his frustration.

Instead, he bent close to murmur, “Be grateful we’re in something of a hurry, princess. Otherwise, with no one around to remind me I’m a gentleman, I would do my utmost to get you into my bed. I would take my sweet time kissing and fondling and arousing you, until I had you begging me to seduce you. I can promise you would not leave here a maiden.”

Her smile vanished, and her eyes went wide.

Content that he’d had the last word, he stalked out to fetch his horse.

14

T
HE MOON HUNG
low in the sky as they headed for Lambeth, but there were plenty of gas lamps to light the way. Unfortunately, the streets were still crowded, so they couldn’t talk much as they rode for Westminster Bridge.

Zoe hadn’t intended this when she’d come to Manton’s Investigations, but she didn’t regret it, either. It gave her another chance to find the woman who’d borne her, the father who’d abandoned her.

And another chance to be with Tristan.

With no one around to remind me I’m a gentleman, I would do my utmost to get you into my bed.

Oh, and she might just let him, too. Because a part of her—a desperate, insane part of her—wanted to see firsthand what it was like to have the scoundrel seduce her.

Would it be like this afternoon, thrilling and daring and a little rough? Or would he be gentle with her because she was a virgin? He’d said he’d take his time, and
despite the brutal cold of the night, the thought of that made her hot in places she should
not
feel hot.

They were finally headed into a less trafficked area, for few people were out and about near Westminster at this time of night. Tristan edged a little closer. She assumed it was a subtly protective measure until he spoke.

“So, exactly how much
did
my chatty sister tell you about me and George?”

“Everything, I think.” She cast him a sidelong glance. “About his burning the codicil, about your stealing the horse, about your family fleeing to France so you could escape being hanged.”

“Ah. I suppose that’s why you sneaked out of your house and rushed right over to warn me.” Bitterness crept into his voice. “To keep me from making another foolish mistake like the one I made in my youth.”

“I gather it wasn’t so much a mistake as a desperate attempt to save your mother and sister,” she said softly. “I don’t blame you for it.”

“How good of you. But you’ve missed the point entirely, you and Lisette and Dom.” He turned a stony countenance to her. “Yes, I did it partly to gain funds for my family, but if that had been the only reason, I could have asked Dom to help me figure out a solution. Or gone looking for work in York.”

His gaze locked with hers. “The truth is, I honestly thought I would get away with it. My plan was that George would know without a doubt—yet be unable to prove—that I’d stolen Blue Blazes from him. I wanted
him to seethe over it and not be able to do a damned thing about it.”

Jerking his gaze back to the road, he prodded the horse into a faster gait. “But as usual, fate was on George’s side. It always is. Some blasted servant saw me take the Thoroughbred. I don’t even know who it was.” His voice hardened. “I don’t care, either. Because I still blame George for the whole fiasco. And I still refuse to let him get away with what he did.”

As they rode on, a terrible realization gripped her. “So
that’s
what this is about. You’re going to see Milosh because you want revenge.” When he just stared grimly ahead, she asked, “How on earth can a Romany wanderer help you avenge yourself on George?”

Would he answer her? Or keep stoically heading off on his self-appointed mission?

After a moment, he released a drawn-out breath. “The night that I sold Milosh the horse, he mentioned something about George’s past. I got the impression he might know secrets about my half brother. I didn’t press him at the time, because I needed him to buy Blue Blazes and I didn’t want to spook him. But now I have nothing to lose by pursuing it.”

“You have nothing to gain, either. Except a hollow revenge.”

“And a future without fear.” His eyes glimmered at her in the night. “He won’t stop until he has me in a noose. So I must stop him somehow before he succeeds.”

The conviction in his face gave her pause. Was he right?

She chose her words carefully. “I can understand why you hate George, but why does he hate you so very much?”

“God only knows.”

“Surely you have
some
inkling of the reason.”

“You think I provoked him into it. Is that it?”

She bristled. “I’m just trying to understand.”

“Good luck. I don’t understand it entirely myself.” He shrugged. “Dom thinks it’s because Father always seemed to like me best, and George resented that.”

“But Mr. Manton doesn’t resent you for it.”

“No.” He steadied his hat on his head. “Dom was never like Father, so they didn’t quite . . . get on. Dom is cautious, he prefers stability to wandering the world, and he lives like a monk, none of which qualities Papa ever had.”

“Or you,” she said lightly.

That made him stiffen in the saddle. “Yes, I’m just a feckless rogue, hopping from bed to bed in an endless quest for pleasure.”

“I didn’t say that.” She’d unwittingly insulted him again. “And you can’t be that feckless a rogue, or you would have stayed out with my cousin till dawn last night. You wouldn’t have worked all those jobs in Toulon and Paris to support your family.” She gazed over at his rigid features. “And you wouldn’t be heading off to find out about my parents for me.”

“Ah, but you said it yourself—I was only using your case as an excuse to hunt for Milosh.”

“Then why spend nearly three days traveling to
Liverpool and back? Why cart me around a Romany camp?” She ventured a smile. “Twice, counting tonight.”

“So I can get you into my bed, of course,” he said in a hard tone. “Why else?”

Lisette’s words echoed in her ears:
But don’t let my big brother’s blustering fool you. There’s more to Tristan than he lets on.

“If that’s all you wanted, you would have done so back at Manton’s Investigations the minute you had me alone.”

He didn’t seem to have anything to say to that.

“Tell me, Tristan, what are your plans for
after
you take your revenge against George?”

“I haven’t thought that far ahead.”

“Not at all?” she asked. “Have you no secret ambition? Perhaps an urge to run Manton’s Investigations by yourself one day?”

“Hardly. I own a half interest in it, and that’s as much as I want.”

“So, you don’t hope to start a similar business concern of your own.”

“No.”

“You’re just going to keep working with your half brother for the rest of your life?”

“God, no.” The answer seemed to surprise him as much as it did her.

They’d reached the bridge and had just started across when Tristan spoke again. “Once, a long time ago, I had hoped to be a land agent.”

She schooled her features to nonchalance, though
her heart had just given a wild leap. It wasn’t unusual for a man to give his natural children a position of some kind at his estate, but the fact that Tristan had longed for it gave her hope. “At Rathmoor Park, you mean?”

He nodded tightly. “My father kept promising to apprentice me to Mr. Fowler, our land agent at the time.” An acid note edged his tone. “But somehow he never got around to setting it up. He was too busy enjoying himself—traveling the world, sharing my mother’s bed, and racing his horses. He tried to make up for it in the codicil, but you know what happened there.”

Yes. And now she knew what had happened to Tristan, too.
That
was why he’d been so testy about the English aristocracy when he’d spoken to Jeremy. Not because he was a bastard, but because his brother, the viscount, had cut him off from the path he’d expected to take. From the life he’d hoped to lead before everything had tumbled into disaster.

“Of course,” he went on, “I probably would have been terrible at it, anyway. The only formal education I ever had was a few years in the dame school at Ashcroft. I don’t know nearly enough about planting crops, I have only a rudimentary knowledge of accounting, and I’ve been away from England so long that I’ve forgotten the ins and outs of the game laws.”

The wistfulness in his voice that he fought so hard to disguise nearly broke her heart. “You could learn all those things,” she said softly. “I learned them.”

His jaw went taut. “Are you offering to teach me, princess? After you marry Keane and are comfortably
settled at your estate in Yorkshire? What an intriguing proposition. You could install me as your land agent and sneak out to come to my bed whenever you’re bored with—”

“Don’t,” she said irritably. “You always do that.”

“What?”

“Say provoking things to cover up the fact that you inadvertently allowed me a glimpse of the real you.”

Silence stretched between them, punctuated only by the lapping waves of the Thames and the chugging of the steam packets beneath the bridge.

“There
is
no ‘real’ me,” he said at last. “In my profession it is best to be a chameleon, and I have perfected the art of it, I assure you.” He quickened his mount’s pace, leaving her trailing behind.

As she tried to catch up, despair washed over her. Every time she danced closer to him, he threw up a barricade against her. Was it just her? Or was he this secretive with everyone?

They came off the bridge, and she heard a low rumble. Within moments, she saw lights and a massive field full of booths up ahead. Like a fair, the market drew all sorts of people, from rich to poor. A sort of makeshift stable stood on one end, where people could have their horses watched for a few pence.

“It may take us a while to find the Corrie family booth in this crowd, even with that sketch the boy gave us.” He edged up closer to her as they approached. “Follow my lead and let me do the talking, all right? And pull that hood farther forward to cover your face.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s one thing for you to be roaming a Gypsy encampment during the day alone with me, but quite another to do so at night. If any of the fair folk making purchases recognizes you, your reputation will be ruined.”

“That seems unlikely, since—”

“Just do as I say for once in your life, damn you!” He spurred his horse toward where the other mounts were being held.